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The
Soap Box Friday, June 30, 2006 Movie Sequels While I am not happy with the fact that Hollywood couldn't dig an original fresh smelling idea out of a pile of crap, I do find amusement that perfectly good money goes toward recycling the same old shit. Below is a list of REAL sequels scheduled for release in the next 18 months. Bon appetit!
Granted, not all of the sequels will be crap, but do we really need another Rush Hour, Hostel, Jackass or Santa Clause? I mean really! Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Stupid Car I think I've mentioned that I'm very fond of my Mazda Protegé. It's been a great car except that apparently it's a giant target for every asshole to hit me. I just got the back bumper replaced in April. This past weekend I noticed some paint chipping off the bumper so when I brought the new estimate from the accident last Thursday by the shop today, I asked them about the bumper, seeing if they would repaint it for me as they say their work is guaranteed. The guy looked at the bumper and lo and behold, there was in fact the outline of a license plate on the bumper with the missing paint corresponding to where screws would hold the plate on. This means the car was hit AGAIN at some point that I was not aware of! That makes at least 5 hits on my car, none of them my fault. When I told the guy at the shop how many times I've been in an accident, he said, "Yup, your car is jinxed!" So the question now becomes whether I should keep the jinxed car that is completely paid off or get a new car and go even further into debt. What do you think?
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 So Many Monkeys* After 9/11, I've had a little news addiction. I have to turn on the news first thing in the morning and check the news web sites. As you well know, there hasn't been any terrorist attack on US soil. What I have found are various news stories that usually make me angry...insurgent attacks, dead Americans, teen girls raped by guys they meet on myspace, the suicide rate tripling in New Orleans...it goes on and on. Yet, I continue to catch up on the news every morning. When I was on vacation, I was in a virtual media blackout. No TV news, no radio, no newspapers, no internet...and I was happy. The world could have blown up and I wouldn't have known. The lack of news bombardment definitely added to the peace I felt on vacation. Now that I'm home, I find myself back to my old habit of needed to check the headlines on CNN several times a day. It occurs to me that I may feel more calm if I don't do this but I don't know if I can stop. Perhaps I need to find something to do in the morning in place of my media obsession. I suppose yoga would be a good substitute, but I don't see that happening any time soon... * I got a lot of monkeys hanging on my back that I am trying to dislodge this summer. This is just one. Sunday, June 25, 2006 And Then They Lived Happily Ever After Today is our 11 year anniversary. That's a long time! Especially when you consider how prevalent divorce is in my family. Out of 7 of us, only 1 hasn't been divorced (and it's not me). Currently, the only one married besides me is the one never divorced. Huh. Hadn't thought of that. I can't imagine life without Nick, and I don't want to. Life is easier with him in my life. Besides taking care of me and loving me, he cracks me up. I recommend everyone finding someone who can make you laugh as your soul mate. It really makes a difference. God willing, we'll be together until we die together in a tragic, but quick, airplane crash coming home from an uber-romantic vacation. Until then, we'll be busy canoodling and making each other laugh 'til death do us part. Saturday, June 24, 2006 Futurama Update I realize that none of you care but the Futurama movies are still on schedule. The 4 movies will be split up into 3-4 episodes each, which Comedy Central has the right of first airing. The first movies is scheduled to be released December 2007. Thursday, June 22, 2006 I Am So Fucking Unlucky I have had my nice, reliable, comfy Mazda Protege for five years and in that time, I've been in four accidents...two in the last two months...none of them my fault. Tonight it was a 4Runner that backed out of a parking space and into my passenger door. He NEVER put his breaks on. My passenger door is pretty fucked up. Won't open. Also I think the quarter panel will have to be replaced as well. It's such a pain in the ass to get it fixed. Dammit! Monday, June 19, 2006 Fun Facts X-Men 3 is the first movie of 2006 to reach the $200 million mark. It took it only 3 weeks. Sorry MI:3. The amount of money the US government has spent so far on the "War on Terror" is more than the US government has spent on Native American education for the last 100 years. The last 7 months have been the driest on record for Albuquerque. Records go back 114 years. Cockroaches can live a month without their heads. Ewwww! Xylitol, a sugar substitute, can stop and even reverse tooth decay! Thursday, June 15, 2006 Odds & Ends So I went in to work in my lab on Tuesday for the first time since I went on vacation. I was pretty pissy about it. After spending 9 days in paradise, I didn't want to go back to reality. I saw no reason to work or do anything actually. Ugh! So I'm working in the basement of the psych building when I feel something on my foot like a bite. I look down and there's a fucking cockroach on my foot! UGH! Fucking FREAK OUT! Wednesday I go to the lab to work for another 6 hours (BTW, all the work I put in at my lab is not paid work.) and again I find a fucking cockroach on my foot! You have GOT to be shitting me! I mean it's bad enough that they are in the basement of the building and even worse that they are in my lab but dammit! Do my feet smell like fucking roach pheromones or what? Today I went in and there were two of my pals. Once I sat down, I never let my feet touch the floor until I left. I also called the main office and told them to get an exterminator down there. I mean, aren't roaches a health hazard or something? Want to know what's worse than being in the desert when it's 90 degrees out? Being in the desert with a hot fucking wind that whips sand and dirt in your eyes. Charming. When I heard we would have wind advisories today I thought "yeah! a nice wind will keep it cool!" I was sooooo wrong. It was more like a wind coming from a blast furnace than a refreshing breeze. How miserable. I finally had a good session as a health coach with a client today. Yay! I am finally feeling some degree of competence and that I'm actually helping people. It's pretty torturous to be ineffectual when your job is to help people. Tuesday, June 13, 2006 French Polynesian Travel Tips Contrary to my friend's warnings, the toilet paper in French Polynesia is plenty soft and without wood chips. It's on par with CostCo's I guess. There is no need to bring your own TP. You cannot buy aspirin, Pepto Bismol, Nyquil, Dramamine, etc in a grocery store or hotel lobby store or anywhere except in a pharmacy and as far as I can tell there is only one pharmacy on all of Mo'orea. Bring any and all medication you think you might possibly need. While Internet access is not as ubiquitous there as it is in the US, plenty of hotels do have access at what we would consider inflated prices. Forget WiFi tho. While it exists in theory there, we never actually found it in practice. ATMs are only located at banks and banks are rather few and far between. Stock up on local funds when you can. Please don't do the ignorant American thing and try to pay for stuff in US currency. Friday, June 9, 2006 The Tattoos Before we ever left for Tahiti I knew I wanted to get a tattoo there. Tattooing originated in Tahiti. I had to get a tat from there. I did considerable research regarding designs and tattoo artists. After all, a tattoo is one of those forever things and the last thing I wanted is some crappy tattoo on me until I'm cremated. I found Roonui on this web site and decided he was the one for me. It turns out that Roonui has won awards for his tribal work all over the world. His studio is right across the street from the resort we were staying at. Talk about serendipity.
We knew we wanted turtle tattoos as the turtle is the symbol of family in Tahiti (as far as I could figure) and this trip was to celebrate our 10 year anniversary (which actually happened last year. Don't ask.). I picked a turtle out from Roonui's flash book and told him he could place anything for a design on the shell. He asked me if he could customize the flippers as well. I told him to do whatever he wanted. He's the artist. He told he me does not like to do the same tattoo more than once, which is pretty cool when you think about it. No one has exactly the same tattoo as me anywhere in the world! (We waited until the day before we left to get the tattoos as I wanted to make sure we could go in the ocean as many days as possible. However, I think that Saturday was the hottest, most humid day we had while there. What a great day to get tortured with needles.) Roonui made up the design for me. I asked him how long it would take him. He said, "I don't know, for me it will feel like 5 minutes." Hmmm...is that good or bad? And then the old familiar hum of the tattoo needle started...and then the old familiar feeling of someone burning my arm...man I had forgotten what it felt like exactly and happily, it wasn't as bad as I was anticipating. He worked quickly and sang along with the radio. In about 1/2 an hour, he was done and it was Nick's turn. The last 10 minutes were pretty painful for me so I had to zone out while looking at a dot on the ceiling but I survived.
And then before you knew it, he was done with Nick too! I think it was an hour to tattoo both of us. We now have the ultimate Tahitian souvenirs!
The Resort Tuesday of our vacation, Kolka informed us that he had inadvertently double-booked the house we were staying in for Saturday (we were planning on leaving Sunday) and would we consider moving somewhere else for the night at his expense. For me, I just cared that I was in French Polynesia and didn't care much where I stayed as long as I didn't have to go home yet. We told him it was fine and he booked us into the Intercontinental Resort and Spa! This place was amazing! We decided that instead of moving there on Saturday morning, we'd just go over Friday, spending 2 nights. Kolka packed all of our luggage (yes, there wa s a TON of luggage, completely my fault) into his little outboard motor boat for the 20 minute ride to the resort. Even though he was driving slowly, our luggage still got drenched on the way over. However, once we got to the dock of the resort, two guys on a little electrical cart met us, grabbed all our luggage and drove us to the front desk.
Upon check-in we were served fresh pineapple juice and shown to our room overlooking the water. The biggest and nicest surprise in the room? AIR CONDITIONING! It was the first air conditioning I had felt since landing in Mo'orea. OMG! AC never felt so good. Any AC on the island was rare and certainly didn't exist on our motu. Also, there were no huge armored spiders, piles of lizard guano, or things scratching in the house in the middle of the might, waking me up. I gotta tell ya, as beautiful and wonderful as our little motu was, I was ready for "civilization."
Among unique amenities other than fewer critters in the room were a dolphin center and a sea turtle rehabilitation center. Of course, they had a fabulous beach and wonderful restaurants, etc.
The one surprise was that while we had a few mosquitoes on the motu, this place was SWARMING with them! We went to dinner (both restaurants were open air), sat down, and found ourselves in a cloud of mosquitoes! Lucky me, mosquitoes LOVE me. I had to spray myself from head to toe with bug spray and I still got bit on the bottom of my feet! I spent the 2 days we were there carrying bug spray with me at all times. Next entry: getting our Tahitian tattoos. Thursday, June 8, 2006 The Shack So, while we were walking back to our side of the islet after being dropped off by the owner of the restaurant, we found a beachcomber shack created with a foundation of driftwood and a traditional thatched roof. They had a rain barrel raised on stilts and an area of semi-privacy for a shower. They even had crude plumbing running from the rain barrel into the shack so that they actually had running water!
While we didn't see anyone around it at the time, there was evidence that someone had been there recently. There was an open tin of food (sardines?), a toothbrush and toothpaste clearly visible. With the strong winds we had a few nights prior, these items had to have been placed there recently or they would have been blown away.
I would have loved to explore the shack further but I didn't want to be caught snooping in someone's "home," however rudimentary it was. Can you imagine living on the beach in such a primitive place? We joked about who lived here. My favorite possibility is that it was the "doghouse" for when some guy pissed off his wife. "Screw this, I'm gonna go sleep on the beach instead of with you, you witch!" The Restaurant The day we swam with the rays we also had lunch at one of the best restaurants in Polynesia located on yet another smaller motu right next to ours. When we were on our way to the rays, we passed by the restaurant. Kolka called out to the owner that we needed a reservation for two for lunch. The owner called back and we went on our way. Now that is authentic! Wait, let me give you a pic so you have an idea of the geography:
OK, so we went to the the "restaurant motu" for lunch. Obviously, the only way you can get there is by boat. In fact, the restaurant had its own boat and will use it to ferry their guests upon request. THAT is service!
The whole entire restaurant was housed in a tiny hut which also served as the bar. The day's menu was written on chalk boards: one for drinks and one for meals. Nick had a traditional French Polynesian dish called Poisson Cru which is raw marinated tuna with vegetables in a coconut milk sauce. He said it was delicious! I didn't try it as I was having stomach issues as it was without the raw fish.
We enjoyed the peace and quiet of this private islet while eating delicious food and soaking in the beauty of the scenery. Truly, is there any other place like this on earth?
After lunch, the owner was true to his word. He packed us in his little boat and took us back to our island...not our side of the island but at least to our island. I'll tell you what we found on the walk back to our house tomorrow... Wednesday, June 7, 2006 The Rays* I mentioned to Kolka that I wanted to swim with rays while I was there and he excitedly offered to take me. Thursday morning, he took Nick and I in his little motor boat to a spot between his island and Mo'orea. He then broke out a hunk of frozen red tuna fillet and started carving up pieces of it. He jumped out of the boat into the water, which was only waist deep, and splashed the piece of tuna repeatedly in the water saying, "Come here my friends!" and they started coming! They were all shades of gray on top and white on the bottom with long tails and seemed to be 6 feet across. (I'm only saying they seemed that big. They may have been smaller.) The rays came right up to Kolka, as if they were dogs climbing into his lap. He'd grab them by their nose (?) lift them up, and pop the tuna right in their mouths. (Their mouths are on the underside of their bodies.) They LOVED it and would make these interesting "humph!" noises, kind of like the sound you would hear from a whale's blowhole. Nick and I got in the water to swim with these beautiful graceful animals. At any one time there was easily half a dozen rays around us if not more. One ray swam under our boat and straight toward me. I just froze as the ray gently swam by, brushing me with it's wing-like fin. It just swam by me and on its merry way. At least three rays swam past me in such a fashion. They were so soft, like velvet and just truly amazing creatures. The rays stayed around us in the shallow water. Just a few feet away the ocean bottom dropped quickly. In this deeper water we saw sharks and other fish that didn't care to stay in the shallow water which was fine by me, as I didn't care to literally swim with sharks. We hung out for about an hour with our new lissome friends before returning to our islet. I will never forget this rare and exciting adventure. *Sorry there are no pictures but the "underwater camera" that we used, uh, filled with water and the film was ruined. :( Tuesday, June 6, 2006 The House
As mentioned before, we rented a house on a small islet for 5 nights. The front of the house actually had no wall, it was just open to the ocean. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a large common room with a kitchen, dining room and living room. Amazingly, none of the other houses around us were rented out so we had this part of the island to ourselves, except for our hosts Kolka and Josy, the owners of this little slice of paradise. They lived in two bungalows behind us.
The bathroom for our house was more outside than inside with the shower made out of coral. Quaint, huh?
What I haven't told you yet is that crabs lived in that coral. Yes, crabs...plural. Good sized ones too! These crabs were more shy than other critters we had as guests.
The scariest of our guests was the spider we found in the kitchen. It freaked me out! When I first saw it I thought, "Is that some sort of scorpion? Some crazy crab? WTF?"
The worst part is that the bugger could LEAP...as in right at you! While we got his smaller brother out of the house, we never actually got this guy out (and no, we were NOT going to squish him). Our most popular visitors were lizards. They really came out at night. One night we looked up at the rafters and counted about 6 lizards we could see. We knew there were more in the thatch roof.
I know some of you are thinking, "Awww, how cute! Lizards in the traditional bungalow house!" Yeah yeah. Let me tell you what is NOT cute...stepping in lizard guano in the pitch dark (remember, no electricity in the house from midnight until 7:30am) while trying to find the bathroom in the middle of the night. Good times! The other visitors we had included birds that would just fly right in, perch on a piece of furniture then fly out when they wanted. We also had a feral cat wander in one night. I can't figure out how there are cats on this tiny motu but apparently they were there. As there is a lot of outcroppings of coral all over the place, we could not travel to/from the motu after dark and it got dark around 5:30pm. That meant we had lots of time at night for relaxing and reading and playing cards...really stressful things. There actually were two televisions and a DVD player in the house which I found a little strange. They had two satellite dishes. Kolka made sure to let me know they got all of four channels! Woooo! I have over one hundred fucking channels of shit at home, why would I go to paradise to watch American TV shows dubbed in French? Uh, I wouldn't. We did actually bring the first season of Scrubs with us and watched a couple episodes of that a night on our little portable DVD player. (We didn't use the DVD player there as much because we would have had to watch the TV through the mosquito netting around our bed.) During the day, we snorkeled and watched and listened to the ocean. It was funny. I'd lay down in the front of the house to catch the breeze and intend to read my book but would end up just staring at the ocean instead. Around all the islands in French Polynesia there are coral reefs that the ocean would break against making the water around the islands themselves very calm. It was rare we heard waves that were breaking in front of the house. However, you could hear the waves crashing on the coral constantly. In fact, it was particularly stormy (no real rain, just a lot of wind) our first night there and the waves crashing sounded like constant thunder all night. And it was LOUD.
The beauty of this place really was mesmerizing. It was easy to do nothing here and just take in the natural wonders. Tropical fish swam just a foot within the water's edge. It was like being in an aquarium. The water wasn't overly salty and was just slightly cooler than the air, meaning the water itself was in the 80's. OMG, it was sooo amazing. There were a couple of days in which I was feeling very tired and well, honestly, I was feeling a little ill. However, a quick dip in the ocean later, I felt a great deal better. That water was truly rejuvenating. I already miss it more than I can say. Pictures! Stories to Follow...
I'll get another 3 rolls of film developed tomorrow (OK, later today) so check back later for more pics! Monday, June 5, 2006 I'm Back, Baby! And now I can reveal where I've been. I've been in Tahiti! Well, really I spent most of the time on Mo'orea...OK, not Mo'orea but an islet off of Mo'orea called Motu Fareone where we rented a house on the ocean. It does not get more remote yet stunningly beautiful that this! The house we were in had electricity from around 7:30am - midnight. Then the generator was turned off. It was pitch black which made it tricky to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. There were two lights that ran on solar power that were useful if you could find them in the dark. If you want to know a little more about this motu, check this out. About a third of the islet is for sale for only $1.9 mil. In the first pic, it's hard to tell but the motu I'm talking about is at the bottom right of the pic. There is a really wimpy red arrow pointing at it if you look closely. The main island you se there is Mo'orea. The one in the background is Tahiti. Anyway, I'll post more entries and pics soon! :)
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Blog Name: The Soap Box
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