Headline of the day!

From the University of Washington homepage : Location of Puget Sound quakes depends on where they occur

¿Dónde están sus ojos? Mis ojos están en mi cabeza.

¿Dónde están sus rodillas? Mis rodillas están en mis piernas.

Mi nieta se asemeja un burro.

I came into work this morning with the Bob Dylan song Positively 4th Street stuck in my head - again, for unknown reasons. Then Connie commented that she had some unknown Christian devotion song stuck in her head, and couldn't figure out why. I thought that was an odd combination of music.

Then I went to the official Bob Dylan web site, and discovered that the song stuck in my head was actually Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues. I don't usually mess up Dylan songs like that.

I love that line And your gravity fails / And negativity don't pull you through. So many times I have felt exactly like that.

Last night's Spanish class was tough- a lot tougher than the last session. (The same teacher taught both sessions.) I went home exhausted. The last session was mostly recitation. Last night, we started dialog.

¿Cómo está Usted? - No estóy bien. - ¿Dónde la duele? - Tengo dolor en mi cabeza.

I was a little caught off guard. I don't know what I was expecting. I'm not complaining - just the opposite, actually.

Even though I enjoy Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, I see that it has a bit of a mean streak - take some straight loser living in a dump, try to make him over, and then laugh when he doesn't get the makeover right. At times the show has crossed the line into cruelty. (Phillip wrote about the worst of the cruel QE episodes.) Last night's episode - the first new one in weeks - was a refreshing change. The straight guy was a former model with a great family life living in a nice (clean!) house. All he needed was a style. All the house needed was a better style. And it all worked perfectly (except for the plastic cups). Is this the sign of a "kinder, gentler" Queer Eye?

¡Está lloviendo pesadamente!

Spanish class starts tonight!

I had a dream this morning that I was a gymnist in a parka. As I was running across the gym floor in my bare feet, I stepped on something sharp. The alarm woke me up, and my foot's been sore all morning.

We rented Whale Rider this weekend - it's a film I instantly fell in love with.

We also rented The Matrix Reloaded. I still don't think this movie is as good as the original The Matrix, but on the other hand, I also don't think it's nearly as bad as a lot of people seem to think it is. No sequel can ever capture the original wonderment of seeing something you've never seen before, but this one certainly makes up for it by showing you familiar things on a level you've never seen before. I miss the humor and the odd details of the original - Thomas Anderson's bare cubicle, the giant rabbits on the TV in The Oracle's apartment, and so on. I miss the idea that in the original, the matrix world seemed to be mishmash of eras - the police looked and acted like they came from a 1950's movie, cars seemed to come from any decade. In Reloaded, we get a modern freeway full of brand-new 2003 vehicles. But this sequel does a fine job of showing us the human world that was hinted at in the original, and at hinting at mysteries yet to be solved. And for some reason, I'm a lot more impressed with the Neo versus a hundred Smiths fight - the "Burly Brawl" - on our TV set than I was in the theater.

I finally convinced Gladys to crawl inside my sleeve last night. I'm a little surprised I was able to do that - Gladys "don't touch me" Night. She didn't seem to know how to turn around once she got in there. It's really Squeak's game - Squeak, the only one of our three sugar gliders who actually likes to be held. I've gotten Gladden to do it a couple of times in the past, but I can tell his heart wasn't into it. No, Squeak is the only once who loves being inside my sleeve. The whole point of us wearing long sleeves, and long jeans, during play time is so we won't get our skin scratched up by sugar glider paws.

Books and web sites tell us that sugar gliders are pocket pets - "look how cute they are riding in your shirt pocket!" But not our kids. Whatever books say sugar gliders like, ours don't. Last night, I got one step closer to turning them into sleeve pets, at least.