An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

My friend Stacey found an organization called Zocalo Public Square. Here's their mission statement: Zócalo Public Square is a not-for-profit daily Ideas Exchange that blends live events and humanities journalism. We foster healthier, more cohesive communities by tackling important contemporary questions in an accessible, non-partisan, and broad-minded spirit. Zócalo, a project of the  Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University  and the  New America Foundation , is based in Los Angeles and Phoenix, and roams across the country. We explore connection, place, big ideas, and what it means to be a citizen, be it locally, regionally, nationally, or globally. We are committed to welcoming a new, young, and diverse generation to the public square. She found an event to be held in Phoenix at the Phoenix Art Museum featuring Craig Barrett, former CEO of Intel and Valley of the Sun business icon, and Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University. The topic w...

My Mom gave me one of those page-a-day calendars with cats on it. I love seeing the furry faces and reading the trivia. Here's what today's entry was: Many people believe that cat whiskers bring good luck. The whiskers are a magic ingredient in many different traditions. Some people who create charm pouches - we won't call them witches - use cat whiskers to steer the course of romantic destiny. So if you see a whisker fall out, grab it. I can't imagine what the course of romantic destiny would be if I used George's whiskers in a charm since she's a demon and all. Leave Me Home Alone One More Time and I'll Steer You Back to One of  Your Ex-Boyfriends! Can you say Titanic?

There I was, sitting quietly at my desk when my Yahoo inbox got 74 new messages. Most were delivery failures and it took me a few scroll downs to see a message with what was allegedly sent out that was getting the rejects and out of office messages. It was some bullshit hack with the subject "news" and had two links in it. And, I say allegedly sent out because there's nothing in my Sent Mail. But, obviously it went to all of my (thousands) of contacts. Argh! I immediately changed my password but I really have no idea if that even matters. My old password was what they call "highly secure". It had both lower and uppercase, a number and a special character. I don't know how much more I can do to make it unbreakable. By the time I had my password changed, the messages via FB, text and my gmail account were coming in from friends. "It looks like your account was hacked." I really, really appreciate the warning but after responding to 15 or so o...

Apparently, a hoodie is the best disguise ever! This was another I'm home sick and it was free. This time courtesy of Amazon Prime. I've only seen the first MI movie, way back in 1996. As I recall, we watched after a night out at the bar so it's pretty hazy. I remember not following the plot at all. That could have been the alcohol or it could have been the movie. I suspect a combination. I felt like I missed some of the plot from this one, too. Not from drinking, though. I paused it a couple of times to make dinner and that was enough to make me go, "Now, what were they doing again?" There were some cool bits like Cruise climbing the skyscraper. The bit at the end with the car factory (display room?) was too ridiculous for words, though. And, I don't care how much you're getting paid as a henchman. You're not going to help the guy who wants to nuke the world. Seriously.  Great eye candy in Josh Holloway and Jeremy Renner. I coul...

Here's the deal. I was home, I was sick and it was on HBO. Otherwise, I wouldn't have watched this as I haven't even seen the first movie. Here are some random thoughts: OK, I totally didn't get the "imagined with voice over" fight previews. They really didn't do anything for me.  I did like Watson and Mycroft a lot. How can one not love Stephen Fry? A naked Stephen Fry, no less. Were Holmes' disguises supposed to look good? Or, is the joke that they don't look good but still work? Lane Pryce was suitably creepy as Moriarty.  I can never get past these movies with mortal enemies. Seriously, if you have the guy right there, shoot him in the head and be done with it. Forget the "this is a battle of intellects" BS. Of course, James Bond would have been dead in the first book if everyone followed that precept so I guess it's good for the storyline. Watching this did not make me want to go back to see the first film.

Ever get to that point where you have the plague and you've cleared your DVR and read all of your books and you just finished your second nap of the day so you're looking, desperately, for something to occupy your mind? Yeah, that was me and I turned on the TV to HBO and Battleship was starting in 2 minutes and I was too lazy to turn the channel. It actually wasn't that bad. You did have to suspend all disbelief. Not about aliens attacking the Earth because that can totally happen. No, the suspension of disbelief is how Riggins could possibly have made it to Lieutenant in the Navy considering what a frakk-up he was. Not even having Eric Northman as your older brother already a Navy star could have made that happen. Really, Navy, you're that desperate? Speaking of Eric, why was there not at least one scene with him with his shirt off? Dear, Eric's agent, write that it in to every contract. Sex sells and he's the hottest boy on the planet and you'll ma...

I just walked to our communal mailboxes in my slippers. Through puddles. At least I wasn't wearing my pajamas, too. What a classy broad!

As I was going out the door from my Doc's office this morning, an older woman (here's where I get in trouble because she was probably in her 50s) was coming in. She looked down at my MOTM hoodie and said, quite enthusiastically, "Green! Yay!" I was a bit startled and could only come back with a "Yeaaaaah!?" Now, I wished I'd stopped her and asked her what was so exciting about my green hoodie. Maybe she's celebrating St. Patrick's Day early. Maybe she has a mental disorder that only allows her to respond to colors. Maybe she was on a scavenger hunt and needed to find people with coats of various colors. Maybe she's in a gang and green is their color. Maybe she just really likes green. I kind of want to know what the deal was.

This is kind of a two part story. The first part is that I have the plague. Or, something bad, anyway. I started feeling bad last Monday, yes, that's twelve days ago for those who are counting. I toughed it out at work last week but had to call in nearly dead after that. Really, nearly dead. I've slept more in the last week than my cat has. True story. Since Sunday, I've left my house four times. 1. Library since I was out of books. I picked up five and read them in four days. 2. Circle K for soda and licorice. Why licorice? I'm sick, dammit, and I wanted it. "We're a Twizzlers family!" 3. Grocery store because I was actually out of fruit and other healthy snacks. I did buy more Twizzlers. I'm weak but I may be over the craving. 4. Doctor's office, pharmacy and library again. This time, I got six books so I'm hoping I can last until the antibiotics have finished. The second part of the story is from when I was at the grocery store....

She really should have her own reality show... On our second flight of the day (Houston to Belize), Crash and Susan were sitting next to each other and decided to watch Lincoln on the plane's pay-per-view. Susan instructed Crash to pay for it (or Crash offered) so Crash swiped her debit card. Only she didn't really swipe it. Is there anyone in the world with a debit card who doesn't get this concept? There's a swipe spot and a picture of a card showing which side to put the magnetic strip on Well, there is one person. Oops! Instead of swiping her card, she pushed it in under the monitor. Where it went into the seat back because there's a visible gap. Seriously, anyone looking can see that's not where to swipe a card! They could see the card but, even with Susan's really long nails, they couldn't reach it and it fell further into the seat back. They called over the flight attendant who said, "Well, ladies, that's a first....