INTERNATIONAL STUFF 1831

Frank Kalder

yes but breaking also mean the kaputting of. so one's head says what is not in repair.

of course the real meaning is that they are breaking in to the regularly scheduled program in order to present the real news.

but my computer is too old to handle a new version of flashthingee, so it is also breaking news in that sense

viewing. i try not to download newer software, because my computer usually takes forever to download, and then the computer at the end of all that hope usually says it can't handle the download

i'll give it a shot on my far better computer at work tomorrow.

in the meantime, i sit amazed as several people i know got interviews for the dc job. bizarre. that's another job i could do in my sleep. so it seems except for the phila job that doesn't intrigue me, i may not move after all, and i need to get used to that.

so, i spent most of yesterday trying to finally unpack. hard to do with a hurting arm.

during a break, i watched 'stage beauty' which i commend to you not only for the lovely costumes, but for the fact that it is based on the historic event, the time when the british king enabled women to act on stage. previously, only men were allowed to play the roles of females in shakespeare plays.

i was fascinated by the movie because claire danes, the lead, played the part of a stage dresser. i easily connected my experiences to hers.

i imagine most viewers connected with the story of gender definitions. i wasn't that focused on that. the theater and performing world has always fascinated me, so the direction portrayed in the movie was the most interesting part. coaching and directing the actors. i have done just a little bit of that in the past and found that mesmerizing.

in the meantime, i wondered whether harry potter is at all popular in germany as it is here. i hate harry potter and all that concerns it.

when i went to see it the first time i came out, the theater at 12:30 was only 1-4 full so I could not resist. Possibly everyone was at church or else, the furor has died down. It is a clbuttic fairy tale. Nothing at all unusual about it. Good versus evil.

i bring this dumb movie up at least in part because there is a small pocket of americans who won't let their kids watch the movie, because of the buttociation with witchcraft and that it is therefore not christian. that should make you a happy thing to discuss and i wonder if germany has any issues about this book, or even cares about its existence.

I am bothered by the following IT WAS WRITTEN BY A BRITISH BIRD

So naturally, the school Harry goes to is just like any British school. Lots of rules with points off for doing bad things, or doing good things, lots of sports compebreastion. points is pronounced pints. which at first for a usian like me, i thought they were talking about beer. And like brits schools. The kids have to wear uniforms. HAHAHA Wizards with super powers have to wear uniforms.

And funnier still is the clbutt structure...just like in all Brit schools. Royal Wizards vs commoner wizards. Wealthy wizards vs poor wizards. Add that one up for me. How can families of wizards be poor exactly???? whip out that wand and make some gold.

And of course the prevailing wisdom that if you cast a spell it has to be in ancient Latin (let us not forget who settled ancient UK) as opposed to say English, or Sanskrit or Aramaic, the last two of which would be far more representative of where the magi of old came from, not ROME. maybe we can think of a secret invocation to fix the public relations for pope.

The casting wasn't bad, actually, if not totally meaningless. The real star was the special effects. They wasted John Cleese on a ghost with 50 seconds of air time. Alan Rickman was brilliant as the "bad guy", his timing was INCREDIBLE. John Hurt was in it but you would not have got it was him, not right away anyway The brilliant Emma Watson had no more than 50 seconds of time. Then there was the wonderful Maggie Smith playing Maggie Smith as a witch headmistress. She phoned that one in. Richard Harris, unrecognizable under pounds of makeup, but his voice retained, phoned his in too as headmaster. Then there was the wonderful Zoe Wanamaker, mainstay of Masterpiece theater, circa 1980...wasted as a teacher of broomriding. Robbie Coltrane was pretty good, he was a standout. Cute

They could have cast anyone in the Harry Potter role because I don't think he was meant to be attractive, just average etc. There was no acting and no nuance necessary in the Harry Potter role. It did not matter who they put in, so long as he was real British looking.

The real good job they did was with casting the OTHER kids. There was a girl called Hermione who was terrific. Then they had this red haired pal called Ron Weasley. I think he will be successful when he grows up. There was a little blond kid who was the quintessential snobby aristocrat and then the other weirdo fat kids. All of these were quite good.

It comes in at 2.5 hours which surprised me as that is a bit long to expect kids to make it through, but they didn't fidget.

i haven't paid any money to the franchise since that time, since i can't stand the clbutt structure aristocracy that it imposes, and if i were a parent, i would give my child a thousand lectures on this subject. they've made four now and they are about to make a fifth.

from maxim magazine; Singha Lager (Thailand) Its name means "mythical lion," and with its bold flavor, Singha is sure to make you roar. Need a second opinion? Their hot new "ambbuttador" is 2005 Miss Universe Natalie Glebova.

and on other pretty girls, and why i don't need to be in dc and have the compebreastion

'man, the washington redskins, right after warmups, they are stretching right in front of us as we run back up the tunnel. you can't even concentrate on the game'--rocky bernhard of the seahawks, on the redskins cheerleaders

Taste test: "Strong, lingering aftertaste."