Anything But Writing

April 11, 2007

In which I ponder many things, but none of them are writing.

--more or less took yesterday off to spend with my kids. Took them bowling. I suck, but I got on a mini-streak in the first game and bowled five strikes--three of them in the last frame!--for a score of 137. Anything over 100 is a good score for me. Second game--97.

--took the kids, also, to see "Meet the Robinsons." I'm wildly lukewarm about this film (and when there are 7 credited scriptwriters, that's typically a warning sign), but I did like the concept of "a brilliant failure." Ie., we learn from our failures, not our successes. Liked it better than "Bridge to Terabithia," which I hated. Actually, the problem with Terabithia was false-advertising, since we went to watch what we thought was going to be a fun fantasy movie, but instead turned out to be about a little girl's death, grief, guilt and the healing power of imagination.

--Don Imus is in trouble for referring, apparently, to the Rutger's women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." As usual, I am alternately appalled and impressed by Reverend Al Sharpton's ability to put himself front and center on any potential news story involving race. Call me an ignorant white guy (which I am), but shouldn't the women be more pissed off about being called "hos" than for being called "nappy-headed"? (which, although yes, I understand that is a perjorative term, does seem, er, to be an accurate description of most of the women on the team). And what of the Caucasian women (woman?) on the team. Does she say, "Hey, I'm not nappy-headed"? My wife thinks the press ought to ask the women what they think and ask Sharpton and everybody else to butt out.

--Nancy Pelosi goes to Syria (a day after three Republican colleagues, I might add) and the media can't make up their mind whether to cover whether she's stepping out of line or her fashion sense. In defense of Pelosi, Syria and everybody else in the Middle East seems aware that the Republicans no longer have much say in what the hell is going on in U.S. government today, let alone in two years, so they're treating it as a meet-the-new-boss kind of thing and George I'll-defend-my-stupid-decisions-until-YOUR-dying-day Bush should have much bigger problems to concentrate on--in my opinion.

--We introduced our kids to the glories of "MacGyver" last night, thanks to NetFlix. It holds up pretty well; the cars and some of the clothes are dated, but the concept works very well for them.

--broke off part of a molar eating some nuts Sunday night. Doesn't hurt, although it's sensitive to cold. My wife thinks that means there's a root canal in my near future. Root canal, cap, or just pull the damn thing. Anything they do, though, I'm sure is going to hurt more than actually breaking the tooth did. I'll find out on Thursday.

Best,

Mark Terry