pinkasphalt

Every situation is different, but in general I have never been a big believer in geographical solutions to life’s problems. I read a blog post today, which linked to a charming print on Etsy with a great quote to this effect:

A friend reminded me that a) I have a blog, and b) said blog contained no mention of my Lily. My friend is right on both counts so World, meet Lily Maria Alejandra.

Named in honor of her grandmother with a tip of that hat to her mother and to her aunt and to one of the best men I know.

After two boys, I never thought I would have a girl. And yet here she is! I have so much to tell her as she grows and discovers the world around her. But for now, let’s start with this:

I wish you could all know this kid like I do, because he is sunshine in bottle.

The other day I created a profile with Reuters photo service to see the price of a photo we were interested in using for work.  We ended up not using the photo, but since then I keep getting these picture of the day type emails, which I would rather not get.  Easy, right? Just unsubscribe. Sadly, not so easy. Below is my journey to date to try and stop receiving these emails. Sigh.

1. Looked for unsubscribe instructions on emails. There are none.
2. Logged into my profile on Reuters website. Made sure the boxes for receiving marketing material were unticked and saved my profile. Still received messages.
3. Went back to profile. As per instructions on My Profile page, sent email to XXX@reuters.com with “no marketing” in subject line.
4. Received an email asking me to resubmit my message using an online contact form.
5. Went to contact form and got page saying Reuters Account Administration system does not support my browser of choice.
6. Opened IE and went to the contact form again.
7. Got page that said “The ‘Contact Us’ page has moved. Please click here to access the new page.”
8. Filled in the form and sent in my request, but with no real hope that this action would have the desired outcome.
9. Sure enough, received response saying that recipient of my message cannot help me as he works in Financial support and they have no idea how to unsubscribe me from these services.  He suggests I call Reuters headquarters in Paris. One guess how that phone call would go. Sigh.
10. Try to close my account on Reuters website. No apparent way to do this.
11. Decide to write this blog post as stress-management. Still receiving Reuters emails.

I am watching Constantine for the umpteenth time while I obsessively research tents (because I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t obsessively researching something). The plot is not the strongest, but I love the look of this movie and I think some of the casting and acting is brilliant: Tilda Swinton as Gabriel, Gavin Rossdale as Balthazar the demon, Peter Stormare as Satan. What is perhaps more surprising though, is that Keanu Reeves doesn’t suck, in fact he is pretty good. Most surprising of all is that Shia LaBeouf is not so annoying that I am forced to turn the movie off.

I think this is one of my favorite comic-book to movie adaptations. I just wished they showed Constantine on TV more often, instead of X-men and The Fantastic Four (cough)shit movie(cough), which seem to be on endless rotation lately. Alright, must continue reading tent reviews. Anyone have any strong opinions about canvas tents? Don’t all answer at once, OK

P.S. The third episode of the new season of Doctor Who was great! And although the new Doctor is not really my type, Amelia Pond is definitely the bees knees.

My husband has told me the story of that night in July behind the Black Dog approximately 1 gazillion times. Please reveal yourself and end everyone’s suffering. Think of the children.

Tonight we watched the first episode of Treme. I have to admit that after The Wire, I have pretty high expectations for this show. Although it is too soon to say if Treme will manage to reach the heights The Wire achieved, I feel optimistic after episode one.

There are some great actors, including John Goodman and Steve Zahn, as well as a few favorites from the Wire: the actors that played Bunk Moreland and Lester Freamon. The characters so far are teasingly tantalizing. They reveal glimpses of themselves in this first episode and promise fascinating stories to come. The music of New Orleans is another character that you look forward to getting to know better as the story unfolds. And of course the city of New Orleans is a constant character, destroyed and yet at times still majestic.

There is a great Elvis Costello cameo where a music geek is standing next to him in a bar. The geek wants to chat but is trying to be cool and not surprisingly ends up looking like a dork. You want to laugh but then you wonder if you would be any cooler if you found yourself in a bar standing next to one of your musical heroes.

To me The Wire was largely about emotions and about the human condition. Treme looks like it might be the same. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that even though this is David Simon, what predominates so far seems to be hope and the endurance of the human spirit.  I love stories about hope, and endurance is just one of the many faces of stubbornness, which is a specialty of mine. All that to say, I think I’m going to like watching this story unfold.

Jus’ opinion is more succinct than mine: “I like it. I like anything with the whore from Deadwood. Plus it’s got Bunk. And John Goodman; he was in the Big Lebowski, he was friends with the Dude. Also, he was in Raising Arizona.”

So there you go: two thumbs up from us for episode one.

Here are a few favorite bits of dialogue I typed while watching. They might not be word-for-word perfect, but the essence is there.

- That’s because the media, and no offense but you are one of the worst offenders, likes a simple truth that they and their viewers can get their simple minds around.

- This is not a natural disaster, this is a man-made fucking catastrophe of epic proportions.

- You telling me all you want to do is get high, barbecue and play trumpet in fucking New Orleans your whole damn life?
- That’ll work.

- You’re doing this [for me] because …. I dated your sister for three months.
- My sister says you’re an asshole.
- Oh yeah, I can see how she might say that.

- [After stealing some CDs] Justice aside, this shit is karmatically mine, cause mine got stolen from my car. (Note: I plan to use this from now on, as I go around taking possession of shit that is karmatically mine.)