Carousel....Cops vs. Clowns

Carousel, directed by Adam Berg.

Amazing video. Go to You Tube and read about it.

Seven Nation Army

Oak Ridge Boys doing a cover of the White Strips "Seven Nation Army." Me like.

But a Book Doesn't Need Batteries...

Sony E-Book Reader...so cool.

I love gadgets. I would own every gadget that came down the pike but I also have a frugal gene that makes it almost impossible for me to spend hundreds of dollars on a cell phone or iPod or E-book readers but I want them all. I mean I really want them. My baby brother, the computer geek buys all the cool gadgets so I get to play with them and find out if they are worth it, but I have total electronic envy.

I was thinking though the other day about survival. Hey, I'm not a nut job...we had an earthquake and someone posted a web site that showed what a 7.8 Richter scale earthquake centered near the Salton Sea would look like. Sheesh. Talk about a downer. I vividly remember the Northridge earthquake thank you very much. We had been out visiting my mom in the Valley. Hot Tamale was 10 and Teddy Bear was about 4. Four thirty in the morning. I remember when it started thinking, "I hope this just rolls and shakes and then stops." Nope. It started with the rumble and the rolling and then literally, and I mean literally, it felt like a giant was outside the house shaking it. It was a violent back and forth motion. I could not have moved if I wanted to. Teddy Bear was in bed with me and Hot Tamale was sleeping in the pull out couch in the same room, thank god. There have to be guardian angels because just a few days before that my dad had tightened the screws holding up the solid glass closet doors because they were incredibly loose. If he had not done that, they would have shattered and fallen on us. As it was, it wasn't until daylight that I realized the TV had fallen on the pull out couch right at Hot Tamales feet. I am so thankful she slept curled up in a ball with her woobie clutched in her hands.

I still remember the feeling of not knowing how bad it was and wishing we could turn on the TV. It is still embarrassing to me that I was not sure how bad off we were until daylight came and we found a radio to hear the news. Like it wasn't real until I had seen it on TV. I am truly a product of the television generation. Today's generations probably won't feel it's real until they see it on the Internet~!

But, anyway back to survival. My earthquake kit is nonexistent since I moved. I was thinking how hard it is to survive without electricity, running water, etc. I have been trying to fashion a list of what I need and trying to imagine the worst case scenario. I would definitely include books in that survival list. (No, World War Z will not be on that list.) Can you imagine if the only books you had were ONLY on your e-book reader and you had no batteries or way to recharge it??? I'm getting palpitations just thinking about it.

Books are so cool but they are so old fashioned I guess. But you don't need to plug them in.

The Love Shack

So Garrison Keillor, huh?

The Book Babes read The Shack by William Paul Young this month...and we all read the book and we all either did not like it or did not get it. Unanimous. I tend to be the one that doesn't get it and will not like a book but not this time. Such a strange book.

To me it was very anti-religious and political as much he professed to despise politics and economics. It was so preachy...blah, blah, blah. And what was up talking about the trinity but no mention of Catholicism? Strange strange book. I know he was trying to wax philosophical talking about he, or she, or Papa, whatever, who put fractals everywhere in nature. I am pretty sure he was trying for the "To see the world in a grain of sand" type idea but he flubbed it.

And there must a writer's bag o' tricks that says a book like this has to have the protagonist get in car accident at the end of the book. My Sister's Keeper did that and it drove me bananas.

It was trying to confront some important questions. The nature of God, why does he seem to allow evil, how do you have a relationship with God. All really fascinating questions. Like I said, I did not get the book. Some people are ga ga over this book saying that it changed their life. I kept hearing the John Lennon song "Imagine" playing in the background as I read this book. No countries, no money, no politics, everyone sitting around just loving each other, but darn that Adam and Eve screwing it up for everyone and giving us independence and now we have free will and have to suffer. Or something like that anyway.

Perhaps I totally missed the point of the book and the underlying philosophy running through it. I will probably read it again just to see. And if I ticked you off, sorry. You can tell me off in the comments.

Hey, Bonnie, I Want My Hog Dog and Root Beer!

Thursday was the last taping day for The Bonnie Hunt Show, so, of course, we went trekking out to Culver City for the last time this season. We were trying to remember all the guests we had seen but seeing as how the early stages of geezerhood are setting in, it was difficult.

You have to wait outside on the sidewalk to check in with Marcus. He is a doll. He said he was going to the beach this summer and do nothing but get a tan which he totally deserves. So, we are standing in line with at least 120 other people. (Being that my tag was #119 and Townsie had #120. Aren't I smart?) For the first time I parked on the street right where we were standing in line which was kind of cool. Everyone is friendly in line because of course we are all there to see Bonnie. Suddenly, I hear yelling and there is a commotion. A lady wearing jeans, a white shirt, long black hair is yelling at the people in front of us because they are not moving out of the way fast enough to make room for the man with her who is in a wheelchair. He is pretty twisted up in his wheelchair, long gray shaggy hair, but he is maneuvering that chair well to get around us and the tree. As they pass us, she is SCREAMING and cussing but it doesn't sound Spanish to me, but whatever language it is, she is pissed. She is waving her arms around and acting all agitated. They get about 50 feet past us, right next to my car damnit, and she is still yelling. Everyone in line is now looking at her like she is nuts, which in retrospect was probably not the best thing to do to a crazy person. But what we realize is that the man in the wheelchair has jet propelled himself down the street and is a dot on the horizon. He was not even with her.

She crosses the street, walks down the street and I think she is gone, but no, she ends up going the other way on the sidewalk swearing at us the whole way. Now I think she is gone. What was I thinking. We hear a big diesel work truck come tearing down the street. Townsie said it sounded like it hit something as it turned the corner. It is the crazy lady driving. She is honking her horn, still yelling, driving down the middle of the street like a bat out of hell. We were all hoping she did not turn around and plow us under. The cute little security guard tried to get the plate number but only managed to get the last 4 numbers. Hard to tell because I could barely understand his English either. Poor Karen missed all that excitement as she was stuck on the 405 freeway.

We finally get in, get our purses and bags searched, go through the metal detector and go to the benches they have right outside the studio to wait. It really is so sad to me that I have no pictures to show you. They had a cute hot dog cart set up outside with all the fixings which was something new. I was SOOOO hungry, again. Normally, they pass out the hot dogs and root beer as you walk in to get seated. Being the baby that I am I always whine that I don't want mustard or ketchup, especially the ketchup. This time, we wait and wait as always, walk in but no hot dogs. The show is about to start and still no hot dogs. We got separated so I am sitting with Townsie and we are both starving. Hebrew National is the new provider or sponsor or something and they were going to film them passing out the hot dogs first. But they didn't tell us that, so when they finally pass them out and I start eating mine, the warm up guy says wait, don't eat. What?? At this point, I don't care, I start picking pieces of my dog and eat anyways. I know damn well they are not going to film me.

The show finally starts and we saw Dick Van Dyke who stayed for the segment where Bonnie talks to her mother, Alice, which was hysterical. Alice tried to pick up Dick. It was so cute. Then we saw Common, a rapper, who is in the movie Terminator Salvation with Christian Bale and then Dick Van Dyke sang with his group and we got a CD.

All in all, it has been a fabulous season going to see Bonnie. Maybe we can get her to come out to Temecula. It would be fun to show her the wineries and Old Town and try to find a good dog. Probably end up at Costco. They have the best hot dogs. Gotta show those Hollywood folk what good food is all about.

Turning Lead into Gold

I get asked all the time what Twitter is and why do I use it. It is hard to explain to someone especially if they don't even blog. Explaining blogging to people who don't blog or read blogs is hard, too. I loved the earthquake example Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter, gives in this clip.

On Thursday, we went to the last taping day for The Bonnie Hunt Show. BFF had her friend, ummm, trying to think up a name for her because she was absolutely hysterical. She was telling us stories about her sister meeting her new husband online, about her slightly nutty mother who dresses all prim and proper but apparently has no inner censor. She is a natural storyteller and I laughed the whole way into Culver City. I was telling her that she needs to start a blog and get these stories out there. It is hard to convince people they can stay anonymous if they want, that you don't need to use real names. Kinda like a Dragnet thing, "Names have been changed to protect the innocent" or whatever it is he used to say.

She asked me about my Facebook account because she said I was the winner for posting to Facebook. I truly have a love hate relationship with Facebook. I guess because I have no desire to find friends from my high school years, it is kind of silly to me. I love the serendipity of finding people on Twitter and in the blog world. I told her that I rarely post directly to Facebook but have my Twitters go into Facebook, which leads to some fairly strange entries. She could not figure out why someone would do that. I know if she were to start a blog, she would totally get it, but she just got rid of dial-up, so she has not played in the internet world too much.

Off to find a clip of Dick Van Dyke because he was on Bonnie's show and he sang with his quartet the Vantastics and we all got his CD~! He was such an incredible guest. It was hard to believe he is 83 years old. The man never stays still, constantly dancing or moving. And I loved that he was wearing tennis shoes.

Robots are Fun

Oh man. I want one. I want one now. Does it come in pink? It has a camera in it and everything and can go anywhere. Imagine the possibilities moms. It boggles the mind.

Teddy Bear would on a regular basis yell from upstairs while getting ready for school. "Mom, where are my books." "Mom, where are my shoes." "Mom, where did I leave my frickin' mind?" I would yell back my answer. She would come down, eat breakfast, watch TV, play on the computer...and then tell me she did not find her shoes and, yes, before I yell she had looked. Honest. I would usually turn eight shades of red and ask her, "If I go upstairs, open your closet door, look on the floor and find your shoes, you are in so much trouble." She would time warp her way upstairs before I could get there and magically find her shoes. It never seemed to fail.

But think if I had a handy dandy robot to send on scouting trips to find crap? And a camera on board to beam to my laptop exactly where it was and what it found. Roseanne Barr used to say that her family thought of her uterus as a tracking device and once I got married and had kids I understood that joke. My little robot could be my mobile finderer, or whatever.

I wonder if it could locate my glasses which I lose all the time, usually because they are still my face or my car keys that the teenager takes? Perhaps I could hire it out as a sneaky little robot chaperone spying on the kids when they go out. Maybe it comes with a megaphone and everything.

Like I said it boggles the mind. I love science. I need to marry a geek the next time around.