Saturday, July 05, 2003
Ah, Rutland. Cradle of civilization.
Well, maybe not. But at least we got some decent Chinese food.

I slept for 11 hours last night. It was beautiful. When I finally woke up, I proceeded to do nothing for two hours. Then I ate ice cream. Then, Marusya, Alla and I piled into Maruya's car and headed off on our road trip - destination: Wal-mart.

See, one of the good things about Middlebury is that it doesn't have things like Wal-mart and Pizza Hut. It's full of little family shops and quaint boutiques. Unfortunately, this is also one of the bad things about Middlebury. Where do you go when you want a 24-pack of diet Pepsi, shower gel, prescription medicine, one-hour photo development and a new shirt? Well, you trundle around the whole damn town trying to find all of these things in individual, tiny, poorly lit merchant's dens, and at the end of the day, you come home with some Dial soap, a potted plant and the monstrous pile of tomes you bought from the various used-book sellers. Charming, but not especially pragmatic.

So we drove, then we drove some more, then a little more after that. None of us remembered CDs, so we ended up listening to the gasp English language radio. I don't know if there was a sudden glut of new music over the last three weeks, or if Vermont is just avant-garde and Clear Channel-free, but I heard at least five songs I've never heard before. Also, I learned that mountains + car radio = bad reception.

I'd pretty much forgotten that it's Fourth-of-July weekend, so when we got to Brandon, it took me a while to figure out why there seemed to be a nonsensical block party going on. Now, I have witnessed the Dancing Ponczkas, so I know about offbeat small-town spectacles, but this was rather unique. They seemed to be having a fair, but with no rides or activities, just concession stands, some guys playing bluegrass, and some people giving a mini heavy-metal concert on their front lawn. Have you ever seen the movie Sling Blade? The metal band was kind of like that. Anyway.

For some reason this caused a traffic jam (a traffic jam! In rural Vermont! On the highway!) so we were going pretty slow, which gave us ample time to enjoy the decoratively painted pig sculptures that were scattered around the town. There were at least 15, probably more. Perhaps there is an explanation for the decorative pigs; I don't know what it could be. They were very prettily painted, all bright colors and patterns and recreations of Van Gogh. But they were pigs. I give up. This place is just bizarre.

I just did an internet search, trying to figure out what the heck was going on there. This is all I found. Make of it what you will.

Mountain update: still not used to the damn things. Everytime we turned a corner, a new one would pop up, and I would be like "aagh." You know, I've seen mountains before. They never weirded me out like this. I think it's living here with them looming all the time that's messing with my head.


Anyway, after like 45 minutes we reached Rutland, and practically everything except the Wal-mart was closed, either because of the holiday weekend or because it's Saturday; I don't know. Either one seems a little weird to me. We almost ended up getting lunch at an Irish bar called Two Sheas (it had crossed sabres on the sign! Ha!) but to avoid the cigarette smoke, we ended up going to the only other place that was open, a Chinese restaurant called Kong Chow. Between the name and the dusty origami in the window, I was a bit leery, but the place was nice and the food was good. The only other patrons besides us were an elderly couple. The woman had a croaky voice synthesizer. The place was run by a pleasant, humorously loud older lady and a pleasant, not-loud young woman. Between us chattering away in Russian, the robotic voice thing and the cheerfully loud lady, I'm sure there's room for sitcom in this. The young woman would, of course, be the heroine and have romantic misadventures, because this is how things work.

You know, the whole time, I saw a zillion farms but only one farm had actual visible cows. Most of the rest of them looked to be dairy farms, having silos (correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the purpose of a silo to make, you know, silage? Cow food? I mean, you keep corn in a corn crib, not a silo, right? I guess you could also keep grain in a silo. Maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about) and cow-barn looking buildings and cows painted on the mailbox and lots of acreage with no actual crops planted. Vermont is apparently a big cheese-producing state (although I scoff at this, of course) so it would make sense to have many cows. So I can only assume the cows were in the barns. I believe that this explains something about the smell here.

Oh, I haven't told about the smell, have I? Well, on days when it gets very hot and there is a mild wind (no wind means no cow smell, as there are no cows on campus, and a brisk wind means no cow smell, as the smell doesn't hover then), the entire campus smells of manure. Not aggressively, just...you KNOW it's there. This strikes me as odd, because we have approximately 10 billion cows in Wisconsin, and very seldom is it stinky if you are not in an actual barn.

Based on this information, I have formulated what I would like to call the "Glade Plug-in Theory of Cow Odor."

If you were to rip open a Glade Plug-in and scatter the gel around the room, there would be a very strong Country Fresh smell, but only for a few minutes. This is what we have back home, where the cows get to spend time outside. They may be pooping up a storm, but each individual event simply dissipates into the aether. Now, if you were to leave the Plug-in intact, but not plug it in, you would get no odor whatsoever, unless you directly smelled the Plug-in itself. This is what you get here on a cool day, or at night, when while the cows may be in the barn, they are not radiating. The barn may smell, but it is not affecting the surrounding country. But plug that sucka in, and you've got yourself a steady, gentle stream of Country Fresh scent wafting about the countryside. Conclusion: on a hot day, the cow barns here are like gigantic stinky Glade Plug-ins.

I may have put too much thought into that.

No Russian Weirdness today. Instead, have a note taken off the Middlebury, VT Community Calendar:
Tuesday July 8th, 7:00 pm: Middlebury Community Players present music from CHICAGO

For real.
- declared by Liusia @ 9:23 PM

Friday, July 04, 2003
Did you know that this year marks the 500th birthday of vodka?
Happy birthday, Vodka!

Well, I'm sitting here slurping down water so I won't be hungover tomorrow. Life in the Russian School is hard on the liver, kiddies.

Today I had the usual Friday written exam and speaking test. The speaking test did not go particularly well, as we were supposed to memorize a poem. Well, I'm also memorizing my lines for the play, and...yeah. I did a crappy job of memorizing my poem for the oral exam, and then when I went to take the test, all that wanted to come out of my mouth was the opening to The Bronze Horseman. And some stammering. Boris Yenaslavavitch, bless his heart, gave me a C anyway. We also found out our average grade so far, and mine was a B+. I don't know how that'll figure into my GPA in Madison, seeing as how we have A/AB/B etc, but I'm pretty happy with it.

I missed my grad student audity class because I fell asleep in a chair in the lobby while reading Garry Potter. It's not a big deal; I'm not getting any credit for that class anyway. I just hope I didn't snore.

Tonight Alla and I went to a lecture on the history of St. Petersburg and then to a classical piano concert/poetry reading. Then we picked up Marusya and went to the bar. It was very...Russian. The staples of life here are classical poetry and alcohol. Ura!

I plan on sleeping all day tomorrow. Then, when I finally wake up, Marusya and I are going to drive to, like, New York to find a Wal-mart. That should be an adventure.

The Russian Weirdness of the Day combines Russian Weirdness and Extreme Geekiness! Ura!
Russia's cult video pirate rescripts Lord of the Rings as gangster film
- declared by Liusia @ 11:00 PM

Thursday, July 03, 2003
Every kindergarten class has a kid sitting in the back, drooling on itself...
I think I must have been coming off as unusually stupid today. During class, my professors asked me no less than five times, kindly, whether I understood. And then, at lunch, Svetlana Igorevna (my language teacher) asked me how well I was understanding class. Now, mind you, I've been getting straight Bs and while I kind of suck at talking, I'm no worse than some of my classmates. Anyway, I told her that I understand fine, I just can't talk, and suspect I should have been placed a level lower because of this. My paranoia level decreased slightly when she replied that she thought I was making good progress on the speaking part, and that I was doing fine as a 5th level student. So I'm really not sure what to make of all that.

We finished The Diamond Arm in class today. This is a Soviet crime heist comedy from the 60s, and it's actually funny, even beyond the fact that it's a Soviet crime heist comedy from the 60s. The plot is simple: an naive, good-natured middle-aged economist goes on a cruise in the gasp West. While there, he inadvertently becomes a mule for jewel smugglers when he injures himself and gems are imbedded in the cast. He goes home, and the police use him as bait to catch the smugglers.

The true joy of this movie is Giesha, the primary bad guy, and his ballistic, fast-talking, fey self. He's the very characterization of the anti-Soviet: a fashion-conscious, Jesus-worshipping, wussy, economic-crime-committing, cross-dressing dimwit. And I love him and his dopey hair flip.


In other news, we had play rehearsal today! I haven't yet mastered falling down, but I'm an ace at repeating what other characters say.

Jessica, perhaps you could give me some pointers on falling down hilariously?

Russian weirdness of the day:
Big Russian Soul dot Org
The Other St Petersburg
Russian Misery Tourism©...for the sophisticated misanthrope in you

- declared by Liusia @ 9:04 PM

Because my blog isn't geeky enough yet:
Here are pictures from Frodo the Angsty Hobbit.






And my personal favorite:


And here is a very geeky quiz:


So which LOTR Villain are you? Hmm??
made by Michelle at EmptySpace.

Now all I need is some Star Trek fanfic and I'll be set. (That was a joke.) (Unless you have some fanfic you'd like to submit.) (But only if it makes fun of the fanfic genre, like this site.) (And for God's sake, no Wesley slash.)

- declared by Liusia @ 5:22 PM

Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Freakin' French School
If I get ONE MORE STUPID prank call in fractured French, I swear, I'm going to...I don't know.

Probably yell "Remember Borodino!" into the phone, and hang up.

(I'm sorry. That was a terrible, terrible history joke.)
- declared by Liusia @ 8:59 PM

A question:
I'll be getting back into Madison around 1 pm on the 16th of August, and I'll be flying out of Madison on the 25th...is it okay for me to stay at the Bourgeois Apartment, home of the class traitors (and Liz)?
- declared by Liusia @ 8:30 PM

The fact that the previous two posts are about Gorey and dissection almost makes this look cheery
The graduate courses started today. I'm auditing a class on post-Soviet Russian history. I understood the vast majority of what the professor said, and answered a question reasonably coherently; I'm not sure whether to feel bad that I didn't understand better, or to be happy that I held my own in a class intended for Russian-speaking grad students. I have to keep reminding myself that I've only been studying Russian two years, and I can't expect to be fluent. It's just that now that I'm starting to think in Russian, I feel like my dismal lack of vocabulary is limiting my thought processes. This is going to sounds snotty, but I'm used to being fairly well-spoken in class and in my writing, and the fact that now I have the reading skills level of an 8th grader is damaging my self-esteem a little.

In happier news, we had a picnic at Lake Dunmore this afternoon. The weather was lovely and it was nice to get off campus. Because I am a big geek, I brought my homework along. But Dima hauled out the homework first, so I wasn't alone in my dorkiness. In fact, a bunch of the 5th years had homework with them...we had a little study circle while everyone else swam and played volleyball and such. Geeks of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your social awkwardness!
- declared by Liusia @ 7:34 PM

Jessica is dissecting a llama tomorrow
Some people get all the excitement.
- declared by Liusia @ 3:10 PM

Tuesday, July 01, 2003
I think finding this funny makes me a very bad person
It occurred to me that not everyone is as creepy as I am, and therefore may not be familiar with Edward Gorey. Here's a brief introduction to his body of work: The Gashlycrumb Tinies

This is my favorite:


When I have money, I want to buy The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas . I mean, just the title alone...

- declared by Liusia @ 5:48 PM

I am the crazy aunt
We got our role assignments for the play! So, um, has anyone read Nevsky Prospect, and if you have, could you tell me exactly what's up with the Tyotka? 'Cuz so far, I've managed to acertain that I vacillate between repeating what other characters say and falling down. Of course, this is going to make learning my lines very easy. I figure if I forget a line, I'll just fall down.

Hmm. Basically, I am playing me.

Garry Potter update: Why, oh WHY can't Khagrid talk like a normal person? British slang becomes even more unintelligable when translated to Russian. Germiona, who I pretty much disliked in the English language incarnation, is becoming my favorite character, if only for her grammatical perfection.

I got last week's composition back from my teacher today. Ura, 82%! There was a time when 82% would have made me sigh dramatically, throw myself on a chaise-lounge and hide my face with a lace hanky, but that time is long gone. (I think the whole Stevenus, rhetor malus Latin thing marked the first time in my life that I yelled, "Yea, I passed!" and it's been downhill from there.) Anyway, I often feel like I'm the dumbest one in class, but generally someone then says something at least as dumb, which makes me feel better. So, ura!

Insomnia is a bitter foe, my friends. I fell asleep in class today. I'm not sure why my brain decided it'd be better to sleep sitting at an uncomfortable desk, drooling on my copy of Gyui De Mopassan while Boris Yenaslavavitch glared at me, than at home in my bed during the actual nighttime hours. Stupid brain.

- declared by Liusia @ 5:29 PM

Monday, June 30, 2003
FAFSA needs to bite me.
In other news, the Earth is still round.
- declared by Liusia @ 8:32 PM

"Literary" update, and a pop culture .mp3 file
More from Garry Potter i Uznik Azkabana: Voldemort is named Volan-de-Mort. I assume this was done to make some kind of clever anagram along the lines of "I am Tom Riddle" back in the second book. Or possibly I am full of it. Ron's rat is named Korosta, which means "pustule." Heh. And Sirius Black is just Blek, but I can understand why they didn't want to translate it as "Chernii," (the actual word "Black") considering it's become a nasty slur against darker-complected citizens of the former Soviet Union (e.g. Caucasians, the kind from the actual Caucuses.)

I know I want to read this: English is as She Spoke
I do not, however, know if I want to read this: Damn you, Eggers!

Yes, still funny.


- declared by Liusia @ 1:57 PM

Sunday, June 29, 2003
Edward Gorey is my hero

You will be smothered under a rug. You're a little
anti-social, and may want to start gaining new
social skills by making prank phone calls.

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by Quizilla


And speaking of Gorey, THESE are fantastic.
- declared by Liusia @ 11:59 PM

Man, why didn't someone tell me I had a spelling error in the sidebar?
 
- declared by Liusia @ 11:08 PM

Oi! I forgot to mention...(like anyone cares)
My stepmother just offered to buy me a plane ticket back to Madison when summer school ends and then one to DC for study abroad orientation, and Katia offered to let me stay at her house in DC during the duration of our orientation. (For those of you not in the know, Katia is going to St. Petersburg with the same program as I, at the same time. This is extraordinarily awesome. It's a small world, etc. etc. Not only will I know someone, I'll know a cool someone.)

So I will be coming back to Madison for a bit after all, as it is now a financially sound decision because everyone is helping my mooching self out. Yra!

(PS: Thank you, Katia!)

I really wish my study abroad orientation packet would get here. They sent it to the UW study abroad office, who sent it to my mom, who mailed it to me. And since the mail is pathetically slow here (I think they deliver mail via carrier cow, praying the cow doesn't eat it before arrival) it could be a while.

Also, I can't figure out how to deposit checks into my checking account, since the Bank of Middlebury won't acknowledge M&I's existance. If anyone has an idea, please comment below, 'cuz I am plumb out of cleverness.
- declared by Liusia @ 10:15 PM

I didn't do anything today but I'm going to blog about it anyway
Why? See the title of this webpage.

I overslept and missed church this morning - an inauspicious start to the day. When I finally got out of bed, Marusya and I went to the gym.

You can stop gaping at me now.

I've been going twice a week. I figured that since I'm not doing as much walking (Middlebury isn't the gargantuan behemoth that UW is) I should get some actual exercise. Generally I ride the stationary bike for about 40 minutes, then try to use the scary weight training equipment. I got my leg stuck in one of the machines on Wednesday. It was kind of traumatic. I'm not sure if this gym thing's doing me any good, but it's a good excuse to sit there and read. Not that I need an excuse.

Speaking of reading, I'm about 60 pages into Harry Potter pa-russki. Translation report: most of the character's names have remained the same, just transliterated (although Harry is Garry and Hermione is Germiona. There's no "h" in Russian.) But for some reason, Snape is named Severus Snegg (snegg being the word for "snow" with an extra "g" added.) Errol the owl is Streletz, or "archer" (get it? Arrow? I didn't get it. Marusya had to explain it to me.) and Hedwig is Booklya. I don't have any idea what a "booklya" is, and it wasn't in the dictionary. I was surprised to see that Lupin remained the same, as his name actually means something. I tried to look up "lupine" in the Russian-English dictonary, and it wasn't there, only "wolfish," which is "volchii."

Vocabulary additions update:
-bulldog
-to drown
-car accident
-various vaguely insulting words relating to dog breeding (thanks, Aunt Petunia!)
-the sound a book makes when it is trying to bite you
-Dementor

Ooh! It just started storming. Zdorova!

Anyway, after the gym, I did laundry, which as you can imagine was very exciting. The highlight: when the machine ate my Middcard. Stupid machine.

Then I ate supper, which was also thrilling.

Then I drank a bunch of tea and played scrabble. We kept score and I was doing really well until this guy came up and wanted his stolen pen back. That kind of knocked our scorekeeping off its tracks.

Now, I'm copying Katia's Russian movies. Yay for CD burners! So far, I've got Brother, Window to Paris, Winnie-Pooh, East-West (which I love) and The Diamond Arm (which I will have to tell you guys about. It's great. Tsigga tsigga ai-lu-lu!)



- declared by Liusia @ 9:58 PM

Experiments for John to do with his physics students
How to Make a Glowing Pickle

Popcorn Chromatography

Combusting Grapes

Plastic Hydrogen Bomb and Squirt Gun


- declared by Liusia @ 12:34 PM

Okay, I've changed my career trajectory from "Busty Tavern Wench" to "Busty Pirate Lass"
(snipped from here)


Arr! Anne Bonny!

Pirate Women

The freedom of life under the Jolly Roger extended to another perhaps surprising group of sea-robbers: women pirates. Women weren't quite as rare at sea in the 17th and 18th centuries as you might imagine them to have been. There was a fairly well established tradition of women cross-dressing in order to seek their fortune, or to follow husbands or lovers to sea. Of course the only women we know about are the ones that got caught and exposed. Their more successful sisters have sailed off into anonymity. Even so, it would seem that women aboard pirate ships were few. Ironically this may have contributed to the pirates' downfall - they were relatively easy for the state to crush because the pirate community was widely dispersed and inherently fragile; they found it hard to reproduce or replenish their numbers. By comparison, the much longer lived and more successful pirates of the South China Seas were organised in family groups with men, women and children all at sea together - thus there was always a new generation of pirates to hand.(36)

Just as pirates in general defined themselves in opposition to the emerging capitalist social relations of the 17th and 18th centuries, so also some women found in piracy a way to rebel against the emerging gender roles. For example, Charlotte de Berry, born in England in 1636, followed her husband into the navy by dressing as a man. When she was forced aboard an Africa-bound vessel, she led a mutiny against the captain who had assaulted her, cutting off his head with a dagger. She then turned pirate and became captain, her ship cruising the African coast capturing gold ships. There were also other less successful women pirates; in Virginia in 1726, the authorities tried Mary Harley (or Harvey) and three men for piracy. The three men were sentenced to hang but Harley was released. Mary's husband Thomas was also involved in the piracy but seems to have escaped capture. Mary and her husband had been transported to the colonies as convicts a year earlier. Three years later in 1729, another deported female convict was on trial for piracy in the colony of Virginia. A gang of six pirates were sentenced to hang, including Mary Crickett (or Crichett), who along with Edmund Williams, the leader of the pirate gang, had been transported to Virginia as a felon in 1728.(37)

However, the women pirates about whom we know the most are Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Mary Read was born as an illegitimate child, and brought up as a little boy by her mother in order to pass her off to her relatives as her legitimate son. She had to be tough to deal with the harsh circumstances of her life and by the time she was a teenager she was already "growing bold and strong." Mary seems to have liked her male identity and enlisted herself as a sailor on a man-of-war and then as an English soldier in the war in Flanders. At the end of the war she joined a Dutch ship bound for the West Indies. When her ship was captured by 'Calico' Jack Rackham's pirate crew, which included Anne Bonny, she decided to throw her lot in with the pirates. She seems to have taken to pirate life and began a new romance with one of the crew. When her lover got into an argument with a fellow pirate and was challenged to settle it in the pirate's customary way "at sword and pistol", Mary saved her lover by picking a fight with the contender, challenging him to a duel two hours before that he was due to fight with her lover and then running him through with her cutlass.(38)

Anne Bonny was born the illegitimate child of a "Maid-Servant" in Ireland and raised in male disguise, her father pretending she was the child of a relative entrusted to his care. He eventually took her to Charleston, South Carolina, where they no longer needed to keep up the pretence. Anne grew up into a "robust" woman of "fierce and couragious temper." Indeed, one time "when a young Fellow would have lain with her against her Will, she beat him so, that he lay ill of it a considerable time." She ran away to the Caribbean where she fell in love with the captain of a pirate crew called 'Calico' Jack Rackham (so-called because of his outlandish and colourful clothing). Anne and 'Calico' Jack, "finding they could not by fair means enjoy each other's Company with Freedom, resolved to run away together, and enjoy it in Spight of all the World." They stole a ship from the harbour and for the next couple of years Bonny was Rackham's shipmate and lover as their crew (which soon also included Mary Read disguised in male clothing, who joined them from a ship they captured) raided shipping in the Caribbean and American coastal waters.(39)

One of the witnesses at their trial, a woman called Dorothy Thomas, who had been taken prisoner by the pirates, said the women "wore Mens Jackets, and long Trousers, and Handkerchiefs tied about their Heads, and that each of them had a Machet[e] and Pistol in their Hands." Despite the fact Read and Bonny were in men's clothing, their prisoner was no fool; she said that "the Reason of her knowing and believing them to be Women was, by the largeness of their Breasts."

Other prisoners taken by the pirates reported that Bonny and Read "were both very profligate, cursing, and swearing much, and very ready and willing to do any Thing on board." Both women appear to have exercised some leadership; for example, they were part of the group designated to board prizes - which was a role reserved for only the most fearless and respected members of the crew. When the pirates "saw any vessel, gave Chase or Attack'd," the pair "wore Men's Cloaths," but at other times, "they wore Women's Cloaths."(40)

Rackham, Bonny and Read were all caught in 1720 by a British navy sloop off Jamaica. The crew were all totally drunk (a common event) and hid in the hold - there was only one other apart from Bonny and Read who was brave enough to fight. In disgust, Mary Read fired a pistol down into the hold "killing one and wounding others." Eighteen members of the crew had already been tried and sentenced to hang by the time the women came to court. Three of them, including Rackham, were later hung in chains at prime locations to act as a moral instruction and "Publick Example" to the seamen who would pass their rotting corpses. However, Mary Read insisted that "Men of Courage" - like herself - did not fear death. Courage was a primary virtue amongst the pirates - it was only courage that ensured their continued survival. 'Calico' Jack Rackham had been promoted from quartermaster to captain when the then current captain, Charles Vane, had been deposed by his crew for cowardice. So it was an ignominious end for Rackham to be told by Anne Bonny before he was due to be hanged that "if he had fought like a Man, he need not have been hang'd like a Dog." Both Bonny and Read escaped execution because they "pleaded their Bellies, being Quick with Child, and pray'd that Execution might be staid."(41)


- declared by Liusia @ 11:03 AM

Pirate Riddles for Sophisticates
I posted this to Quicktopic long ago, but Katia and I were talking about pirates (Arr!) the other day, so here it is again:


PIRATE RIDDLES
FOR SOPHISTICATES .

BY KEVIN SHAY

- - - -

Q: What's a pirate's favorite aspect of computational linguistics?
A: PARRRsing sentences.

Q: Of which concept shared by Jungian psychology and Northrop Frye's literary theory are pirates especially fond?
A: ARRRchetype.

Q: Who's a pirate's favorite member of the creative team behind "32 Short Films About Glenn Gould"?
A: Don McKellARRR.

Q: Of all of Richard Harris's many achievements in the performing arts, which is a pirate's favorite?
A: "MacARRRthur PARRRk."

Q: What's a pirate's favorite alliance-creating diplomatic agreement from the Second World War?
A: The TripARRRtite Pact.

Q: Which ancient Greek lyric poet do pirates like the best?
A: PindARRR.

Q: If a pirate were to recite one of the Olympian odes by the aforementioned poet, which one would it be?
A: The XIth Nemean Ode, "To ARRRistagoras, the Prytanis of Tenedos, son of ARRRchesilaus."

Q: If that same pirate were then to recite a 20th-century poem about the nature of poetry, what would it be?
A: "ARRRs Poetica" by ARRRchibald MacLeish.

Q: What if he went on to recite a poem by Sir Walter Scott?
A: "LochinvARRR."

Q: Why does that pirate keep reciting poetry, anyway? Is he some sort of Nancy-boy?
A: Aye, 'tis a Nancy-boy he be. Arrr.

Q: Of the ghosts that appear to Ebenezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol," which do pirates prefer?
A: Jacob MARRRley.

Q: Can we replace that last one with something about Bob Marley, so we can have an additional gag about RastafARRRianism?
A: No.

Q: Whom did the pirate vote for in the Haitian election?
A: ARRRistide.

Q: Wait. Why did they let a pirate vote in the Haitian election?
A: Remember, the nation was taking its first halting steps toward democracy, and balloting procedures were rather chaotic. The pirate just slipped in somehow. Arrr.

Q: I don't buy it. Pirates care nothing for participating in the electoral process.
A: Look, can we finish this up soon? I'm having those phantom pains in my wooden leg.

Q: A phenomenon first described in the 17th century by which important contributor to the field of amputation surgery?
A: Oh, this is getting ridiculous.

Q: Just say it.
A: Ambroise PARRRé.

Q: You can go now.
A: Arrr. Nancy-boy.


Arr! A pirate's fingerprint!



- declared by Liusia @ 10:52 AM

"Are you all gangsters?"
"No. We are Russians."

Anyway.

I just watched three movies in a row and now I can't feel my legs. It was worse than when you people (you know who you are!) decided to show me, like, three seasons of The West Wing in three days. On the other hand, I got to watch three spiffy films. We saw Brother, Brother-2 and Sisters. (Ah ha ha. Very clever, these movie marathon planners, see?)

Brother and its sequel, Brother-2, are strange, because they are clearly action movies. I mean, there is shooting and car chases and homemade bombs. There's even a cannon! (Certain scenes were like a how-to guide. How to make a silencer out of a soda bottle! How to turn matchboxes into small explosive devices! Of course, I already knew this stuff, but...) It's just that they're so much more laid back than an American action movie. Danila, the "hero," goes and shoots someone up, and then...we have a five minute musical montage of him wandering around New York. Also, it bears mentioning that said car chase involved a Lada, which tipped over when it jumped a curb.

The Eastern Block's answer to the Yugo!

And any movie that features this guy has to be worth watching. He's like an evil, musclebound house-elf!


Sisters, on the other hand, served only to remind me of how it's possible to, say, think your sibling is misguided dead weight, but still be entirely freaked out when she goes missing. (PS: I heard she's back in Stevens Point.)
- declared by Liusia @ 12:05 AM

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