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I guess this is a milestone of sorts for me. Carlin is the first celebrity I've cared about to die. And today I am genuinely sad that his mocking comedy will now forever be in reruns.

I saw Carlin perform in Seattle when I first moved here, with my best friends Sean and Kristen. It was a brilliant show, and will always remain in my head as the moment when I first realized that I wasn't in Salt Lake City anymore - that I had finally escaped, and Seattle was such a great place to be living instead.

And I was in the audience for MadTV when they recorded the laugh track for his Touched By An Atheist. If you hear a really loud, high-pitched squeal of delight all through the bit - yup, that's me.

There is a great tribute page for him on The Onion AV Club. Many fans have left their (appropriate) condolences and I recommend the long, but fascinating, 2005 interview.

And let me add the memoriam my wonderful (and sarcastic) Significant Other contributed this morning: "He's with the angels now." LOL.

I just finished reading The Portrait. It was... disturbing. It was written very like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a meandering journal of observations with plot thrown in on the side. And the plot was good, but I think the novel stood on its own without it - maybe even stood *better* without the finality of the story - just because the musings were so frighteningly perceptive.

Excerpt 1:

To impose yourself, to take the public by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shaking; to scream in its provincial little ear that I am a genius. And if you scream loud enough and long enough, it believes you.

Excerpt 2:

"It's like an addiction," she said. "I go mad if I can't use my hands. It's all I have, the only thing that makes it worthwhile getting out of bed in the morning."

I saw Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this weekend, and I know everyone is gonna mock me, but I really liked it. Of course, I liked Stargate and The Mummy too, and I know those are both hated by all you jaded post-modernist cynics. But I hated the Star Wars fiasco, so it's not just that I have low standards and am easily entertained (although that is probably true...).

I watch the trilogy fairly often (I saw Last Crusade a week ago), and it really felt to me that this sequel was pretty much just like the other three (well, better than Temple of Icky Things, which was kinda stupid): it was B-movie fun, fast-paced silliness, no real surprises, and a lot of over-the-top action/acting. Sure, it was missing Tom Stoppard's dialogue in #3 and the small-budget hilarity of #1, but it had its own wacky hijinks.

Personally, I only wished it could have been longer. I felt like the comedy had to take a backseat to the plot, while I would have loved some more pointless bickering and silly car chase scenes.

It does puzzle me that people are so vitriolic in their loathing of this movie. Is this a peer-driven attempt at being cool by pretending nothing is good enough for you? Are American audiences turning into hyper-critical self-important back-seat directors? Can't you just settle in and have a little fun? Or are you one of those miserable bastards that go to Disneyland and spend the whole time bitching about the omnipresent branding and overpriced kitsch?

From the Onion commenters:

God literally popped out of a box to melt nazi faces in raiders. if you can suspend your belief for that, interdimesional, poorly rendered, non-aliens shouldn't be an issue.

You know, I spend every trip to SLC the same way. The first day I think how crazy the place is, remembering all the weird stuff that I'd forgotten like how the radio stations all play exactly the same music that they did 15 years ago, and the drivers in the white sedans always want to drive you off the road - or worse, enforce the speed limit. The third day in SLC I spend thinking that I miss everyone and I wish I could move back so I could see them more. And I spend the last day wondering why the hell I stayed so long and promising myself that I will never, ever come back unless absolutely required. Ha!

My favorite moment from the trip (of which I didn't get a photo - doh!) was the giant black Toyota 4Runner SUV in front of me at Starbucks. With the license frame: "Give more, consume less." LOL.

And while Jeffrey and his brother were out joyriding in brother's luxe BMW, I had some fun taking pictures of the creepy pony. Jeffrey's brother has this 4-foot animatronic pony which is, without doubt, the scariest toy I have ever encountered. I kept turning to look at it the entire morning, expecting it to be secretly advancing on us, ala Blink. So I had a bit of stop motion fun when they weren't around and let Jeffrey discover it on his own when reviewing the day's camera shots.

Today I am exhausted from lack of sleep and not a little sick from all the eating and drinking. I'm too old to have that much fun without paying for it in a big way afterwards. And my skin was pretty unhappy with all the extra sun and dry air. I feel like my whole face has inflated and turned cherry red. :( What I really need is a few weeks of rain to recover - but of course Seattle is sunny today.

From the Seattle PI: Utah fine-tunes complicated liquor laws. Or: Utah makes their liquor laws just as confusing, but in a new and amusing way!

The best quote from this article: "I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that these alcopops are directed to our kids. It is a gateway drug." We were asking around the office, a gateway to what? Does Ernst & Julio Gallo really drive kids to crack? Joey said "coffee," which is probably accurate, since most Mormons don't really see a difference between coffee and crack, LOL.

For anyone who has never experienced Utah liquor laws, trust me, you haven't missed your chance. Even though you can *finally* have more than one drink per person at a table now, they can't be of the same liquor. So, a vodka margarita and a tequila margarita are fine, but a vodka martini and a lemon drop are RIGHT OUT. I am assuming you still have to have a special membership card to enter a bar (a "private club"). And although the silliness of selling wine coolers at the special state-run "liquor store" may seem a little extreme to outsiders, the only alcohol ever sold at the grocery store was sub-3.2% beverages (mostly in-state beer and modified Coors), so you pretty much have to go to the liquor store for most alcohol purchases anyway.

I am sooooo looking forward to spending this weekend there. :P

I am not a big Apple fangirl. But in the past year my life has gone from 90% PC to 100% Apple (mostly because of work). And although it hasn't been a particularly painful conversion, there are some things that I really, really wish Santa would shove down Steve Jobs' throat in order to make my life a little less frustrating.

1) A docking station for laptops. Jesus F. Christ, Apple, how long is it going to take you to figure this one out? I have to plug in 6 different cords every day when I get to work and it really pisses me off. Especially because the damn monitor connector takes 10 minutes to align and attach.

2) A patch to Leopard that will let me navigate up out of network folders when I directly connect to a subfolder. In Tiger, all I had to do was open the little three line pulldown and select the parent folder, but now it only lists the subfolder and the computer name. Maybe I'm just stupid (very possible), but I can't for the life of me find any other way to go *up*.

3) A MacBook tablet. I used a Wacom art tablet in the 90s when I worked for IBM and became a pen addict. I've been using a tiny 4X6 pad instead of a mouse for about 7 years now. But to get immediate visual feedback (so I could, you know, actually draw), I would have to sink around $2000 into one of Wacom's tablet monitors, which I would then have to plug into my laptop (sort of defeating the concept of portability). The only portable tablet computers out there are PCs and are 12 inches wide, *and* cost almost $2000. And since all my graphics programs are Mac that is just not going to work for me. I am seriously considering trying to hook this Wiimote mod into my Mac as a temporary solution. The Apple iPhone has proved that Apple has the technology, and the rumors of a tablet have been floating for over TWO YEARS. Why, oh why, can't I have my MacBook tablet? *sniff*

Is that too much to ask for? I don't want to be greedy, Santa, but may I remind you that my childhood xmases were a bit meager (I mean, 18 years of socks was bad enough, but couldn't you at least have wrapped them? or put on a bow?). And you know I never get birthday presents because everyone is too distracted by the holidays. So if you could just give Steve Jobs a friendly little visit, Futurama-style, and let him know what I'm looking for in 2008, I would really appreciate it.

I hate shopping. I am only subjecting myself to the torture this month because I really need a Nice Dinner Dress. I don't have a nice dinner dress already because, well, I am not the sort of person you invite over for a nice dinner. Not unless you really want dear Auntie Margaret to start screaming across the table in the middle of the soup course that human race is - as a whole - going straight to hell and that soulless whore with blue hair is the one leading the way.

I bought my one and only formal dress on eBay seven years ago (because I mean it - I *really* hate shopping). And when I was invited to a wedding a few months back, I realized how ghastly inappropriate it was for nice events. I really didn't mean to upstage the bride. She was lovely. But the complete train wreck that was my outfit was hard to look away from. I don't have a photo, but to give you some idea, I really gravitate toward dresses like this and this. But the dress I wore was much more scant and revealing. Sharon Stone would have been ashamed.

So I need a new dress. There are company parties to go to, parties where I don't want to embarrass my Significant Other, or at least not more than he's used to. And I am not really that picky. I'd like something comfortable. Something that fits both formal events and the less-than-formal parties common in Seattle (where a t-shirt is still acceptable attire at a five-star restaurant). Something that doesn't scream slutty tasteless teenager *or* dowdy old grandmother. Something in a nice color. Something I can wear with a bra.

But after walking through the entire mall and looking in EVERY store, I realized that fashion was not in my favor this year. Pretty much all of them violated one of the rules above. Especially because strapless appears to be the big style indicator this season.

I mean, I've seen those stupid fashion shows on TV with the bitchy british blondes or Tim Gunn, offering all this advice to girls about what they should wear and how fashion is your friend. Fashion is *not* your friend. Not unless your friends are catty debutantes who talk about you behind your back and deliberately suggest outfits that make your butt look fat, just so they will look nicer by comparison. Fashion is about conformity. Conformity in color, body shape, height, quality (or lack thereof). Fashion is about buying that $500 dress at Nordstrom because everyone knows where you got it and how much it cost, and no one cares that it was made in a third-world country by sewing-challenged four-year-olds. It won't fit you nicely. It won't be a pretty color. But it will cost a lot of money. And it will probably fall apart after wearing it once, which is - let's face it - exactly what it's supposed to do.

And I am just ranting to properly express how much I hate this entire shopping industry. It's not just the act of shopping, you see, but the advertising, the sales staff, the restricted yearly color palette, the shabby end product. It's all crap. My favorite pieces of clothing have - universally - been the ones I made myself. And I am not so great with a sewing machine.

But in all my miserable search for a half-decent dress I did manage to stumble across something online the other day. In fact, this was not just a dress that I could settle on because I am tired of shopping - this was my dream dress. I loved the color. I loved the style. With minimal tinkering I could make it work with a bra. And it was a even a little quirky and playful, but dignified enough to meet a VP or two. But it's a fucking Gaultier. And it's $500.

I can't spend $500 on a dress. That is more than my entire wardrobe combined. Including shoes. It's not that I don't have $500; this is a moral dilemma thing. I am not that girl. That Sex-In-The-City girl who spends more on shoes than rent. But what if this is the only dress I like? What if there is an ocean of crap out there at the acceptable $200 and this is the only shining star? Or will this be the start of an avalanch of irresponsible spending? Will I follow this purchase with the $1500 bookcase that I've been drooling over? Will I run up my credit cards and burn down my house and find myself exactly where I was seven years ago: homeless, recklessly in debt, with no one to turn to.

*sigh*

I think there's a fine line between frugal and psychotically paranoid.

I had the great pleasure of seeing Julia Sweeney's One-Woman show tonight, "Letting Go Of God". I saw parts of it last year at the Paramount and instantly loved it. The extended version was amazing. I think the shorter version was a concentration of the funny bits, and the longer version had a lot more socks to the gut.

When I was abandoning the Mormon faith, I belonged to a group called "Recovery from Mormonism." It was a sort of an online therapy group. They collected stories former members told of their experiences (often AWFUL experiences) in leaving the Mormon church. I always wanted to post my story there, but I never felt like I had a "finished" version. And by the time it was finished, I couldn't remember anymore how it felt like when I was actually there.

Julia Sweeney has no such problem. She elegantly carries the audience through her entire journey, in the moment, with no hints of what is to come. It was funny and satirical, of course, but it was also devastating and embarrassing and filled with all the grief of lost fairy tales. I can't say that I've read as much on the many, many topics that led her to atheism, but her conclusions resonated very strongly with me. Especially the conversation she has with her mother, where she says she is more at peace now than she was before. And that it really sucks to re-evaluate one's own impending demise, especially given the better understanding of one's own significance (or lack thereof) in the universe at large (cv. Douglas Adams and fairy cake).

As soon as the movie is released, I will be buying it for myself and all my friends. But in the meantime, you can enjoy this amusing clip of Julia Sweeney's encounter with the Mormon Missionaries.

When I first saw Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass" on MTV, I remember feeling this sort of breathless anxiety: here was something so stunning and gorgeous and heartbreaking, and I could only see it for a few minutes before it was gone forever (this was the early 90s, when MTV couldn't spare time from 24/7 rap music and country to show alternative music). It's hard to explain this to an audience in the Aughts, where everything is so easily available online, where Wikipedia provides all the backstory and sources a person could ever need. But at the time, there was a void, and when you found something beautiful, chances are you would never see it again. And time eventually erased most of those moments from my mind, and even the ones I do remember to look up today seem to have lost their titles and identifying information in the mess that is my brain.

So when I was reading about Annie Lennox's new album in the NYT this week, it was with some chagrin that I abruptly remembered "Walking on Broken Glass." And technology had finally advanced enough that I could retrieve this particular moment of my past.

"Walking on Broken Glass"

But there was a little bonus. I start the video on youtube and within two seconds, I see a familiar face. I didn't need more than two seconds, because I am, you see, a HUGE fan of Rowan Atkinson's BlackAdder. "OMG!" I yell to the Significant Other (whom, as noted in previous posts, I often torture with my BBC obsessions), "OMG! It's Hugh Laurie! Did you know Hugh Laurie was in this video?!?" And of course he didn't, so we had to watch all 4 minutes and then look it up on Wikipedia to be sure. It was like a real-life DVD Easter Egg.