By far the best Apprentice episode of this season. It had everything: drama, tears, comedy, sex. Well maybe not sex, but Tana and Craig did sleep in the same room together, while Kendra was having orgasms over her brochure design.

Oh and by the way, i was blogging about the Solstice over a year ago. And i think the picture i took would have looked great on Net Worth's brochure. At least mine was in focus.

Posted by: annika at 10:36 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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...about Brittany Spears' "condition," was said by Jennifer at Demure Thoughts:

I can just see, Brit now. Walking down Rodeo Drive 8 months pregnant with a Marlboro ULTRA Light hanging out of her mouth, her statement of sacrifice for the baby being that she gave up the Reds.

Posted by: annika at 08:22 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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How long before the Euros just start shooting the players?

Shameful.

Posted by: annika at 11:02 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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"Only in a America can a black man have a Rolex, drive a Audi, and y'all be workin' at Burger King."

--Burger King drive through patron, upon seeing Paris and Nicole working the window.

Runners up:

"Hideous."

--Simon Cowell to Anthony Federov.

"Are you not a homosexual?"

"Sir, I am not a homosexual."

--Boardroom exchange between Trump and hotheaded Chris.

Posted by: annika at 08:17 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Now that it's out on DVD, i finally saw last year's Oscar nominated movie, Sideways. i'm not sure i get the whole "male midlife crisis" thing, but it seems to be a major theme in a lot of movies.

Here's a poem by W. D. Snodgrass, perfect for April, which also deals with the midlife crisis theme.

April Inventory

The green catalpa tree has turned
All white; the cherry blooms once more.
In one whole year I haven't learned
A blessed thing they pay you for.
The blossoms snow down in my hair;
The trees and I will soon be bare.

The trees have more than I to spare.
The sleek, expensive girls I teach,
Younger and pinker every year,
Bloom gradually out of reach.
The pear tree lets its petals drop
Like dandruff on a tabletop.

The girls have grown so young by now
I have to nudge myself to stare.
This year they smile and mind me how
My teeth are falling with my hair.
In thirty years I may not get
Younger, shrewder, or out of debt.

The tenth time, just a year ago,
I made myself a little list
Of all the things I'd ought to know,
Then told my parents, analyst,
And everyone who's trusted me
I'd be substantial, presently.

I haven't read one book about
A book or memorized one plot.
Or found a mind I did not doubt.
I learned one date. And then forgot.
And one by one the solid scholars
Get the degrees, the jobs, the dollars.

And smile above their starchy collars.
I taught my classes Whitehead's notions;
One lovely girl, a song of Mahler's.
Lacking a source-book or promotions,
I showed one child the colors of
A luna moth and how to love.

I taught myself to name my name,
To bark back, loosen love and crying;
To ease my woman so she came,
To ease an old man who was dying.
I have not learned how often I
Can win, can love, but choose to die.

I have not learned there is a lie
Love shall be blonder, slimmer, younger;
That my equivocating eye
Loves only by my body's hunger;
That I have forces true to feel,
Or that the lovely world is real.

While scholars speak authority
And wear their ulcers on their sleeves,
My eyes in spectacles shall see
These trees procure and spend their leaves.
There is a value underneath
The gold and silver in my teeth.

Though trees turn bare and girls turn wives,
We shall afford our costly seasons;
There is a gentleness survives
That will outspeak and has its reasons.
There is a loveliness exists,
Preserves us, not for specialists.

Posted by: annika at 02:38 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 A, re: midlife crisis Just you wait. Just you wait. Kevin

Posted by: Kevin Kim at April 13, 2005 03:54 AM (qPBpH)

2 The tenth time, just a year ago, I made myself a little list Of all the things I'd ought to know, Then told my parents, analyst, And everyone who's trusted me I'd be substantial, presently. *sigh* nice poem

Posted by: Scof at April 13, 2005 06:19 AM (ur/xf)

3 That was a really good poem! And being 19 I'm sure my midlife crisis is still to come

Posted by: Bryan at April 13, 2005 04:47 PM (+yEwR)

4 I've never noticed the crisis part... what crisis? There is a sharpening of the senses, like the man who is to be hanged at dawn. A lovely poem, reminds me of Masefield's "The Passing Strange".

Posted by: Casca at April 13, 2005 07:45 PM (cdv3B)

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Besides being the cruelest month, April is also National Poetry Month.

The poet Charles Bernstein doesn't think National Poetry Month is good for poetry. He writes: "promoting poetry as if it were an 'easy listening' station just reinforces the idea that poetry is culturally irrelevant and has done a disservice not only to poetry deemed too controversial or difficult to promote but also to the poetry it puts forward in this way." i see where he's coming from. That's why at annika's journal i do my own dissservice to poetry all year long. Anyways, i liked this idea from Bernstein's essay:

As an alternative to National Poetry Month, I propose that we have an International Anti-Poetry month. As part of the activities, all verse in public places will be covered over—from the Statue of Liberty to the friezes on many of our government buildings. Poetry will be removed from radio and TV (just as it is during the other eleven months of the year). Parents will be asked not to read Mother Goose and other rimes to their children but only ... fiction. Religious institutions will have to forego reading verse passages from the liturgy and only prose translations of the Bible will recited, with hymns strictly banned. Ministers in the Black churches will be kindly requested to stop preaching. Cats will be closed for the month by order of the Anti-Poetry Commission. Poetry readings will be replaced by self-help lectures. Love letters will have to be written only in expository paragraphs. Baseball will have to start its spring training in May. No vocal music will be played on the radio or sung in the concert halls. Children will have to stop playing all slapping and counting and singing games and stick to board games and football.

Posted by: annika at 02:26 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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i caught some of the John Bolton hearing today on CSPAN. i couldn't get over that brain trust we elected as our junior senator, Barbara Boxer. Of course her speechifying was ridiculous, that goes without saying. But when she wasn't on, Boxer seemed to be chewing continuously, like a fucking cow. Did anyone else notice this? She absolutely was not paying attention, and she kept looking around the room and working that cud, whatever it was. What an embarrassment to the State of California.

Posted by: annika at 11:03 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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annika's Great Moussaka Experiment 2005 is underway as i write this. Recipe from my Greek roommate's mom. Fingers crossed. Pictures to follow. more...

Posted by: annika at 08:47 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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*click*

Bimbo Interview Chick: "Kay you guys, so who do you think is like your greatest musical influence?"

Teenage Hipster Band Member: "I guess Led Zeppelin." (Pointing to the Led Zeppelin t-shirt he is wearing.) "Yeah, Led Zeppelin."

Bimbo Interview Chick: "Kay, Led Zeppelin. And why do you think he is such a big influence on you?"

*click*

Posted by: annika at 11:23 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Mary Madigan at Dean's World has a Quicktime video of a pretty dangerous looking stunt by a Lithuanian aerobatics pilot in a Sukhoi SU-26.

And there's another dangerous stunt captured on Quicktime, posted by another chick, Christiana Ellis.

Posted by: annika at 11:51 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 That's SERIOUS shit!

Posted by: JD at April 09, 2005 04:10 PM (J+Gcr)

2 How does the old saw go? There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.

Posted by: Casca at April 09, 2005 06:43 PM (cdv3B)

3 There's a technical term for those guys: Crazy motherfuckers. There's another technical term for those guys: Damned good pilots.

Posted by: Matt at April 09, 2005 08:20 PM (TLYaI)

4 I like my girls Aerodynamic...

Posted by: Kin at April 11, 2005 07:58 AM (FPO9K)

5 Hell, Han Solo does crazy stuff like that all the time!

Posted by: Victor at April 11, 2005 10:09 AM (L3qPK)

6 Pierre, a French fighter pilot, takes his girlfriend, Marie, out for a pleasant little picnic by the River Seine. It's a beautiful day and love is in the air. Marie leans over to Pierre and says, "Pierre, kiss me!" Pierre grabs a bottle of Merlot and splashes it on Marie's lips. "What are you doing, Pierre?" says the startled Marie. "I am Pierre, the fighter pilot! When I have red meat, I have red wine!" She smiles and they start kissing. Things began to heat up a little and Marie says, "Pierre, kiss me lower." Our hero tears her blouse open, grabs a bottle of Chardonnay and pours it on her breasts. "Pierre! What are you doing now?" asks the bewildered Marie. "I am Pierre, the fighter pilot! When I have white meat, I have white wine!" She giggles and they resume their passionate interlude, and things really steam up. Marie leans close to his ear and whispers, "Pierre, kiss me much lower!" Pierre rips off her underwear, grabs a bottle of Cognac and pours it in her lap. He then strikes a match and lights the cognac on fire. Marie shrieks and dives into the River Seine. Standing waist deep, Marie throws her arms into the air and screams furiously, "PIERRE, WHAT IN THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" Our 'hero' stands and says defiantly, "I am Pierre, the fighter pilot! If I go down, I go down in flames!"

Posted by: louielouie at April 13, 2005 08:52 AM (i7mWl)

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In this exclusive video clip from Brittany's upcoming reality tv show, we see her out on the town with a few of the hot tub friends.

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More pie throwing.

Very persuasive, assholes.

Via Michelle Malkin.

Posted by: annika at 07:35 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1. Men bad. Women good.

2. Marriage bad. Career good.

3. The fifties bad. Today good.

4. Rules and standards bad. Bad bad bad.

5. Promiscuity is a virtue.

6. Marriage equals failure. Women should avoid it at all costs.

7. Unless you are chubby, then let nothing stand in the way of getting a husband.

8. If you absolutely must get married, remember that having a career at the same time is easy.

9. Have pity on those poor girls who grew up in the fifties. Chicks have it so much easier today.

10. Wellesley girls are snobby.*
_______________

* Okay, that last one wasnÂ’t sarcastic.

Posted by: annika at 08:55 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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It occurred to me that nobody except Sheila got my last photoshop joke. Which, by the way is the freakin' funniest thing i ever done. To paraphrase Betelgeuse: i've looked at it about a HUNDRED AND
SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT!

Anyways, for you cultural illiterates, convicted hit-and-run driver Paula Abdul is driving, and that black dude is Ben Vereen. It's an obscure reference to this infamous 1992 incident: when

Entertainer Ben Vereen was critically injured when he was struck by a van while walking along the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu, California. The driver, producer/composer David Foster, was not charged. Some hours earlier, Vereen had run into a tree while driving his own car. He blames that mishap for the later accident. He said, 'I had hit my head on the steering wheel but felt fine. Later that evening as I was walking in Malibu, I had [a] stroke as a result of that accident.' Vereen says he then stumbled into the roadway and was hit by the van.

Got it? Okay now go back and look at it and laugh dammit, LAUGH!

Posted by: annika at 09:43 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Pope John Paul was an accomplished poet, which is not surprising since he seemed to love the arts. During WWII, he worked in a quarry under forced labor conditions. It was dangerous work. He wrote a sequence called "The Quarry," and the following excerpt was written about a fellow worker who had died in an accident.

He wasn't alone.
His muscles grew into the flesh of the crowd, energy their pulse,
As long as they held a hammer, as long as his feet felt the ground.
And a stone smashed his temples and cut through his heart's chamber.
They took his body and walked in a silent line
Toil still lingered about him, a sense of wrong.
They wore gray blouses, boots ankle-deep in mud.
In this, they showed the end.
How violently his time halted: the pointers on the low voltage dials jerked, then dropped to zero again.
White stone now within him, eating into his being, taking over enough of him to turn him into stone.
Who will lift up that stone, unfurl his thoughts again under the cracked temples?
So plaster cracks on the wall.
They laid him down, his back on a sheet of gravel.
His wife came, worn out with worry; his son returned from school
Should his anger now flow into the anger of others?
It was maturing in him through his own truth and love
Should he be used by those who came after, deprived of substance, unique and deeply his own?
The stones on the move again; a wagon bruising the flowers.
Again the electric current cuts deep into the walls.
But the man has taken with him the world's inner structure,where the greater the anger, the higher the explosion of love.

More poetry by the late Pope can be found at the Frontline site, along with a discussion of his work by poet Lynn Powell.

[cross-posted at A Western Heart]

Posted by: annika at 07:39 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Hello fellow Annika! Just dropping by to say hi, as you do. >_>

Posted by: Annika at April 06, 2005 10:38 AM (qBmTH)

2 I'm still trying to understand why the Pope was such a pacifist. Like so many elderly secular Jews, he saw first hand what can happen when countries hope for the best and sit on their hands. Makes it hard for me to take him serious. After all, he was just a man. No more no less.<

Posted by: mh at April 06, 2005 01:21 PM (hToHS)

3 MH, the pope was not a pacifist. I wish he had been, frankly -- he was a proponent of just war theory, a very different thing altogether. He felt, as many did, that Gulf Wars One and Two both fell short of the just war standard.

Posted by: Hugo at April 06, 2005 08:49 PM (iH5Su)

4 3 years ago in an issue of National Geographic it was reported 6-8 million people have died under SHussein in the last 20 years. "all that needs to happen for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing" -eddie b. c'mon hugo grow a pair. you talk like a boy with a paper ass.

Posted by: mh at April 06, 2005 10:53 PM (Ix7Sm)

5 Is that what'd you say to the Holy Father, mh?

Posted by: Hugo at April 07, 2005 08:38 AM (y05LR)

6 Thank you very much for the info I was looking for, and Greetings from Malaga-Spain Antonio

Posted by: malaga at April 07, 2005 08:59 AM (6xlTo)

7 u have a very nice page

Posted by: Thomas Geiser at April 11, 2005 04:51 PM (1kS9S)

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i'm only willing to suspend disbelief so far. One of the things i have liked about 24 is its plausibility, but last night's episode was not a good example.

As my sophisticated visitors no doubt are aware, it's a common misconception that the F-117 is "invisible" to radar. Not true. The stealth fighter is not invisible, but its radar cross-section is very small - about 10 to 100 square centimeters according to one website i checked. That's pretty small, but not undetectable if you're looking for it, as i'm sure every radar in Southern California would have been after CTU had discerned the threat to Air Force One. Also, detection should have been easier since the F-117 was flying at a higher altitude to intercept the president's plane.

Next, the show's writers appear to have been confused by the nomenclature. "Fighter" is a broad and pretty misleading term. The F-117 is not designed for air combat. It is more properly called a ground attack aircraft. Last night, Bauer was told that the F-117 was carrying "standard non-nuclear ordnance." According to this site, that would include the following ground attack weapons: "BLU-109B low-level laser-guided bomb, GBU-10 and GBU-27 laser-guided bomb units, Raytheon AGM-65 Maverick and Raytheon AGM-88 HARM air-to-surface missiles."

Since the terrorist pilot stole the aircraft, i doubt it had been modified to carry the type of air-to-air missiles that would be needed to shoot down Air Force One. The HARM is an anti-radar missile, and i would guess it's not capable of hitting a plane in flight. i don't know if it's possible to lock the Maverick onto a plane, but i would guess that it's not a very agile missile even if you could. But the biggest problem i see would be the warhead.

The warhead is in the missile's center section. Either a 125-pound shaped-charge warhead or a 300-pound penetrator warhead can be used. A contact fuse in the nose fires the shaped-charge warhead. The penetrator uses a delayed-fuse, allowing the warhead to penetrate the target with its kinetic energy before firing. The latter is very effective against large, hard targets.

Also, a stealth fighter is not invisible to radar if it's emitting its own radar beam. Once the F-117 had locked onto the president's plane, everybody would have known where it was. There should have been a shitload of flares and chaff ejected from Air Force One and all the escorts to decoy the missile. Actually, i think once the bomb doors were opened, they would have detected it.

Of course this is all nit-picking. i still love 24. And we won't know what happened for sure until next week's episode.

Posted by: annika at 01:28 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor yesterday. Here are some of the President's remarks:

[I]n a small courtyard less than a mile from the Baghdad airport[,] Sergeant Smith was leading about three dozen men who were using a courtyard next to a watchtower to build a temporary jail for captured enemy prisoners. As they were cleaning the courtyard, they were surprised by about a hundred of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.

With complete disregard for his own life and under constant enemy fire, Sergeant Smith rallied his men and led a counterattack. Seeing that his wounded men were in danger of being overrun, and that enemy fire from the watchtower had pinned them down, Sergeant Smith manned a 50-caliber machine gun atop a damaged armor vehicle. From a completely exposed position, he killed as many as 50 enemy soldiers as he protected his men.

Sergeant Smith's leadership saved the men in the courtyard, and he prevented an enemy attack on the aid station just up the road. Sergeant Smith continued to fire and took a -- until he took a fatal round to the head. His actions in that courtyard saved the lives of more than 100 American soldiers.

Scripture tells us, as the General said, that a man has no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. And that is exactly the responsibility Paul Smith believed the Sergeant stripes on his sleeve had given him. In a letter he wrote to his parents but never mailed, he said that he was prepared to 'give all that I am to ensure that all my boys make it home.'

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i'm toying with the idea of a west coast baseball tour this summer. With Southwest Airlines air fares so low, i think it's do-able. Nine games, nine stadia:

Network Associates Colliseum, Oakland
SBC Park, San Francisco
Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
Angel Stadium, Anaheim
Petco Park, San Diego
Bank One Ballpark, Phoenix
Coors Field, Denver
Ameriquest Field, Arlington
Safeco Field, Seattle

Looking at that list, i realize that some of the nicest ballparks in the major leagues are in the Western Divisions.

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Here's an interesting article about Reagan and John Paul II. i've been hearing a lot lately about how the Pope was such a key figure in ending European communism. i'm a skeptic. i think the most important thing John Paul did to help end communism was to stay out of Reagan's way.

Posted by: annika at 10:23 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Just an April fool.

Today is my birthday!

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