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March 31 movie: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Why, when we have so many good movies on the DVR and from Netflix just waiting to be viewed, did we sit through this? I loved Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic. Which should have been reason enough to avoid this crap fest. But no, I had to see for myself if it was any good. Well, it wasn't! Now you know.

Georg said he thought it might work better if you didn't know the comic existed. I don't know about that. I can't imagine the movie would have been interesting to people who aren't already at least somewhat familiar with the characters. But people who have the teeny tiniest bit of knowledge of 19th century literature would have to be put off by the ultra-lame exposition from Mina Harker, Dorian Grey and Allan Quartermain, each in turn explaining who they are. Couldn't they have worked the backstories into the movie somehow? Did we have to see Dorian Grey stop the action and give a speech that began with "There's this painting, see..." Does any movie viewer like that kind of condescension? I sure don't.

I could have forgiven the near total departure from the comic, if it had provided an entertaining story in its own right. But instead we got a jumbled mess. All I can say is, now I understand why Moore calls making movies of his work "butchering [his] children."

March 30 movie: Rollerball. I like dystopian sf stories as well as anyone, and probably more than most (heck, I liked Omega Man), and I had heard of Rollerball as an excellent example of the genre. But actually it was a boring, plodding, "tell don't show" sports movie. On roller skates. It made Soylent Green look like classic entertainment. I'm not crazy about sports movies under the best of circumstances, but this was atrocious.

The only bright spots were 1. trying to determine what or who James Caan's mumbling Texas accent reminded me of (never did figure it out), 2. laughing at the "best friend" character, whose cheesy moustache made him look like the old Brawny man, 3. imagining John Houseman saying "They make money the old fashioned way: they earn it" every time he opened his mouth.

Interesting trivia note: According to Robert Osbourne (and by the way, what the hell was this movie doing on TCM? The C stands for "Classic," not "Crappy") the cautionary message about violence in sports was so completely lost on movie audiences that a group of investors actually approached director Norman Jewison about setting up a real Rollerball league. Yikes.

March 28 movie: Peking Opera Blues. Georg, Lisa and I saw this on Duke campus Sunday night. Georg and I had rented it years ago, but the subtitles were totally illegible -- the screen had been cropped, so we could see the subtitles in Mandarin, but only the very tops of the letters in English. It says something about the movie's (dare I say it?) operatic quality that I enjoyed it even though I had no idea what the heck was going on. Ever since then I've wanted to see it again with legible subtitles. This time the subtitles were very poorly written, sometimes nonsensical, but at least we could read them.

The movie was great! Completely lived up to my expectations. The only scenes I really remembered from the first time were the very end, and the hilarious scene early on where two women end up on stage at the opera house in the same costume, and the co-star is trying to find out why there are two Wu's tonight, but they all stay in character, singing and performing acrobatics while arguing it out. My favorite line from the scene is when one of the women forces the other one into a split and she sings "Ouch! That's difficult!" while the supporting cast lift her up, still in the split, and carry her off stage.

There was a lot of drag -- not only the opera company, who of course are all male actors, but also Brigitte Lin's character dresses like an Edwardian dandy, and may I say she looks damn sexy in men's clothes -- and I wondered if that was at all shocking when the movie was made.

We ran into Marty from the station and his fiance Robin before the show, and afterwards Marty commented that he had enjoyed the fantasy fighting style. Which amused me because I had been thinking that the fighting was more realistic than I had expected! There was less wire work than you often get in later HK action movies -- for example The Bride with White Hair, also featuring Brigitte Lin (alas, no men's clothes), is full of flying.

March 28 movie: Unzipped. I know, I know, I already saw this recently. What can I say, I'm lame! I was flipping channels and it was just starting, and I was only going to watch for a minute or two but then Eartha Kitt came on and purred "Are you going to make me gowns?" and then Isaac, imitating her, also purred "Are you going to make me gowns?" and I was hooked. Had to watch the whole thing.

I don't think I mentioned this before but the music in this movie is wonderful too. Really captures Isaac's sense of camp and joy and fun. I ended up playing "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" by Jimmy Somerville of Bronski Beat on my show the next day. Which, unfortunately, was not the same artist as from the movie (the credits were really hard to read, I couldn't tell) but was the right song, so I guess that was close enough.

Sylvia called during the song and asked me if RPM was the new disco. I said "No way, it's the old disco!" She came by the station at the end of my show and we ended up hanging out most of the evening. She showed me some cool scores she'd made recently in vintage patterns and fabric and records.

March 26 movie: Captain Blood. It's turning into Swashbuckler Weekend for us! This pirate movie was Errol Flynn's breakout hit and has a lot in common with probably his greatest film, The Adventures of Robin Hood: he leads a band of British patriots who are forced into lawlessness by an unworthy king, Olivia de Havilland plays his love interest, and Basil Rathbone plays his swordfighting nemesis. (The only thing missing is Alan Hale as one of the merry men, er, I mean the pirates.)

Basil Rathbone looked so young! He and Flynn both did, but it's most striking on Rathbone who plays Captain Levasseur, a rival pirate captain. After seeing him as the stiff, somewhat prissy nobleman villain in so many movies, it was nice for him to get the chance to loosen up a bit and play a raunchy pirate. He gets to leer a lot and talk with an exaggerated "Pepe le Pew" French accent and then get killed by Flynn when he tries to take advantage of Olivia de Havilland. Flynn, of course, being an upstanding pirate who won't stand for mistreatment of female prisoners.

We had a great time tossing off lines from Pirates of the Caribbean, for example when Flynn accuses Rathbone of violating the articles of their pirate agreement, Georg said "The pirate's code is really more of a guideline."

March 25 movie: The Mark of Zorro. I'm not that up on the whole Zorro mythos, so I don't know how well this movie fits in. Come to think of it, I don't even know where Zorro comes from. Is it a folk legend, like the Mexican Robin Hood? Or just an adventure story that has been used for movies lots of times?

In any case this wonderful swashbuckler stars Tyrone Power as Zorro and Basil Rathbone as his nemesis. Power's Zorro trained as a swordsman in Spain, earning the title "The California Cockerel," which, as double entendres go, is almost as good as "The Gay Blade." Back in California, Zorro decides that the best way to throw off suspicion is to convince everyone that he's a useless "Scarlet Pimpernel" style dandy. So he spends the entire movie doing magic tricks, fanning himself with a lace hankie, and mincing around in extremely tight pants.

Also stars Eugene Pallette, reprising his Friar Tuck role from The Adventures of Robin Hood as Fray Felipe, a warrior monk who wades through fight scenes clubbing people on the head and muttering "God forgive me!" after every clonk. The only thing that would have made it better is Alan Hale among the merry men, er, I mean the caballeros.

Yesterday I went to the Titanic exhibit with my friend Patricia. The exhibit was really fun. They have corridors and staterooms set up to look like first class, second class and steerage, lots of salvaged objects that belonged to passengers, fixtures and tools from the ship, and testimony from survivors on the audio tour. I was amazed by some of the salvage: postcards, playing cards and clothing! I didn't realize paper and cloth would survive 70 years in the ocean. The room about the sinking even has an "iceberg" that you can touch! A block of ice about 6 feet high and the length of the room.

There was a big model of the ship in the first room, and I confess I couldn't resist holding up my finger right next to the prow of the ship and squeaking "I'm king of the world!" Thankfully, there were no actual clips from the movie in the exhibit. Although they were selling copies of that big diamond necklace in the gift shop, as well as DVDs of the recent movie and an older one, also called Titanic, starring Barbara Stanwyck. I thought I had seen a really good older movie about the Titanic called The Longest Night, but I just looked it up on imdb.cm and that's something else entirely. So maybe the Barbara Stanwyck movie was the one I saw.

Instead of tickets you get a boarding pass with the name of an actual passenger on the back. At the very end is a list of everyone on the ship so you can find out whether your passenger survived. (The big wall chart of survivors also included the crew, which allowed you to compare the survival rates of first class, second class, steerage and crew. But I think the tickets all had the names of passengers.)

My card had Mrs. Samuel Herman, a second-class passenger from Somerset traveling with her entire family to visit her brother in New Jersey. She and her two daughters survived, but her husband and son died. Patricia's card had a first class passenger (I forget the name) who also lived. I wondered if everyone on the tickets survived, but then I heard some kids say their people had died.

The exhibit is at the Natural History Museum in Raleigh. I'd never been inside before, it was really interesting! They had displays of plants and animals native to NC (fun with taxidermy!), plus whale skeletons and lots of dinosaur bones too. They have the only known dinosaur heart! It's an iron deposit inside the chest cavity of a dinosaur skeleton. I guess the iron must be from the dinosaur's blood. The best part is, that dinosaur is named "Willo." Aww!

We had lunch at Cafe Luna, which was yum. I had a crab salad. It was simple -- just greens piled with fresh crabmeat and vinaigrette -- but really good and pretty filling. I was pretty tired by the end of the day (not just from the museum, but also because we couldn't remember which parking deck we were in and walked up to the 5th floor of the wrong one, then walked up to the 5th floor of the right one).

March 23 movie: The Women. I love this movie! Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford star in an all-female film about gossiping society women who get a lot of divorces. So much fun and such great clothes! I heard Isaac Mizrahi did the costumes when they revived it on Broadway recently. The ensemble also includes Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard, and Mary Boland. The "all female cast" thing is handled pretty well; the first time I saw the movie I didn't even notice the absence of Y chromosomes until halfway through. There are only a couple of scenes where the lack of male cast is a little awkward. Mostly they handle it by having the scenes in places that only women would go to, like a beauty parlor or a fashion show.

The only disappointment of the movie is Virginia Weidler as Shearer's daughter. She was terrific as the little sister in The Philadelphia Story ("it was pret-ty roo-ty too-ty!") but cloying and whiny here. I wonder what happened to her? I looked her up in imdb.com and her last movie was in 1943. I guess she never made the transition from child actor to grownup roles.

I'm not so sure about this pair. They were a gift and they're a bit Raggedy Ann for my taste. They've never been worn so I might be able to give them to a good home.

And with that, the tights project is done! 24 pairs in all. It would have been more if I hadn't culled out some of the really grungy pairs a week or two before starting this. I think next time I have an idea like this, I'm going to take the photos a bunch at a time and then post them day by day. Trying to find time to dress up and take a photo every day was not working, especially by the end of the month when my work schedule got so busy.

This pair are really cool, but alas they have a humongous run down one leg. You can't really see it in the photo but believe me, it's huge. I think I'm going to have to regretfully toss these as well. Lina and Thirteen both made it into the background of this photo. They're eating dinner, except Thirteen saw the flash and came out to see what I was doing. She eats behind the dining room table because she feels safe back there. It's sort of her hiding place.

We finish up with some fun stripey pairs. I must have forgotten I had these black and white striped ones. Or maybe I never wear them because every outfit they go with, also goes with the checkerboard tights which are more unusual. But there's plenty of room in my tights collection for both.

Four days behind on the tights project! Not a very auspicious way to end the thing. Well, at least by getting caught up now, I'm still finishing on the correct day.

This grey pair hardly ever get worn because they're a lot like the green ones from day 18: I don't much like the ribbing anymore, the color doesn't go with any of my clothes, and they're full of holes. Into the trash they go.

Considering that I like reality shows and love fashion, is anyone surprised that I've been watching "America's Next Top Model"? I suppose I should call it a guilty pleasure, but I try not to have guilt about any of my pleasures. Last night was the season finale. And it was great! The girl I liked least (Shandi) was ejected halfway through the episode, and the one I was rooting for (Yoanna) won.

Yoanna was my favorite because we have so much in common. She lost over 50 pounds last year, and I did too. She adores fashion; I do too. "Fashiontrance" is her favorite show; I watch that show too. She's kind of bitchy and makes fun of people who annoy her, and hey, I'm kind of bitchy too! The other girls thought she was a snob because she used big words and overenunciated; I use big words too! She's 5'11" with flawless skin and a strikingly beautiful face, and I'm ... wait. Damn.

Okay, so maybe we don't have that much in common. Still, seeing her "before" and "after" photos made me feel in some silly way like, if I were only 10 inches taller and lost enough more weight to become an anorexic freak, I could be America's next top model too!

I was glad to see Yoanna win but I'm bummed about the show being over. In some ways it's the best reality show out there. (The only thing wrong with it, I think, is that Georg won't watch it so we can't snark together like we do with Survivor.) OK, so the show was full of everything that's wrong with the fashion industry -- for instance, even after getting down to a size 2 just so she could be on the show, Yoanna took all kinds of crap for being too fat for a model. (She's the one on the left in this photo.) But that's the beauty of the show: all the fucked up craziness of fashion, plus reality TV craziness, plus great clothes!

I'm trying to decide what was the best moment of the series. It was either the runway lessons from the drag queens (one of whom called Tyra Banks' walk a "symphony," way to suck up!), the bizarre acting class where they all ended up staring at blank pieces of paper and crying hysterically, fashion designers Dean and Dan Caten hitting their fists together and saying "Wonder Twin Powers," or the hot tub orgy scene with the hot Italian guys. Who the hell am I kidding? It was definitely the hot tub scene.

Slate.com did an article on the new Brawny man ad campaign. You might not have seen these ads if you don't watch much TV aimed at women -- they run all the time on ABC daytime -- but the ads feature a roll of paper towels with the old, 70's porn star Brawny man, and another roll with the new, sensitive-but-still-manly Brawny man. In each ad the new Brawny man does something sensitive (watch a soap opera, do yoga, sigh over a couple having a picnic in the park) and the old Brawny man scoffs at him. Slate wasn't that enamoured with the ads but I think they're hysterical.

As Georg pointed out, the Slate article committed a major omission by failing to mention "Chad Sexington," the "Burly paper towel" man that Marge fantasizes about on The Simpsons. I don't think the actual Brawny man had a name. Last time I bought paper towels they had both new and old packaging in the store. I confess I bought the one with 70s porn star Brawny man.

So our visit with Peggy and Chris was great. They lived here before, but moved to Texas in 2000. Peggy and I tried to go to Untidy Museum on Sunday, but they were closed! I felt awful about it, because I had been telling her what a fabulous store it was, and then we couldn't get in. There were people in there and I knocked on the window, hoping they'd let us at least look around since that was Peggy's only chance to see the place, but they wouldn't come to the door. I really should have checked their hours, but I know I went there on a Sunday a couple of months ago. Maybe they were open longer hours before the holiday?

After Untidy Museum we dropped in on our friend David, but he was taking a nap and his roommate wouldn't wake him up. I don't think she (the roommate) remembered Peggy, which was kind of a bummer. It sounded like she thought I had just brought some random person to meet him unannounced. I actually met David through Peggy. I bet he would have wanted to be woken so he could at least say hello to her.

By that point we were 0 for 2, so we went for a walk in the Duke Gardens. They have a gift shop now in the parking lot. Or possibly a gifte shoppe, I don't know because we didn't go in. There's also a little shop inside the gardens (near the gazebo) that sells sandwiches and drinks. I guess we spent a couple of hours walking around, it was really nice. Although the temperature dropped precipitously while we were there.

After that I dropped Peggy off at her hotel and went home to get dinner ready. It was Peggy, Chris, Chris' daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend Jim. Of the six of us, Peggy and I were the only ones who don't work for Whole Foods. But the rest did a good job of not talking shop too much so we didn't feel left out.

We talked a bit about plans for the big art car parade in May. Looks like we're going to leave a few days early and spend some time in Austin with Peggy and Chris. Then we'll head to Houston on Thursday and get there in time for the Art Car Ball that night. Peggy and Chris will join us on Friday, along with a couple of their neighbors who want to see the parade too. Peggy's been working on her costume (she walks alongside the car and gives little mermaids to kids along the parade route), which reminds me that I seriously need to get to work on the car. The decorations are badly in need of repair and embellishment.

I must say, this was possibly the lowest-stress dinner party I've ever had. The house was already in pretty decent shape, so while we did spend time the day before tidying up, it wasn't a frantic "clean everything in sight & hide all the junk" experience. (Which would never happen to me, I'm just speaking hypothetically of course!) Best of all we had planned a menu that could be almost entirely prepared in advance, so there wasn't much cooking to be done on Sunday evening.

Georg made his amazing beef short ribs. The process actually takes three days, but it's not as labor-intensive as some multi-day cooking projects (like Chinese pork buns for example, those are so much work I didn't even want them by the time I was done). The first day he browned the meat and prepared the marinade: cooked vegetables and a whole bottle of wine. Any recipe with a whole bottle of wine is OK by me! Anyway the marinade is poured over the browned meat and put in the fridge overnight. Day 2, strain out the marinade vegetables and add new vegetables. (same vegetables though: onion, carrot and celery.) The whole thing is baked for 3 hours, then degreased and put back in the fridge. Day 3, remove the bones -- some of them fell right out by this point -- and bake another 45 minutes. The recipe calls for straining the sauce but we like it better a little rustic, with the chunks of carrot and onion still in it.

The short ribs were the star of the meal, but we also made mashed cauliflower, roasted spring onions and sugar snap peas. The spring onions were so sweet! I'd never had them like that before, but oh man. My only regret of the meal was that we started the sugar snaps too soon & then had to keep them warm, so they weren't bright green and crisp like they should have been. Still tasted good. And the cauliflower is an old reliable dish. I put in a little horseradish so it wouldn't taste wimpy next to the short ribs. You couldn't really taste the horseradish but I think it gave it an extra oomph.

For dessert we had strawberry/rhubarb parfaits. Didn't really match the dinner, which was mostly food for cold weather, but I thought we'd want something light after all that hearty fare. I always use sherry instead of vanilla in the whipped cream, and also mix sour cream into the whipped cream, sort of a poor man's creme fraiche. This time I also put a little ginger and lemon juice in the fruit, which made it nice and tart. We had just gotten a microplane, and wow! It turned the ginger into a paste just like that. I'd heard before that a microplane is an essential kitchen tool, and I have to agree. I don't know how we got along without one before.

I've been seriously sleep deprived the past few days, but finally got a good night's sleep last night. I feel great! It's amazing how good it feels not to be tired. Time to catch up on my journal.

Yesterday was a busy but really good day. First I dropped off the final corrections on that 20 page brochure. I don't think I ever mentioned that the proofs had come back on that. Well, I'm really happy with it. But I might save the details for another post. But anyway they said that we'll have the finished brochure by the end of the week. Yay!

Next I had to go to the other printer to pick up the stationery. It looks great! Exactly what I wanted. That screened back logo, which was way too dark on the proofs, turned out just right on the finished piece. I knew 10% was the right percentage for that. And the logos are nice and smooth, that blockiness from the proofs is gone just like they said. What a relief!

After that I dropped an invoice in the mail for a small website I had done (yay!) then had to hurry to my lunch meeting at HKB. Which went pretty well, we're getting some loose ends tied up over there. Then off to the radio show. Which was a blast. I played louder & faster music than usual because I was trying to keep myself alert. If I had played lots of mellow RPM I might have ended up taking a nap under the board. Which would be bad because, have you ever looked under there? It's disgusting.

Once my show was done, off to the client's to drop off the stationery. Which they loved, as well they should. They had photos of their new house in Florida, which is very impressive. It's got this thing in the back which is basically like a huge screened porch except no roof, just more screen above. It lets them hang out outside all the time with no bugs. They called it a birdcage but I don't know what it's really called.

Best of all, I got home and my show had recorded! Finally I got that software working again. Georg made a simple dinner (roast chicken and leftover vegetables from Sunday night) and we relaxed and watched the wretched Reign of Fire. All in all, a great day.

Mar. 22 movie: Reign of Fire. Oh. My. God. That was the suckiest suck that ever sucked. Christian Bale, looking scarily pumped up, leads a ragtag post-apocalyptic community living in Northumberland and hiding from dragons, who now rule the world for some bizarre reason. Then Matthew McConaughey shows up, he's some kind of military guy, but really he's a steroid-inflated dickhead. He announces "I lead. You follow," then gets all of his own men and almost every adult in Bale's community killed. But since he's stronger, faster and better than everyone else, it's OK for him to be a jingoistic hotheaded bully with no respect for anyone but his own crew, whose decisions make their problems ten times worse. It was like American foreign policy with dragons. And we wonder why the rest of the world hates us!

As Georg said, we hope that Reign of Fire is the worst movie we see all year. McConaughey's is the only character in the entire movie with a personality, and his personality is revolting. Also, Dr. Bashir from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was in it, but he only has one or two lines and then he dies.

I'm a bit behind on the tights project -- and on posting in general -- because my good friends Peggy and Chris are in town for the weekend, and we're making dinner for them tonight. So we were tidying up and cooking most of the day yesterday & I'll be out with Peggy most of the day today.

Anyway. I used to wear these red tights a lot, but eventually I decided that with every outfit I would wear them, brown tights would actually look better. Also the waistband is shot so they don't stay up without the help of a second pair of underwear. Still, I'm not going to get rid of them. Red tights are a good thing to have.

Another pair that I bought at Century 21 in New York. They've got this unusual stripey pattern, and I'm surprised that I don't wear them more often. I think the problem is that a lot of my clothes are brown, and these tights don't go with brown. They would go with blue or purple, but I don't have any blue or purple clothes. (How very strange! Except for jeans and a couple of old sleep shirts, I don't have any blue clothes, and nothing at all in purple. Ten years ago almost everything I owned was blue and purple.) So the only thing I have to wear them with is black, and I've been more into the monochromatic thing lately, so have been wearing black tights with my black clothes. I should find something to wear with these tights. They deserve to be worn more often.

March 18 movie: Lost in Translation. I feel silly writing a review of a movie that everyone in the world besides me had already seen. So I'll just say that I enjoyed it as much as I expected to, which was a lot. The DVD did not have as many fun extras as I might have hoped, although they did have the whole scene of Bill Murray's character on the Japanese variety show.

I realize it's completely missing the point to try and figure out what Murray whispered to Johansson at the end, but I felt like I could hear it well enough to more or less puzzle out what he had said. Went online and discovered many people who insisted they heard him perfectly clearly (either by turning up the volume or reading lips or whatever). Each of them heard something totally different (none of which matched what I thought I heard). I'm pretty sure that means I did not hear him at all. Which makes me feel much better about the ending.

I have no idea why this pair are still in my closet. The color is yucky and I don't like the ribbed pattern. I'm going to get rid of them now that they've been photographed.

The nice thing about this tights project is that it's making me take out every pair of tights and put them on and, in several cases, decide that I don't want to keep them. I had already culled out the really ratty pairs, but several more are going to go as I work my way through the rest. More room for new tights!

This is a first for the tights project; a pair I've never worn. I got these at Century 21 in New York as a future replacement for my chartreuse tights when they wear out. The color isn't exactly the same (the current pair are a yellowy green, more like the tablecloth in this photo) but they'll do if I don't find anything exactly the same.

overheard today in Target, conversation between a couple with separate shopping carts:

she: I've got my phone, we can call each other when we're ready.

he: I don't have my phone.

she: Oh. Okay.

he: That's even better.

The mechanics fixed my cruise control. Turns out some wiring had been chewed through. Squirrels are the likely culprit. Jeff (the mechanic guy) said there's nothing I can do to stop it from happening again. I guess I could hang a squirrel feeder far away from my car.

They couldn't find anything wrong with the turn signal or seatbelt, and no drain on the battery. Jeff suggested coating the terminal with Vaseline to prevent corrosion. That's why it wouldn't start yesterday. The connectors were so corroded the current couldn't get through.

I have a confession to make: I'm starting to get tired of the tights project. Some days I am just in no mood to get dressed up and take a photo of my legs. I've already done the tights that I like to wear; now I'm down to the ones that hang on in my closet for some obscure reason. Well, at least I only have 8 pairs to go after this one.

Anyway, today's pair of tights. These were a gift many years ago. I think I've only worn them once. They're cute, but they don't really go with my clothes and they don't stay up very well. Still, I can't get rid of them because they're in perfect condition. Because I never wear them. It's one of those vicious things.

I think the writing on the tights says "peace." You'd think I would know that, having studied two years of college level Mandarin. Well it was a long time ago, cut me some slack. I can barely remember how to write my own name at this point.

Note Thirteen in the background of the photo. She looks vaguely disturbed, like she's trying to figure out whether I'm going to do something that will require her to get up and hide. Life is difficult when you are a dog whose laziness is only matched by your neuroses.

Got my hair cut today. It was great! David Sutton is the best hairdresser ever. No wonder it's so hard to get an appointment. (I always schedule my next cut as I'm paying for the current one, and even 7 weeks out he's starting to book up already.) I took a bunch of vintage pattern envelopes to show him the styles I liked. He said he wanted to give me a style more like Goldie Hawn (he'd just seen her in a 60s movie) because her hair was mod but not totally straight.

I really, really love the cut. It's exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, it was rainy today and by the time I got home, my bangs had already started to curl up. Good thing we were able to take that photo in the salon. (yay for the camera phone!) I have my doubts that it will ever look this good again. I'm just not that good with a round brush. Even if I never get it to look like that again, at least I had a few hours of perfect hair. Now I know why people have their hairdresser style their hair on the day of a big event.

I tried to take David's photo too, but he adamently refused. Said he hates having his picture taken. I didn't press -- I know all too well how he feels -- but as it turns out he's in the background of the photo I took in the mirror. Don't tell him I posted it online! (and by the way, can you believe that photo was taken with a phone? This camera phone is amazing!)

Here's a new one: woke up this morning to discover I had been visited by a comment spammer who forgot to include the URL. Um, what exactly is the point? I guess I ought to go ahead and MT-Blacklist them, but for now I'm so amused I'm going to leave it be. If they manage to comment spam me with their URL, I can always blacklist them later.

I love this show on the Style network called "Fashiontrance." It's a series of runway shows, three or four in every show, with little editing and no narration. Just music and a series of little factoids at the bottom of the screen. They don't run the show all the time, just at the begining of each season. This past week they've been showing the Spring 2004 collections. Which, of course, came out last fall, but are hitting stores now.

Yesterday I saw one with the Bill Blass collection. Which featured one of the weirdest culture clashes I've seen in a fashion show. They had brought back a few retired supermodels from Blass' heyday (Karen Bjornson, Pat Cleveland, and Diane DeWitt). Now, if you don't follow fashion you may not know this, but the current style of runway walking is this weird, angular, jerky sort of stomp where the model lifts her knees really high, juts her hips, and crosses her feet while walking. It makes the models look like horses clomping along the catwalk.

The older models at this show (especially Pat Cleveland) were the polar opposite of this herky jerky style. They floated down the runway, lifting their arms to make twirly hand gestures, smiling and making eye contact with audience members. Mixed in with the younger models, all stomping and glaring straight ahead, the effect was bizarre. The older women looked so happy and engaged with the audience. While the younger women walked like, I don't know, like they were in a dark alley late at night, and the only way to get out of that alley alive was to walk like a bad-ass and not make eye contact ever.

The really cool part was when I remembered having heard a segment about this Bill Blass show on the radio last fall, and wishing at the time I could have seen it, because it sounded like such a crazy scene. And now I have! Thank you, Style network.

So the trip to the printer this morning was actually not the most stressful part of the day. That honor goes to my car breaking down on the way to my show. I was wearing my new shoes, see, and I almost never wear heels, so driving was a little uncomfortable. I was at a stoplight, and when the light turned green my foot slipped off the clutch and the car stalled out. And adamently refused to start again. At first it went "click click click," then nothing. The weird thing was, all the stuff that runs off battery -- radio, dash lights, etc -- was fine. It just wouldn't start.

Sigh. I called Triple A, called the station to tell Sarah R. I was going to be late, called Georg and asked him to post a sub request to the list. Contemplated my deep and abiding love for my new phone, without which I would have been screwed. Gratefully accepted the help of a kindly man who spoke no English and helped me push my car out of the middle of the road.

While I was pushing the car it occurred to me that I had brought this on myself by doing my nails yesterday, and wearing my nice new shoes today. I was just asking fate to get dirt under my fingernails and all over my shoes. It also occurred to me that worrying about my shoes at a time like that was pretty damn shallow. It was probably the closest I'll ever come to a Carrie Bradshaw moment. Figures that my "Sex and the City" moment involves pushing my car out of the street in the rain.

Triple A showed up really fast, jumped my car, and warned me that it probably wouldn't start again so I should go straight to the mechanic. But I didn't want to leave Sarah in the lurch so I went to the station instead. Where my show was about as together as you would expect. In other words, not very. CD3 wasn't working, which I discovered by trying to play a CD and discovering that no sound came out of it. It was just like one of those bad dreams I'm sure every DJ has had, where you keep pushing the button and nothing happens and you have nothing else cued up and the horrible silence gets longer and longer.

After the show my car, as predicted, would not start. Georg came by to give me a jump, but alas his battery wasn't in a giving mood. So I called Triple A again, who again came more quickly than expected. This guy cleaned up the terminals and told me I probably had a battery drain, maybe a short somewhere. I have been noticing some weird electrical problems: seatbelt sometimes goes up and down when it's not supposed to, cruise control no longer works, turn signal sometimes ticks extra fast. Things like that. So I dropped the car off at my mechanic. Great, electrical repairs. That's always simple and inexpensive! Well, I knew I was going to have to get the cruise control looked at eventually so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Most days I don't need my car, but tomorrow I have a hair appointment, and these appointments are nearly impossible to reschedule. So I'll have to drive Georg to work tomorrow so I can take his car.

And that, in a nutshell, was my day. Have I whined and complained enough yet? Things are much better now. I'm in my pjs, listening to my recording of Georg's awesome show from last Friday, writing in my diary, and enjoying the marvelous smell of the marvelous dinner Georg is making for me (carnitas! my favorite!). I think I'm going to go make some cocoa.

I think I've mentioned that I rarely do print work (largely) because the stress level is, for me at least, much higher than with web work. This morning I had the proofs for one of the two print jobs I have out. I had a nightmare about it this morning just before getting up. I used to have these nightmares routinely when I worked for a graphic design studio. One time I sat up in bed in the middle of the night yelling "The keyline! I forgot the keyline!"

So anyway, I went in to look at the proofs. They gave me color lasers, not bluelines. Unfortunately, there were inevitable problems:

1. The graphic isn't as close to the edge of the envelope as I had expected. I knew they couldn't do a true bleed, but you can ask them to get as close to the edge as possible, and another printer I've worked with can get it so close that it almost looks like a bleed. But these are almost 1/4" away from the edge. I'm not going to complain about this one, it's just a disappointment.

2. The smallest instances of the EPS logo look blocky, not smooth curves. They say this is a product of the type of proof and won't affect the actual printing. I suspected it was something like that, because larger versions of the same graphic look just fine. However, I'll be nervous to see how the finished product looks.

3. On one page I had three rows of text spaced out to line up perfectly on the left and right sides. At the last minute, I changed the size of a couple of square bullets and now one of the lines doesn't quite line up anymore. This nags at me, but I doubt the client will even notice so I'm trying not to obsess over it.

4. There's a graphic in the background behind some text that is a bit too dark. This is the big one. I looked at it on a color inkjet, and onscreen in a PDF, and it looked fine. But on their color proof, it's too dark. Distracting from the text that runs over it. I thought about asking them to change it, but decided against it because it would have to be done on every page, as well as every page of the other print job. It's a 10% screen, obviously it should have been 5%. It's so hard to predict though. I've had instances in the past where I did this -- a screened back logo behind text -- with a 5% screen, and the logo disappeared. You couldn't even tell it was there.

This morning at the printer it seemed like a minor thing, a disappointment like the distance from the edge on the envelope. But now I'm looking at the proof and feeling a bit sick to my stomach. This is probably just because I'm at the end of a long and stressful day. See why I don't do much print work? I'd probably have ulcers if I did.

[Edited to add:] I showed the proofs to Georg and he didn't think that graphic was too dark at all. I think I'm obsessing. I'm going to put the proofs away and not think about it again tonight.

On to today's photo. This is my other pair of white tights. I really like softer, thicker, cotton-socky tights like this. This morning I was wondering why I hadn't worn this pair all winter, until I sat down on something cold and realized they have a hole in the back of one leg. That's probably why. I was trying to convince myself that no one would notice, but at my lunch with the office today Jason said "Hey Sarah, you have a hole in the back of your tights." So much for that!

Other than that, this pair is still in good condition. I'm going to hang on to them to wear with longer skirts. (Right, because I wear so many of those!) This photo also provides a better view of my new shoes.

Today's been a pretty stressful day. But before I get into that, let's get caught up on tights, shall we? These orange tights were given to me at the same time as the chartreuse ones. I wore them both all the time. My favorite outfit for the orange tights was these loose navy blue shorts (they looked like a very short skirt but since they were shorts, there was no danger of exposing myself), a dark pink sweater and a bright yellow T shirt. It was this outfit, you just can't see the orange tights in the photo. I wish I had a photo of the entire ensemble, just to show people who think I wear too many colors now.

Unfortunately, this pair wasn't as astoundingly long-lasting as the chartreuse pair. These aren't microfiber, just a regular soft ribbed knit. They're pilling badly, the knees are stretched out, big runs and holes up at the top, they don't even pretend to stay up, and there's a hole in one knee and both big toes. I tossed them in the trash after taking this photo.

Goodbye, favorite orange tights. You brightened many a day. I'll think of you and miss you every time I wear my new orange tights. The new pair are nice, but they're not the same as you.

If I'm at the station and feeling idle, sometimes I like to put the webcam right up against my face and try to get a close-up of my eye. This involved climbing up on the counter where the turntables are kept, holding the cam against my eye and trying not to blink for as long as possible. I'm always too busy to do this during my own show, but on Friday afternoon I hung out with Georg while he subbed a show and got this one. I must admit I liked the eyeball thing better with the old black and white cam. It looked more eerie. But maybe I just wasn't close enough to the cam. It looks better if the eyeball is filling the whole image.

Mar. 13 movie: Throne of Blood. I guess to make up for the last few movies being so light and fun, today I watched this, Kurosawa's version of Macbeth. Whoo-ee, a laugh riot! Toshiro Mifune is always great, and the movie also costarred Takashi Shimura (featured in almost every Kurosawa movie for 20 years, including the leader of the samurai in The Seven Samurai). Good stuff.

Last night and this morning I also re-watched The Italian Job and Keep the River on Your Right with Georg, as he hadn't seen them. I had already decided to include re-viewings in the movie list, even if a movie ends up on the list twice. I wasn't expecting to watch the same movie twice in a week, but on the list it goes. I don't have anything new to say about either movie, except that they're both excellent and everyone should see both of them.

Okay, the date again matches the numbering of the tights. The tights project is back in sync. Whew!

This is far and away the coolest pair of tights I've ever owned. I've had them for years and I still get comments every time I wear them. No idea where they came from. Either Georg got them for me in NY, or I bought them at Anjana's in Chapel Hill, which once had a really good selection of tights. (Alas, no more.) This photo also gives me the opportunity to show off the groovy new shoes I got today while shoe shopping with Lisa and Shayne. I really needed another pair of black shoes to wear with skirts. These are a bit more than I had wanted to pay, but they're super styling and comfortable too. So I won't complain.

Skipping a day has caused a serious nomenclature problem. Because this is the 12th pair of tights, and the 12th day I have posted about tights, but the date is the 13th. I think after finishing this post I'm going to put on another pair of tights and take another photo to get caught up.

Anyway, these tights. Have I mentioned that you can never have too many brown tights? Because it's really true. Especially if you wear as much brown and red as I do. These shoes, from Børn, are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. Including sneakers.

The amazing Vosges chocolates, introduced to me by Lisa, are now available locally. Southern Season is selling good-sized bars of four flavors: Black Pearl (wasabi, ginger and black sesame seeds), Red Fire (ancho and chipotle pepper and cinnamon), Naga (curry and coconut), and for the less adventurous, Gianduja (hazelnut and almond).

We got a Red Fire bar because the other three were in the truffle assortment Lisa gave me for my birthday. Man oh man, is it good. Not that spicy, but the ancho and chipotle flavors are nice and strong. Spendy, but well worth it.

I had to laugh over this line in my previous post: " If I screw up an [sic] misspell a word on a web page, so what?" I wrote that post in a hurry but still, that was priceless.

OK, so I thought the tights project would force me to post every day, but I was wrong. I was wrong!

Yesterday was just too much of a crush to post. I had to finish an overdue project in the morning, and then I had to get that 20 page training catalog ready for the printer, which took a couple of hours, then I had to take it to their shop in Morrisville, which also took a couple of hours because I got lost.

I get lost all the time in Raleigh. I think probably every single time I go someplace new in Raleigh, I get lost. But this time it wasn't my fault! The guy told me to go the wrong way off the exit ramp from 40. Plus, he didn't give me street names, just "turn right at second light" type directions. I got all the way to Briar Creek shopping center at 70 before I called them and got better directions from someone else.

So now both big print jobs are at their respective printers. This is the part that reminds me why I hardly ever do print work. It's so stressful. If I screw up an misspell a word on a web page, so what? We just fix it. But from now on, any mistake on those print jobs will cost money (my money, if it was my fault). If I don't catch it until after it's all printed, it won't be fixable at all. No wonder I used to have nightma