Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Updates: me, movies, and how much Lost rocks

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In no particular order:

  • Much to my own amazement, since my decision not to drink alcohol because it’s interfering with my exercise plan, I have not in fact had any alcohol. There was one night I actually wanted to have a cocktail, but we didn’t have a lot of time and I did have to work out the next day, so I passed. Saying no to margaritas at La Fiesta is pretty goshdarned hard, though. They make a very tasty, and very deadly, margarita.

  • I know I need to post some pix of My! Amazing! Transformation!â„¢. I need to get batteries for my camera. How lame of an excuse is that? And yet: oh so true.

  • My guilty pleasure these days: SecretTweet. I have no idea if these are real or not, but unless they start mentioning space aliens or something, they could be. This is the kind of thing that makes me appreciate my own life more.

  • Movies we’ve seen recently:
    • Sin Nombre: I don’t know the provenance behind this movie. I was looking for something to see and I used the Rotten Tomatoes score to come up with one. It’s a film in Spanish with subtitles about a family trying to get to US from Honduras, and a boy who’s part of a violent, territorial Mexican gang, how they meet, and what happens. The simplicity of the storylines and the tightness of the focus on the story I think shows it’s clearly a first film by a young writer/director, but he’s a very talented writer/director who is interested in issues that have no easy and clean solutions.

    • Adventureland: It’s a very sweet look at summer 1987 after a kid graduates from college before he starts grad school. I’m kind of disturbed that 1987 = historical flick though. I liked it, but it was a small movie. I’m also kind of tired of movies in which everyone’s shared experience is one that I have nothing in common with. At least it’s not as bad as when I watch a high school movie and might as well be watching an artifact from a lost African culture for all I have in common with it.

    • Sunshine Cleaning: An interesting indie film that suffered from one too few passes on the script. Yes, the scriptwriter is saying this. There was some really good material in here, but it needed…I don’t know. Some kind of oomph. And less randomness.

    • I Love You Man: Paul Rudd is every girl’s fantasy boyfriend—the fantasy boyfriend you could bring home to mother. (You save the other fantasy boyfriend for…well…you know.) It was definitely an enjoyable flick, and I remember very, very little about it, other than they didn’t do the obvious (and so overdone) thing of having Rudd’s character end up in a fracas with another woman, leading his girlfriend to draw the wrong conclusions! which I was definitely expecting.

    • Monsters vs. Aliens: Jesus, does Pixar make it look easy, and then everyone else makes it look so hard. I don’t even remember that much about MvA, other than I was impressed that Hugh Laurie can do yet another accent that isn’t his normal voice. Such a great title though. Man, such a great title.

  • There are simply no words to describe how much “Lost” has rocked since they, in the words of Entertainment Weekly, decided to “let the freak flag fly.” You know none of the actors signed up to be part of a sci-fi/ancient Egyptians/ghosts/assassins/time travel/comedy/romance/action/adventure spectacular, and you know just as hard that the writers/creators could give a flying fuck what the actors signed up for. They have an end date! They don’t have to spin this out forever! Let’s ROCK this town!

  • Darin says the official “Lost” podcast by Damon and Carleton is Teh Awesum, so you should listen to that. (I have zero time to listen to anything, I’m finding, so I have not added it to any of my iPods, but I laugh like a hyena when Darin recounts the latest one.)

  • And, as always: Actors, there are no small parts, only small actors. Michael Emerson signed for two or maybe three episodes. And he took over the entire damn series. You can do it, folks.
  • I thought “The Unusuals,” a new cop show on ABC, was going to be about a precinct of detectives in NYC who have very strange, minor superpowers. I like my idea for the show much better than theirs: It turns out to be a very boring police procedural about a bunch of cops Who Are Quirky. We took it off the list of stuff to be recorded during the first half hour.

  • I was mostly satisfied by the “Battlestar Galactica” finale—so long as they ended without Galactica, say, plunging into a nearby sun with everyone on board I was going to be okay. (The show was so dark for the last half season I honestly didn’t know what they were going to do.) As Ted Tally says, you have to give your audience a little glimmer of hope at the end. Just a tad. I think the BSG guys didn’t have as tight a grip on their stuff as the Lost guys do, but there was still so much wonderful stuff in there over 4 years I don’t care. (For example: if you’re going to start every episode with the statement that the Cylons have a plan, get a kilo of cocaine, lock all the writers in a room for the weekend, and figure out that damn plan before you go Season 2, okay? Remember that for next time.)

That was an easy decision

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I went out with a friend last night to celebrate her birthday. Her birthday is actually March 17—one year we went to the big CB Hannegan’s St. Patrick’s Day bash, but in general March 17 is a day you want to avoid going out, if possible. (The technical term, in the original Gaelic, is “Amateur Hour.”)

Generally I have two or three drinks a week—on date night, and Saturday night. I have cocktails (I’m particularly fond of the French martini), because a year or so ago I decided, “You know what? I don’t like dry red wine, even if I don’t have the allergic reaction. I don’t even want to drink dry white wines. Sweet whites are all right, but if I’m at sweet whites, I might as well head on over to cocktails.” I had my drinks at Alexander’s Steakhouse the other night—

(Apropos of nothing: if you go to Alexander’s, don’t bother with the steak. Seriously. Their fish and seafood dishes, all of them small plates, are so much better than any of the straightforward steak things that getting anything other than that is pointless. FYI.)

—then last night I had two margaritas with my friend (who drank considerably more). I drank at least 4 times as much water as I did margaritas, and I was still a little buzzed at the end of the evening. Then I had trouble getting to sleep (as I usually do after drinking), and I woke up early (as I often do). I went running, and while the run went well, I felt logy and dehydrated doing it.

I’m supposed to be training for a marathon. I can’t do a lot of running feeling logy and dehydrated. I’m currently exercising six to seven days a week, I’m always doing something, I can’t spend too much time like this.

So today, as I was chugging yet another pint of water, I thought: “That’s it then: No more alcohol. No more drinking until the marathon.”

Doing this marathon is clearly that important to me. It was kind of a surprise when it hit me. I like having a cocktail once in a while, but I can’t afford it any more.

When I give up chocolate, you’ll know I’m really hardcore.

Diane needs

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I got tagged for the Google needs meme, and since I post so rarely, this will just have to do:

1) Diane needs a pigfoot and a bottle of beer, some reefer and some gin
(Well, isn’t THIS the truth.)

2) Diane needs to reconcile both sides of herself — to love herself

3) diane needs a fucking shower
(My God, this is like visiting a psychic)

4) Hmmm Diane needs a good affair.
(Okay, maybe not so much)

5) Diane needs our thoughts and prayers

6) Diane needs a ride for 1 to San Ramon
(I’m beginning to see story possibilities, linking all these sentences)

7) DIANE NEEDS TO STOP HUMPING ME!
(…)

8) Diane needs to get out of my boyfriend’s life
(I…I…there are no words.)

9) Diane needs each and everyone of you to take stock
(and see if you’re driving to San Ramon)

10) Diane Needs A Loan From Her Father

11) Diane needs to get some sleep or perhaps this is her glass ceiling
(from someone else’s “Diane needs” page, heh)

12) Diane Needs Financing

13) Diane needs a website made
(I have a couple, though they are in dire need of redesign/revamping)

14) Diane needs to be fair
(Hasn’t stopped me up until this point in my life)

15) Diane needs to be beatin with a rubber hose
(Um. No.)

16) Diane needs a new way to maximize the attention of her banking customers
(I’ve gotten some awesome ideas on how to do that in previous entries)

17) Diane needs ur phone #
(Esp. if she’s having an affair with you, going to San Ramon, or doing your banking)

18) Diane needs more $5 qualifying contributions

19) Diane needs your 7 year projections
(Who doesn’t, frankly?)

20) Diane needs only moist, well-drained, organic soil in sun or light shade
(And then she grows like a weed!)

21) Diane needs to stand and move around the room
(But then she’d get organic soil everywhere!)

22) Diane needs to be more sexy and more out there
(Trust me, she has that covered.)

23) Diane needs a cheeseburger
(Errr… no. Yuck.)

24) Diane needs to see these paintings
(Art!)

25) what Diane needs: a little discipline and a little training
(That will certainly come in handy in San Ramon!)

And…if you’ve bothered to read this far, consider yourself tagged! It’s actually hilarious, finding what comes up.