LateNightHacking Louis Journal

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Michelle's in San Francisco. I miss you, Michelle! Especially last night. I'm used to being by myself a lot and usually don't mind it. But finishing a week's work at long last and being ready for a little Friday night celebration and looking around to find nothing but a dark empty house - that's pretty lonely! That's when I start talking to myself, saying funny things like, "That's a funny face and all, but why are you making faces in the mirror and talking to yourself?"

I decided to go see Pan's Labyrinth. The visuals were good, but it just wasn't my kind of story.

First, it's a gruesome story about living in the household of a sadistic captain during a war when most of the household is supporting the resistance. Mental and physical torture scenes - yay.

Interwoven is a fairytale story, where all the characters are creepy and you can't tell for sure if any of them are good guys. This includes the heroine, who pretty much never does what she is told to do, either in the war story or in the fairytale story, and things keep turning out badly because of it.

What was up with the grapes!?! 1) You've been told absolutely positively don't eat anything. Your life depends on it. 2) You've been told you have a very short time period to accomplish your task or else you will be trapped. 3) There's a very scary-@$$ creature sitting at the opposite end of the room, and there are murals on the wall of it eating people. 4) Your fairy helpers are waving at you like mad, telling you not to do what you are doing and to look behind you. Why why why would you stand there and slowly, obliviously, eat a few grapes?!? This places a grave strain in the audience's sympathy toward your plight!

The faun was unusual. He was certainly no Mr. Tumnes! Apparently he was made out of rocks. I don't think I've ever seen such a noisy creature. It hadn't occurred to me until thinking about this movie how strongly sound effects contribute to the notion of "This here's a bad guy!".

MirrorMask, which I also rented and watched recently, is a complete contrast. It was also a fantasy story about a heroine trying to reclaim her family, but in MirrorMask, the heroine listened to the people trying to help her, the heroine did very few things that were obviously dumb, and it had great lines like "I understand this must be quite painful for you but really it is a chicken," and "If I tell you something weird, will you think I'm crazy?" "Yes, I expect so." Oh, and we didn't have to watch anyone getting their face smashed in (which happened twice in Pan's Labyrinth, come to think of it).

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So, when I got back from watching the movie, I decided to check my favorite comics and hopefully find something more uplifting. As I was going through my list, I remembered "1/0". 1/0 is a great comic that had a complete story arc and ended a couple years ago. I always have been intending to archive it, because good things are always gone before you know it on the Internet. Luckily, it's still available! The comic is a bit hard to describe, and it takes a while for it to find itself as it moves from a slapstick beginning to a more philisophical nature by the end. I guess you could say it's a humorous look at the nature of existence and belief. I ended up re-reading the entire 1000 strip archive. :) Now I better grab it for my archives before it disappears off the net.

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As I was doing the dishes on Thursday night, I started singing

Don't be downhearted, I can fix it for you sonny,
It won't take too long, it'll just take money.

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The best things in life are non sequiturs.

Ha ha! I crack myself up.

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While I was writing today, I also wanted to discourse on the topic of dry skin.

Being as it's winter in Minnesota (yes, and everywhere else in the northern hemisphere), areas on my skin have gotten extremely dry. Now, personally I prefer relatively dry skin. Fingers should squeak when you rub them together, not leave smudge marks on glass or grease marks on paper. Fingers should glide by each other, not ooze past each other. I dislike "lotion" soaps where you can't tell if you've rinsed all the suds off or not because you stay slippery no matter how nuch you rinse. I really dislike sticking to things, walking around like a human post-it note. That especially includes skin sticking to skin in elbow-pits or arms sticking to tables when you rest them down. See, this normally only happens when you've been outside working and you are covered with sweat and dirt and stinkiness. It means, when you have finished your task (and there's nothing wrong with being sticky and slimy if that's what it takes to get something done), when you have finished your task you need to wash before you are fit company again. When you are clean, you will not stink and will not stick to yourself. Simple, no?

(The whole "girly" aspect of using hand cream doesn't really bother me too much. I mean, the sparkly stuff that Michelle has is out, but she has some neat smelling orange-ginger stuff that she has no interest in but I like to use on occasion. It's just . . . the oozy fingers . . . <shudder>.)

The problem is, things have gone from "dry" to "turning crusty and falling off" and that's not good. Time to grimace and bear it, and pull out the Eucerine cream. Now, this isn't just something that affects me, because I went to Target (in Minnesota) and they were completely sold out of Eucerine cream. Clearly, it is an endemic problem. :)

Luckily, Houston is not out, and I've been faithfully greasing up. (Sigh, more minutes added to the morning bathroom routine.) The funny thing is, I usually wear t-shirts and jeans "to work" in Houston. This week, I had to switch to long sleeve shirts and shorts because having my arms stick to the desk was driving me nuts. I've been pulling out shirts I haven't worn in years. However, I have to admit that the Eucerine cream has worked wonders. My two little zombie spots are almost completely back to normal, and all the places that were merely very dry are looking good as well. I could become a convert. (I find that wiping my hands vigorously on my pants will eventually reduce hand greasiness to a bearable level.)

Last night at the movie theater, they were handing out samples of some new "Nevea Creme". I actually took one, and applied some to the backs of my hands while waiting for the movie to start. It has the same active ingredient as Eucerine cream, and comes in a neat little one ounce can which I could take on the airplane (and even refill). I don't know though. Me using hand cream? What is this world coming to?