Recent Films (Cigni Troppi in Film)

Being quite busy at work lately, I haven't had time to see as many films as I usually do. Some friends recently told me about one that sounded really strange called 'Black Swan'. The tedium of a dancing 'chick flick' might be offset by seeing the lovely Natalie Portman running around in tights, but not so fast Hollywood...


















I think we all have already seen this film! I distinctly remember Natalie in 'Red Swan'. And wasn't Lea Thompson also in 'Red Swan'? She had the most hilarious line after the invasion when the town was blown up and her character quite emotionally observed 'Things are *different* now!' Lea, if you ever read this, please send me a black and white PR photo signed 'Things are different now!', because that works on so many levels.

















Anyway, back to the task at hand. Natalie also starred in 'Purple Swan'. Does the film industry have no shame? They didn't even cast a different actress!

















But they don't even stop there, remember when Natalie Portman portrayed 'Blue Swan', set in sixteenth century France?














I just don't get why Hollywood feels the need to recycle all of these films. For example, how many 'Batman' films do we really need?


I did get a chance to see 'The Tourist' recently, and sure the plot was predictable and it was a bit silly. But, it was set in Venice, and it was fun, and Angelina was in it, and did I mention it was set in Venice?

Oh, it's on...

I could probably bore you with a chariot race story or something, but I'm about to watch the *said in the voice of the assistant coach on the film 'American Pie'* culm-i-nation! of a great year of college football. Of course by that I mean my university's football team playing in the national championship bowl.



So if you are from Alabama, you can just go to hell. To everyone else, come on in because I'll be watching the bigscreen...

Ta

How I Saved My Cup (Come Ho Salvato la Tazza Mia)

A few Saturdays ago, I was having a great cinnamon flavored morning coffee as I do sometimes while going over things I want to accomplish for the weekend. I was drawing up sketches of mosaics, designing and things like that which spirit away attention from the tedious and mundane. So I take a sip of the coffee, and *bleh*, it's not at least 5 degrees above my body temperature.

Being a pragmatist, I'm thinking that the microwave might be a good way to remedy the situation. So I 'top off' the cup with even more coffee to the very edge of the brim, full because I love morning cinnamon coffee and reason very soundly that more is better where coffee is concerned. Then strolled over to the microwave oven and popped it in for a minute.

The friendly little beep soon told me that my coffee was ready, so I opened the microwave door (but not right away). I know it's irrational, but does anyone else wait for the 'riccocheting electrons' to finish their magical brain-tumor inducing flight for a few seconds before opening the door? Even the legendary Jack Kilby (the inventor of the integrated circuit) wouldn't have one in his house.

So I grab the handle of my expensive porcelain coffee mug that's part of a set that can't be purchased anymore and take out the coffee. But, not too carefully. You see, as soon as my hand holding the coffee mug clears the microwave oven and is over kitchen tile, a little bit of it splashes out on my hand burning the crap out of it. Remember? I filled that sucker up to where only the surface tension of the coffee was keeping it in the cup.

This would be all well and good except, my hand at that point has involuntarily jerked just slightly because of the extreme pain from the hot coffee, causing little bits more of the steaming and nearly boiling coffee to flow over the edge of the mug, setting off a cruel chain reaction of burn, spill, burn, spill, burn... etc.

After what seemed like several minutes of this spill burn cycle (tm), I had plenty of time to think about dropping the cup, but decided against that because the set was irreplacable. I had time to think about setting it down, but would spill even more in the process maybe causing a more serious set of burns. I wondered about whether biodiesel is a better solution than hydrogen for alternative energy. Then finally, I mustered the will power to stop jerking my hand around.

Inspecting the damage, I saw there were only red marks and tender skin. No visible blisters!

Good times.

Also, as training to see like an artist, take a look at the picture below. Your brain will try really hard to only see two eyes even though there are physically four. If you can see like an artist, it won't disturb you. What do you guys think?