• "The administration area in which Hungry Joe had pitched his tent by mistake lay in the center of the squadron between the ditch, with its rusted railroad tracks, and the tilted black bituminous road. The men could pick up girls along that road if they promised to take them where they wanted to go, buxom, young, homely, grinning girls with missing teeth whom they could dive off the road and lie down in the wild grass with, and Yossarian did whenever he could, which was not nearly as often as Hungry Joe, who could get a jeep but couldn't drive, begged him to try."

Are they in Italy or Romania? Cuz, I could of swore they said Italy, but it sounds an awful lot like Romania. A guy named Joe and toothless women???

pg 35 Catch-22

 6:40 AM   •  2 opinonated pieces of What? 

• I have been smitten. I am **smote. I am hers.
 5:25 PM   •  5 opinonated pieces of What? 

• I was reminded this weekend of just how much I liked Moulin Rouge. I must admit now, that it has considerably argued to capture my number one favorite slot, overtaking Get Shorty since it first claimed it's throne way back in, what? 1995? I'll say it again, after three viewings in the last two days, that Moulin Rouge was not only brilliantly portrayed by it's magnificent colours and schemes, but by it's sounds and themes as well. If you still haven't seen it, it's now out on video, and I couldn't urge you enough to go out and rent it. My mom and my dad even watched it two and a half times with me. Now that says a lot. It was excellently cast as well, and I can't say with enough fervor, that you'd be a fool not to watch it.
 7:30 AM   •  ø 

• It's a funny thing about girls. Every time you mention some guy that's stricktly a bastard - very mean, or very conceited and all - and when you mention it to the girl, she'll tell you he has an inferiority complex. Maybe he has, but that still doesn't keep him from being a bastard, in my opinion. Girls. You never know what they're going to think. I once got this girl Roberta Walsh's roommate a date with a friend of mine. His name was Bob Robinson and he really had an inferiority complex. You could tell he was very ashamed of his parents and all, because they said "he don't" and "she don't" and stuff like that and they weren't very wealthy. But he wasn't a bastard or anything. He was a very nice guy. But this Roberta Walsh's roommate didn't like him at all. She told Roberta he was too conceited - and the reason she thought he was conceited was because he happened to mention to her that he was captain of the debating team. A little thing like that, and she thought he was conceited! The trouble with girls is, if they like a boy, no matter how big a bastard he is, they'll say he has an inferiority complex, and if they don't like him, no matter how nice a guy he is, or how big an inferiority complex he has, they'll say he's conceited. Even smart girls do it.

pg 136 Catcher In The Rye (what a smart kid)

 4:12 PM   •  ø 

• My sister has just announced that she is pregnant. I'll be an uncle for the first time.

Funny story about this news: My sister called our aunt in NY to tell the family the news. Our cousin, Becky, answered the phone. To give you an idea of how close our families are, our cousins are more like brothers and sisters to us than cousins. So, when Becky heard the news she was super excited. She asked my sister if she could tell my aunt, and so Beth of course granted her request. Becky turns to her mom and says "Mom, I'm gonna be an aunt!" Silence. "Okay," Becky says, "don't think about Kate (her sister)." Luckily my aunt got the hint and suddenly became ecstatic. I thought it was funny, because I could just imagine the sheer terror that must have struck my aunts heart before she realized that my sister was the one that was pregnant, and not her own daughter. Becky is a genious!
 7:09 PM   •  ø 

• Jimmy just walked in from seeing The Lord of the Rings for the third time in two days. Dang!
 11:40 PM   •  ø 

• My new glasses came in today. I had to buy them from Costco because I'm too broke to buy them any place else. But I'm glad they're in, because now I can see again. I've forgotten what it was like to be able to see things without a blur. The lady who was working behind the counter was having a hard time too. She was the only one that was qualified to help people, and there was a long line. I guess one of the people ahead of us waited for 35 minutes before she finally got helped. She complained a lot, and made a scene, but the lady at the counter just laughed at her. It was a proud moment. I started talking to her about it when I finally got up there, and she went on to tell me about how her daughter was hit by a car 14 years ago. But not only that, her husband (who she just divorced by the way, after 30 years of marriage) and two sons witnessed the accident.
 11:30 PM   •  ø 

• I'm going to watch Lord of the Rings now.
 1:29 PM   •  3 opinonated pieces of What? 

• I always thought that The Catcher In The Rye was about a baseball player (can you blame me?). And to think that that was the only thing ever holding my interest in it back.

Jimmy doesn't like Holden at all. He thinks he's...how did he put it? snotty, I think. But I'm reminded of myself the further I read. Of course, I never went away to school, or had a brother die, or have half of the experiences he did. But his personality screams El Enano 10 years younger, and I can't imagine I'd of handled things much differently than he did. He finds the same things funny that I would find funny, he's got a very similar perspective about life that I had when I was 16, and he seems to be very interested in nice people (which is also very much like myself). The main difference that I find between Holden and me, is that I was never as wimpy as he is. I mean, he's got the big mouth that I had/have(?), but at least when I was a kid I could back it up. Maybe not so much anymore, but that has nothing to do with toughness of the body. No, at this age it's all about the toughness of the heart, and I just ain't got it in me to be that way anymore. Trust me, the guns are there...if I ever had to use them LOOK OUT!

I've laughed out loud twice already since I started reading it (I'm only on chapter 7). It's a simple book, but deals with some pretty serious issues. At least that's how it's developing...and I can only imagine that it's true, or else it wouldn't be on all those "all time best" lists. Books that just have a good ol' plain story never make those lists because the people making those lists have some sort of condition. I forget what they call it, but there is no cure, and there is no medication that they can take. Although, I've found if you give them a swift boot to the head it makes you feel a lot better. And that is what life is all about, isn't it? Pleasing yourself? It isn't? Oh...dang it.

PS. I thought I was done with this post, but I felt like giving you a quote from the book. It made me laugh, although it was mostly because it's one of those things that made me think of myself when I read it. I've left many notes on essay tests that were extremely close to this one. As a matter of fact, I'll just give you the essay too.

In this particular scene, Holden was at his history professors house saying goodbye (because he was leaving the school). His professor was trying to help Holden find some motivation, and used his essay as a tool. 'The Egyptians are extremely interesting to us today for various reasons. Modern science would still like to know what the secret ingredients were that the Egyptians used when they wrapped up dead people so that their faces would not rot for innumberable centuries. This interesting riddle is still quite a challenge to modern science in the twentieth century.' At the bottom of the poorly written essay, there was a note to the teacher that read like this: "Dear Mr. Spencer. That is all I know about the Egyptians. I can't seem to get very interested in them although your lectures are very interesting. It is all right with me if you flunk me though as I am flunking everything else except English anyway. Resepectfully yours, Holden Caulfeild.'

Either way, the book is great. It's funny, it's simple yet complex, and when you read it you think of El Enano. All you'd need to make the experience complete is a tapioca cigar.
 10:58 AM   •  1 opinonated piece of What? 

• I hereby officially recant any previous positive remarks I have made regarding Windows XP, and now submit my new assessment of Microsofts product. It stinks worse than a pile of dog poop basking in the hot Phoenix sun on a mid summer day.
 6:39 PM   •  2 opinonated pieces of What? 

• The book was laying on Jimmy's bed. A bookmark held his page. What on earth could make this book so special, that after 12 novels and 31 short stories in 3 months, Jimmy would have the desire to read anything? I had to peak inside, just to see for myself. The first sentence read like this: "The last class of my old professor's life took place in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves." Interesting. But it wasn't until the bottom of the first page that I was intrigued. " A funeral was held in lieu of graduation." Four sentences later I was hooked. The last two sentences of the introducion read: "The last class of my old professor's life had only one student. I was the student." I finished the book in less than two hours.

I had picked it up never having experienced an emotional tap from a piece of literature before. I set it down, every time with a lump in my throat.

It was called Tuesday's with Morrie. Morrie Schwartz had contracted Lou Gerhigs disease, which some of you may remember him from his Nightline interviews with Ted Koppel a few years back. This book is a journal of Morries last days, written by Mitch Albom, a former student and friend of his who spent every Tuesday with Morrie until his passing. As you read, if you're a Christian, you'll find that the only thing missing is a Christians perspective. But even so, to the credit of God's hand, there was much to be learned in these pages, and so Morrie still has students years after his death, just as he had intended. If you're a reader, you must read this book. If you're not a reader, then you still must read this book. It was sad, yet eye opening, and moving. Tuesday's with Morrie.
 4:05 PM   •  2 opinonated pieces of What? 

• I want to know how "whooo!" got started, how it developed into a cheer, but more importantly ~~ can it be stopped !?!?!
 5:17 PM   •  5 opinonated pieces of What? 

• For the first time, after tonight, I felt like I really understood why God rested on the seventh day. I always knew what the answer was, but I didn't know the answer. You follow? Thanks for clearing that up, Johnny. And to think all along the answer was right there in front of me, in Hebrews...
 3:47 AM   •  1 opinonated piece of What? 

• For those of you yet to be blessed with an introduction to Richard Cheese, please, don't hesitate to look him up. Find an Mp3, or just go straight out and buy his cd. You shan't be disappointed...most likely.
 2:34 AM   •  2 opinonated pieces of What? 

• Having Jimmy read all those short stories to me last night made me curious to go back and read Edgar Allan Poes "The Black Cat". Amazingly enough, I remembered the story almost in it's fullness, with the exception of when the guy gouges the cats eye out. I've always enjoyed the horror in that story, which reminds me of a conversation Jimmy and I had last night just before I went to sleep. Jimmy mentioned specifically Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. I never survived that story in its entirety, but from how he described it, I do wonder why it's a horror story. But it did just dawn on me why Frankenstein is considered a horror story, and suddenly for the first time it makes sense. Oddly enough, I've made this distinction over and over again whenever people ask me if I like scary movies.

Where do I begin so I make sense??? I'll start with my view on what a scary movie is not.

A scary movie isn't Aliens, or Nightmare on Elm Street. A scary movie is Flowers in the Attic, and When a Stranger Calls. What is the difference? The word scary, by definition, implies fear. Now, to a child, Aliens, and/or Nightmare on Elm Street may certainly stir a bit of fear, but hopefully not to a full grown adult. Fear is something you take home with you because the story didn't force you to stretch your imagination beyond the possible. Fear, is walking away from the theatre, or setting down your book and not wanting to close your eyes or look away. A movie like Aliens, and especially Nightmare on Elm Street, never really allow you to believe the events in the story could ever truly happen to you outside of your dreams, or the frames of the film. It thrives to find success in startling you, and creating a temporary suspense in any particular scene.

"Horror" is seperated from "scary" in that it doesn't necessarily seek to spook, startle, or scare the audience. Instead, you'll find that it tempts to repulse you, or to repungnate it's viewers (you know what I mean). Along the way there may be some startling moments, or suspensfully entriguing scenes, but the gist of the story will be to gross you out. To blow the limits of what is fathomable out of the water. Frankenstein is a brilliant example of that, and even goes further when it explores the spiritual and philisophical questions of creation, science, and life and death. Dracula was a great horror story, as was the short story which inspired this post, "The Black Cat". It's amazing that I over looked that for so long about some of the worlds greatest horror stories.
 10:46 PM   •  5 opinonated pieces of What? 

• Jimmy just got finished reading the E.F. Benson story, **Mrs. Amworth, to me. It was a bit amusing, yet, in a way, boring, but Jimmy so wittingly caught an inconsistency which I thought was fun enough to mention. I don't know whether or not I would have caught it myself, had I not been playing a video game while listening to him read, though I'd like to believe I would have. Either way, the inconsistency fell at the end when Francis Urcombe and the narrator (who failed to mention his own name) entered the graveyard at night, to properly "dispose" of Mrs. Amworth's body. The problem was that before she had died, she wished that she not be barried in a coffin, so that she could be one with the earth...or something of that nature. Graciously, that wish was granted and she was just dumped in the ground. However, when the two gentlemen dug her up to drive the pick into her chest, she was enclosed in a coffin which they had to pry open. If any of you well read folks are familiar with the story, this might be of some interest to you. Otherwise, it means nothing...

**Everytime I hear that name, I think of pancake syrup, but I don't know why.

 3:07 AM   •  4 opinonated pieces of What? 

• Today marked the last day of a fun semester. We had our final, which we just got home from, and I acutally got a pretty good score, I think...

Dave got done with his test so fast that Ma was still on the first page, and I had only made it through half the second. I couldn't stop laughing when he stood up and walked his paper to the front of the class. Merissa looked back at me with a curious face, so I mouthed to her that he just marked all A's on the scantron, and left the rest blank **. Suddenly, two minutes later Merissa was finished with her test. I thought that was amusing...

Meanwhile, outside the class, after I had finished shortly after (but I got an A on my test), Dave and I were hanging outside waiting for the old lady to finish up with her test. It turns out that they could hear everything we were saying out there as I critisized this guy Will for taking so long, and then told Dave to stare through the window at the teacher with his mouth open. That was the funniest part. I guess, from what my mom was saying, is that everytime we'd say something the teacher would look up at her and roll her eyes. Oh yeah, and they must've heard me and Dave talking about how a movie doesn't need boobies to be considered good, but it always helps. Of course I was just kidding...cough...cough. I'll say anything for comical relief.

**It turned out that he didn't leave his paper blank, but instead filled it with jokes. You've got to respect that, right?

 10:02 PM   •  3 opinonated pieces of What? 

• Now I have a Levy story, which I'm sure you'll all enjoy, especially if you know him personally.

Joey and I joined Chris for an afternoon at the Putting Greens. The Dane has been gracious to post pictures of the place I'm referring to. While we were there on Tuesday, Joey and I had the pleasure of watching Chris perform the greatest golf shot I've ever seen. His original shot (or his tee shot...for lack of better terms) had gone wild and landed on the hole next to the one we were actually playing. As a matter of fact, it only went about ten feet forward, which left Levy with 110 feet to make up, and he was on the wrong hole. Joey and I debated whether or not we should have him drop the ball back on our fairway, or let him leave it where it was and play from there. For fun, we let him shoot the ball where it lay on the wrong hole. Levy pounced on that thing so hard that it flew all the way down the fairway, bounced high up off a rock (in the opposite direction he wanted it to go), hit a tree which ricocheted the ball back towards the hole, where it landed in the flower bed two feet away from the pin. What Levy Magic...

On another hole, Joey tried to aim the ball off the tee shot between a rock and the edge of the water (which was about a foot and a half), but he misdirected his shot and it bounced right off the rock and towards the water. But, just as you'd think, Joey has a tendency to pull of crazy stuff more than Levy does, and his ball bounced off a second rock which redirected it onto the fairway with a clear shot right down the middle to the pin.

But, even with all their luck shots, and artsy fartsy moves, they still couldn't beat me in the end. As a matter of fact, I welcome all challengers. And to make it more interesting, who ever wins has to pay for the other persons game. Bring it on!
 3:42 PM   •  7 opinonated pieces of What? 

• For all of you who were concerned for Joey leaving his Ketchup behind...never fear! We stopped by a Del Taco on the way to the airport and loaded his pockets with the little packets. He's set for at least a week over there. I wouldn't suggest sharing, because they ran out before we got enough for that. But, at least he can satifsy his craving.

I also forgot to mention that we saw military soldiers there walking around with their rifles around their shoulders. It was pretty cool, since I've never seen that before.
 2:09 PM   •  ø 

• I scored another victory in class today. As everyone was handing their homework up, I noticed that my brother had "artistically" signed his name with hearts around the vowels. I remarked to my mom, who was handing it to me, "how is she (the teacher) supposed to know who's paper this is?". Just as I was asking, the teacher walked up next to my desk and noticed the hearts. I leaned over a bit, and whispered to her "I think he has a crush on you..." Her original shocked facial expression was enough to last all week, but it only got better when every time she looked to the back of the room and saw Dave, she sort of twitched.
 1:14 AM   •  1 opinonated piece of What?