Lady Sheherazahde's Journal

I got the official notice today that Geocities is closing on October 26, 2009.

I put up my web site there in Oct of '98 and now it is all coming down.

I spent an hour saving my pages to my computer but I don't have any place to put them up again.

Well, things have a changed a lot in the past 11 years.

I saw this at Wegmans and just had to share. Bu thought it was more funny if you saw that they also sell Chicken soup. And for $.69 a packet I could afford to buy both.

I think that with a bottle of blue food coloring Daisy would make a nice mackerel. The eyes are the tricky part.

Maniac Cop (1988)

A large man in a police uniform is killing people. Lt. McCrae (Tom Atkins) thinks it's a rogue cop. When Officer Jack Forrest's (Bruce Campbell) wife is killed everyone thinks he did it. With the help of his lover, undercover vice cop, (Laurene Landon) he set's out to clear his name.

I kept hoping for a horror angle but this is more of a action adventure detective story.

Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

This one starts with a recap of the last movie. Officer Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell) is cleared of the murders but the real maniac cop Matt Cordell (Robert Z'Dar) isn't dead. His first victim this time is Jack Forrest (and Bruce Campbell is gone from the series). The new main characters are detective Sean McKinney (Robert Davi) and police psychologist Susan Riley (Claudia Christian) (Yay Ivanova!). Then the maniac cop teams up with a serial killer Turkell (Leo Rossi), who is killing strippers.

Still more of a action adventure detective story than horror.

Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1993)

This time it is a horror movie and should have been called "Bride of Maniac Cop".

A Vodou Houngan raises Matt Cordell (Robert Z'Dar) from the dead. Detective Sean McKinney (Robert Davi) is trying to clear the name of Officer Katie Sullivan (Gretchen Becker) who is in a coma after a shootout in a drug store. Dr. Susan Fowler (Caitlin Dulany) helps him out when the maniac cop kidnaps Kate to be his undead bride.

A sequel to the 1960s TV series this version this version takes place in the present and involves international terrorists instead of the Japanese as the enemy. But otherwise preserves the spirit of the original.

A US Navy base in the Caribbean has gone native and Captain Binghamton has been sent to shape them up. At the same time the worlds second best terrorist, Major Vladikov (Tim Curry), has set up a base on the island with a nefarious plan.

There are lots of well known character actors: Ernest Borgnine, Dean Stockwell, David Alan Grier, French Stewart, Bruce Campbell, Tommy Chong, Erick Avari. I had fun spotting familiar faces.

An enjoyable romp. Bruce Campbell plays a minor character but he has some lines. Tim Curry is delightfuly camp as Major Vladikov. I loved Major Vladikov's personal psychiatrist David (Scott Cleverdon).

This is the classic horror movie that started Bruce Campbell's career.

Five college students go to a cabin in the woods to spend a holiday weekend. But they find a tape of the previous occupant, an archeologist, reading an incantation from a Sumerian book to summon demons. When they play the recording the demons are summoned once again and start possessing people.

This is very gory and I can see why people talk about the misogyny of horror movies, the rape scene was totally unnecessary. Not much intentional humor. I prefer more humor with my horror. But I can see why it is a classic. They studied the horror formula and cranked it out.

I have decided to watch every Bruce Campbell movie I can. In case you don't know who Bruce Campbell is he is the King of B horror movies.

This Sci Fi Channel original film looks like a remake of the man with two brains. Well, there are a lot of differences in the plot and Bruce Campbell is less slapstick and wacky than Steve Martin. But they are both about unfaithful wives, true love, a serial killer, and brain transplants.

Bruce Campbell plays a wealthy CEO tho goes to Bulgaria with his wife to look for new investment opportunities. His wife has an affair with a taxi driver and Bruce and the taxi driver are killed by a crazy Gypsy lady. A scientist, looking for funding for his transplant serum, transplants part of the taxi driver's brain into Bruce's head and brings them back to life.

This is a fun low budget horror comedy with not much gore. I don't like gore and I do like comedy, so I enjoyed it.

The animated biography of Marjane Satrapi. Based on her graphic novels about growing up in Iran during the overthrow of the Shah.

The black and white art looks like a combination of wood cuts and intricate traditional Persian art.

This is a wonderful insight into Iranian culture and history. She really catches the child's view of events.

I went out and picked up the graphic novel to get a more detailed version of the story.

I highly recommend this movie.

A homeless kid, Toby (Michael Pitt), gets taken in as an assistant by paparazzo Les (Steve Buscemi). But they fall out over pop singer K'Harma Leeds (Alison Lohman). Toby is in love with her. Les wants his career making shot.

Steve Buscemi is very good at playing sleezy characters. Toby seems like a nice kid. But it's a strange sort of story. Everyone is shallow and self serving although not actually evil or malicious. Just Hollywood I suppose.

Based on the true story of the year novelist Pat Conroy spent teaching in a one room school house in Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. For some reason no-one could pronounce "Conroy" so they called him "Conrack".

He was an unconventional teacher but very good. When he arrived the children were illiterate and corporal punishment was common. He refused to beat them and made learning fun.

It's a good story about poverty and racism and not too horrific. No one is beaten or killed.

(I think kaaren would like this one.)

A young widow, Edwina (Natasha Richardson), moves into an Irish town run by old widows and makes trouble by seducing the son, Godfrey (Adrian Dunbar), of the powerful Mrs. Counihan (Joan Plowright) and inexplicably alienating Miss O'Hare (Mia Farrow)

There is a bit of a mystery involved. This is an entertaining story about class and revenge in 1920s Ireland.

Scandal of tattoos on cats

I wouldn't tattoo a cat. But I wouldn't own a hairless breed in the first place.

I don't see what people are getting so upset about. I have tattoos. They are less traumatic than getting a cat fixed and I'm in favor of that. And tattoos are more permanent than subdural chips. Really people get a grip. It's weird but it's not abuse.

Went to Binghamton today with B&K. We saw "Up" with the Seversons. It's been getting good reviews.

Before the main show there was a short called "Partly Cloudy" about clouds and storks delivering babies. It was wordless and very cute. I love Pixar's shorts.

"Up" was very good. I didn't cry, although I came close a few times and a few other people in our party cried. But it has a happy ending so that is all right.

In case you are living under a rock. "Up" is an animated movie about an old man who attaches balloons to his house and takes off with a young stow-away on board. They have an adventure and meet a talking dog and a giant bird.

B thought it escaped the Disney pattern of dead mothers because Russell, the boy, has a mother. It's Russell's father who is absent. But this is a story about father/son relations. Carl, the old man, has no children and he becomes a father to Russell. We only see Russell's mother once. and Carl's wife is dead. So, in the story mother figures are absent or dead.

I liked that Russell is an Asian American. I wasn't sure at first if he was or if they just made his eyes like that because he was so chubby, but his mother is clearly Asian. It's nice to see a main character who is not white.

The animation is so good in places it looks real.

I've told people about my Prehistoric Plant. Now I have posted pictures of it on my Facebook. You can watch a flower and two shoots grow.

I would love it if someone could tell me what this thing is.

Remember when I talked about the metal Bible my sister Fran had in Boston? Well, she sent it to me. and a book on Christian spirituality Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality


Well, Ok I now have four Bibles. The King James Version,, the NIV Study Bible, The Jefferson Bible, and now this New Living Translation (Heavy Metal Bible Series).

I had this dream where I was on vacation with my family and they were parked in a marina. I was swimming from one vehicle to another and a killer whale lept out of the water in front of me. After that I tried not to splash when I swam so the killer whales wouldn't eat me. To get to the vehicle my mom and sisters were in I had to cross an open space that was full of fish. I swam up to their vehicle and told them about the fish. There were so many that I could reach down and grab a fish and throw it into the room where they were. I grabbed several fish and threw them into the room until there was a big pile.

There was also part of the dream about trying to find a restaurant in the rain, and riding a bus that get's hijacked, and trying to call the police on a pay phone that won't work.

I have no idea what my brain is trying to tell me.

iPhoto has "Facial Recognition", or it is supposed to. I have been going through my photos telling it who people are. I have more pictures of The Beast than anyone else and it still can't recognize her. It can't recognize faces that are tilted too much. And it still marks random patterns as possible faces. This technology is still not as good as the human mind at identifying faces. We are still a long way from computers scanning faces in crowds and matching them to wanted criminals.

This is a documentary about a father and son who were arrested for molesting children in 1987 and it is all captured on home video. No acting, just real footage of what happened to the family.

Some of the reviews suggest that it is unclear what actually happened. It looked pretty clear to me. The father was first arrested for possession of child pornography. That is clear and he was clearly guilty. But the charges of molesting students in his computer class have all the hallmarks of a Satanic panic. The children "remembered" being abused under hypnosis and made outrageous claims that were improbable verging on impossible, orgies and violence that could not have gone unnoticed. Those sort of accusations come out when children are pressed to say things they know are not true.

At first I agreed with the son who thought that his father confessed because the mother convinced him it was best for the son. But after the father told the lawyer that he had molested boys at their beach house, I agree with the mother that he confessed out of guilt. He was a child molester, even though he didn't molest the children in his computer class. But that leaves the son, who didn't molest anyone at all yet went to jail.

The reporter points out that what tore this family apart was not the accusations but fact that the father was guilty of some things. If he hadn't had the magazines, and if he hadn't molested the boys at the beach house his wife would have stood with him. He was guilty but not of the crimes he was convicted of.

It is a very sad story.

"Red Dwarf" is a very silly show. It leaves me with a craving for Indian food and a tendency to wander around repeating the word "Vindaloo". I can't eat Vindaloo, it's too hot for me but I love the word "Vindaloo" and the words "Tikka Masala", "Khorma", and "Matar Paneer". I'd rather have a pot noodle but I love Mango Lassi, Papadams, Pakoras, Samosas, Naan, Tandoori Chicken, Kheer, and Rasgula.

iPhoto just informed me that some cameras record the GPS coordinate at which a picture was taken. Sounds like a plot point for a mystery or a thriller.