Since my reason for hiding from people who know my cityofspheres LJ is now drawing to a close, I am going to stop posting as cityofspheres2 and start posting as cityofspheres once again.

If you have cityofspheres2 as a friend, and don't have cityofspheres, please add cityofpsheres. That means you, g_ape_oda, manka, and foxgrrl.

So, a few weeks back I participated in a celebration of a holiday that originated as an agricultural event - It's during the winter, but the farmers would look at the buds on the trees, and estimate what kind of harvest they would have. At this celebration, we were asked to relate this to our own lives, that is "What kind of winter is going on in your life, and what kind of harvest are you hoping for?" The other people there mentioned that they were going through a winter in their jobs, or in where they lived, or in their relationships, and all seemed rather optimistic about harvests such as going on sabbatical, relocating, breaking up, etc. I wasn't really satisfied with my own answer - I said my life is in a perpetual state of wintery hibernation, and the only harvest I was looking forward to was a phone call from someone in a day or two - so I'm still pondering it, and asking this question of other people I know. So, without further ado

Poll #932300 Winter
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

What kind of winter is going on in your life?

Poll #932301 Harvest
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

What kind of harvest do you expect?

I saw "Shower" at http://www.languages.umd.edu/lh/club_movie.php. It was good in that way that feel-good Chinese movies are - nothing much happens, yet there are some effectively tearjerking moments - tears of "awww....gee ain't that swell". Like "Eat Drink Man Woman". Some other movies it reminds me of, except they had a bit more plot, include "Happy Times Motel", "The Way Home", "Not One Less", and "King of Masks". The Language House Thursday movie night has good movies, in general, and it's free and open to the public.

I also saw Donnie Darko, and though perhaps I expected too much and thus was a bit disappointed, it was still not bad.

Poll #925526 Donnie Darko
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

What happened?

"Children of Men" was good, although some parts of the ending were a bit unlooked for, at least to me. I'm not saying it's the prophetic vision of the future as it will be, or such a sharp commentary on our society as some claim, but the political/social angle is there. It's a fine mix of meaning and action. And the lead guy is hot.

"Volver" was awful, with the detachment, randomness, senseless perversion, and hideous floral prints that characterize all of Almodovar's movies. Seriously, if women in Spain really wear patterns like that, in those colors, and the furniture upholstery and wallpaper is like that as well, that's a damn good reason for me to never visit the country. Also, even though most critics remarked on the lead actress's cleavage, I much preferred the supporting actress's large nose.

"Letters From Iwo Jima" was good too - in fact, I'd call it my favorite war movie, not to say it's realistic or anything. I'm a sucker for both WWII and written letters, what can I say. And once again, one of the lead guys, who looked to be about 13, was totally hot. Perhaps Asians are not to be written off as potential lovers after all.

"Notes On A Scandal" was also good, and I'm not usually into personal drama type movies, where there's two or three characters and some emotions. But this was an exception, perhaps because the closeups weren't too closely shot, so you didn't feel like this person's face could hardly fit on the screen. Once again, the 15-year-old love interest was all that.

I rented a red car and I'm loving it. It's like a holiday every time I look at my car. Then my roommates told me that a shitty paint job from Maaco costs less than a couple hundred dollars - I always thought it was in the thousands. Then I called Geico, and verified that contrary to the bullshit my parents have always told me, having a red car would not increase my insurance premiums. Fortunately, at the time I found this out, Maaco was closed and my car was being repaired rather than in my possession, otherwise this repainting process might already be underway... But now that I have further time to reflect upon it, is red really the best choice?

Edit: The current car is a 1994 Volvo 940, but by the time I get around to doing it, it may be a 1998 Honda Accord.

Poll #915094 Car color
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

What color should I paint my car?

Much Ado About Nothing
Fri Jan 26, 8 PM, Laurel
http://www.rudemechanicals.com/reservations/
definitely

The Animation Show
Sun, Jan 28, 7 PM, DC
http://www.lisner.org/
maybe

Lemme know if interested in going as well.

( Thur Jan 18 - sauna spendthrift inspires me to track expenses )

( Fri Jan 19 - a racquetball victory, of sorts )

( Fri Jan 19 - falling victim to consumerism at Bed, Bath, and Beyond )

( Fri Jan 19 - drinking heavily )

( Sat Jan 20 - wedding )

( Sat Jan 20 - wii dinner party )

( Partisans of Vilna - a movie more about personality and ethics than about the Holocaust itself )

While trying to make my web page look good on the T-mobile Dash, I found that I had 90 HTML errors, as diagnosed by the W3C validator. For shame!

Tuesday morning I was on the metro, and found that working on the metro is not one of T-mobile's strengths. Then after a nap, I ran a few errands, like returning DVD's, buying yet another watch, and dropping off the hard drive that I'd finally gotten in the mail at the fixer's house. Then I drove up to Baltimore for an appointment, got yummies, including smoked egg salad, at Belvedere square, got smoked fishes of five kinds at the Russian grocery, and fixed the wireless at my parents' house.

Wednesday I woke up in Baltimore, feeling unusually like listening to NPR and political talk instead of music - clearly a bad sign. It turned out that I had gotten a Christmas bonus that put me over the minimum deposit limit, so there was no need to close my MECU account. Then I headed down to College Park, finally faxed my tickets to the LAN office, ate pho, stared at the budgies again, and bought more stuff at Mark Electronics - the counter guy even remembered from the first time I'd been there. Then I came back home, managed to hang out with the girl roommates a bit, and then had an odd encounter with airplane bathroom dude that discombobulated me enough that I failed to go to Red Maple, thereby standing up some good peoples who totally didn't deserve it.

On the plus side, I got rid of all the HTML errors, with the help of an old friend.

On Saturday morning I would have done nothing, if left to my own fluish devices. Fortunately, a friend who was spending the night with my roommate motivated me to go out and eat pho, look at pets and consider buying budgies, shop at MOM's, go to the ATM, get my new watch re-batteried, and buy a third kind of sparkly nail polish, which will be overlaid over the first two for triple sparkliness. The downside is that she caused us to walk through ghetto mall.

Saturday night I went to a birthday drinking in Adams Morgan, at Tom Tom, which was made better by getting takeout kitfo (raw Ethiopian beef). Then I made my way to Midnight and, despite a phone misunderstanding, managed to meet up with the two girls and their pet guy. We all had a lovely time dancing, and then made our way to Silver Spring and got diner food. Dancing makes the fever go away!

Sunday morning, I managed to sleep enough to feel slightly better. Then, in a delightful surprise, a friend who has only come to my house once, and mostly I always go over to his place, happened to be geographically convenient to come to my place. We went to the super-kosher Israeli restaurant next to Marathon Deli, and then got a membership and a bunch of DVD's at Potomac Video.

( 49 Up - Documentary following some people at 7, 14,...,49 )

( Underground - still perhaps my favorite movie )

Monday morning, there was some sushi for breakfast - Tako is not nearly as much fun when one cannot order the shellfish sushi, but still better than average. Then, a walk around the outside of NIH, more napping, and finishing "49 Up". Also, I finished my marathon catchup of LJ comments on all my friends' LJ's, after slacking off for a month.

Thursday day, the new roommate let me tag along with her and her friend to the UMCP pool. I haven't been in years and it was a lot of fun. The pool is a lot warmer than I remember it, and a lot more fun when after every lap you spend more time horsing around than swimming. Also, there is a sauna, which either wasn't there before or I didn't know about it. The showers have been renovated to be more private. Finally, there was one change that wasn't as good - the price went up by $2 in the time I've been away.

Thursday I also called and left a message for the LAN office in New York about my plane ticket. The other thing I accomplished was to connect my laptop to the internet via the T-mobile Dash, with the help of T-mobile's excellent customer service. Their on-the-phone support staff is many times better than their retail workers. Anyway, it works! It's only $20/month! T-mobile rocks!

Thursday night I finally saw that someone who was being a total airplane bathroom on Sunday. Also, looks like I might have less cause to come in contact with the floss fight culprit. In either celebration or sympathy moping, a friend and I went up to Baltimore and met up with some people at a bar called Ryan's Daughter. That wasn't all that, so then we went back and down to Dupont to go to Chronos, which was super empty this time around. I actually have gained so much confidence in my dancing that I like an emptyish dance floor, but not one with only two people on it.

Friday morning, I finally got a call back from LAN in NY, and it looks like I might be able to transfer my ticket to another person. I was going to fax my ticket to the office so they could look at it and make sure it was possible, but then I didn't get that done. Other things I didn't get done on Friday include: Getting my Sprint address book printed out in prepapration for transferring to T-mobile; getting a new new watch since the pretty one broke in two days, even though I was uncharacteristically careful and took it off when I went to the pool; finding my Nuvaring, which I misplaced and now need a special health insurance override to get a new one within the same month. My excuses were: I was doing the laundry; I had a sore throat and fever; and, best of all, I got in touch with a friend that I hadn't talked to in five years, and was busy chatting with her, thanks to my twin who gave me the contact info.

( Reunion and a good movie called Pan's Labyrinth )

( And now, a pop quiz in social skills )

( Roommate's boyfriend drama )