Caraccioli

For the record, I know next to nothing about Rome. (I know nothink! Nothink!) But I apparently sound like Yosemite Sam to some people around here. I heard somewhere that the amount of productive time we spend at work is less than 5 or 6 hours a day. (This excludes time going for coffee, using the restroom, chatting with fellow workers, calling home to see what's for dinner, reading fool posts like this one, etc.)

The web doesn't pick up sarcasm very well, I'm sure I've suffered a similar fate. I'm quite certain that things I think are acidly funny are taken as being bitter and twisted anger. That's why I try to embrace emoticons. (But sometimes fail.) Yes, they're sort of dopey looking, but it's better than offending. Sometimes. Did you know that according to one study, 69% of a typical message is communicated nonverbally? Further 23% of the message is given by tone of voice. That leaves a mere 8% of the message being communicated through the actual words used.

Not to get too far OT, but that has got the be the jolliest avatar I've ever seen. I think it's interesting that people find different alcohols affect them differently. I don't find that at all, except that I find myself able to drink more of one thing to get the same effect as drinking less of another.

You kill me, Ed. I wish I had that emoticon that Rumba uses that laughs and pounds its hand until it falls over. I completely agree with you about Christmas cards. Just tonight I politely asked the female half of a pair of good friends, who was dutifully going upstairs to send out 10 more cards (she does ten a night), not to send me one. To her credit, she gracefully agreed not to do so. I can't stand the things and I refuse to respond in kind. (You do that and the things proliferate.) Also, if I may add one, if someone simply must get me a Christmas gift, feel free to buy it used off eBay or Craig's List and pay a whole lot less for it. Unless it's something like those Cheeses of the World. (Saving yourself $10 will mean more to me than the cellophane on a DVD that you think I'd like.)

It would be Indiana Jones (and the Last Crusade). If no one had anything to say by now, I had planned to offer the following clue: The movie is not about piracy, but the main character does steal a boat during the course of it. But now it's uncessary. Your move.

Hmm?

Ok, the nays have it. It was just a thought from your friendly covert moderator. (No offense meant, Eric. Seriously.)

Mr and Mrs Smith Just saw it tonight. Man, that movie went on forever. And could someone tell me how it is that they weren't both dead by the end? (Other than the obvious explanation - it's a action/date movie and they were the "heroes".) Plus, even though they escaped, they'd still be hunted, right? So they could never make their marriage counselling session... All right, this may be a tough one, if only because there's not much to it. "*Heh* X marks the spot!"

Or has improved dramatically from its former state. Depends on your perspective. I'd have been dead long ago had we not improved (and made ourselves able to invent things like insulin pumps) through education.

Hypnotism is fascinating. Can you really, honestly and truly regress back to exiting the birth canal?

I'm starting to wonder if we shouldn't create a post where you put all the references to on-line videos and other cute on-line things. Or maybe not. What does everyone think?

Great horny toads! How did we get to this statement?! I hate explaining myself, but this isn't a paen to...ah, to hell with it. Go back a re-read what I wrote and see if you can figure it out for yourself. (Of course, I went back and re-read what I wrote and I couldn't figure it out at all, but I wish you better luck. )

Amen, Brother!

Wallpaper. The wallpapers have eyes. (Especially in nightmares.) Key Lime Pie is American Caribbean, not true Caribbean. And it should be yellow, not green. Rule number one: avoid green Key Lime Pie.

Now the question (in my mind) is, did the dreams stop because of the dreamcatcher or because you perceived the dream catcher to stop the dreams? Could it be that you convinced yourself to make your mind behave? (We can do that, you know. Eminently possible and not at all mystical.)

Napalm in the morning? You know, I can't say I think much of scents on people either way. I do dislike it when people bathe themselves in scent - although I suspect everyone except the bather thinks likewise. Scents in general are another matter. There is something nice about the smell of coconut. And fresh ground coffee. I actually like the smell of new tires, although after talking at length with a girl in a tire store, I understand it gives you a headache when you're around it all day. The odor of baking cookies is nice. Corned beef cooking in a crock pot is good (although I don't eat meat I can still enjoy the scent).

So who is it? "No one. He's no one. Distant cousin of my Aunt's nephew twice removed. Lovely singing voice. Eunuch."

No, you have it backwards...Valenten was in Harry Potter. Speaking of Bond, how many movies has Vincent Schiavelli (Dr. Kaufman from Tomorrow Never Dies) been in? He's not exactly a "Gee I didn't know they were in that!" guy, though. You can always recognize him. You know, Timeline could have been such a good movie...

You were clearly heading to the Caribbean in a doom buggy to buy wallpaper. I wish I could remember what we were arguing about. The later it gets, the less I remember about the whole thing. I rarely remember dreams. I do know you have several (possibly hundreds) in a given night and they're usually a manifestation of something that's rolling around in your subconscious. Most of those I remember are because I awoke in the middle of them. For a while I had trained myself to awaken when a dream was deemed significant. Turned out most of them didn't seem that significant upon waking, so I gave the whole thing up.

Now here's a weird one... I had a dream last night that Rogue Mermaid and I were in a pub arguing about something that, for the life of me, I can't remember the topic of. Whatever it was, I finally decided it was a hopeless argument which I wasn't going to win - she gave me that superior woman look that told me I was just silly for bothering to try and argue my point at all - so I gave the whole thing up as a complete loss and left. It's odd because we've never met and I have never thought about her much (Er, no offense meant ).

Then I'll bet you that Barbossa is a member of his crew in the third film.

I'd bet it's some take off of the black spot. This movie looks like it co-opts several pirate myths/legends like Davy Jones (who isn't actually anyone historical - no one even knows the true source of the term 'davy jones locker' - I've heard at least 7 different theories on that), the Flying Dutchman and apparently the black spot. Well, they had to do something now that they used up most of the scenes on the ride, right? Doesn't look like they use the Aztec Gold in this one. But then why would they? To see a good image of Davy Jones, check out the Concept Art link on the Yahoo! page Black Pearl references. Disney's conception of Davy Jones appears to be some sort of undead-ish squid/man thing. All his crew members appear to be similar undead creature/human combos. ILM's concept artists frequently do stuff like that. (I think it's ILM.) G. Lucas discovered that when you make a creature or setting too unlike something the average movie-goer is familiar with, they don't identify with it as readily as when you do and they tend to lose interest in what's going on.

I found this this morning and thought you fans might be interested: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/comment...?entryid=267368 (I still haven't seen the first one.)

Jurassic Park Ok, I know that's not right... For Your Eyes Only No, it's not that one either...

I believe I actually posted this one before and no one could get it. Since you're cross quoting me, Sophia, I'd say you're up. It's from The Gumball Rally, step-child of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and parent of all those Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run movies. That quote is from Raul Julia's character.