Mood:  energetic

Lately, interviewers have been joking with David about his newly acquired fight skills -- "So, do you think you could beat up several menacing thugs in an alley?"  "Do you think you could whip Russell Crowe?" -- which I think is absolutely hilarious.  That's the classic schoolyard nerd debate, to argue over which superhero would win in a fight.  Superman or Blue Lantern? Batman or Aqua Teen?  Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter?

It's very tempting to apply this nerdly debate to David's characters.  Let's make a few matchups, and ask ourselves:

WHO WOULD WIN?

Sam Flynn vs. Yogi Bear  Hey there, Booboo!  Yogi is smarter than the average bear, and Sam is smarter than the average park ranger.  Unfortunately, Sam Flynn doesn't have the resources to stop Yogi Bear from filching pic-i-nic baskets from tourists.  Even though Sam's got a truck, he can't be everywhere at once.  Jellystone Park is a huge place.  Also, Yogi can violate the laws of physics.  We'll have to give this one to Yogi Bear.

Brett Sprague vs. Dr. Phil  Can lovable, avuncular Dr. Phil rescue Brett from his darker demons with his homespun, vaguely nonsensical wisdom?  "You don't need to feel bad to get all uppity!.....You don't need feelings to wax your elbows!.....You don't need an avocado to buy my book!....You don't need the Power of Cheese to make a coffee table!"  Sadly, Brett is beyond the redemptive power of words.  Brett wrecks a few chairs, utters several bleeped-out curse words, and leaves.  Cut to commerical.  Brett Sprague 1, Dr. Phil 0.

Carl vs. "Ring Around The Collar"  Ring Around The Collar:  man's eternal nemesis, since the dawn of consciousness (or rather, since the dawn of collared goatskin pelts).  Often seen with its scheming sidekick, Ring Around The Bathtub.  Carl's headgear gadgetry is of no avail here, but his flask of holy water, in combination with a silver chalice of Sanctified Whitening Detergent, vanquishes these enemies instantly.  Victory: Carl.

Johnny Spitieri vs. Johnnie Cochran (O.J. Simpson's lawyer) 
"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."
"If what don't fit?" 
"It. IT!" 
"What about it?" 
"If it doesn't make sense, you must find for the defense."
"There you go again, sayin' 'it', when youse don't even know what 'it' is.  Your Honor, he's tryin' to verbal me."
"If you don't know what 'it' means, you must improvise more courtroom scenes."
"There you go again, tryin' to confuuuse me.  Who's defendin' who here?" 
Result:  Johnnie Cochran pays for Johnny Spit's lunch.

Murray Whelan vs. A Package Of Baloney   "E-Z Open Seal", says the package.  "Tear Here" is printed in alluring letters across the top.  Murray tugs at the seal with his fingers, then tries with his teeth.  The package laughs at his feeble efforts.   Murray gets out a butter knife, but the dull blade makes no headway, and he bruises his knuckle on the sink.  Then Murray clips off the top of the package with a pair of scissors, only to discover that there's no longer enough purchase to get past the diabolical Zip-Loc Fortress Of Freshness.  Grabbing a steak knife, Murray growls in frustration as he stabs and stabs and stabs and stabs.  Eventually, he manages to gouge out a piece of baloney the size of a postage stamp, in the process getting blood and divots all over the counter.  Verdict:  A tie.

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 9:31 AM EDT

Updated: May 11, 2007 10:39 AM EDT

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Mood:  on fire

Excerpt from an LA Times interview with Frank Miller, in response to criticism of 300's portrayal of Persians:

"Miller scoffs at those notions. "I think it's ridiculous that we set aside certain groups and say that we can't risk offending their ancestors. Please. I'd like to say, as an American, I was deeply offended by 'The Last of the Mohicans.' "

*sigggghhh* Nothing gets my dander up faster than a bad analogy.  I sort of understand what Frank Miller is trying to say, but it's not a great example.  The Last of the Mohicans doesn't depict British settlers as a mutant army of goat-headed perverts led by a gay giant.  Nor are we currently at war with the British.  Nor are they worried about their global image, or about becoming the targets of hate and discrimination abroad.  So STEP OFF, GIRLFRIEND.  Don't make me wag my forefinger at you.

(Side note: my brother, whom faithful Grove readers know as "Dinky Davey Diddums", was an extra in Last of the Mohicans.  I haven't seen the movie, though, so I don't know which senselessly slaughtered background Native American is him.  However, as an American, I am deeply offended by Frank Miller's being deeply offended by this film.)

Now, it's not really Frank Miller's fault that the right wing has hijacked 300 as a rallying point for the perpetual Wo-ah On Terr-a.  But I'm still going to wag my forefinger at him anyways, because all of his stories are riddled with the same stunted black-and-white morals that are used to justify perpetual war and belligerent foreign policy in the real world (or at least, in this country).  Some of our loudest cheerleaders for war actively avoided combat and military service: George Bush, Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Trent Lott, Dennis Hastert, Dick Armey, Bill Frist, Rick Santorum, John Ashcroft, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich (need I go on?).  Yet they've made a career out of trashing the records of those who did serve (John Kerry, Jack Murtha, Max Cleland, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy), in order to further their own political interests.  Max Cleland lost three limbs in Vietnam, for God's sake, and his opponent ran ads denigrating his service, impugning his courage, and practically accusing him of tongue-kissing Osama bin Laden.  It's hard to imagine anything more cowardly, hypocritical, and profoundly unpatriotic. 

And yet, we see 300 constantly being invoked by these same right-wing commentators as a moral guide to the universe.  I can't even count how many rah-rah-war-is-great editorial pieces I've read that cite 300.  I think these people actually do envision themselves in leather diapers, delivering spectacular slow-motion ass-kickings to terrorists.  That is, they WOULD put on a military uniform and go all Leonidas in Iraq, but America needs them to sit behind a keyboard and blog about how evil all the "surrender monkeys" are.

George Orwell, in his essay "Notes on Nationalism", defines nationalism as "the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled 'good' or 'bad'."  He further defines it as "the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests."  To Orwell, nationalism was a form of blind moral insanity.  But the phenomenon will be instantly familiar to viewers of '300', and anyone who's paid attention to the political scene in the US over the past 7 years.

So I say, let's not confuse foreign relations with WWF Smackdown matches.  Or fantasy with reality.  Or manhood with continual, unrelenting violence and misogyny.  Anybody who gets their moral values from comic books, as David would say, "needs to have their head read."

On a completely unrelated topic, my house got sprayed by an albino skunk last night.  Nothing - and I mean NOTHING - lingers like skunk.  We once had a weiner dog with a Napoleon complex, who got into a scrap with a skunk one night.  The weiner dog latched on to the skunk's butt and clung on for dear life.  The skunk sprayed directly into his open mouth and all over his head.  For about 18 months afterwards, every time it rained, the weiner dog exuded skunk, like one of those plug-in air fresheners.

Baking powder and tomato juice help, but if you get any eau de skunk on your own skin, it will be a long time before anyone will want to slow-dance with you.

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 12:44 PM EDT

Updated: May 10, 2007 2:27 PM EDT

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Mood:  caffeinated

Once in awhile, I dream up new inventions (literally, while I sleep).   Last night's dream invention was an accessory called the TastePod.  Similar to the iPod, the TastePod will allow you to upload food flavors and then sample them any time, anywhere.  Instead of headphones, it comes with a little straw thing that you put in your mouth and suck on.  In the dream, I had the TastePod connected to a jar of grape jelly and a chocolate bon-bon with a mystery center (probably kumquat), and was uploading their flavors to my Dessert Play List.

Now, this product may sound revolting, but I believe it would have many practical applications.   The dieters' and ex-pat market would be huge.  If you've ever lived in a different country for a period of time, often you develop severe cravings for certain foods from your native land.  Maybe you find yourself craving kiwi in Kamloops, kippers in Kansas, or yearning for a ham sandwich and a shot of vodka in the middle of Riyadh.  With the TastePod, you can indulge yourself without offending your Muslim hosts or spending a fortune at a foreign foods specialty store.

The second practical use for the TastePod: preserving the tastes of long-gone foods from childhood.  I don't think I could actually bring myself to eat a Space Food Stick or a bowl of Kaboom cereal, but I sure wouldn't mind tasting them again and reliving hyperactive Saturday mornings of yore.  Similarly, Grandma's apple pie could be digitally archived for future generations to enjoy.

The third practical application: partaking of expensive meals on a budget.  For a few dollars, you can download Emeril Lagasse's latest e-meal from the iTaste website (and skip the rack of lamb if it doesn't sound appealing), dine at the Commander's Palace in New Orleans without leaving your living room, or balance out the $1.99 meatloaf special from "Heimlich Pete's Greasy Cauldron" with a mouth-watering infusion of virtual Chateau d'Yquem sauternes.

Even antisocial types can find things to love about the TastePod.  Instead of blasting rap music from your car, you can blast the scent of liver 'n' onions.  (Stick it to The Man!)  Punk aficionados will revel in the shuffle feature:  root beer/goat haunch/Altoid mint.

In the interests of full disclosure, I feel I should mention that this entire TastePod dream was set aboard a naval destroyer in the South Pacific.

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 11:53 AM EDT

Updated: May 7, 2007 1:03 PM EDT

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Mood:  amorous

In one respect, David fans are extremely lucky:  We can be fairly sure he'll still be alive when the end credits roll.  His characters are remarkably durable.  By and large, he's played either good-guy survivors, or the sort of indelible villains who would survive a nuclear blast along with other indestructible creatures such as cockroaches and Keith Richards.  Rarely, if ever, does he hand in his lunch pail during a film.  And even then, it tends to happen towards the end, so we don't spend an inordinate amount of movie time sulking over the sudden drop-off in hotness.  Off the top of my head, I can only think of three on-screen incidents that proved fatal to our Daisy:

1. Gunshot wound

2. Leprosy

3. Neck stab/topple into a well

If David were interested in expanding his death repertoire, there's no shortage of characters with interesting demises to choose from.  There's Aeschylus, who got beaned by a tortoise when an eagle mistook his bald head for a rock.  George, Duke of Clarence (Edward IV's brother), who was drowned in a butt of malmsey.  Jack Daniel (founder of the whiskey distillery), who kicked a safe in anger, injured his toe, and succumbed to blood poisoning.  Henry I, who died of a "surfeit of lampreys".  (By the way, Surfeit of Lampreys would be an excellent name for a blog, if I were ever to start a real blog, with interesting topics, that people actually read.)

Even Sean Bean has a Death By Cow website, listing an array of spectacular ways in which the British actor has perished on film.  Boromir's arrowy death ranks as relatively pedestrian compared to getting crushed by a satellite dish, or getting blown away by Christian Bale while reading Yeats.

Not that I want David to die in films, you understand.  It's just that if he does, his demise should be memorable and distinctive, like his craft.  Alligator, lightning, errant golf ball -- something along those lines.

And now, because I'm too lazy to split this off into a separate topic, we come to the fun part of today's post:  Ethical Dilemmas for David Wenham Fans.  Read the scenarios below, and decide what YOU would do in each situation.  There are no right or wrong answers.

1.  You meet your soulmate: the one person on this earth who completes you.  However, there is a catch.  Every three months, your soulmate will be horsewhipped in public by a simpering, bowler-hatted English guy with a mustache, unless you agree to take a pill.  The pill will cause David to resemble a sweaty slob from a beer commercial, and his performances will seem horrendous.  (Only to you; he'll appear normal to everyone else.)  Also, the pill causes all music to sound to you as if it were being performed by Alice in Chains.    Do you take the pill?   

2.  David has just wrapped work on a new movie.  All reports indicate that this will be his best role ever, guaranteeing him widespread critical acclaim, an Oscar nomination, and unlimited offers for years to come.  The role is funny and deep and sad and breathtaking and romantic, and also requires him to spend a fair amount of time shirtless.  There's just one catch: the distributor refuses to release the movie unless you agree to have a fiberglass unicorn horn surgically grafted onto your forehead for a period of two weeks.  Do you agree to do it? 

3.  You are standing next to a set of railroad tracks.  A little ways down, the tracks branch into a "Y" shape.  There is a switch nearby that causes oncoming trains to switch tracks.  Father Damien is napping on one branch of the "Y".  Doug, Luke, Josh, and Eddie Harnovey are asleep on the other branch.  A freight train without brakes is currently bearing down on Doug, Luke, Josh, and Eddie.   By taking action and throwing the switch, you can divert the train to the other branch and save the four of them (but then you'll be killing Father Damien).  By doing nothing and not throwing the switch, you'll be killing four people (but then you'll be saving Father Damien, and the lives of many leper patients).  Do you throw the switch?

4. You are a doctor in a hospital.  Doug, Luke, Josh, and Eddie are patients of yours.  All four are very ill and need organ transplants.  You look outside and see Father Damien strolling down the sidewalk.  If you take action and kidnap Father Damien and transplant his organs into the other four, you'd be killing Father Damien, but saving four lives.  If you do nothing, Father Damien will live, but the other four will die.  How is this any different from problem 3?

5.  You are given two boxes. Inside one box is a hamster.  Inside the other box is Brett Sprague's blood-stained undershirt.  You must select one of these items for your home.

If you choose the hamster, you agree to keep the hamster alive for two years, feeding it daily, giving it clean water, changing its wood chips, etc.  If the hamster dies, you will forfeit $999 to the state.

If you choose Brett Sprague's blood-stained undershirt, you must agree to display it prominently in your living room, without commentary, for two years.  You are not allowed to tell anybody what it is or why it's on display in your living room.  The state will pay you $25 a month if you meet these conditions.  Which box do you choose?

6.  You are shopping with a heroin junkie who keeps stuffing packets of potato chips into his shorts.  If you report him, he'll go back to jail, and neither of you will get square.  If you don't report him, the store owner won't be able to afford insulin for his diabetic parakeet.  Do you dob him in?

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 4:08 PM EDT

Updated: May 4, 2007 10:09 AM EDT

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Mood:  not sure

Yesterday morning, while driving to work, I passed a school playground filled with happy children running laps.  My heart swelled with secret schadenfreude, and tormented memories:

1.  Running half-mile laps around a hoarfrost-encrusted playing field at 7:45 am.

2.  Our high school track coach, driving slowly behind the team in her beige "Le Car", loudly berating us with a megaphone.

3.  Ducking out of the practice run with my friend Sonja, savoring a hot fudge sundae at Friendly's, then nonchalantly rejoining the rest of the girls' track team as they straggled back from their far-flung odysseys.  (Mark Twight would have loved us.)

I didn't feel terribly guilty about the sundae transgressions, because my events were sprints and jumping.  Events that were over quickly, and required zero stamina.  We didn't even have a field coach.   Field people were regarded as minor freaks by our distance-running coach, who spent all her time out on the road, nurturing the milers.  We were simply sent off on our own to flounder across the long jump pit or break windows with the discus.  I spent a lot of time lying on the high jump mattress, watching the clouds go by.

Senior year, at our final track meet, the coach from a rival high school pulled me aside after observing my terrible high jump technique, and gave me some pointers.

Pointer #1: Jump over the bar, not through it.

Pointer #2:  Duh.

Pointer #3:  Try not to show up at track meets with hot fudge breath.

With her advice ringing in my head, and one jump left at 4'10", I curved through the approach and cleared the bar with inches to spare.  One by one, the other competitors dropped out.  Much to my shock, I ended up winning the event, with a personal record that would have qualified me for states (had they not already been held a week earlier).  Now that, I felt guilty about.  The other coach could have easily kept her mouth shut, allowed me to foul out, and gotten her team 10 points.  Instead, she opened my eyes to new possibilities.

Two days later, I graduated, and thus ended the track career.  But somewhere in all of this, there's a touching lesson about sportsmanship and laziness.

Such ruminations got me thinking: if Faramir can play forward for the Dom-Land Caribou, and pitch for the Atlanta Braves, why can't we put together a track team composed of David characters?

 100m dash:  Eddie Harnovey

   200m dash: John Francis "Spit" Spitieri

  High jump:  Carl

  Hurdles:  Sam Flynn

  Javelin:  Carl

  Javelin:  Dilios

  Pole vault:  Murray Whelan

  Long jump:  Jim Doyle

  Miniature shotput:  Murray Whelan

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 3:29 PM EDT

Updated: April 27, 2007 5:44 PM EDT

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Goodness me, have we ever gotten spoiled over the last few weeks with all the 300 publicity.  We've been awash in articles, interviews, videos, and photos, not to mention the movie itself (in two different formats, no less).  And now, suddenly, the spigot has been turned off and life is back to normal.  But we David fans are a hardy lot.  Like dromedaries, we can travel for months at a time between the distant oases of David projects, fueled by the occasional mention of a film festival or charity event.  Yes indeed.  Only the strong may call themselves Daisy fans.  Only the masochistic.

As we embark upon this latest desert stretch, across a barren expanse in which no Daisies grow, it will be important to keep your morale up with happy thoughts.  Let's begin with this one: Close your eyes, breathe deeply, and be grateful you weren't mail-audited by the IRS last week, to the tune of $3000.  (Thankfully, most of that bill will go away, once I track down the paperwork proving that I already paid taxes on that set of stock options from 2005.  I like how the IRS generously awards themselves 15% interest, though.  Just try to find that rate in a money market acccount.)

So, as part of this spring's Serenity Now! campaign, I visited an acupuncturist yesterday.  She took my pulse, peered at my tongue, and diagnosed me with mild Spleen Qi deficiency and Blood Stasis.  I'm to abstain from cold drinks, ice cream, and salads, eat only warm foods, and incorporate into my diet more mulberries, kelp, squid, vinegar, abalone, and bladder wrack.  Well, no wonder I'm low on Spleen Qi.  My abalone intake has been seriously lacking.

If anyone has any good recipes for bladder wrack hotdish, let me know.

After the acupuncture visit, I stopped by the local Patagonia outlet, which used to be a reliable source of workout clothes for people who, like, y'know, actually work out.  I came away empty-handed.  Their women's clothing line has mutated into eeeeeentsy cute halter tops and pink size 0 lycra shorts that look like they'd disintegrate if exposed to sunlight or mild breezes.  All the pants are copiously flared, with a 1" rise.  I want clothes you can actually climb rocks in, not clothes that merely suggest that you climb rocks.  Clothes you can sweat in.  Clothes you can stretch in.  Clothes you can be tall in.

It's not just Patagonia.  The Tiny Pink Princess Virus has infected women's athletic clothing everywhere.  Is this a symptom of some sort of post-millennial feminist backlash?  "It's OK for girls to explore Antarctica, but you MUST LOOK CUTE while you're doing it."

Do not go gently into that pink night!  Rage, rage against the flaring of the pants.

That's one reason I admire David: because when it comes to fashion, he wears what looks good on him, not what the magazines tell us all men should be wearing.  He has the courage to buck the tide and dress like an individual.  Gender stereotypes are boring.  And limiting.

Speaking of gender stereotypes, I finally saw "Blades of Glory", after nearly killing myself laughing at the trailer (which was right next to 300 on the MTV site).  It was stupid and wonderful and moronic and outrageously funny.  They got all the figure skating tropes and cliches exactly right, from the overused Sarah Brightman tune "Con Te Partiro", to the overwrought choreography (created by Sarah Kawahara, Michelle Kwan's coach), and most especially the contrasting styles of the two male skaters.  It reminded me of the classic Alexei Urmanov - Elvis Stojko rivalry from the Lillehammer era.  I was a fervent Urmanov partisan, because he drew so much ire for his frilly, ruffly swan costumes, and because of all the kneejerk North American sports commentary dissing the balletic Russian skating style.  Urmanov's Olympic victory may have been a fluke, but he deserved every bit of that gold.  He had far superior speed, line, technique, and edge quality.  Wearing leather and doing choppy straight-line footwork to rock music may excite the crowd, but it ain't skating.

Actually, I wouldn't have minded if Kurt Browning had won in '94.  He's quite possibly the greatest male singles skater of all time.  Gene Kelly on blades.  He can do a program containing nothing but school figures, and still be mesmerizing.  Despite being the first skater to land a quad jump, and winning four world championships, he never medalled at the Olympics.  Just goes to show, you can't judge talent by trophies.

So, to sum up:  IRS and bellbottoms bad.  Acupuncture, Russian skaters, and David Wenham good.

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 10:03 AM EDT

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Mood:  lyrical

I admit it: I love snark.  I try not to incorporate it into my daily weltanschauung, but once in awhile, there's nothing like a good splashing wallow inside the bilge tanks of pop culture.  Snark is a guilty pleasure.

So, if you secretly enjoy 300 reviews that are utterly hilarious, profane, and snarky, don't miss this assessment by Cav Gallagher.  Best quotes:  "I messaged a friend straight after I saw the movie swearing that it had made me 0.239% more gay than I had been before I walked in there" and "I'm patenting 'Shout-a-Longa-300' right now".

And, since Guilty Pleasures is today's topic, here's a list of some other guilty pleasures.  What are yours?

1.  Bread (the rock group).  "Baby, I'm-a want you" hurts my delicate grammar glands.  "If" sounds like it was recorded 35,000 feet under the ocean.   And yet...I've owned "Bread's Greatest Hits" in two different formats (cassette and CD), and the songs continue to metastasize inside my iPod.  There is no cure.

2.  Snocaps, small dark chocolate nonpareils.  I hardly ever eat candy, but once in a blue moon I'll buy an $8 box at the movies.  They're tiny, crunchy, and endlessly entertaining.  As a bonus, you get an avalanche of little white pebbles in your lap after the box is empty.

3.  Watching Faramir Get Abused By His Dad.  Whoops, was that out loud?

4.  Electric Light Orchestra.  I adore ELO, in all its cheesy synthesized extraterrestrial glory.  But only before Jeff Lynne started doing the paisley vest and cowboy boot producer thing in the mid-80s.

5.  Archie Comics.  This is more of a childhood guilty pleasure.  I've always been fascinated by the perpetual tic-tac-toe diagram branded onto the side of Archie's head, as though he recently took a nap on a griddle. 

What's Archie saying here?  No idea.  It's Greek to me.   (Possibly this is an early prototype of Frank Miller's 300.  Dilios yelling at King Leonidas: "What's my girlfriend doing in your Five?")

6.  Beverly Hills 90210.  Ah yes, I was glued to this show.  House fires, cocaine addictions,  Donna's abusive singing boyfriend, Dylan cooperates with the CIA, Steve makes out with a transvestite. Memories.  Misty, water-colored memories.

7.  Mambo #5.  Against my will, I like this song.  No, I hate it.  I really, really hate it.  Now it's stuck in my head.

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 10:22 AM EDT

Updated: April 20, 2007 12:05 PM EDT

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Mood:  on fire

Math problems:

1. If a 30' x 30' basement fills with 4" of standing water in 8 hours, how many cubic feet of water does the basement contain?

2. If Susie and Sammy begin bailing out the water at 11:30 pm with 8" x 8" buckets, which are then hauled up the steps, across the yard, and dumped out at the edge of the property, how many years will it take to empty the basement?

3.  Should Susie and Sammy just move instead?

4.  If a cat sits on the bottom step and laps up the sludgy water, floating leaves, and mysterious black ooze emanating from the rusty boiler, approximately how many minutes will pass before cat throwup materializes on the bathroom rug?

***

But let us pass on to more pleasant topics besides math and cat yak.  Horses!

Fans everywhere are enjoying the photos of David practicing horseback riding in Sydney, in preparation for filming Australia this month.  He looks so confident and tall in the saddle.

Unfortunately, I know absolutely bupkus about horseback riding, so I can't really offer much in the way of intelligent commentary here.  Like every other girl on the planet, I went through the Horsey Phase when I was six.  I wanted a horse SO badly.  Every birthday wish, Santa letter, and bedtime prayer was the same: "I want a pony.  Please bring me a pony.  I want a pony."   Bicycle seats, swings, and sofa arms all became transformed into swift Pony Express palominos.  I wrote and illustrated countless cowboy stories, in which the horses resembled cantankerous mules in need of liposuction.  (The bad guys' horses had fangs.)  I stuck Fisher Price people and #2 pencils onto model horses with clay and staged medieval jousts.  I wrote school reports on horses, thinly cribbed from Encyclopedia Brittanica ("A horse is an odd-toed ungulate mammal...") and illustrated with more grumpy, lumpy mules.  I dreamed of living out on the wide open prairie.  Just me and my horse, Wildflower.

Years later, when I actually got to ride a horse, it was the most terrifying experience of my life.  Some friends and I rented horses from a shady character near the Giza Pyramids and went off riding in the desert.  My horse, "Mickey Mouse", was about two feet tall.  The saddle didn't have any stirrups.  I had to stick my legs out sideways to keep my feet from dragging in the sand.   Mickey had two speeds: stalled, and full-out gallop.

Stalled I could handle, but gallop was a different story.  Nobody had instructed me in the finer points of gripping with my thighs and moving in unison with the horse.  When Mickey suddenly burst into a gallop, I jounced around on his back like a sack of potatoes, the sand whizzing inches beneath my nose, then inches beneath my tush, as I sprawled across the horse's back, searching for a handhold.  A casual observer might have thought I was a trick rider, except for the curse words streaming out of my mouth.  I wasn't terrified of falling off so much as falling off and watching Mickey vanish over the horizon, leaving me to stagger to a lost, scorching death somewhere in the Saharan outback.  Hidalgo this wasn't.

Abruptly, Mickey stopped, nearly catapulting me over his neck.  No amount of clucking and heel-digging would get him to move.  We stayed put, my nose slowly frying to a crisp in the noonday sun, until something ticked over in Mickey's brain and we were off again.  Across the desert we went, stopping and galloping, stopping and galloping.

Miraculously, I was able to cling to Mickey's back long enough for him to find his way back to Giza.   My friends had long since disappeared, but Mickey knew where the oats were.  I could tell he couldn't wait to get rid of me.  The moment I caught sight of Mickey's owner and slid off his back, he bolted.

Dear Santa: you may give my pony to another little girl.  My preferred mode of odd-toed ungulate transportation is the camel.  They may growl at you, they may spit, but they're predictable.  They don't gallop so much as galumph.  The saddles are quite comfortable, and you get to wear a headdress and carry a little stick.  You're also high enough off the ground so that, if you do end up lying across the saddle on your stomach, you're not in any danger of having your face sanded off at high speed.

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 3:35 PM EDT

Updated: April 17, 2007 5:19 PM EDT

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Mood:  accident prone

Still lovin' the new toothbrush.  We're eloping to Cancun in the morning.

We've had 8 inches of rain this morning, driven sideways across the state by 70-mph winds.  The power is out everywhere, trees are down, roads are flooded, water is rising in basements, and people are being evacuated from the coast (I evacuated myself to work, where there's heat, light, and a microwave).  Apparently, when the weather is bad, people in pickup trucks have free license from God to drive like asshats.  That is the only conclusion I can make following this morning's incident, in which a small balding man in a pickup truck seventeen times the size of my Honda decided he wanted my lane, ran me off the road into a puddle, then made a point of stopping to give me the finger (in case I hadn't noticed that he was a jerk).

Blow, Winds, and crack your Cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes spout,
Till you have drench'd the four-wheel drive pickup
Of Idiot Jerkface Man.

(thought I to myself, somewhat uncharitably)

In this day and age of reality television, when everybody who's anybody has been voted off the island and dissed by Simon Cowell at least once, it's statistically amazing that I don't know anybody who's been on TV.  And refreshing.  I myself have been on TV twice, or rather, parts of my body have been on TV:

1.  When I was nine, the local Evening Magazine anchors came to interview my neighbor across the street who had invented some kind of new running shoe.  They wanted shots of kids exercising and running around, so a few of us neighborhood kids went down to the school playground and were filmed for two hours running around and committing mayhem.  A week later, a half-second shot of my feet jumping rope appeared on Evening Magazine.  My mom's comment: "We need to buy you new shoes."

2.  A few years ago, a friend roped me into volunteering for the Channel 2 Auction at the Boston PBS station.  My job was to stand in the background and circle, on a whiteboard, the current bid for the item on Table E as it was announced.  Due to a combination of bad stage fright and a dried-out marker, viewers were periodically treated to close-ups of a palsied hand drawing shaky, imaginary circles.  With loud skreeeeks and squeeeeals from the defunct marker.  Eventually I was reassigned to go-fer duty, as people stopped phoning in bids for fear of triggering yet another scene with Marker Hand.

Yes, it's been a long and distinguished television career.  I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille.

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 12:05 PM EDT

Updated: April 16, 2007 1:27 PM EDT

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Mood:  suave

After years of brushing my teeth with spiky, abrasive nylon horrors, yesterday my new dentist gave me a toothbrush that's so soft, I actually went back and brushed my teeth twice after breakfast, and now I'm anxiously looking forward to our next tryst at the bathroom sink.  It feels like massaging your mouth with a silver cloud.  The head is compact, so it fits comfortably 'twixt my dainty, rosebud lips, and it has a flexible neck and a rubber thumb grip.

It really takes very little to make me happy.

This blog never passes up a chance to discuss delicate topics, so today let's look at some OTHER 300 controversies.  Besides the Iran thing.

Controversy #1:  David's voice. 

Lots of reviews and many, many bloggers have singled out the odd tone of Dilios' narration.  Why, they ask, does he sound more like Carl than Faramir?  Why the pinched accent?  Why the high pitch?

Now, none of us were privy to whatever discussions went on between Wenham, Frank Miller, Zach Snyder, and the other cast members.  My guess is that they made a deliberate choice to give Dilios's voice an eerie, otherworldly cadence in order to evoke an ancient and strange world quite unlike our own.  Telling the story in a high-pitched, vaguely unsettling tone helps reveal for the audience how wildly unreliable Dilios is as a narrator, how feverishly warped his imagination is, and how alien the ancient Greek mindset was to our own (except for all the people intoning "Never Retreat, Never Surrender").  If he described the rhinos and masks and whatnot in a deep, authoritative, matter-of-fact tone, it wouldn't be nearly as effective.  Like the skewed color scheme, David's voice is meant to be hypnotic and transporting.

I do love when David does a deep, commanding, Christopher Plummer-esque Faramir voice.  But I understand the fever-dream effect they were going for here.  They want you to feel like you've been huffing Oracle vapors.

Controversy #2: What, exactly, are they wearing?

Alright.  This one bugs me.  Everybody's been saying "codpiece this, codpiece that", but technically they're not codpieces.  A codpiece is a flap or pouch that attaches to the front of trousers in order to provide a snug home for the "wedding tackle" (to borrow a phrase from Austin Powers).  They were all the rage in Henry VIII's day.  As time went on, they became padded and ever more ornate and bizarrely shaped, some doubling as pockets to hold snuff and coins, until eventually men came to their senses and decided that in polite society, their Mini Me should not precede them into the room.

They're not thongs, either.  Thongs have a tiny string running up the back (though not as tiny as a G string, which in turn is not as tiny as an F string).  Outside of America, thongs are rubber sandals that you wear to the beach, a la Johnny Spitieri.

Nor would I call them loincloths.  They're not made of cloth, and loincloths usually leave most of the buttocks uncovered.  Neither are they jockstraps, or diapers, or girdles.

No, the official term for this costume is "budgie smuggler".

"Thingy slingy", "mankini", and "hoo-hoo canoe" are also acceptable.

Posted by dessicatedcoconut at 2:35 PM EDT

Updated: April 13, 2007 3:32 PM EDT

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