Previews.

We're watching previews before our DVD of Mean Girls, while eating take-out chicken salads. The movie is made by Paramount, so all the previews are also Paramount, complete with the Paramount mountain opening screen.

The first preview is Sponge Bob Square Pants going underwater to a burger joint.

Narrator: And now... bigger! louder! spongier!

Peter: Did you know it's the same guy who narrates most of these previews? Yeah, they just take him from studio to studio in a limousine, and they pay him twenty thousand dollars per. He does, like, four a day.

Me: Wow, so that's almost $100k per day.

Peter: He doesn't work every day.

Me: But even if he just worked 100 days per year, that's a million dollars. That's pretty good.

The next preview starts, which is an advertisement for Sweet Central '05, a photo album that you can put in your prom pictures and yearbook pictures. Peter suddenly stops chewing mid-bite, stops moving, almost seems to stop breathing as he stares toward the screen.

Me: What's going on? Do you really want one of these albums?

Peter: [silent]

Me: I can get one for you if you really want. But why?

Peter: It's not one million dollars, it's ten million dollars per year.

Me: Oh, yeah.

The next preview starts, and once again there's the Paramount splash screen:



Me: Wow, it's the same mountain that stars in almost all of these trailers! That mountain must make so much money!

first bounced check

I sent in an estimated tax payment on the 16th, and unexpectedy it already arrived and was cashed (in 3 days!). Unfortunately the money I transferred from Fidelity to my credit union is set to be credited tomorrow.

Thus I just experienced the first bounced check of my life. It feels dreadful, due to the unnecessary work that I have now incurred. I need to write another check and print out another IRS form and address another envelope. It's just too much! This in addition to all the bounced-check fees. Blargh it!

movie quotes

Watching King of Masks, a chinese movie about an old traveling streeet performer who adopts an 8-year-old child to carry on his legacy. At one point, the performer decides to abandon the child on the river bank, so he leaves her there and then pushes off in his boat.

The kid jumps into the river after the old man, and starts drowning.

"What are you doing?" shouts the old man, and then jumps in after her, leaving his boat to continue down the river.

"What about his boat?" I say. "He lives on the boat! He's just going to give it up?"

"It's not like a car," says Tom. "He can catch up to it once he rescues the kid."

"What if it runs into something?"

"Then it'll stop. Even easier for him to catch up to it."

---

Watching Man On Fire today, in which Denzel Washington takes his vengeance by killing a bunch of kidnappers, one by one. Denzel takes over an old man's house is taken over in order to fire a rocket launcher from the window.

Old Man: "In church they teach us to forgive."

Denzel: "Forgiveness is between them and God. It's my job to arrange the meeting."

Peter and I paused the movie so that I could cheer on Denzel's cleverness and Peter could flick his fingers in a gangster style.

Fun

Last night Peter, Mingjing, and I played an online version of Family Feud. It was exciting fun, the most fun thing I've done yet in 2006.

The highlight was when I blazed through all 7 answers for "Name something that kids eat as a snack in between meals" without incurring a single strike.

Cookies, candy, chips, crackers, fruit, ice cream, carrots.

Getty Center

Memorable items from the Getty Center:

1. Painting of a threesome:



2. I'd love to have a snooze in this bed:



3. Comfy sitting areas:



4. Pleasing to the eye:



5. The world is beautiful: