deep throat indeed!?!

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the sith: creating darth vader

j. and i saw the new star wars episode 3. it filled in a lot of blanks ---making the story a tad bit more coherent. the light sabres have been juiced up substantially. as usual the visual effects are
spectatcular ---but the star wars series has raised the bar substantially since the first episode so we expect the visual display without surprise and awe.

episode 4 the ,first one, remains the best.

in episode three jar jar binks thankfully has a rather minor role (although it's as a senator!) but lots of time unfortunately is
given to the equally unappealing character of general grievous who seems to have an
asthmatic cough no doubt exacerbated by his chilled thorax open to the air and seemingly constructed of radio shack quality spare parts (really, lucasfilm should be able to do better than this).

although lucas says that he is finished with the series it's hard to believe that the draw of
hundreds of millions of dollars will not ultimately result in at least several more in the series pre-
prequel and post-sequel.

deep throat

the shoe has dropped. the secret is out. after allll these years we now know the identity of deep throat. mark felt, former #2 in the fbi. a straight arrow type, he acted to correct the corruption
and dishonorable actions of the nixon administration. regerettably there seems to be no
equivalent deep throat to put the bush team's feet to the fire to correct the corrupt policies and dishonorable actions of that despicable group.

hold your fire!

we began the star wars film festival with #1 because # 4-6 were checked out at the video store.
the staff at lalspeak made an executive decision to begin the screening with #1 because it was available and the intense time pressure to prepare for #3 by the weekend.
we do appreciate the sage advice received although in the end the indicated guidelines were
not followed.

phantom-feh!

we began the long journey into star wars last night with episode 1----what utter trash.
yeah yeah i agree that the visuals were quite impressive at times BUT in the service of what?
an incoherent plot, totally wooden dialogue, acting evoking the emotive range of a to b and
insipid cartoon characters like jar jar binks et al.

it's interesting to speculate about what cinema history would be like if star wars # 1 were
to have been released as #1----the whole series may not have seen the light of day.

more on in/up

as noted in the comments below when one sucks air in there is a change of posture and indeed a
more erect posture is associated with the vim and vigor of preparation to do battle. hence the
notion of "up." but the action is sucking "in" so it seems natural to one's logical sense to say
"suck it in". i concede though to popular authority--the expression is "suck it up".

sucking in/up

i notice that i wrote suck it *in* rather than suck it *up*---neither seems fully right or wrong to my ear. the key is :what in fact does this sucking represent?
i look forward to some answers.

grand chelem and other bits

one of my favorite french words is chelem--it means slam as in grand slam but it always
sounds to me that it was borrowed from yiddish.

many thanks for the advice on star wars--i guess i will suck it in and screen the whole shebang starting with no. 1---fast forwarding through jar jar binks will save time and nausea.

for the life of me i can't understand the democrats crowing over a victory on the filibuster issue.
we get 3 abominable judges, the possibilty of frist reviving the next 2 from the twilight zone of jurisprudence and the renewal of bitterness at a later date as to what defines "extraordinary"
circumstances.
it may very well be the best that could be done given the present republican majority but it's nothing to celebrate.

i was told yesterday,by the way, by r. from british columbia that he has received 3 calls
from americans looking for jobs in canada because of their despair over the direction of u.s. policy and politics.

star wars

well it's high time i saw the new star wars installment. there is one teeny problem: j. hasn't seen any of them and doesn't want to go until this is remedied.
i would eagerly rewatch 4,5 and 6. but the thought of 1 and 2 ---sitting through
jarjar binks' shenanigans is paralyzing.
woould it be good enough to show j. 4-5-6 and then the part 3 finale?
better yet how about 4 and 5 alone and then the new one?

4 and 5 are really the outstanding ones in the bunch ---and she would know enough----or would she? i need some advice here.

end of semester

the semester has ended--not really with a bang or a whimper. but i have miles to go
before i sleep...many deadlines which have to be met. summer is always the time of "big plans" finishing this project and starting that one.it's soooo easy to say--oh yes i'll finish that chapter by the end of the semester---but now it's the end of the semester and i'm definitely not finished.but i am (mostly) hard at work today.
i always find the beginning of a semester uplifting.it's nice to have two beginnings a year instead of just one.for an academic there are multiple "new year" celebrations.

they're baaack

i just saw jon bennet's picture on the cover of the enquirer with the headline--parents have been cleared. i guess i'll have to go back and read it---i was too rushed before. either that or call s.
although she may not be keeping up with the jonbennetwatch since leaving boulder.

visors

d. has a visor now--although i haven't seen it yet. i really don't get visors instead of a hat. if it's really sunny and hot the sun beats down on the top of your head and it feels terrible---and therein
lies the benefit of a hat---ahhhhh the relief.
i must admit though i did have a visor when i was in college--it was one of those transparent green eyeshade-visors that old-time telegraph operators used to wear. it was great for shading your eyes from the glare of a desklamp.

learning from vegas

d. just got back from a weekend in las vegas. his trip brings back memories of my first visit to
las vegas. i was about 19 and it was my first trip to the west. i remember the 1.99 all you can eat
buffets and the over the top casinos that were open 24/7 and i remember the dry heat. it was
summer and it felt like an oven.after about 24hours i had had enough.
much later after reading "fear and loathing in las vegas" and "learning from las vegas"the place took on a new interest---but even since i have had the same feeling after about 24 hours.
--but i haven't visited again in many years. not since the bellagio and certainly not since wynne's hotels have been built. maybe it's time.

bloggomania

so within 20 minutes of starting this blog i was interupted by several phone calls and had logged out--when i tried to log back in my password didn't work!
had i forgotten it? within 1 hour!
well not exactly after several hours of frustrating attempts to contact blogger.com i realized that my spam filter was filtering out blogger's replies--
and now all is well. i had forgotten my username which i suppose is just as bad as forgetting the password.

in the beginning

hi everyone--
because my typing skills are minimal at the moment i plan to defer the use
of majuscules until further notice.
i just found out that m. has gotten tickets to the nats-brewers game for may 16th --
i'm eager to see the new dc team and maybe develope a new team loyalty since the brewers
have been nothing but frustration and bad management for some years now.