Happy towel day!

If people are going to spam me and scam me out of my money, then they ought to at least send me junk in a language that I can understand. I'm more puzzled than panicked enough to send out my nonexistent credit card/Social Security number/bank account number! Sure, I can guess what "ATENCAO: Voce esta INFECTADO" means, but it's just not as as effective as it would be in English.

Many happy returns to zedhaus, and congrats to cutemew for going to Wellesley!

I had quite a nice birthday dinner with my family yesterday; we went out for dinner crepes (missing the accents, I know). It's always nice to be remembered; I feel quite spoiled now :)

attack of the feminazi!

I have a nasty feeling that when I'm not around some people dub me a screechy feminist. Then again, I tend to respond primarily to men because those forum members who share my interests tend to be men. I do hate being something of a novelty item.

Perhaps that's why people claim that I act so old?

wandering ponderings

"I hope you woke up this morning not regretting anything...heck, I hope you woke up without a hangover at the least!"

As much as I appreciate my friends' birthday wishes, why is it that people like to imagine what I'm like drunk? Or assume that I would get drunk in the first place, or perform other sketchy activities? I simply don't understand it. I have nothing against a little political subversion, although it's never anything destructive or harmful, and I don't consider myself asexual, but that's a different story.

People have been commenting lately that I have a British accent and/or British mannerisms, although Ellie repeatedly denies this. I don't get that either to be honest; I personally think that I sound rather American, and I've lived in this country for quite some time now. Occasionally I do sense a couple of vaguely trans-Atlantic phrases slipping into my speech; as I've said before, when I was younger my mother was beginning to lose her BBC announcer accent as I started to speak English. Kids used to give me strange looks in early elementary school whenever I spoke so I consciously tried to eradicate my accent and sound more American like everyone else. Perhaps in recent years I've been reversing this trend as many of the people with whom I keep in contact on a regular basis live across the pond. Perhaps it's my closet snobbish anglophilism coming out? I generally avoid using British spellings, though.

I am now the proud gardien of a garden gnome whom I have dubbed Jean. Jean Gnome, get it? It makes more sense when you say it out loud. For the record, the nickname was Ellie's idea. I am going to take a picture of him some time and you can all rejoice in his kitschiness.

I can't wait for my latest shimpment of soundtracks to come in; there's Michael Giacchino's Alias seasons one and two, Bernard Herrmann's North by Northwest (the recording not conducted by Laurie Johnson, composer of Dr. Strangelove and the Avengers series) and Marnie, and another one whose name I've temporarily forgotten. I'm starting to binge on Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann), Goodbye, Lenin! (Yann Tiersen), and the Incredibles (Michael Giacchino); I think I've been listening them too long in a row. I'm starting to lose my touch as I branch away from the jazzy swing experimentalism of 60's caper and spy films in identifying clips; it took me about twelve seconds to identify a five second clip from Burt Bacharach's Casino Royale (the 1967 version, not the 1954 American TV movie). If I've seen a film within a six month period and have heard the soundtrack twice, I need a three second clip to identify the composer, film, and track name in five seconds. It's a strange little gift of mine that comes in handy to quash sexist film score reviewers' doubts about me; it also makes me sound like I actually know what I'm talking about!