African Film Festival

Last night on the Oscars, there were a few movie referenced (denoted by an "*" below) that made me think how "fun" it would be to have a film festival of films set in Africa. There are a few movies that I would love to have an African Film Festival on. Just movies that prominantly feature Africa in some way.

Lawrence of Arabia
The Sheltering Sky
The English Patient
The Constant Gardener*
Hotel Rwanda
The Last King of Scotland*
The African Queen
Out of Africa
Blood Diamond*
Babel*
I Dreamed of Africa (silly but not bad)
Cry Freedom
Black Hawk Down
Casablanca

Feels like there's something I'm missing but oh well. I just saw Out of Africa and Casablanca this weekend. I didn't sit down to watch patiently because I've seen them before. It's not surprising, every spring (and sorry Yanks, it's very "spring" here in Florida this week!) all I can think about is going abroad and getting to sub-saharan Africa.

It's going to rain today and I got a free ticket to see Harry Connick. I'm not sure if I'll go but I'm planning on it for now.

Floridiocy Continued

From our Correspondent in the Field, I received word this week that another idiot case involving a Floridiot has surface in the national media. Apparently a principal of (yes, a principal) of a middle school in Tampa purchased crack from an undercover officer. But that's not the story. In placing the order, he requested it to be delivered to his place of work. Which, naturally, is...the middle school.

Yesterday I had an interesting encounter with a tourist in the Target parking lot. I could make this a long drawn out affair to recount in detail but... well, why not.

I purchased, yesterday, a set of wire cubes and a footlocker of sorts. When I got to my car, I realized the back was full of coats that need to be re-buttoned at the tailor's so I had to do some maneuvering to get my clunky purchases in. A few minutes into this ordeal, I noticed that there was another vehicle idling nearby - waiting for my parking spot. I thought I ought to hurry up at first but then I noticed that kiddie-corner from me was another parking space. Let me illustrate and then I shall explain.




As you can see from this illustration*, the open parking space was technically closer to the doors of the store (the dotted line plots out the actual walking distance). My parking space - the "Potential" parking space appeared closer because it was one slot closer to the building itself.

This guy - ever so attractive in his navy blue oversized wife beater, black salt & pepper hair on his very, very pale white chest and unpleasantly plump physique was actually waiting for a perceived "better" spot. Praps he could have used a bit of sun and a walk but who am I to judge?

So what did I do? I took my sweet time. I worked on my trunk, then I decided to apply some Armor All love on my dashboard. I plugged in my iPod to the transmitter, checked email on the 'Berry.. Eventually traffic came behind him so he moved and drove AROUND the set of parking spaces as diagrammed on the left handside of my illustration and re-queued himself AGAIN waiting for me. The traffic that had piled up was trying to exit up to the store and to the right so they did not use the open parking spaces.

By the time I left, he pulled into my spot.

AIGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. What is WRONG with people?!?!!

On a happier note - the part of the Oprah special with Sidney Poitier that I forgot to explicitly mention but was THE best part was Jamie Foxx got on a grand piano - on the stage where Sidney received his Oscar years and years and years past - and sang to him, "Amen" from Lilies of the Field. Beautiful. Just beautiful. I burned it onto DVD.

*Yes, I know this begs the obvious question: "where does she find the time to do this crap?" The answer is I'm a quick hand with Visio and it amuses me. So nerr.

Moved

At the risk of propelling the myth that my favorite show on TV is Oprah, I have to say that last night's Oscar special was unfortunately pretty cornball up until the end.

The Julia Roberts and George Clooney interview should have been hysterical, particularly with Brad Pitt calling in. But it was clumsy and exclusionary. It was like watching the head cheerleader and quarterback vamp for anyone who is watching their explosive coolness. The attitude was, "Lets see how the world's most beautiful people giggle and self-congratulate."

It got better with Nicole Kidman and Russell Terrier err.. Crowe. But it was still awkward, like watching two ex-nerds scuffle their feet and poorly pretend to not have a crush on the other. For being good friends and Aussies, I thought they were extraordinarily repressed which Nicole alluded to in the fact they are both extremely ticklish.

I don't know what's wrong with my brain and Hollywood compass then that I though the Jamie Foxx and Sidney Poitier interview would be not even worth investing another 20 minutes in. Honestly, the producers should have sacked the 40 minutes of High School Musical that took place before and just had these two. Both actors are extremely soulful and I don't say that to mean "extremely black" - but there's an obvious kindred spirit between the two that is tangible. And more to that, it was amazing to watch two Hollywood figures - one a legend, the other a padawan and see them honorably and humbly accept the context of their success. I liked what Sidney said as well, that the measure of a man is in how he treats/raises his children. How true is that especially in this day and age where so many men view their children as an optional, negotiable add-on in their lives. There are too many single mom's out there and too many biological fathers. I've learned this in my own life by witness or by experience that men have the natural ability to walk away. Women certainly do walk away as well, but not without some extreme social penalty. Men walk away and he's normal. But I have to believe there is something biological or instinctual that permits a man to say it's OK to see your kid once a week or four times a year. Maybe that's me being extraordinarily judgemental (based on overwhelming circumstance) but I think it's so common it must be by human design.

They showed clips of "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" - which is one of my all time favorite movies. And I realized the reason I love that movie and enjoy Sidney Poitier as an actor and as a person to respect, is because his movies have a quality that I can only describe as "hand made" in his performance. How can an actor be so much of his own person yet create a unique and magnificent character? I know I love that movie because it takes all the issues, woes and cranks of society and compresses it into a family dynamic.

Anyway, that's that. Good show.

God BLESS! (aka, WTF, Florida?)

I have been wanting to post for several days now but I've been inundated with friends and family from up north escaping the frigid single digits (that's single Farenheit for you foreigners) for Florida's slightly chilled 50/60 degree weather.

But I'm glad I didn't because otherwise I could not come up with this small omnibus of crackpot issues that esssentially tie back to the state of Florida. Which makes me wonder, what kind of freak-magnet is the state of Florida anyway? Lets looks what's just happened since I've posted:

1. El Nino, which is affecting the whole of North America, give the middle finger to Florida as it incites killer tornadoes literally shredding the St. Johns portion of the I-4 corridor to shreds to an extent it was reported on nationally and internationally.
2. The Bears lose the Superbowl to the Indianapolis Colts, held in Miami. The Bears cannot seem to win in Miami ever.
   
3. Anna Nicole Smith's bizarre and psychotic life ends in Florida despite having her freak on everywhere else, she's got to bring her side show here
4. A (nother) Disney employee is arrested for doing something illegal involving children. Again.
5. Lisa Nowak, a relatively unknown NASA astronaut decides to relocate herself from Houston wearing an adult diaper* and drive to..yep, "The Freak Magnet State" to "talk" to a PAFB officer utilizing pepper spray, rubber tubing, a hammer, a 4 inch knife, rubber gloves and lover letters.
   

That's just the last week.

Never mind what has gone on in this state historically from record and repeated hurricanes, the "Hanging Chad" issue, a state ruling affected a presidential election where the Governer is the brother of the presidential candidate, the Elian Gonzalez affair, the Terri Schiavo case bringing the hottest Right To Life debate ever... there are plenty more but that's just what comes to mind. I know I think every week when I watch the news that Florida constantly is finding itself knee deep in some bizarre and/or sick controversy making us look like the Drama Queen State or summat. And with the weather (this year we've had hurricanes, tropical storms, an earthquake, killer tornadoes and snow), it would appear that we are Mother Nature's chew toy in addition to being an idiot magnet. Which might explain why so many people get bit by sharks and alligators here, as well.

*It's not that weird for an astronaut to do that, is it? I mean, they are used to defecating into things other than toliets for long periods of time so I would think she'd think nothing of being confined in a car for 10 hours and just doing her biological thang right into a receptacle attached to her...

Back from Holiday

Well today is the last day of my holiday before going back to work. The house is almost done, still a good 5-6 hours of work left but I'm very pleased with the progress. My goal to return to work with a clean and organized house in my wake is nearly there. There are some concessions I'm making - like the kitchen. That's always going to ebb and flow in it's organization since I use it so much.

But it's been a great, eventful time. J's family was here and we had a great time in and around O-Town (so stupid a nickname). I took gobs of short videos and gobs of pictures. Pictures are going up on Flickr and videos are going up on a webpage (of which my techie friends will probably think is about as lame ass as one can conceive) but that will be a project for later on. House comes first!

But of all the pictures taken this week, this is my absolute favorite.



It was taken at Blue Springs State Park which is a natural manatee refuge. I stress natural because the manatees are not relocated there but migrate there. It's a natural warm spring that sits at 72 degrees year round. The manatees go there in the winter because they prefer the warmer waters, naturally. The St Johns River can get pretty cold as it starts up in Jacksonville (at least) and it gets ccccold in Orlando. They are safer there as well as when they are in the springs, there are no motor boats and no real threat (except alligators though I'm not sure if alligators will try to eat a manatee..they don't look like good eating). It's amazing to see SO many of an endangered species in one area and in the wild. It's not exactly the wild though, I still say the most incredible was finding them in a little offshoot canal in Brevard County's Banana River. That was amazing because that is not a refuge but the true wild - but that was some 20 years ago.

Speaking of the rivers, we also went to Kennedy Space Center and driving over the causeway to Merritt Island/Cape Kennedy we saw TONS of porpoises. That was so beautiful as it was early morning, the sun was shining and they were rolling around and playing in the water. I'm not sure if I have ever seen that before. KSC was great as always. I took a video fo me walking the length of a Saturn V rocket. It took - at an accelerated walking pace - 1 minute and 21 seconds for me to walk almost the length of it (I had to stop right about 20-40 feet because of a barrier). People who know me know I do not walk slow (maybe slower than I did when I was an urbanite) and have a fairly long stride for a gurl. But, that was amazing.

Disney was very strange and perfect at the same time. NO crowds at all. We really didn't wait for anything at all. In fact, the characters (da Mickey included) was beckoning us in to take pictures, Aladdin walked around Morocco with us.. Very strange. It was a nice trip and everyone had a good time. But I'm not sure everything was even-steven between R and A so I have lost some sleep over that ;-D

Well back to my 5-6 hours of housework.