I needed to put in a creative title. So really things feel good right now. Tomorrow I am going out for coffee. Hopefully other people I know will too.

I am so lazy sometimes, I don't go shopping even though I really need to. The only things I am going to buy this time is eggs, bread, and cheese. Ahh...the essentials.

In general people who think they are smart, are really stupid.

Here are my thoughts on immigration. If we treated every criminal like we treat illegal immigrants, think of the chaos this country would be in.

Anyways tomorrow I am going to try and get completely wasted on caffine. Yum.

Plain View #39 4/5/06

Kaleidoscope

Will and Maly's new blog

fortnight

Off the Map

Bed wetting alarms

The Kurths

N.T. Wright

Burning Car (not the same story, but almost as good)

Ramblin' Educat inspired rant

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One of the things that I looked foward to when I decided to go to grad school at the University of Colorado was the opportunity to see speakers and the like that don't typically frequent places like Truman. And, honestly, we haven't taken advantage of it. But, two Wednesdays ago, we sacrificed watching LOST to go see Paul Rusesabagina speak. If you don't know, this is the man on which the movie Hotel Rwanda is based.

To hear the man describe what was happening in Rwanda, what he lived through, is quite different than watching a movie - something about watching a Hollywood production keeps you removed from reality. He talked about people being buried by Caterpillars (the heavy machinery). He spoke of walking streets lined with bodies decapitated and/or disemboweled. And he repeated several times that the situation had become so desperate that people came to accept impending death as inevitable. Rwandans spoke of a "better death", one that came with a bullet in the head as opposed to being killed by machete.

He talked about how the international community, as he put it, "threw their hands up" and left. After more than a decade you could still hear his frustration and desperation. Who would help them?

He addressed what others call his heroism and matter-of-factly said that he was just put in a situation. April didn't roll around with him saying, "I think I'll save about 1,000 people from certain death this month." He was in a crisis and just acted because he didn't want to see his neighbors, friends, and family brutally murdered.

Mr. Rusesabagina didn't speak for long - the talk and Q&A took about 90 minutes - but it was engaging. It made you take stock of your lot in life and makes you thankful.

Dollared this one in a theater full of families last Friday afternoon. Once I just reconciled myself to the idea that they weren't going to be quiet, I had a great little time watching this movie.

The story revolves a motherless family. The father can't afford to keep the family together on his own, so he is relying on an evil old aunt to give him a montly allowance. The aunt threatens to take away the allowance if the father doesn't remarry in a month because the kids are so rowdy. The kids keep scaring away nannies and potential mothers without knowing about the trouble their father is in, until Nanny McPhee comes to the rescue and changes them all.

Nanny McPhee is by no means the ultimate children's movie. Everyone has a British accent, which makes things harder for riled up American kids to follow, and it just has a different sense of humor overall. It's got sometimes heinously bright colors and overexaggerated costumes and sets as well. But somehow it still managed to win me over.

The movie isn't so much about Nanny McPhee as it is about the family she nannies for. Her role is actually a small one, and she only needs to use her magical staff seven times to teach the family her lessons - to listen, to go to bed when told, to get up and get dressed when told, and to say thank you.

It was a very offbeat fairy tale, butI thought Colin Firth's sincere performance as the troubled father and Thomas Sangster's role as the eldest boy really pulled it all together. By the way, I like this little boy, Sangster. He was Liam Neeson's motherless son in Love Actually as well, and I really really liked him in both movies. Kelly Macdonald, as well, gives a pleasant performance as Evangeline the servant girl.

I had a good time. I'm not sure all kids or all adults will enjoy it, but it struck the right chord with me.