nightmare last night

I don't usually have straight-up nightmares anymore, but, dear Lord, last night I had this dream about Christmas and my mom deciding not to do a turkey dinner that morphed into us discovering that this guy in our presence, who looked a lot like James Franco, was a lunatic serial killer. First, a Latino friend of ours tried to take him out and was immediately stabbed (I'm so glad my nightmares follow the movie who dies rule). Then we ran to the lake in front of the house and discovered about 20 or so bodies in the lake (that's where he was keeping them), and rather than fight, this older man, who may have been my father, decided to stay in the center of the lake, which was volcanic or something, and die. He was holding an African-American child he had adopted. Finally, I was the only one left and JF was chasing me through the trees, and I could apparently climb trees like a koala and hop from trunk to trunk. Just as I thought he was gonna catch me, a helicopter with a searchlight appeared overhead and scared him off.

Then I hid briefly in a movie theater where I watched a trailer for a movie where Nia Vardalos and her friend had been dorks in school and then became fashion gurus. Or something.

Then I knew I had to go back to my car and that he'd probably be waiting inside. When I saw that my car had been vandalized, I was sure, and then I found him hiding underneath the middle seat. I pulled him out and brought him to the police at the garage and handed him over. The bureaucracy that followed was kind of annoying.

Anyhow, now I'm scared of James Franco.

new things I love/hate

Love

Goodreads
Trader Joe's Reduced Fat Chinese Chicken Salad
Pej Vahdat (the episode of Bones where he comes clean about his background was great)


Hate

the Leeds mattress and FOX/Adam West commercials (obnoxious? you betcha)
the City of LA (when I pay you what I owe you on time, how about you not F up my credit score?)

smile now, mama

every time...

I "follow" someone on Twitter, I get that song from Sister Act stuck in my head. Blogging is, as such, a safer "art" form.

Lately, in part as a form of procrastinating not working on things I should be working on, I've been outlining and writing a "children's" novel, which, at the end of the day, may be more or less YA. Or not at all. But there are volcanoes and garbage collectors and astronomy programs gone to hell, so it's a fun time.

I'm in the middle of two short story collections written by women, and they're fantastic. I'm not, generally, a serious fan of short stories, but these are quite good, though in entirely different ways.

I know people hate Amazon for a lot of excellent reasons, but buying music from them is a pleasure and, by and large, far cheaper than buying music from the iTunes store. That 30 cents means something to me, okay?

I don't care if raw cookie dough will kill me. I'm eating it anyway.

geeky Friday night in Hollywood

So finally went to Umami Burger in Hollywood tonight with my roommate. Had the truffle burger, Mexican coke, and a Cake Monkey cakewich (and shared fries). All delish, though I don't feel a driving need to ever go back.

Then we went to the All Space Considered lecture at the Griffith Observatory. Totally fascinating and informative. The main speaker was Dr. Don Lincoln, an expert on the LHC, who just wrote a book about it called The Quantum Frontier--very articulate and just as patient with the physics lunkheads in the crowd as with the know-it-all douches sitting next to me. The lecture curators were also really well-spoken and talked us through a recent ARES test launch and the "ribbon" at the edge of the solar system. Also, there was an almost painfully cute baby in the crowd.

And now I leave you with this amazing rap video about everything going on at CERN. As the French would say, incroyable.

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.