A nice way to stay in touch with loved ones, and a convenient way to share my opinions without having everyone just walk away...wait a minute, where are you going? I wasn't finished..

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Lapierre

I just looked it up and learned Lapierre did not direct City of Joy. He wrote the book. What I heard of City of Joy sounded like the movie reflected a love of the destitute, and not in a patronizing way. The Constant Gardner had the same feeling.

Friday, May 26, 2006

I was kidding

about the secret mission. I just haven't felt like posting. When I'm going through a learning phase I dummy up. Observe, assimilate, organize, evaluate, and project. I must be going through such a phase now.

But the secret mission thing made me think of John LeCarre, and that made me think of The Constant Gardner. Janett rented it last week and we watched it. I was surprised. It was excellent.

LeCarre doesn't adapt well to film, too nuanced, the insights too subtle. But this director was very successful. Maybe the screenwriter should get the credit, using snippets of conversations very naturally and yet economically to inform us. But now I'd like to see City of Joy by the same director.

I'm almost tempted to glance at Candide (Voltaire), but I won't because I don't think Justin Quayle played very nicely by Ralph Fiennes needs illumination beyond what is presented in the film.
I am currently engageged in carrying out a mission for our government. A very important mission, very dangerous, and very, very secret. I'm sure you'll understand that I can't be posting to my blog regularly under the circumstances.

More later...I hope.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

I'm a bad man

Reviewing my posts, I come across nicer than I really am. Last week I e-mailed Senator Barak Obama, who has been disappointing me lately and told him that "I'd go out and find a Wobblie or LaRouchite to vote for before I'd vote for some Hillary in drag" I didn't receive the customary thank you note. Barak knows the real me.

Earth to Andy

Hi everybody. Sorry to be out of touch. (I put in the Hi everybody first so I wouldn't be opening with an apology.) It has been an unsettling week. Janett's been mad at me, she would say sad, and that anger is expressed in proportion to pain felt. All I know is some nights I'm afraid to go to sleep before she does. Just kidding.

And then I got beat up in gold on Monday; I didn't have a position overnight for the big sell off on Sunday night (Monday in London), but I kept looking for a bounce on Monday. (Even dead cats bounce a little). Buying and putting in a stop loss order, market falls, I get stopped out with a loss - about four times. Stupid. I'm going to hang a sign over my desk, "Not Losing is the Next Best Thing to Winning." And of course, as always when I do badly in the market what's the first rule? Say it together, children: "Blame Louie." That's right, my technicasl guru just on Saturday told me the market is always up on Monday in a bull marker - pent up demand from the weekend. He could have added, Unless the market is overdue for a correction.

So let's talk about something pleasant. Butera's. My neighborhood grocery store.
I love it. Butera's is a chain of grocery stores in the Chicago suburbs. I suppose the stores adjust their marketing to their locale. My locale is apparently Mexican. Other Anglo's show up with me to shop there, mostly older folks and working class folks; price conscious shoppers. I fit in both those groups. Maybe because they don't advertize prices are lower. But that's only part of the appeal.

I do like the Mexican music on the PA system, it's not too loud and kind of energizing. I especially like the produce, diverse and wholesome and reasonably priced...including a lot of things I don't recognise. I enjoy the meat counter - No salmon or scrod there - Tilapia for 1.19 lb., not frozen fillets - the actual fish.
And all the thin sliced beef steaks with different names. Sometimes I'm going to ask the butcher to tell me what makes them different. No live stock heads, no little eyes looking at you (except thge talapia), but some internal organs and feet (and the ubiquitous tongues). My friend Augie last year about Thanksgiving time told me he was indifferent to turkey, but he was looking forward to tongue for dinner. I guess you kind of peel off the tonguey stuff. The item I really didn't get was the turkey tails. Yep, turkey tails. Gotta be for soup, right?

But the selection in not limited. I can get Pilsner Urquel beer and Janett can spend as much as any sane person would on a bottle of olive oil. Oh and speaking of Janett, she was most amused by the sign by the open display case that read, "Customers, please don't eat the pig skins."

See you there!