don't panic

Today, I got up late, played some Tetris, started working, stopped working to look at furniture online, called my parents, went to Crate and Barrel for the second time in two days to look at furniture in person, and then did some desultory work while eating a tuna salad sandwich at one of my favorite Menlo Park cafes. I realized that my hands were about to freeze off as the wind blew across them while I was typing (I made the mistake of sitting outside, which was fine at first because I was wearing my black wool coat and the awesome pink/grey/cream plaid scarf that Claude gave me for Christmas last year, but my hands got too cold to continue). So, I came home, surfed the net, did some stuff for work, then made the mistake of turning on the Golden Globes. I ended up watching them from 8-11, which was fine, although I felt worse for it afterwards because I should have just finished my stuff for work instead.

Despite that, it's fine--procrastination was the name of the game this weekend (actually, to be precise, Tetris was the name of the game this weekend--I can see the little tetrimino shapes when I close my eyes, which is a bad bad sign), so it's little wonder that I didn't get anything at all done. I did clean out my fridge tonight, which was a good thing to do. I also got nearly all of my work done, but I didn't read the stories for my Wednesday night class, so I'll have to do that tomorrow night after I see the movie w/Vidya. I also need to go into work relatively early tomorrow, so that I can be fully conscious and well-fueled for some morning meetings, and so I should probably go to bed.

However, three things first:

1) In this article about anti-Americanism, one quoted stat was: 'Similarly, while 57 percent of Egyptians said they disliked American popular culture, a third said they appreciated American ways of doing business.' Now is it just me, or does this prove nothing? Couldn't the 43 percent of Egyptians who either like or feel neutral about American pop culture overlap with the 33 percent who appreciated American ways of doing business? To use this as a stat showing that anti-Americanism doesn't necessarily mean being against everything that America stands for makes no sense. Silly International Herald Tribune!

2) I really want to see 'The Fountain'; too bad it's already out of theatres. It was only nominated for best musical score at the Golden Globes tonight, but it seems like my kind of story--a love story spanning three completely different time periods, including the Spanish conquistador period and the distant future. Better yet, I looked it up on rottentomatoes.com, and one reviewer (who inexplicably gave it a thumbs down) commented 'Zardoz, anyone?' To compare 'The Fountain' to one of Sean Connery's best silver-screen forays, in which he runs around in a big red diaper and bandoliers for most of the movie, shows that 'The Fountain' must be one of the great unrecognized classics of modern cinema.

3) Happy birthday to my cousin Andrew! He's thirteen today (or rather, yesterday, since it's 1am)--hard to believe. That means that thirteen years ago right now, I was freezing to death in my grandparents' house while we were on a brief visit home from our year in Ukraine; their old-fashioned farmhouse doesn't have heat upstairs, which was particularly unfortunate in the middle of one of the bitterest cold spells that I can remember from my entire childhood. Luckily we got to go back to Ukraine, where the rest of our winter was nice and toasty thanks to the efforts of the local politicians, who ensured that we were always roasting from the pumped-in steam heat, even when entire neighborhoods had to do without. Thanks, Ukraine! And on that note, it's time for bed!