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May 27 movie: Bend It Like Beckham. This is another one of those "I can't believe I didn't see this until now" movies. The plot sounds (and is) a bit formulaic -- a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl from a traditional culture (South Asian), trying to find her place in a modern world (London) and pursue her passion (football) without disrespecting her strict parents. But it works because it's so funny and so loving towards its characters. Georg commented that the film didn't really transcend its genre. In a way that's true, but in another way it isn't: Bend It Like Beckham manages to wholly avoid the saccharin glow that seems such a common pitfall for culture clash comedies (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I'm looking at you). It's warm but not "heartwarming," if that makes sense.

I don't much care for sports movies but the film did an incredible job of making the football scenes exciting and fun. They really captured the joy of doing something so well. Most of the girls on the team were actual football players, but the two stars were (according to the DVD extras) actresses who didn't play & had to be coached to pull off those amazing moves.

The DVD included the best DVD extra I've ever seen: a cooking segment with the director demonstrating how to make aloo gobi, while her aging mother and aunt (?) sit behind her and critique her work. Every cooking show should have Indian grannies hovering and kibbitzing!

The most important thing we learned from Bend It Like Beckham is that Indian movie weddings have way better music than American movie weddings.

May 27 movie: The Italian Job. This was the remake starring Mark Wahlberg. I had heard that this version had almost nothing in common with the the original, which we watched a couple of months ago. That's not quite true. The basic storyline and tone are quite different, but there are plot elements in common: the theft of gold bars, a big chase scene involving 3 MINIs in places a car isn't supposed to go, the involvement of the Mafia (Italian in the original, Russian in the remake), the use of computers to disrupt traffic in an entire city, a main character named Charlie Croker, the death in the very beginning of Charlie's mentor in crime. There's even a very brief clip of the original film on TV at one point. But no role for Michael Caine! I thought that was scandalous. If they couldn't find a part for him, they could have at least given him a walk-on.

Bottom line: I enjoyed it, it was fun, but it didn't make me forget the original. "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"

May 26 movie: Elizabeth R. This is not actually a movie but a BBC miniseries starring Glenda Jackson. And wow, it's amazing! I had heard that this was the most historically accurate movie about Elizabeth I, and I wondered if it might be a little dry. But it really wasn't. On the contrary, it was gripping. I stayed up hours late because I couldn't possibly go to sleep until I had seen the whole thing. The drama of Elizabeth's life was amazing, and Glenda Jackson's acting was incredible.

I watched the first DVD, which includes the first two parts of the miniseries. Part I covers the death of Henry VIII to Elizabeth's ascension. Mainly it's about Elizabeth's survival during the reign of Mary Tudor. Part II is about the first few years of Elizabeth's reign, focusing on her relationship with Robert Dudley and efforts by her council and various ambassadors to convince her to marry. Mary Stuart also shows up but isn't yet a major force in the story.

The BBC didn't have the budget of a major Hollywood movie like Elizabeth (the one with Cate Blanchett), but the constumes were still wonderful. I so much want one of those gowns! The ones with the skirts that sweep straight down in a triangular shape, not the ones with the panniers. But I read those early corsets are very uncomfortable, they compress the ribs much more than 19th century corsets.

The DVD also included intermittent commentary by a historian whose name I forget. I started out listening to the commentary, but she too often spoke over scenes whose dialogue I wanted to hear. So I ended up turning it off. However, the additional context she provided was so interesting that I kind of wish I'd watched again with the commentary on. But I was anxious to send the disc back and get disc 2, which comprises parts III and IV of the miniseries. I can't wait to find out what happens next!

Slate.com has posted an article about iTunes celebrity playlists . Apparently, celebrities, mostly or maybe entirely musicians, can post playlists of recommended songs on iTunes. Nice marketing technique: I'm sure a lot of people will check out & maybe buy a song just because Beyonce said she liked it.

Slate's shocking revelation is that most of the playlists are bad because bland, corporate musicians listen to (or to be more accurate, want the world to think they listen to) bland, corporate music. But artists who aren't part of the corporate music machine (i.e. Sleater-Kinney) don't. Wow! Who would have guessed that Thievery Corporation's recommended playlist is better than Sheryl Crow's? It's not like Thievery Corporation has any experience with mixing other people's songs together. Not like they're, you know, DJs or anything. But the Slate author seems genuinely surprised that Thievery's mix is so good.

I guess I shouldn't sneer at the article. It seems written for people who, unlike me, don't assume that anything created by Michael Stipe or Sheryl Crow totally sucks. And it did provide the helpful information that these celebrity playlists exist, which I hadn't known.

May 24 movie: Pillow Talk. I love this movie! Another one of my very favorites. The best of the Rock Husdon/Doris Day films, TCM is showing it as part of their memorial tribute to Tony Randall. There are too many funny things to recount them all, but one of my favorites is the dueling internal monologues Hudson and Day have on their first date:

him: "I'd say five or six dates should do it."

her: "It's so nice to meet a man you feel you can trust!"

However, my favorite line without a doubt is said by Randall: "Jan, how could you? How could you ever fall in love with a tourist?"

[The movie just ended and I have to add that the ending is the only part I don't like. But up until the last two minutes or so, it's utterly fabu.]

May 23 movie: Now, Voyager. This is one of my very favorite movies. I think it's Bette Davis' best. Its famous moment is Paul Heinreid lighting two cigarettes in his own mouth and then handing one to Davis. But I love it for Davis' nuanced character study of a shy, emotionally stunted socialite gradually blossoming. The scenes with the Heinreid's daughter are a bit schmaltzy, but don't make me enjoy the movie any less. I've lost count of how many times I've seen it. The scene near the end where the daughter asks Heinreid if he likes her, and he hugs her and looks over her shoulder to say "I love you" to Davis, gets me misty every time.

May 23 movie: The Major and the Minor. I had started to watch this earlier this year, but turned it off about a half hour in because I was creeped out by the premise: 31 year old Ginger Rogers pretending to be a 12 year old and falling in love with Ray Milland. But Alicia raved about the movie so I thought I'd give it another chance if it showed up on TCM again. I still think the premise is icky, but I must admit I turned it off too soon before and missed a lot of funny stuff. The cadets all talking about Maginot line are hysterical!

May 23 movie: The Unsuspected. Unremarkable noir starring Claude Rains. I might have liked it better if the cable company's info screen hadn't spoiled the identity of the killer, which isn't revealed until an hour into the film. This movie had several superficial elements in common with the far superior Laura, which came out three years before.

May 23 movie: Broadway Melody of 1940. Fred Astaire loves Eleanor Powell from afar, but his drunken louse of a dancing partner (George Murphy) unwittingly steals his big break -- to be Powell's leading man on Broadway. This is a really fun, funny movie, although it lacks any really memorable dance numbers. Which is probably why it's not a classic like the Astaire/Rogers films.

May 22 movie: The Prince and the Pauper. This was fun, not the greatest movie ever but fun. I vaguely remember the book having more biting social satire, but the movie is fairly treacly. Still, it has Errol Flynn, Claude Rains (in an absolutely horrendous hairdo) and Alan Hale! Alas, Hale is a bad guy. He plays the captain of the guard, who Rains blackmails into finding and killing the real prince. He gets offed by Flynn before he can do the dastardly deed.

Had a great weekend. Nice and quiet. Went shoe shopping on Saturday -- didn't buy anything, but it was still fun to shop -- then went to a gallery opening Saturday night. Ran into Jacob Cooley, who told me I was looking very mod. That's my look! I also ran into Toby Gillinkin! She was my art car inspiration: I saw her car in a parking lot in Chapel Hill in 1990 or 91, and it blew my mind. I remember standing there for, I don't know, 10 minutes? -- just staring at all the decorations on her car. I didn't even own a car at the time, but I knew that someday I'd decorate my car too.

I had gotten together with Toby and another local art car driver, Deb Allen, a couple of years ago, but had lost Toby's email address. So I was really glad to run into her again, especially now when I've had a couple of feelers on local art car events! yay! Nothing on the scale of Artscape or Houston, but I'm still thrilled at the prospect of having art car things happening here.

After the gallery I went to the radio station. I ended up playing a 100% indecent show. Except for one request, for "What Do I Get" by the Buzzcocks. There is actually an indecent song on that same album, but it had a big scratch in it so I didn't want to risk it. It wasn't my best show ever, for one thing the all-indecent thing severely limited my choices from the playlist. But it was fun, and the guy who made the request said he was enjoying the show.

Georg congratulated me for getting through the whole show and still managing to say "Some listeners may find the following to be indecent" with a straight face. I must admit, I felt ridiculous after a half hour, but by halfway through the show I was used to saying it over and over. The only downside was that having to cut in and speak before every track meant there was absolutely no flow. Oh well, I still had fun!

Sunday I slept in and then lay around all day. I watched four movies! Well actually, three and a half. I had already started watching The Prince and the Pauper the day before.

About a week ago, Lisa and Shayne and I hung out at Ooh La Latte -- very fun afternoon -- and on the way home I stopped at Whole Foods to get something for dinner.

The guy at the meat counter asked me, "Have you ever been to Ooh La Latte?" A bit taken aback, I replied that I had just been there. He pointed to my dress (a thrift store find) and said "How did I know?"

I told him that I hadn't bought that dress at Untidy Museum (the clothing store connected to Ooh La Latte) and he said that he just liked that whole retro thing, pointing to my hair which was done up all mod.

Fast forward to today. I had a lot to do this morning and didn't have time to style my hair and dress up. So I just wore jeans and a T-shirt, and let my hair do its own thing. Not my most stylish, actually pretty grungy, but who cares? It's not like anyone is paying attention, right? Had my HKB meeting, went to my show, stopped at the supermarket on the way home. The same guy was at the meat counter, and when he saw me he said "Shockingly modern!"

Which just goes to show that, if you ever think no one's paying attention to the way you look, you're wrong.

I'm subbing the 10-midnight show tomorrow night. I very rarely do a show in safe harbor, so I'm planning to play a lot of indecent songs. Good songs that happen to have a four-letter word in them so I can't normally play them on the air. Suggestions are welcome.

May 21 movie: Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery play a married couple who discover that their wedding wasn't legal. Montgomery doesn't ask Lombard to remarry him quickly enough for her taste, so she dumps him and starts dating his business partner. Hilarity ensues! Hitchcock's only screwball comedy, this isn't the greatest example of the genre ever made, but it is very funny, and very screwball, and well worth watching. There are a few hysterical sequences (like Montgomery punching himself in the nose to induce a nosebleed and get out of a bad date, or Lombard trying to convince the business partner that after getting caught in the rain, hard liquor is medicine).

May 19 movie: School of Rock. I'm not a big fan of Jack Black. I find him mostly an obnoxious blowhard who isn't very funny. But sometimes his obnoxiousness works in his favor, when the character is supposed to be an ass. Like High Fidelity or last night's movie, School of Rock. Which was surprisingly funny. Joan Cusack (the Eve Arden of our era) in a major supporting role definitely helped.

We watched the "making of" thing on the DVD. Which was nice because they interviewed several of the kids. Mainly only the boys though, which was a bit weird. I wanted to find out about the girl who plays bass. Anyway the boy who plays lead guitar in the movie said he found out about the audition from music camp. Who knew music camp could lead to a movie career? Black made some charmingly modest comment about not being very good on guitar, and then they showed him playing with that boy and sure enough, the boy was better.

The other funny thing was when Black was describing something, I forget what, and he said it got so chaotic it became "a combustible edison." We're pretty sure he meant "spontaneous combustion," but hey, I love Combustible Edison! I'd probably like Jack Black better if his band were a lounge act.

May 14 movie: Millenium Actress. The description on the DVD sleeve (animated film about a retired actress recalling her career) made me think I wouldn't like this movie. Boy, was I wrong! The plot device of the eldery actress reliving her past is a nifty way to pay tribute to a variety of Japanese film genres. And her personal story, weaving in and out of the movies, is genuinely moving. I really enjoyed this film, although I felt like I would have appreciated it even more if I were more familiar with the post-war Japanese film industry. I bet it had lots of references that were over my head (we did catch a few).

Despite Lina's attempts to decimate the cute little rodent population, we've had a lot of rodent sightings in the past couple of days. First, we have at least 2 bunnies: one adult who hangs out in the front yard, and one younger rabbit, which must have been from the same litter that Lina got into a few weeks ago, and hangs out in the back yard. The bunny in the front yard seems to be better about getting the heck out of sight than the bunny in the back yard: one time I was dumping food into the compost bin, saw something out of the corner of my eye and realized the young bunny was less than 10 feet away from me. I wish we could leave vegetable scraps out for them, but that would probably increase the chance of them falling prey to Lina. In any case we're being careful about checking for signs of rabbit before letting the dogs out, and making a whole lot of noise as we're opening the door.

Besides the bunnies, we have a thriving chipmunk community. They like to hang out under the bird feeder, I guess because we use a birdseed mix that has lots of sunflower seeds & even some peanuts. And the birds spill a lot of seed on the ground where the chipmunks can get to it. There are also chipmunks living outside the fence, near the herb garden. I see them running across the driveway sometimes. I've been thinking that maybe I should try to mentally distance myself from the rabbits, and focus more on the chipmunks. They're almost as cute as the rabbits, and way, way smarter about avoiding the dogs. Lina's never had a chipmunk kill. Once years ago, she and Thirteen trapped one inside the gutter spout, but Georg and I got them away in time. We had to pry open the spout with pliers as I recall, because the dogs had chewed it so much, trying to get at the chipmunk, they'd closed up the end and the chipmunk couldn't fit through the opening. I thought that poor thing was going to have a heart attack but it survived!

Besides the cute bunnies and the brave chipmunks, I saw a rodent yesterday that I couldn't identify. It was about as big as the adult rabbit, maybe a little smaller, grey fur, and very rounded. Rounded body, no discernible neck, rounded head, tiny ears, no tail. It actually reminded me a lot of a short-haired guinea pig.

I'm certain it wasn't a rat, that is if Womzilla and Nellorat's rats are typical of the species. This guy's head was totally different -- more snub and almost the same size as his body -- his ears were much smaller, and he had no tail. Any ideas about what it was? A mole maybe?

He was hanging out under the bird feeder, eating seed. I took a few photos, but without a telephoto lens (and through a screen window) it might as well have been the Loch Ness Monster. Eventually something spooked him -- he probably heard me or maybe the dogs inside the house -- and he disappeared into the tall grass behind the feeder. He moved fast but there was something waddling about the way he walked.

The mystery rodent was cute. I hope he's a harmless species.

I had an oil change right before leaving for the trip. According to the "three months or 3,000 miles" rule, I'm about 100 miles away from needing another one. Should I wait three months, or get another oil change even though the last one was two weeks ago? (Not from Jiffy Lube of course!)

I have to say, if I was going to be almost completely oblivious to TV, radio and newspapers for ten days, I picked a good time to do it. While we were away, we never had time to watch TV, didn't bother trying to find local radio stations since we had tons of music on the iPod, and avoided even looking at the front page of newspapers because we didn't want to be spoiled for who won Survivor.

The only glimpse of TV news I had was a few minutes of "Good Morning America" on May 3, while I was waiting for my car radiator to be repaired. At one point they interviewed some woman in a uniform, she was claiming not to have known about torture? Huh? I was so focused on my immediate problems that I couldn't pay much attention. I wasn't sure who was supposed to have been tortured, or if that's even what they meant. I half-convinced myself that I must have heard them wrong & then put it out of my mind when we got back on the road.

Getting back and catching up on my web reading was a bit of a shock. Some guy getting decapitated on video? Hired mercenaries torturing people? Jeez louise, is this America? It's enough to make me want to put my head back under the sand.

I did watch a few movies while I was getting ready for the trip, and a couple since getting back. Let's see how many I can remember.

Samurai Spy. This was kind of hard to follow, despite (or maybe because of) nearly endless backstory narration at the beginning. But it had some good set pieces, and a bad-ass villain who dressed all in white.

Plymouth Adventure. Historical costume drama about the Pilgrims features Spencer Tracy as the captain of the Mayflower and Gene Tierney as an upstanding Pilgrim wife he tragically falls in love with. Tierney kills herself by jumping off the side of the Mayflower because she can't stand the shame of, well I'm not sure what. She didn't cheat on her husband. Maybe that's what she was ashamed of. This was perfect to watch while beading the bubble machine, because it was interesting enough to maintain my attention but not so interesting as to keep me from working.

The Adventures of Robin Hood. I love this movie so much, I can't think of anything to say about it. Errol Flynn at his finest, Claude Rains, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Alan Hale! That's really all that needs to be said.

I'll Take Sweden. Bob Hope moves his daughter (Tuesday Weld) to Sweden to get her away from her undesireable boyfriend (Frankie Avalon), then discovers that those perverted Swedes think sex is healthy and natural! Horrors! According to the movie, all Swedes were also deeply involved in Freudian analysis. The movie ends up with Avalon, Hope and Hope's Swedish girlfriend chasing Weld and her Swedish boyfriend around a hotel, trying to find them before the boyfriend can sexually assault Weld. Because date rape is funny! Actually this movie was funny, in a bizarre way. Worth the price of admission just for Avalon singing the title song.

Christopher Strong. Katharine Hepburn plays an aviator who falls in love with a married British nobleman. They have an affair, she gets pregnant and realizes that his life would be ruined if he knew about it. So she flies too high on purpose and dies. I think this is supposed to be inspiring but I found it kind of sick. She's a courageous, independent woman for most of the film, but love messes with her head so badly that she'd rather kill herself and her fetus than inconvenience her lover. Wow, how romantic. Billie Burke (Glinda the Good) plays the wife. I kept waiting for her to ask Hepburn if she was a good witch or a bad witch.

Break of Hearts. Hepburn again, this time playing a composer who marries an orchestra conductor. Too bad the husband is a drunken womanizing lout. Another guy loves Hepburn and would clearly treat her a whole lot better, which is too bad because she's destined to stay with the jerk. Because he needs her to prop him up and keep him from drinking too much. Gender attitudes in the 30s were lovely, weren't they?

A few random thoughts about the art car weekend:

-The yellow T-shirt for Georg was a mistake. It looked great, but the volunteers all wear yellow shirts so he looked like one of them. We didn't have an escort for most of our trip to the line-up, because they saw Georg inside our car and assumed he was our escort. Whoops! Next time we'll do his shirt in a different color.

-This year they made us pop the trunk to inspect our fire extinguisher! It was buried under a bunch of stuff, Georg had to jump out and dig through the trunk to find it. Last year the guy didn't want to see it, just asked where it was. Tim told me later that they usually want to see it. He had his in the front seat so he could more easily show it to them. Whew, I'm so glad we still had it!

-The best moment of the weekend was definitely meeting Ben, creator of Student Driver, who immediately said "Oh! I love your website!" Wow. That's one of my favorite art cars ever. What a thrill that he not only knew who I was, but had seen my site!

-Another fine moment was at the Art Car Ball, seeing a woman who was working a very similar late 60s look to mine. She had a big bubble flip hairstyle with a little bow above her bangs. Her hair was a lot bigger than mine, and I was feeling like my hairdo wasn't as good as hers, until I got a better look and realized that it was a wig! Her hair may be bigger but at least mine is real!

-A less excellent moment was making the mistake of telling some guy the real reason I had gotten my tattoo -- to celebrate getting back to my preferred size -- at which he went on and on about how good I looked (even suggesting that I must get up every morning, look in the mirror and congratulate myself for being so hot. ew!) and kept touching me. I was like "hello? my boyfriend is right here!" Any suggestions on what I should say when people ask why I got the tattoo? I don't want to have that conversation again.

-I love my camera (a Nikon 995) but there's only one thing I don't like about it: the lens cap isn't attached to anything. So you have to put it in your pocket. If you don't have a pocket (as my nice clothes rarely do), you either carry it in your hand or put it down somewhere and risk losing it. Which was what I did constantly during the week. I tried to remember to put it in the camera bag or the little shelf between the car seats, but I have a bad habit of setting it down on the car, where it's really hard to find among all the decorations. At the start of the Main Street Drag I was sure I had lost it. Which would be annoying, though not as bad as having to replace the lens itself. But when we arrived at the first stop, Georg lifted up the trunk and the lens cap fell off onto the ground. It was sitting on the trunk the whole way there! Whew, lucky that it didn't fall off while the car was in motion. Actually I confess that I do that all the time: leave things on the car, drive somewhere and find them when I get to my destination. As long as the ride isn't too bumpy, the toys and carpet tend to keep things from falling off.

-I thought the Bojangles fast food chain was all over the Southeast, but we only saw them in North Carolina. Bo's is my favorite, but I almost never eat it anymore because I try not to eat fast food. I was hoping that on the drive back, when I was resigned to eating fast food anyway, we'd get to stop there for some chicken and biscuits. But we didn't pass a Bo's until we were so close to home that there was no point in stopping.

A few statistics on our trip:

Days away from home: 10
States driven in: 7
Miles driven: 2788
Miles towed: 38
Total distance: 2826 miles
Lowest gas price paid: $1.659
Highest gas price paid: $1.839
Total gas purchase: 89.28 gal
Average gas mileage: 32.5 mpg
Lowest gas price seen (regular unleaded): $1.639
Highest gas price seen (regular unleaded): $1.899
Region with lowest gas prices: upper South Carolina
Region with highest gas prices: all cities were about the same
Cell phone minutes used: 925
Photos taken: 827
Photos posted to website: 353

Just got off the phone with Jiffy Lube customer service. They are refunding the radiator flush they did before I left, but they will not pay anything towards the new radiator. Or the second radiator flush to replace the wrong fluid they put in. I wasn't surprised about the radiator, I knew he would say that you never know when an old radiator is going to go, and that's exactly what he did say. However I was a bit surprised that he was so unwilling on the second radiator flush. He didn't even offer to have them do it for free. (Not that I would ever let them near my car again, but the offer would have been nice.)

My feeling is that they should refund the first one because it fucked up my life for two days, and they should pay for the second one because I only need it to fix their mistake with the first one. But he said that if they refund the first one then we're even. If I then pay to have another one done someplace else, then I end up exactly where I wanted to be: having paid for and received one correct radiator flush.

So I'm irked about this but not enough to make a big stink about it. I suppose I could have gotten angry and tried to bully him into caving on the second radiator flush. But I'm tired. Too tired to mess around with this nonsense. It probably wouldn't have worked anyway & I would have gotten myself into a state for nothing.

I have an appointment with my regular mechanic to do the radiator flush tomorrow, and I guess that will be the end of it. Last week I was feeling like I had paid Jiffy Lube $100 to destroy my radiator and strand me in the middle of Alabama. But this way, they did it for free. See, I'm trying to look on the bright side!

While we were away the UMJ T-shirts I had ordered for Pru's kids arrived. But they messed up the sizes! Hunter was supposed to get a large and Logan a medium; they actually got the reverse. The shirts have the girls' names on them, so I had to call Cafepress for an exchange.

The call took a long time but they were really nice about it. She looked in their records and saw that I had ordered different sizes from what I got, so there was no question about them sending new ones & I don't have to pay for shipping the second time. Also, the kids shirts are a "premium" item, but I had only done the free trial period on the premium shop. So she comped me for 3 months of a new premium shop.

All I have to do is set up the girls' shirts again and call them back to place the new order. I think the graphics are still in my Cafepress account so I don't even need to upload them again. Also, I have the premium shop back for 3 months so maybe I'll do a green T-shirt or something. Not like I'm expecting to sell a ton of them, but a couple of people at the parade did ask about Georg and Chris' shirts. Who knows, maybe someone will actually buy one.

The Orange Show has posted photos of almost all the entries with their titles:
http://www.orangeshow.org/vote04/osho04_gallery_1.htm

They also have a page announcing the winners: http://www.orangeshow.org/artcar_winners.html
Yay to Tim Klein for the Yarn Car winning 2nd place in Best Art Car! It's well-deserved!

[writing on Tuesday evening, but dating this post on Sunday so the right photos will show up with the entry.]

We checked out of the hotel first thing Sunday morning to get an early start on the road. There was one more unpleasant surprise: the cost of the valet parking. Twenty dollars for the first night and another ten for each additional night. I have to say, the room was nicer at the Doubletree but I was much happier at the Best Western two years ago. I really missed being able to see the other cars in the parking lot. There wasn't any social advantage to staying at the same hotel as everyone else, when we didn't have the parking lot to meet each other. And not having access to my car created so much additional hassle. Besides, the group rate savings was eaten up by the nightly valet charge. Next time I'm going to stay at the Best Western again.

Anyway, enough of that. We were both really tired, so it was a good thing we had an easy drive to New Orleans. Georg had reserved a room for us at the most amazing historic hotel. I'd never stayed in a such a swank place before. The doorman wore a top hat and white gloves! They had a free turndown service, but we didn't see the little sign in time so we didn't request it. Georg was really disappointed about that, but I was more bummed that we missed the peanut butter sandwiches. Apparently they have a hotel tradition that every night between 10-11 they have free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, milk and hot chocolate! We came in from dinner around 10:30 and sure enough, there was a table set up in the lobby with bowls of peanut butter, jelly and jam, a big plate of bread, milk cartons and an urn of hot chocolate. They even had mini marshmallows! Looked like everyone in the hotel was down there having a sandwich. I would have had one too if I hadn't been so full.

The hotel was only a few blocks from the French Quarter, so we walked around there in the evening. It was so beautiful! We loved the balconies above the shops. The only blight on the walk was when we stumbled onto Bourbon Street. Suddenly the atmosphere changed from "old world elegance" to "spring break skank." Seriously, the smell of stale puke on that street was overwhelming.

We left Bourbon Street quickly and headed back to the more charming parts of the French Quarter. I've heard the garden district is beautiful and I wish we could have walked around there, but we only had one evening. So we stayed within walking distance of the hotel. It was a wonderful evening. We looked in shop windows, walked along the Mississippi River, and had beignets at Cafe du Monde. I'd never had them before. They were like rectangular doughnuts, but crispy on the outside, light and fluffy inside, not greasy at all. They were served hot with a mountain of powdered sugar piled on top. So good! I have to say, I could never have done Atkins if I lived in a town where you could get these anytime you wanted.

The beignets left us really full, so we walked around some more before dinner. We saw a hotel with an iron fence shaped like corn stalks! I heard a walking tour guide say that some wealthy guy had built the fence for his wife, because she grew up in the Midwest and missed it. Isn't that sweet?

We even saw an art car! It was parked on Decatur Street. We remembered having seen it at the Houston parade two years ago, but not this time. I can't imagine living so close to Houston and not going to the parade! There was a sign requesting donations and I would have given them a dollar, but I didn't have one on me. At least I got a photo of it.

We ended up eating at a place called Court of Two Sisters. The food was good, perhaps not a foodie's paradise, but the environment was perfect. The tables are all outdoors in an interior courtyard, but completely covered with a thick canopy of wisteria. It was so romantic! The whole evening was just wonderful. Just walking around, not having to go anywhere or do anything. It was just what we needed after such a stressful week.

The next morning we got a slow start on purpose, because we wanted to arrive in Atlanta after rush hour. So we got up late and walked back to Cafe du Monde for breakfast. More beignets! One order is three beignets, and we talked about getting two orders, but in retrospect I'm really glad we shared one. It was better to leave feeling like I could have had more, and remembering how wonderful they tasted, than to eat too much and end up feeling gross and overfull.

Then we saw another art car on our way back to the hotel! It was a big old Suburban, one of the really old ones from before SUVs became such a trend. It was mainly green, had three dimensional decorations all over it, and "Phantom 309" written on the side. "Phantom 309" is the name of my favorite Red Sovine song, about a ghostly truck driver, which made the car doubly delightful. Unfortunately it was driving down the street so I didn't get a good look at it or have time to get out my camera. It must be so amazing to live in a city with multiple art cars. I love being the "art car kook" of Durham, but I'd love it more if there were others.

[It's Tuesday evening, I'm comfortably ensconced on my couch & watching junk tv while I write this. Life is good!]

I think I mentioned in the previous post that being #50 and 51 put us at the front of the line. That was nice because we got to watch cars 1-50 pass us by on their way out. It was so fun! Parades are different for participants than for spectators: when you're in a parade, all you ever see are the people directly in front of and behind you. So it was great to be spectators and wave to the first 50 cars as they headed out.

At the end of the route we saw Bryan and his santa car pulled over on the shoulder. Later Georg told me that Bryan had said he was going to pull over as soon as he could and watch the rest of the parade. I wish we had done that! We didn't get a good look at some of the cars that got there late, like the Trojan Horse and Scrap Daddy's latest invention (some kind of walking machine). Especially since we didn't park on Allen Parkway this time, the parade just sort of broke up at the end. Next time we'll definitely pull over and watch the rest of the cars.

After the parade the four of us went to the after party location, which hadn't really set up yet, and had a picnic lunch Peggy and Chris had brought. With champagne! It looked like it would have been fun to stay at the after party, but Peggy and Chris needed to get going and Georg and I needed a little time to rest before the illuminated cruise.

I already wrote about the illuminated cruise, so I'll just add that Georg and I talked about the lighting issues on the drive back and we decided that the car would look just fine with only 2 strands: one on the roof and one on the front of the hood. Or maybe we could get another inverter and run another 2 strands off the charger. Either way, next time we'll know what to expect and we won't get so stressed out. On the bright side, the glow sticks I taped to the wheels lasted all night!

[I'm experiencing a bit of a back-log on the posts here. Because I want the posts about Saturday to be dated Saturday, so the photos will show up on the entry page. But that means I can't post about anything that happened after Saturday until I'm done writing about Saturday. So let me just quickly say that our evening in New Orleans was wonderful, just what we needed. Now back to parade coverage!]

The parade went really well. Especially the webcasting! To be honest I wasn't expecting that to go as well as it did. Tim's Yarn Car and UMJ were right next to each other in the line-up, and amazingly enough, that was close enough to maintain a connection while we were stationery and even much of the time while we were driving. Lisa's instructions on how to create a network with my Powerbook worked perfectly. There was one scary moment when we thought it wasn't going to work & I almost called her from the parade for troubleshooting help, but then it occurred to me to turn off the firewall on my computer and that took care of it. Whew!

They line the cars up in groups of 50, in two columns. Since UMJ and Yarn Car were 51 and 52, we were the first cars in the second group. Which put us right at the front of the line! That was pretty cool, to look behind us and see the line stretched out, and forward just spectators.

We got there really early so we'd have time to set up the network. That meant we were there for a good long time before the parade started. I didn't get as many photos as I wanted of the other cars, because I made the mistake of walking up and down the line early, before a lot of the cars had arrived. But Georg walked down later and took a bunch of photos of cars I hadn't seen.

The judging was much more focused than I remembered from before. Last time I would call it a "cursory glance": we pulled up at a table where some people were sitting, they said the name of the car, asked me if it was a daily driver, and waved me one. This time there were a bunch of people who walked all around the car and asked me questions like "what is the connection between fish and mah jongg?" One judge asked me what was up with the roof, how did the green carpet and the Barbie fit in. I said "well the roof is the surface of the water, Barbie's sitting on the shore fishing." One of the other judges laughed and said to the first, "You didn't get that?"

We didn't win anything of course; I wasn't even hoping what with all the amazing cars there. Still it was nice that the judges actually took the time to look at the other side of the car, much less ask questions.

Thanks to the charger we were able to start up the bubble machine around noon. It was really fun to see kids come by and play with the bubbles. I had put the charger in the trunk and run the cable into the back seat, since we need room for Peggy and Chris to sit. Which worked well, except that the trunk was stuffed so full it was kind of hard to get into the back of it. I ended up pulling the back seat down and just sort of stuffing the charger in, shoving everything back until the back seat would close again.

Since Yarn Car and UMJ were right together, Tim and I spent a fair amount of time chatting. It was interesting to see people's reactions to the yarn car. People really do ask him the same questions over and over! Tim and I agreed that I need a snappier answer to the "how did you get this idea" question, because the real answer is pretty boring. Georg and I thought about it while we were driving yesterday & the only thing we could thing of was "Fish ... mah jongg .. fish playing mah jongg! It's a no brainer!" I think that's what I'm going to say from now on.

I also got to chat with Tim McNally of the Plaidmobile. He's from New Jersey and I'm amazed at all the places he takes Plaidmobile: Houston, Burning Man, Art Car Fest in San Francisco. I was also very surpised when he said he reads my website! I seriously thought only my immediate friends read my journal, but that kept happening over the weekend. Hey, if you read this site but you think I might not know you, do me a favor and post a comment, OK?

Just behind Yarn Car was a truck pulling a flatbed with a punk band. At first we were like, "oh great, this will be a noisy parade," but I have to say that I'd much rather be hearing passable covers of "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "Judy is a Punk" than an antique car horn going "aooga aooga" over and over, which was what we had behind us two years ago. Georg was digging the music and I didn't mind it. It might have been more of a problem for Tim since he was closer to them.

The parade itself was much slower than I remembered. Last time they were constantly telling us to hurry up, speed up, get through the line. I think I heard there was a lot of pressure from the International Festival to keep the parade under 90 minutes, which must be hard to do with over 250 cars! This time it was a good pace most of the time, but at one point we slowed down to a crawl and even sat still for about 10 minutes in the middle of the route. It must have been less fun for the spectators, to stare at the same cars for such a long time. We heard later that there were 2 problems: one of the lowriders had broken down and had to be pushed out of the route, and the TV people were making everyone slow down and go through their cameras one at a time. How annoying that real life has to be rearranged to suit TV.

OK, got to pack and have breakfast (mmm ... beignets!) and head out. More on the parade after we get to Atlanta!

The parade was awesome. Georg and I both took tons of photos. The webcasting worked great. Would love to write more, but we're exhausted & we only have a couple of hours to rest because we need to get the rope lights attached to the car before the illuminated cruise tonight.

To the person who said "I read your blog" when we drove by, Hi!!!

Well the illuminated cruise didn't go off quite as well, technologically speaking, as previous events. We had serious lighting issues. Mainly because I hadn't had time to test all the lights before we left, so I didn't know that six strands of rope lights draw way too much power for our inverter and charger. As do five strands. And four. We kept unplugging a strand at a time, but still the lights kept flickering on and off and the inverter kept squealing. Finally we cut back to three -- one on one side and two on the other -- which the charger seemed able to handle. Until it ran out of juice halfway through the first leg of the cruise! We tried to plug the inverter into the cigarette lighter but three strands was too much for it, the inverter squealed terribly. So we finished out the cruise with no lights except the glow sticks taped to the wheels. I was so stressed about the rope lights I had forgotten all about the black light inside.

The other annoying thing that happened was another art car driver cut into the caravan and rear-ended me! He only tapped my rear bumper, but still! When it happened the guy merely held up his hand in the "sorry" gesture, as if he had just cut me off rather than hitting my car. No other response. He was at the next caravan stop, I saw the car, but he didn't make any effort to come over and make sure my car was okay. (I don't believe there was any damage, but it was dark so I'm not 100% sure.) I'm not going to identify the car by name, but if you are reading this blog, I want you to know that you are a dick and I wrote down your license number and if daylight reveals any damage to my rear bumper you will be hearing from my insurance company.

Overall it was a more chaotic event than what I was expecting. Actually, I don't really know what I was expecting, but it was basically a roaming party with lights on the cars. A few of the cars had their flame jets blasting! I can't imagine driving around in Durham on a Saturday night with open flames coming out of pipes on top of my car. One of the cars was a flatbed with a band playing music; I'm not sure if they played while the car was in motion or not. There were two boat cars, both of which were blasting excellent house music. The one closest to us played Timo Maas, which Georg and I were both grooving on. He said he got into Timo Maas at Burning Man.

After the lighting disaster we chatted with Donna of RU Game about her rope lights. She said she never uses more than two strands at a time because they use so much power. I asked about DC rope lights, but she said they're a lot dimmer and also much more expensive. She and a friend whose name I didn't catch are going to order a whole big roll of EL wire. I asked them to contact me if they need someone to share the order, but I suspect they probably won't be buying a color that would work for me (all I would want is white or maybe blue). Still it's worth a try. That stuff is a lot less expensive if you buy it in bulk.

I think the illuminated cruise would have been fun if it weren't for all the stress, and we talked about setting up the lights again with just two strands, and turning on the black light. But we were tired and the party was obviously going to run very late -- it was 10 pm and they had only just gotten to the first stop -- so we bailed after the first leg. The police were showing up just as we left, and I think they must have been telling everyone to leave because we crossed paths with the caravan a few blocks away.

It's 6:20 and I'm too excited to sleep. The battery power for webcasting lasted so long yesterday that I think we're going to start again around 11:30. We'll be there at 9 for judging and staging. The parade starts at 1, and our number is pretty low (51) so I'm thinking we'll be done by 1:30. Then we'll have lunch -- a picnic provided by Peggy and Chris -- and head back to the hotel. They have something else going on after the parade (some kind of "art boat" water event called Anything That Floats) but Peggy and Chris need to get back to Austin and Georg and I will need a nap & then time to attach the rope lights to the car.

I have to get the car from valet around 8, find street parking somewhere, clean the back seat, then come back at 8:45 for Georg, Peggy and Chris. This valet-only thing at the hotel is a colossal pain in the ass. I'm definitely going to mention this on the Orange Show questionnaire. If I had know I wouldn't have access to my car I wouldn't have stayed here, group rate or no group rate. (And free cookie or no free cookie.) Besides, seeing all the cars and meeting the other artists in the parking lot was one of the best parts last time.

Harrod Blank's new movie, Automorphosis, was good, although they had severe technical difficulties so the movie ended up starting almost 2 hours late. First one audio channel (the one with the dialogue) was missing. They spent about a half hour trying to fix it, while we sat around and chatted. The nice thing was they kept repeating the intro to the movie, which used a smoking hot Asian Massive track neither Georg nor I had heard before. I'm going to write to Harrod and find out what that track was.

Then they sent someone out to go home and get a VCR. When that happened we left and walked around the block looking at the art cars. The only new things I saw were a "bed of nails" car completely covered with nails point side up -- I really hope it isn't a daily driver! -- and an "art Segway" that looked like a magic carpet with puffy clouds covering the wheels. So cool! It was too dark for a photo; I hope he's there tomorrow.

We talked with a few people while we were waiting and I got the "you're the one with the website" comment a couple more times. Now I feel totally vindicated about spending so much time on the website. Also chatted with a couple of people about my tattoo, because I was wearing an outfit that showed the top of it. It's nice of people to notice and comment on the quality of the work, but I really wish they wouldn't assume "can I see it" means "can I touch you." At least no one thought it meant "can I pull at your dress and look down your back." That does happen on occasion but thankfully not last night. I guess I need to develop more of a "back off" attitude.

Anyway, as we headed around the block we heard someone calling that the movie was starting again. Went back up to the viewing room (the second floor of Treebeard's restaurant) where we saw the first 5 minutes or so with dialogue, and then the tracking went out! They were trying to fix it with a flashlight, but it was taking longer and longer and eventually Peggy and Chris gave up and went back to the hotel. Georg and I stuck it out and a few minutes later (8:45 maybe?) the movie started again. It was great. Fun and funny and also touching at times. There were whoops and cheers whenever someone in the Houston scene, especially someone in the room at the time, showed up on screen. It felt a little long, but I think that was because of the late hour. And also because Georg and I were sitting right under an a/c vent that was uncomfortably cold. The film was actually only 90 minutes, not long at all.

Harrod must be having some issues with the structure of the movie, because at the end he handed out a lengthy questionnaire and begged us all to return it. We talked about the questionnaire as we were walking back to the hotel (it was a nice walk by the way, not too far and beautiful breezy weather) and agreed that the only question we couldn't really answer was the one about whether the parade footage suggested that art car drivers create their cars in order to be in parades & should therefore be dropped. We don't really think that a room full of art car drivers at a parade is the right audience to answer that question! I hope he'll do a test screening with people who don't have art cars and give them the same questionnaire.

The first time I saw Wild Wheels, I had Little Pig Boy but I didn't know there was an art car community or anything like that. I'm trying to remember what I thought of the parade footage. I guess I thought that those must be famous cars or something. I certainly didn't think that I could be in a parade. Little did I know!

OK, it's almost 7. I've been staying quiet so Georg could sleep but it's time to get a shower and start getting ready.

I just realized that because I used up all my peak minutes and can't webcast from the street fair, that means I don't have to lug the computer, equipment bag, DC charger and extension cord down to the lobby when we go out tonight. I can leave the hotel with nothing but a purse! Just like a regular tourist!

The Main Street Drag was fantastic! We had a great group, the web cams worked nearly flawlessly, the kids were almost all non-destructive.

We broadcast for about 3 1/2 hours, and the only glitch I noticed was the first time we switched from one cam to another, it got stuck and uploaded the same image (the last image from the previous cam) for about 20 minutes. I think maybe because the new cam was plugged into a different port on the firewire hub? Whatever the reason, I carefully tried switching cams again later and it seemed to work fine.

The pleasant surprise was the battery life. The Main Street Drag is perfectly designed for this -- a half hour at a time at each school, with 15-20 minutes of driving between each school. So we had time to recharge the computer battery off the DC adaptor between schools. We quit webcasting after 3 1/2 hours because I was concerned about the cell phone minutes, but the computer said it had 2 hours of battery life to go, and the cell phone was showing 3/4 battery full. I never even needed to spare phone battery!

The big charger lasted longer than I had expected too. We ran the bubble machine off it, using an AC/DC inverter. Those things use a lot of power so I wasn't expecting it to last that long. Maybe 45 minutes to an hour? Well it lasted the whole morning with no signs of running out! We only used it at the schools because we were concerned about driving with the new mounting frame. We just don't know how much wind pressure it can handle. But still, we think it was running for about 1.5 hours.

The kids were terrific! I can't even describe how much fun it is to pull into a school and see a wave of elementary school kids come running towards us, laughing and cheering. At one school the kids were chanting "Art Car! Art Car!" as we pulled up. And at another, the smallest kids had made signs that said "Go Art Cars!" or "I Heart Art Cars!" and they held up the signs for us as we drove in.

There were only a couple of kids who had to be stopped from yanking on the toys, and only one of the two was rude about it. The other kids were all great. And they went crazy for the bubble machine. They'd jump up and down, playing in the bubbles and trying to catch them. As Georg said, for kid appeal nothing gives you the bang for the buck of a bubble machine. We owe R U Game bigtime for telling us what brand of machine to get.

At the first school, a group of middle school aged girls stopped me and asked, "Excuse me, are your clothes from the 70s?" (I was wearing my green dress with the standing collar and a matching headband.) I didn't understand her at first -- it was sometimes hard to hear anything over the din -- but after she repeated herself I told her no, it's from 1967, but she was close! If it hadn't been so noisy I might have explained that the dress is new but made from a 1967 sewing pattern. But I didn't want to get into that in the middle of all the bedlam.

A lot of the kids noticed the webcams, and asked me about them. Unfortunately I was walking up and down the line and missed the only group of kids who were technologically savvy enough to have a conversation about them. Georg told me they were asking him if the cams were USB, how was the cell modem hooked up, etc.

We had a really nice group of drivers on our route. I chatted the most with Sarah, the leader of our group, her husband Stuart, the guy who drives the "Child Advocacy" Ferrarri, and the driver of Vincent's Dreams. At lunch afterwards we sat with the photographer who had accompanied us and his wife. A couple of out-of-towners who are staying with them joined us at the table, and it turned out to be Andy the spork guy! I met Andy in Houston two years ago, when he was riding in "Unexplained Bacon," and saw him again at Artscape 2002 driving a Space Invaders car. He didn't go to Artscape last year but I'm hoping he'll come again this year. He's now driving a car with big fins that the kids all called Batman car.

The only yucky part of the morning was that one school made us park in this huge dirt lot, like a torn up parking lot or something. It was dusty and rough, with no shade, just the sun beating down on us. I think if anyone didn't yet have a headache from the noise of the kids and the police escort sirens, they had one by the time we left that school.

Well I could write endlessly about the morning but I want to get my photos uploaded & also get a shower before we meet Peggy and Chris at 5. Tonight we're going to see a rough cut of Harrod Blank's new movie. Should be fun!

It's Friday and it's Houston and it's early (oh and I'm still Georg). Next up is Main Street Drag. I just went down to the lobby and bought a map of Houston. It's better than anything we had but still not quite what I was looking for. Note to self: next time, make sure we've got a decent map *before* arriving in town and getting lost. (Even the AAA trip tix, which were great on the trip out, aren't much good now that we're in town). And actually, compared to 02, when we spent hours lost driving around looking for a fire extinguisher, last night's trek to/from the Art Car Ball was fairly low on the fiascometer.
I don't have much to add about the trip out, other than to note that Montgomery, Alabama (like C.K. Dexter Haven) may have unexpected depth. Example 1: green trash trucks with big smiley faces painted on them; Example 2: the restaurant Wings & Things which, according to the sign painted on their front window, whose offerings, along with buffalo wings and Philly cheesesteaks, include whole fried fish, Mongolian beef, and bulgogi. (alas, no pics as I'd left my camera in the car which was being repaired at Firestone)
Missed the bats in Austin this time. Not enough time, due to travel delays and car traumas. But I did get to make several trips to Jo's on Congress, where they make some damn fine coffee indeed.
And now we're in Houston. And I must begin with big ups for Rick! for suggesting Chapultepec http://houston.citysearch.com/profile/9842449/ The entrees couldn't quite live up to the promise of the salsa (mmm... garlicky) and the appetizer (queso flameado con chorizo!!) but it was still a damn sight better than most anything in the Triangle.
But isn't this supposed to be about art cars? OK yeah. Art Car Ball was a blast. Many things burning. Met (and re-met) drivers of cool cars like R U Game? Student Driver, and Cloudy Blue Skies. Had a really good IPA (St Arnold)
Did I mention that there was much burnination?

We're webcasting! Seeing as it's dark out, the image is kind of boring. But we aimed the cam at a car with flame jets, here's hoping we get a shot of the flames going off.

Now off to enjoy the party!

We're in Houston! Whee! Just got in about ten minutes ago.

The Doubletree Allen Center is swank. The only thing wrong so far is that it's valet only. We had to scramble to pull all our bags of equipment and clothes and junk out of the car, at the front entrance while everyone was waiting for us. A lot of that stuff was packed with the assumption that we'd be able to make several trips to the car (i.e., not packed very well). Also, we aren't allowed access to the garage. Which means 1. I can't take photos of all the art cars in the parking lot; 2. I can't get in there to wash the bugs off my car. We'll have to leave early for the Art Car Ball and just pull over somewhere so I can clean the car.

On the bright side, the room was cheap due to the parade group rate, the in-room net access is fast, they provided the ethernet cable which I had forgotten, the free soap is Neutragena, and they gave us each a cookie when we checked in. Chocolate chip, and hot! I can't be annoyed with any hotel that gives me a cookie.

Barring technical failures we'll be webcasting from the Art Car Ball tonight at 9 pm (10 east coast time). Now it's time for me to unpack and relax!