Final Answer

I finally caved and rented Slumdog Millionaire. I wasn't captured at first by the film, but toward the end it got very interesting. Needless to say, I had my Japanese fan near by for the eye squirts - need to get that checked out. (I have no Japanese fan.) What made the film even better was the fun number they all danced to at the end. Without a fantastic soundtrack, a lot of movies probably wouldn't even make it to the box office. Other films that I thought to have fantastic music scores were the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and, more recently, the new Star Trek movie. I got shivers when the Enterprise first appeared, just as I did when Jamal and Latika found each other and danced to some funky beats near the end of Slumdog. Oh, whoops: spoiler alert. Too late?

Sweet India, where's my fan!?

While I haven't been in a movie mood lately, this was definitely worth the absurd late fees that will inevitably wreak havoc on my bank account over the next few days. Want a brief plot of the movie? Look it up on imdb, fatty - I've got better things to do.

One of those better things to do is making sure no one outdoes me on my latest eBay bid. No, I'm not talking about the 1934 silver 2 Reichsmark that I successfully bid for some time ago. (Can you believe they open cases on eBay if you refuse to pay for over a month? I don't, which is why I'm refusing to answer their phone calls.) A few days ago, my friend suggested an interesting idea for a project to work on in the meantime. The meantime meaning, of course, when I'm not trying to figure out the difference between the absurd amounts of types of green peppers and trying - very unsuccessfully - to explain to the woman using food stamps why she can't use them for two bags of potato chips, chocolate truffles and a trough of candy bars. Yeah, I said it. A trough. Like a desk of Cheez-Its.

It'll only be a matter of days now until I receive my Glass Bottle Cutter kit in pristine condition and I begin my project of turning State College's drinking problem into...well, a bigger problem. I mean, I'm essentially creating more glasses to drink from. While I'm saving the world one frosted Rolling Rock at a time (That's right, I'm frosting the glasses, too. I'm classy. I am a lady.), I'll be sprinkling fresh, home-grown Basil and Rosemary onto my imaginary steaks and chopping up succulent green peppers to compliment the meal. Now let's see how many more days I need to wait for these suckers to grow...68 more days!? What the steakums is this about!? You know what? Canada's going to have to take the heat for this one - things have been going all so smoothly that it just seems logical that Heather and her nation of syrup-guzzling draft-dodgers are behind this.

Now usually when I say I'm going to do something, I do it. Sure, I may have never actually "made" the Norwegian Glogg, or never really wrote that blog on the culture of Turkey, or even technically didn't catch those fish and instead paid another camper for my Fishing Boy Scout merit badge - but this time, it's serious. Soon, I'll be receiving that delightful kit in the mail and going to work. Look at out, drunken frat boys. Sunday morning, you look outside and see a creepy kid digging through your trash, don't worry - I'll let you finish that small amount of backwash and what appears to beer at the bottom of your Brewskies.

This is the guy who peed in your beer last night

Speaking of drunken idiots, I wasn't surprised, as I perused articles in the New York Times, to see that Kim-Ding-Dong Il has vowed to continue nuclear weapons production, despite the oh-so-threatening sanctions of the United Nations. I'd like to take the person who suggested that nuclear warfare is obsolete and strap them to a bomb heading toward Kimmy's house. In the article, it reads as follows:

North Korea has grown increasingly isolated as it has pressed forward with a nuclear program that many analysts say they now believe is aimed at producing an independent nuclear deterrent rather than being used as a bargaining chip with the West for much needed aid.
The long-range missile test in April was part of what many analysts call an effort to produce a delivery system capable of reaching the United States. There have been signs in recent weeks that the North may be preparing for yet another missile test.

Just small people playing with lives and fucking with resources that could be used for so much better. It makes me think of the time I was jogging down toward the World War II memorial field not too long ago. In passing, I saw several children climbing and playing atop an old tank that had once been a killing machine overseas. The image - the juxtaposition of death and new life and also of terrible symbolism and young innocence - disturbed me up until this day. Now, I think differently. In fact, the first thing that popped in my head when I thought of what the nuclear bombs could be used for aside from killing, I imagined giant warheads being used as playground sets at an elementary school. Wish I had a picture for that one. Oh wait, I do.

Of course, we'd first have to dismantle the weapons...or do we?