Daily Rambling
So I stayed up almost 24 hours yesterday, hoping I'd sleep longer and get back to a more normal waking/sleeping cycle.  Even went and rode my bike for an hour so I'd be tired. Slept 4 hours and wide awake at 4 in the morning.

So, at least this post won't be hours late, eh?

I've never been good at staying on 24 hour cycles.  If I'm working a lot on something (this website currently) I tend to go 18 or 20 hours awake, and then sleep 6-8.  That'll go a week or so and suddenly I'll be exhausted one day and sleep about 12 hours.  This is best done in the winter, when the weather is cool enough to close the windows and curtains and sleep in the day.

It's a madcap, hectic life I lead.

Funny news item, another problem with the Euro currency.  Not just the adoption of it and such, the actual physical money they are printing.  Previously they had problems with the 1€ (Euro, 0128 ASCII) coin, which had a really high % nickel in it (IIRC), and people were having allergies to it.

Then there are problems with the 2€ coin, it's the exact same size as some coin from Thailand that's worth like 3 cents, and apparently cigarette vending machines in Europe are being filled up with the slugs.

The new news is that the 10€ bill has some very rare tin alloy called "Tributyltin" in it, and it's allegedly causing impotence, of all things. Be funny if whores demanded that in payment.

I'd like to insert some snarky comments about "Monopoly money" or general dismissals of European competence if they can't even make money properly, but being as US money all looks the same, is easy to counterfeit, and we can not manage to create a usable $1 coin... Still, it doesn't give you a lot of confidence in the Euro when it's been out for a few months and there are two outbreaks of medical illness due to the composition of the materials in the coins and bills.  Don't they, you know, test this stuff?  Do research?  I mean is the 100€ note made from asbestos fibers and the coins all full of depleted uranium so they'll glow faintly, making a dropped coin in the dark easier to find?

The general impression of most Americans is that most European citizens (especially those in the small former world powers like France, Italy, Spain, etc) are totally unable to accomplish anything, can't work an honest day's work, etc. All we hear about news are strikes to get 10 weeks paid vacation instead of 8 weeks, full unemployment benefits for years after being fired, farmers blocking roads and dumping cheaper, better quality, foreign fruits, etc.

And yes, our news here is very pro-corporation and anti-person, so it's all spun to make people fighting for a better life at the expense of business profits seem like enemies and radicals.  But there you go.

I seem to lack the energy to do a proper blog today, so here are a few amusing links.

*30 minutes later*

Silicon Pines.  This is one of the cleverest articles I've ever seen.

*20 minutes later*

The new Onion is hysterical this week, but one article in particular about the new McDonald's mascot had me laughing myself into a coughing fit.  Literally.

more controversy erupted over the promotional coloring book "Shivved In The McRibs," in which the Hammurderer decapitates Mayor McCheese and eats his head. Responding to widespread public outrage, McDonald's executives defended the coloring book as "not nearly as violent or socially irresponsible as it has been made out to be, given that the Mayor's head is, in fact, a giant and conceivably edible cheeseburger."

The Attorney General of the US is John Ashcroft, and he's looking more and more insane as more info comes out about him.  Read this article on the admittedly muck-raking Guardian (Vulture) UK site.

Torquemada Jr. concepts are hard not to think of.  I wouldn't be surprised if we got a bunch of new novels soon with various crazed zealot enforcer type characters, inspired by him.  It's only a matter of time until he's holy rolling in court, or burning someone at the stake.

Here's another long thing I wrote a couple of weeks ago that's been on my ideas page since then.  It's semi-amusing in the borderline obsession it displays.  *cough*

Joanne Whalley.  Painfully hot in Willow, fugly in every other shot I can find, which is the reason for this semi-article.

She's got a look that slays me, the red hair (dyed in Willow), big eyes, semi-aristocratic features, no ugly bright lip stick to ruin it, etc. Here's some shots of her in Willow, and compare to any other pics.  Of course the others she doesn't have the lovely red hair with the extensions, she's in some awful 70's and 80's hair styles, all big and puffy and mousy-brown.  But it's like her super hot sister took over for Willow only.  It's not like she hit the wall after it, she's less than beautiful before and after, so it's just styling.

Born in 1964, so she was 24 in Willow.  She's still in her late 30's, but looks 50+ in these shots from Breathtaking.  Makes you wonder if her listed birth date is a lie, and she's older.  Looks older than 24 in Willow, IMHO, but not in a bad way, as I think she's breathtaking in that film.

Christmas Story, some UK TV movie from 1984, she looks bug-eyed and pinched of face. The Singing Detective, 1986, she looks even worse. Scandal, the year after Willow, she looks 10 years older.  It's like Joanne's less-attractive aunt took over after Willow.

Am I obsessed with her?  I hope not, never seen anything she was in other than Willow, and no desire to do so.  Mostly it's small UK movies or TV shows I'd never find w/o a search anyway, and I don't care, especially with her being coyote'd, to judge from the photos. I just got Willow for $5 on VHS at Price Club a month or so ago, hadn't seen it since I was a kid and remembered it being sorta cheesy, but I've always loved fantasy, and it wasn't bad, so I picked it up when they had nothing else I wanted.

It's not a great movie, it's got decent production values and the special effects were cutting edge at the time, I remember seeing it way back then with my mom, I think.  Anyway, could hardly tell anything was blue screened.  Earlier movies every shot with a special effect the characters were all aglow around their edges, especially anything like hair or fur or other spiky edges looked really fake.  Willow's special effects look pretty mediocre now, obvious claymation stop-action on the two-headed dragon thing, and there are a lot of glowing bluescreen remnants, but the effects aren't bad, as good or better than TV shows are now, anyway.  The plot (story by George Lucas) is pathetically derivative of Star Wars, but then Star Wars is quite derivative itself, though much more inventive than Willow. 

And Joanne's performance?  I dunno, nothing awful about it, but she doesn't leap off the screen, but she looks great to me in it.  So I looked her up on google and found the shots linked to above, and thought it was amazing how much worse (than in Willow) she looked in all of them. Somehow her narrow face and big eyes that are bewitching in Willow just make her look bug-eyed and trout-faced in every other film, ones from the 80's, but then 90's also, as her apparently Methuselah condition kicked in.

Most actresses in shots from the 80's are hard to take now, just such giant hair and pasty-faced make up (The hottest shots of actresses from the 80's look dire now, as in this shot from Top Gun.) and Joanne is in mostly UK movies, so I'm assuming that's where the lived, and not a lot of tanning season in those parts, plus they were deep in the too-much-makeup big hair look in the 80's as well. Check out some older pics of Princess Diana with the frizzy hair and raccoon eyes.

If I were motivated I could dig up tons of pics of attractive women from the 80's and post them now, perhaps a whole section on "what the hell were they thinking" make up disasters.  But I'm not.

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