West Coast Girl

Have a look at the on-line journal West Coast Girl - East Coast World for a peek inside the life of one of my fellow-Gladiator-sufferers. I even rate a mention. :-)

Lisa Gibbs Recruiting

I've started playing Sissyfight lately. My nom du sissy is "Lisa Gibbs". I started thinking about the origins of that name...(you Wayne's World fans start waving your hands, going do-diddle-do, and playing "Dream Weaver")...One day in college, I was walking down South University in Ann Arbor, when my eye spotted a plastic nametag on the sidewalk. I picked it up and looked at it. It said:

Lisa Gibbs

Recruiting

Cool, I thought. (I'm not sure why.) It was one of those rectangular plastic pins, and furthermore it was in maize and blue. So I pinned it on to my jacket, and from now on that was my nom du bowl -- whenever we went bowling, that's what I'd enter into the computer (LGR).
Then one day, as I was wont to do when I was young and irresponsible, I left the jacket in a classroom. I figured I'd never see it again, but I got a call from Campus Security saying they had found it, and would I like to come down and pick it up?
When I got down there, I was asked if Lisa Gibbs was my girlfriend. When I explained, I got a rather stern lecture from a kampus kop who had spent some time trying to track down Lisa Gibbs before finding my name on a library copy card in the jacket pocket. She explained to me in no uncertain terms that if I was ever to find anything lying on the street I was to turn it in to campus security.
So I asked her if she wanted the "Eat at Joe's" button I had found. She said "I'll let you decide that."
And that was the last I ever saw of Lisa Gibbs...

Gladiator

What can I say about this movie that hasn't been said by Slate: "Crapus Maximus" or by Salon: "We who are about to be bored to death salute you!". You might think...you might think that at the very least you'd have kick-ass gladiatorial scenes. You might think that. But the fight scenes were all blurry and camera moving around and everything. At first I thought it was the beers and the bourbon I had at Bertucci's beforehand, but Steve pointed it out too. And the plot...well, at least the plot was comprehensible. Simple, boring and comprehensible. I mean, it had your standard badder-than-bad bad guy (ooh, he's into incest) and your noble, self-sacrificing hero. Fine movie elements, but you have to do something with them. 2 stars, but only for the comprehensible plot. Sigh.

Whoa

I finally got around to seeing The Matrix this weekend. It had been heavily recommended to me, but I successfully fought my contrarian streak and enjoyed the heck out of it. It was a little tough the first 1/2 an hour or so, as I had no idea what the heck was going on. I was afraid that it was going to be one of these "too cool for a plot" movies that was all style, and if I wanted to know what was going on, I'd have to check a web site later on.
Silly me. As it turned out, there was quite a bit of explanation. And maybe I've read too many SF novels, but it made a lot of sense. Despite my general anti-cyberpunk bias (I wasn't too thrilled with Neuromancer, frankly), the movie was a blast. The special effects were fantastic. Everybody in the movie just dripped cool, even the baddie "Agents". Very enjoyable. 4 stars.