June 30, 2008

Sex and the City review

I had a few (emphasis on few) people tell me they'd like my movie review-lets to be posted in the main part of the blog as well as in the sidebar, so here goes:

Sex and the City (2008)

Old Horseface and her three friends are back in action, this time on the silver screen. For fans of the series, they'll be in over-dressed heaven: this cash grab is more than two hours long, and views like five or six back-to-back episodes of the show. Good for y'all, have a great time.

There isn't much to pleasantly surprise spouses of those same fans, unfortunately: SatC is still a whine-fest featuring four women who aren't happy when they're single, and find every possible reason to bitch and complain about their partners when they're not. These aren't women, they're caricatures; fashion whores who make rabid sports fans look positively well-rounded. More of the same means this film will rake in millions in a VERY short time, and probably inspire a sequel or two as well.

I have to say, my wife loved it, and I am trying to subscribe to the old adage: "Happy wife, happy life." (To Nadia: I love you honey!) That said, I won't be joining her in repeat viewings when the DVD inevitably makes its way into the collection.

June 28, 2008

Love, exciting and new...

A couple of quotes about love that I dig at the moment:

A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing — not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.
— Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient (page 97 in my copy).

The saddest part of a broken heart
isn't the ending, so much as the start

— Feist, Let It Die from the album of the same name.

Love, exciting and new.
Come aboard, we're expecting you.

— Jack Jones, The Love Boat Theme

June 14, 2008

A Global Village

Nicked and edited from Education, Vol 120, #4:

A Global Village

A few things to put your life in perspective, and hopefully inspire acceptance, understanding and education...

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

There would be

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere (including both North and South America
8 Africans

52 females
48 males

30 white people
70 non-white people

89 heterosexuals
11 homosexuals

80 people would live in substandard housing.
50 people would suffer from malnutrition.
1 would be near death.
1 would be near birth.

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth.
All 6 of those people would be from the United States.
70 people would be unable to read.
1 -- only one -- would have a college education.
1 would own a computer.

June 6, 2008

House of Tiles


House of Tiles
Originally uploaded by stodmyk
In Mexico City, a young gentleman was chided by his father, who told the boy "he would never own a house of tiles," a common phrase of the day similar to today's "he'll never amount to a hill of beans."

When the guy became hideously wealthy years later, he built a veritable temple and mothered the damned thing in tiles -- outside, inside, walls, floors, ceilings. It's a gorgeous piece of decadence in the middle of the Centro Historico.

Here's Nadia and me beside a detail of the outer wall of the House of Tiles.