One of the things I love most about Wikipedia is the way you can follow one link to another and end up on a subject completely different from where you originally started. Earlier, I was looking up Lady Diana Manners, a British social and renowned beauty in the first half of the twentieth century, and ended up reading about The Ding Hai Effect, a stock market phenomenon which happens only in Hong Kong. It's named after a character in a popular TV series who played a ruthless stockbroker and it's basically a sudden and unexpected drop in the Hong Kong stock market which occurs whenever the series, Greed of Man, or it's remake/rip off, Divine Retribution, is aired. It also happens whenever the star of Greed of Man, Adam Cheng, appears in a series which is similar to telenovelas in length and structure. It got to the point that he wasn't able to work because no TV station wanted to be responsible for a fall in the stock market. According to Wikipedia, Cheng is once again wrecking havoc on financial markets--one of his series began airing when the subprime mortgage hit in July 2007. Personally, I think it's a combination of coincidence and self-fulfilling prophecy but I find it interesting and hilarious that there are people in Hong Kong (and presumably elsewhere) who make financial decisions based on an actor's career.

Saw Mamma Mia! yesterday and thought it was great. I went with two of my cousins who aren't familiar with ABBA and both enjoyed the film. Between the gorgeous scenery in this movie and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, Greece had better prepare for a rise in tourism. Santorini has just bumped China down a notch on my list of places I want to visit.

There are two things I really, really want but cannot have. The first is copies of Eric Horne's What the Butler Winked At and Many Winks. Horne was a butler to the British aristocracy during the Victorian and Edwardian era. He wrote two books about his experiences serving the British upper class and they're supposedly full of stories and gossip and they sound really interesting. Unfortunately, they're both out of print and What the Butler Winked At is going for $350 in the US. There is a seller in New Zealand who's selling it for $150 US but even that's too high. I don't even think there's a copy of Many Winks for sale.

The second thing I want is "Baby, It's You" by Smith. The radio station I listen to at work plays it occasionally and I've always thought it was Dusty Springfield singing it, but I looked at all my Dusty CDs and I don't have it. I did a little research and it turns out the voice actually belongs to Gayle McCormick of Smith. It's a great cover of the Burt Bachrach song and it's only available on the Death Proof soundtrack. There's no way I'm buying that (I hate Tarantino movies) so I've requested it from the library. Hopefully, I'll get it before autumn is here.

My cousin and I will be seeing Mama Mia! tomorrow. I know The Dark Knight is the movie to see but I don't feel like dealing with first weekend crowds. I love Mama Mia! on stage and it has the allure of an exotic locale, ABBA, and Colin Firth. Never underestimate the Firth factor especially when it's a Firth who's willing to be goofy. I saw What a Girl Wants in the theater because he was in it. Thus is the power of the Firth.

What to know something really ridiculous? I have six piles of books by my bed. Granted, a lot of them are books I've already read or felt like rereading and just never put away properly, but there are a lot of unread books there too. I've recently decided to not buy any more books or get books from the library until I've made a dent in my massive TBR pile. I decided this earlier this week so there hasn't been much progress.

Taste of Chicago 2008

I had a pretty good time. I ate coconut fried shrimp (a ripoff at 10 tickets for only four shrimp), jerk chicken with red beans and rice, an Indian dish consisting of vegetarian stew and bread (delicious and probably my favorite), and wild berry sorbet for dessert. We managed to avoid using the Port-a-Potties or buying a meal at a restaurant for access to their bathrooms. The weather was so hot we basically sweated out all the fluids we were drinking. If you ever find yourself on Chicago's lake front and the Harold Washington Library isn't open, use the bathroom at Millennium Park. They're fairly clean for public bathrooms. Despite my mother's fears, we did not lose the twelve-year-old and no one got food poisoning.

After eating, we walked to Millennium Park so the two youngest could see the shiniest Bean you've ever seen. Officially, it's called Cloud Gate but no one calls it that. I sort of love The Bean. At times, it seems rather stupid--a big, shiny silver bean--but then you actually see it shining in the sun and you find yourself reflected in the surface and realize this shiny, sparkly bean is rather cool.

Speaking of sparkly, I've got a subscription to Entertainment Weekly and while I haven't received the Twilight issue yet, does anyone want it when I'm done reading it? Fair warning, the address bar will be in the lower left hand corner which means Pattison's ass may get covered up. I'm fairly certain his corpse-like torso and the hairstyle of shame will remain untouched. Just because I only have room in my heart for one big immovable sparkly object (hugs the Bean) doesn't mean that I can't help others with their love for the sparkly object of their affection.

I took today and the coming Monday off from work so I've got a glorious five day (four days remaining) weekend. I picked up my contacts, then went to Goodwill and my local libraries and picked up some more used books. After a lunch of angel hair pasta mixed with Trader Joe's Artichoke & Hearts of Palm Bruschetta (delicious, btw), I was going to get a haircut, but I felt I needed to finish Juliet Nicolson's The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm and then I fell asleep and dreamt my degrees were going to be taken away from me because I'd forgotten to go to most of my classes. Throughout the dream I was trying to figure out why I thought I had graduated college when I hadn't even gone to class. By the time I woke up, the hair place was closed and I realized that the dream was my subconscious's way of telling me I had something else I wanted to do besides nap. That's not apparent from my description, but the feeling I had throughout was that I was missing out on something and it had to be the haircut. While I'm glad my subconscious is looking out for me, I don't understand why it wasn't more clear about what I was missing out on. It was a refreshing nap though and I'll just deal with this mass of hair until next weekend.

I don't really have any concrete plans besides going to the Taste of Chicago on Sunday. I go every three or four years (or when I've got visitors) just to remind myself why I don't go every year. It's one of those things that starts out fun and then the experience wears you down so by the end of the day you find yourself thinking, "Never again, never again," repeatedly while you try not to yell at the people you came with. This year I'm going with some cousins and their preteen cousin. This will be her first Taste and her first train ride so hopefully we won't be spending the whole day there. Some day, I will forgo the food and just go for the music. This year they've got Stevie Wonder and a whole bunch of other folks, including Old 97s, and it's all free. Envy me and hate me, worldforawhile, for not going to see them tomorrow. I can only take the crowds once and I have to save my fortitude for Sunday.

And to finish off this post with something completely unrelated, my cousin told me a little story about her coworker's stepson. They were at a family gathering and the coworker's three-year-old niece, Paige, was wearing a purple outfit with I ♥ with a picture of a purple elephant. The stepson took one look at Paige's outfit and yells out in a horrified voice, "Paige, you love Republicans?!!" I'm guessing he comes from a family of staunch Democrats.

I watched CBS' broadcast of the Tonys tonight and was happy to see Steppenwolf Theatre's production of August: Osage County win so many big awards. Unfortunately, Tracy Letts' thank you speech came across as rude. I think he was trying to say that he was glad the New York producers had no problem with letting the Chicago actors who had originated the roles act in the Broadway production but it came off as a slam against TV/movie actors. While some TV/movie actors don't have the skills to do live theater, there are plenty who do and at least half of the audience was made up of those people. I don't think Tracy Letts is going to win another Tony any time soon.

I also have a feeling that if Daniel Radcliffe gets somewhat decent reviews for Equus, he may end up with a Tony nomination. I don't think the American Theater Wing is going to be able to resist the ratings boost if Harry Potter is nominated for a legitimate acting award. (I don't consider any award that counts Internet votes legitimate because those are really popularity contests.) It's probably cynical for me to say that but there's no other reason for him to show up at the Tony's other than to boost the TV ratings and to promote Equus.

After seeing the performance of "96,000" for In the Heights, I want to see it when it gets to Chicago. It sounded amazing and I was able to get a sense of what the show was about from that little bit I saw. Xanadu, on the other hand, was just weird. I have no idea what it is about. I first thought the actress, Kerry Butler, was Sarah Michelle Gellar and the hilarious image of Buffy on roller skates while she's serenaded by a guy in cut off shorts (the best part of that number) and a chorus of people dressed like the Greek gods in 70s disco togas is something that musical cannot overcome. I have no interest in ever seeing that.

I always tell myself I need to go to the theater more after I see the Tony Awards. I've been meaning to see Jersey Boys for a year now and I still haven't seen Wicked.

I did some of my laundry last night and when I pulled my clothes out of the dryer, I noticed two things near the lint screen. One was a dime. The other was a peanut. I have no idea how that peanut got there. I know that peanut didn't come from my clothes because I'm not in the habit of storing peanuts in my pockets. Did it come from that dimension where missing socks go? Was it able to leave because it wasn't a sock, but a peanut?

Maybe the dime and peanut were an omen of things to come because I got a letter from the IRS today explaining that I was going to get my stimulus check by post by Friday. I hadn't been paying too much attention to it because I figured it'd come when it comes and I didn't need the money right away. Now that I know how much I'm getting, I've got to make plans for it. Maybe I'll use it for a ticket to Maine.

I have no idea what the peanut signifies though. It better not be an elephant. Or a squirrel invasion.

My cousin and I were going to go to the Printer's Row Book Fair this weekend but we decided on Thursday that it was too hot and we were having too much fun at book sales and thrift stores to give that up. So we decided to go to Trader Joe's and buy food. I talked my cousin into buying a jar of almond butter and later she tried some when she came home with me. She really liked the almond butter and blackberry jam sandwich I made for her. Yes, another almond butter convert!

While we ate our lunch of lobster ravioli and sushi, I put on season one of How I Met Your Mother and she really liked it. Yet another HIMYM convert! Two different conversions in one day! And on the same person!

Then we decided to go visit our local Goodwill. When we left the house, the weather was overcast but it was perfectly fine. When we got to the Goodwill store, the tornado sirens were wailing and we were told we couldn't go into the store. Now, I can understand not wanting to run the registers during a weather crisis, but I don't think people should be denied shelter during a tornado warning. A tornado warning means one was sighted. A tornado watch just means weather conditions are conducive to the formation of tornadoes. The former is much more serious and those are the ones people need to pay attention to. For those who don't have experience with them, tornadoes can develop very quickly (a lot of times the sirens go off just as the tornadoes make contact) and they're unpredictable. People need to get off the road and find shelter as quickly as possible during a warning. Since I had no way of knowing if the other stores in the area had closed their doors and I wasn't going to go store to store finding a shelter, I decided to drive home and obviously nothing happened to me or else I wouldn't be writing this.

However, my cousin and I could have run into a tornado and that's why I'm going to be writing Goodwill and telling them they need to revise their emergency weather procedures. Had something happened to us, I had every intention of initiating a lawsuit assuming we survived running into a tornado. I don't know if such a lawsuit would have had any merit (I don't think it would) but it would have generated publicity. I'm angry about this and I would like an apology, at the very least, and for Goodwill to change their policy, if there is one, in regards to turning people away during bad weather.

The storm system was slowing moving so the weather people were able to accurately track it and warn people to get shelter. So far, there doesn't seem to be a lot of injuries. I've lived in the Midwest for most of my life and this is the closest I've ever come to being in a tornado. From what I can gather, my town was on the very edge of the storm system. If it weren't for the news reports, I wouldn't have even known anything was going on because there was no sign of severe weather were I live. One of my cousins got caught in the local mall and she had to wait it out in the mall's basement. I haven't talked to her yet but I assume she's okay because I'd have heard about it by now if something had happened to her.

I can't not comment on the historic event of Barack Obama getting enough delegate votes to win the Democratic nomination and I didn't want to do it in an entry about my superficial concerns. I know for some people this is a day they thought would never happen--a black man is the presidential nominee for one of the two major political parties of the United States of America. And even though Obama doesn't want this contest to be about race, it's an issue that going to come up over and over again this election season and I expect it to get ugly. I don't think McCain is going to use it as a tactic (which doesn't mean he won't use other underhanded tactics, but race isn't going to be one of them) but that doesn't stop others from going there. I just hope by the time January comes that this country is more united than it is divided, or at least not even more divided, and the bitterness and anger of the last two elections doesn't pervade the next four years.

Worked until eight on Friday, worked Saturday, and worked until eight Monday night. I was so tired when I got home that I nearly fell asleep after eating dinner. Last night, I rescued [b]The Dark is Rising[/b] sequence from my evil sister who was going to donate them to the library. I also got [b]Daisy Fay & the Miracle Man[/b] (Fannie Flagg's best book, IMO), Bill Bryson's [b]A Walk in the Woods[/b], and a few LM Montgomerys.

As if nearly drowning in books isn't enough, I've been pricing ebook readers because I have a sudden urge to buy one. I have no idea why. I much prefer paper books and I hate the idea of the DRM on new ebooks. I'm just sort of enamoured with the idea of being able to download all these classics from ManyBooks. The crazy thing is that I've already downloaded a bunch of books from ManyBooks onto my laptop and I haven't read any of them. I have no idea why I'm itching to buy something I probably won't use that much, if at all. I think I'm distracted by the possibility of a shiny new toy. The only thing that has held me back from actually buying an ebook reader is that I want one that uses eInk and those are priced far too high for me at the moment. If I could find one that used eInk, supported multiple formats, and was $100 or less, I'd buy it. I really like what I've read about the Sony PRS-505 but it's $180 over my price range.

I haven't had a chance to play with my new MP3 player. It's a 32 GB Creative Zen. I'm not looking forward to transferring the music from my old player to the new one though. It sounds tedious.

And to top it all off, the Cubs are in first place. I'm not sure what they're in first place of, but they are in first and it has been a hundred years since that has happened. No one has even started to talk about winning the pennant yet, not even my cousin the Cubs fan, because the season is young and we are talking about the Cubs. They've been breaking their fans hearts since 1909.

Today at lunch, a co-worker and I got into a discussion about how much we love seafood. I mentioned that this was one of the reasons why I wanted to see a lighthouse on my vacation (if I'm by the sea, I can eat its bounty) and then Prince Edward Island came up. It turns out my co-worker has only read LM Montgomery's Anne books up to Anne of Ingleside. The next thing I know I'm extolling the virtues of Jane of Lantern Hill, Rilla of Ingleside, Rainbow Valley, and The Blue Castle and I'm offering to lend her my copies.

It seemed easy enough in the office but now that I've gathered them together, I don't want to let them out of my sight. It's not like I think my co-worker is going to abuse them or give them away or keep them for herself. I'm afraid I'm going to want to read them while she's got them and then what will I do? Reading the e-books or checking out a library copy aren't the same thing at all. Except for Rainbow Valley, these are among my favorite books for comfort reading and I find comfort in knowing that they're right there for me to read even if I'm too lazy to actually pull them out of their box.

I'm a selfish book lover. I'll willing recommend books and I'm always happy to talk about them and borrow a book, but I seem to have problems with lending them. Thinking back on it, I've never been very gracious about letting people borrow the books I love even if I'd have no problem lending them anything else.

The work is going to suck for the next two weeks. Too many projects, not enough time. I wasn't going to read any Twilight until things got better, but I ventured forth and read Chapter Nine. Why can't Bella die in a fire? Too bad I can't play

( The Twilight Drinking Game )

during the work week. I am going to have to refine the rules the more I read. I don't know where to put "Take a drink every time Bella refers to her father as Charlie."

This weekend I met my cousin's hamster, Herbie. For a rodent, he's pretty cute. When he's curled up in a little ball, which he does when he's sleeping, he looks pretty much like how I imagined a Pygmy Puff to look only black and gray instead of pink or purple. Watched a lot of Law & Order: SVU. I love Ice T's Finn Tutuola or whatever his last name is and Munch. Gotta love the Munch. The only TV character to show up on at least four different TV series across three different networks. Probably more.

Work has been very stressful and that stress is giving me insomnia. It's past midnight and I'm wide awake. I've already decided that there is no way in hell I'm going to bring home work over the Memorial Day weekend, I don't care what needs to be done. We're nearly halfway through the year and I've only used up four sick days and none of my vacation and I need some time off. I need this long weekend to decompress. Speaking of Memorial Day, wherefore art thou summer? I've always considered Memorial Day the start of summer so I should not be wearing turtlenecks and thinking about unretiring my down jacket and wearing slipper socks to bed.

It turns out that drinking alcohol does help me get through Twilight more quickly. I actually managed to read two chapters a few nights ago. I even liked Edward for about one and a half paragraphs and I thought I had hit that one scene that would completely change how I've thought about the book so far, but then he admitted to following Bella to Port Angeles and I found myself wanting to mail that dimwit a copy of Gavin DeBecker's The Gift of Fear. Honestly, as of Chapter 9, I just want to slap Bella and kick Edward in the crotch (with the help of steel-toed boots). It's enough to make me wish I was reading a paper copy so I could slam the book down in frustration and/or disgust.

Awesomesauce

• Almond butter is awesome. I love it so very much.



• Seedless blackberry jam is great.



• Fresh homemade bread is damn good.



• Almond butter and blackberry jam sandwiches will make a perfect breakfast.



• Fictional people getting hit by a bus/car. It happened twice tonight and I laughed both times.



• Julia Quinn's The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. So much fun to read.



• Duffy's Rockferry album.



• Access to alcohol. To fortify myself for reading Twilight.

Things which make me stress eat almond butter/blackberry jam sandwiches

• Broken spam filters.



• An IT department who doesn't inform office of malfunctioning filters until a week later



• Having to deal with all the e-mails asking me if I want to add inches to my penis, offering me Viagra at at discount, asking if I want a luxury watch cheap, or giving me stock tips.



• The inability of any program to convert a PDF file to a Word file perfectly.



• Bella Swan, unfortunately, was not one of the fictional characters to get hit by a bus.

As for why I'm still sticking with Twilight when I don't enjoy it on any level:

Penance for breaking my principles and for giving people copies of the book. Although some people have enjoyed the books, others have not, and I feel I owe it to them to experience the same pain. I was also the kid who didn't consider her Calculus homework finished until I had gotten an answer and verified it by doing the problem again and getting the same answer. If the answer was different, I'd work the problem over and over until I'd gotten the same result at least twice. Basically, I'm stubborn. I will not be defeated by these books.

I saw Prince Caspian this afternoon and I want to see it again. It's been said before, but this is a truth that needs to be repeated--the cast for this movie is incredibly pretty. Now that the shallow is out of the way, I have to say just how much I loved Susan in this movie. I'm glad she got to go out kicking ass and taking names and doing it all in a dress. Queen Susan the Gentle, I think not. Despite the fact the movie is called Prince Caspian, I think this is really Peter's story. He's the High King, his actions drive most of the story, and he's the one who has to learn to let Narnia go.

I suspect the next movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is where Caspian will really get to shine. I'm not blaming Ben Barnes, I just find his character to be sort of blank and, frankly, a little bit dim, but I have to blame that dimness on the decision to age the character and yet not change the details of the story to accomodate the age change. Edmund is not given enough screen time and that's a shame because Skandar Keynes is hot but still underage plays sarcasm well and he's good at the action scenes and I can't wait until the next movie where he'll have cousin Eustace to verbally spar with. Georgie Henley doesn't have to carry this movie as she did the first one, but she gets yet another scene in this movie where she gets to express the joy of being back in Narnia again reminiscent of one of my favorite scenes in LWW.

Reepicheep is wonderful, I wanted to see more of Trumpkin and Trufflehunter, and ( Small, yet controversial moment ). My love for this movie does not mean I forgive Walden Media for what they did to The Dark is Rising though.

The Call by Regina Spektor. It's the first song that plays over the credits of the movie. I didn't like it at first but I think it's growing on me. I'll probably love it by tomorrow.

For some reason, we can't turn on the utility lights that had been installed in the hall corridors while we wait for the actual light fixtures to arrive to at the office. The only light we've got are from the Exit signs, light spilling out from occupied offices, and light from the windows which isn't much because we're on the fourth floor. Along with the wacky temperature controls (I think the air conditioning was on today), I feel like I'm literally working in a cave.

I finished Luanne Rice's True Blue over the weekend. I don't know whether it's because I was reading it in tandem with Twilight, but I really had fun with this book. The plot is predictable and very Hallmark Hall of Fame movie-ish, but the writing is a thousand times better than Twilight, and Rice is excellent in her descriptions of the New England seaside. I really want to spend a few weeks in a New England seaside town so I can eat chowder on the docks and be charmed by eccentric locals.

This book brought back one of my dreams which is to get in a boat and row far away from shore so there are no artificial lights to pollute the night sky and then spend the night stargazing. The closest I've ever come has been the night time ferry ride from Nantucket to Boston but the ferry was illuminated and noisy, and I just want to float in darkness under starlight.

My family has expanded by two members. The first is baby Kara or Cara, my uncle's daughter. She's incredibly adorable and I think I'll go visit LA later this year to get acquainted with her. The other new member is Herbie the hamster. My twenty-year-old cousin recently got him and she's leaving Herbie in the care of her 14-year-old brother while she spends a week in Florida. She apparently left him a lot of instructions on how to care for Herbie including an explanation of what it means when Herbie licks his paws and then brushes his face with them. (He's washing up.)

( A shift in the rankings on my Most Hated Fictional People List )