"The president maintained his hunger strike for 11 days but was forced to end it for health reasons,"

It must be dead actor week. Don Knotts, Dennis Weaver, Darren McGavin.

Whisky cam

Hoot! Snort!

My dog is miserable. He gets this yeast infection in his ears from time to time and it's back again. Poor baby. He could barely sleep last night (meaning, of course, that I didn't get any sleep either). I tried q-tips, then cleaning fluid Ob: made for ears, then finally put him in the tub and syringed them out. It's a bit better, but not much. Ordered Otomax this morning. Hopefully that will help.

The Animatrix

[Netflix] [IMDb]

A triumph of form over substance. The Animatrix is nine animated short stories based in The Matrix universe. The selections are very uneven, but I supposed that's to be expected when there are nine different directors. Several of the stories are written by the Wachowski Brothers, but the credits at the end are in such tiny print that I didn't bother to see which ones. I have my suspicions.

Some of the shorts are dazzleing in their look, but the all come up a bit short in the story (so to speak).  In fact, many of the characters seem completely out of place and it's puzzle why they're in the film at all. The ones that work are the ones that give some of the backstory to The Matrix. The Second Renaissance,  which gave the story of the man-machine war that resulted in The Matrix itself, is foremost among them, but even it suffers from being just an series of animated scenes with a voiceover. And that thing about the runner made no sense whatsoever.

The film is probably good for real Matrix fanbois and it has an interesting style (or styles), and one or two of the stories are good. Not required viewing.

  would not watch again

So we're expecting another storm. Hmpf. I'm getting a little tired of this OH NOES a storm! then getting a dusting at most. If it's going to snow, SNOW dammit.

My upstairs neighbor bought me a ticket to a fundraiser thing on Saturday for my neighborhood association. I really wish she hadn't done that. A couple weeks ago we had a chat about whether I was going and I said probably not. Why? she says. So I says, I says it's too expensive. My point being (as I explained) this is an organization that has over $20,000 in the bank, that uses that money for little more than sending out mailings asking for more money and for throwing parties occassionally for whatever select group of people are most in need of a party. Fine and worthy causes, indeed. But they just put their membership dues up to $50 per year, and this fundraiser is another $50. That's $100 per year (assuming you buy nothing at the silent auction) for this group. Too much. It's not that I don't have the money to pay for the ticket, I explain, it's that I don't think they need any more money until they have a purpose for it. And with 20g's in the bank, there's no need to charge so much for membership (thereby excluding a good percentage of the neighbors from joining). There are plenty, nay oodles, of other organizations more worthy of $100 per year. So she misunderstood all fo this and decided I wasn't going because I couldn't afford it, so she bought me a ticket.

Now what do I do? Give her a check for the ticket? Just use it? Not showing is not an option; she's a very nice older lady and it would hurt her feelings. Ach.

So, um, er hmm... you know?