my favorite things

I do have to admit that the highpoint of the Southport Street Festival going on immediately outside the front door of my workplace this last weekend (you know, all 2.5 blocks of festive fun), was watching the little kids all dance around happily while the Sublime coverband performed the song Date Rape.

Or maybe it was the $9.00 funnel cake that tasted like stale everything that has ever been fried in that vat of oil, once it cooled down enough to eat.

and you thought we were friends.

In case you were anxiously awaiting the answers to the "how well do you know me" list, here they are:

1. What are the two movies I have seen more than any other movies? Bonus: Why?

Desperately Seeking Susan is one of them. Not only did I see it in the theatre multiple times, but when I worked at a video store during beauty school, I used to run the movie all day on the weekends when I was working. I've seen that bitch like at least 150 times.

The other one is Grease. Yes, I said Grease.

Almost every day after school during seventh grade, I would go over to Leona Hughes's house and watch it with her while we ate dinners of ramen with parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

Perhaps not coincidentally, I stopped growing in 7th grade. Whether that can be attributed to the ramen or the movie, I can't rightly say.

2. What is the movie that I made everyone watch with me after I taped it off of AMC (back when they ran movies without commercial interruptions)?

Breakfast at Tiffany's. Which also happens to be one of my favorite movies, ever,

Amusingly, Goonies is playing at the art theatre near where I work this week. I might have to go see it again...

3. Why do I have so many houseplants?

Because I feel compelled to rescue them from places that should not sell houseplants, like Target and Jewel.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that I have a pretty green thumb.

4. What was my favorite movie at the beginning of my frosh year of college, and why?

New Jack City.

Because I had a crush on Ice-T.

And because it was fucking awesome at the time.

5. Why don't I like Year Zero?

I am perfectly capable of dealing with moody, boozy, pasty, unhappy, skinny, junkie Trent making a concept album.

The Fragile? It's like setting sail in a well-used coracle, swirling around inside the tumult of his black and broken heart, and then washing up half-drowned on a foreign shore.

But shiny happy, physically fit, tan, mountain-biking Trent with guns like tree trunks?

Not only is he filled with clarity of thought and purpose, but he's also enjoying who he is, for Christ's sake.

Which goes violently against the tenets of everything I have ever held sacred and true.

Year Zero has a theme and a plot and an involved storyline about futurist societies, Big Brother, cultural stagnation, and the revolution against the aforementioned ills.

It's like he's strayed from the canon of nin.

Plus, it just plain doesn't sound as good as his old stuff.

6. How many paper shredders have I owned in the last 2 years?

Three.

The first 2 were inexpensive models that fit over the edge of a garbage can. After prolonged hoarding of shreddables, when I finally got around to taking care of it all, I fried the motors. Both times.

Now I have a more expensive model that cross-cuts paper and shreds discs and credit cards.

It laughs at a huge stack of sensitive documentation and personal information, facilitates the manufacturing of a metric ass-load of confetti, and then throws a ticker-tape parade just for the hell of it.

7. Which of Anne Rice's vampire novels have I _not_ read?

Blood Canticle.

Because even after sitting untouched on the "to read" shelf for a few years, it still manages to SUCK like unto the mightiest of vacuous, whirling space vortices.