Literally my neck is red. Too much backseat driving. Vacation is very nice. We managed to get the travel time right this time which is very important. We are far enough away that it is exciting, but not so far that we spend the whole time in a car. (e:southernyankee) is being very hospitable, as tonight is the second time this week that we are sleeping on her floor and furniture. Wish we could get to see her more. I'm sure most of my (e:peeps) agree. She left a hole on the strip that will be a long time healing over.

Camping on the beach is neat. We were only about 50 feet from the beach but on the other side of a dune, so it wasn't visible directly. Crazy thing is that the dune is being re-constructed because human activities have led to its erosion at 10-100 times the natural rate. So us humans, clever beings that we are, have decided to import sand (over 2 million tons so far) and plant new dune grass to re-naturalize the landscape. Of course this involves many big machines. We woke up to a gigantic shuddering and quaking our first morning. It was seriously Armageddonesque. The wind was fierce enough to rip the tent from its stakes. Turned out that the ground was actually shaking as giant earth-moving tractors pummeled the ground in their ongoing attempts to recreate nature. Needless to see we got up nice and early that morning.

K, enough of my boring pictureless journal. Really, how do you compete with the documenting duo of (e:paul) and (e:matthew)? One has posted over 20 journals so far from our half-week long vacation. The other will wow you all with his budding naturalist photography as soon as he can plug in his camera. But, hey, I love 'em so why complain? Just enjoy!

Looking to quench my burning fantasy thirst, which has been reoccurring since early childhood, I turned to Amazon for a suitable selection. I don't intend to actually buy the books, just find promising ones and then borrow from our pretty expansive library collection. It's very handy for reviews and book covers (which usually have so little to do with what's inside, but nevertheless prove crucial) and synopsi and such. They added lists a couple years back where you can read the suggestions of other like-minded individuals (ie: the 21 must-read fantasy books of all time), and now have come up with SIP or Statistically Improbable Phrases. I guess it's a catalog of oft-occurring phrases throughout the book, and extension of their "Search Inside! program" which displays the text of a limited amount of pages. Here's the SIP I got for this cheap fantasy novel I was looking at:

his inner barriers, tiny spiral horn, spear thread, large blackwood desk, shattered crystal chalices, dark psychic scent, communal eyrie, seduction tendrils, landing web, landen village, shattered chalice, gray jewels, controlling ring, jewel darker, gutter son, his dark wings, jewel chips, psychic thread, aristo families, bladed stick, witch storm, psychic tendril, fawn tail, snake tooth, her gold eyesQuoted from: Amazon.com: Books: Black Jewels Trilogy, The

Pretty neat stuff. I love the pure innovation. They got these anomalous phrases by first cataloging a vast amount of data and then isolating the various phrases within each book which occured significantly only within the pages of that particular book. So random yet oddly useful.

sidenote: My reluctance to use dictionaries has once again led me astray. Today's word of the day is ameliorate which I thought I knew. I thought it meant to get rid of or to lessen or something. In fact it means, very logically, to grow better (think Spanish mejor=better). See, the problem is that it's always used with bad things (dict.com's examples include "ameliorate the family's exiguous circumstances" and "ameliorate human suffering") which if they are ameliorated are in fact being diminished or done away with. If I ameliorate my TV addiction I am making it better but it is also lessening. Right? It wasn't like I was misunderstanding the word just misinterpreting it. Yeah.

Next week the boys and I have vacation time. Of course, we have failed to make any serious plans or decisions about exactly what we'll be doing or where we're going. We have vague ideas about Vermont and camping. Definitely something outdoorsy and cheap. Any ideas? We want to keep it relatively near (say a maximum driving distance of 8-10 hours) and relatively cheap. Please your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

sidenote: Kung Fu Hussle was just great. Exactly my type of movie. Great Kung Fu masters from various schools with crazy techniques (like the Buddha Palm, the Lion's Roar, and the Leaping Toad) just pound out the action the entire time. It's just like an anime but with real actors and the hi-tech digigraphics to pull it off. If you liked Shaolin Soccer (thanks (e:shawnr) for that great recommendation) you've got to see this movie. It appears that it may not be here much longer (I just noticed there's only one showtime at Regal now) so go out and see it!

To eat scrumptious dandelions. Where every step brings mouthfuls of green juiciness. He's been staring at me for 10 minutes now, pleading, "let me out." We'll see, it needs to be 65 for your cold-blooded tortoise metabolism. Else, you'll fall into a stupor. And then what good are all those tasty greens?

my journal shall now have more graphic, more mundane, more sordid facts of life. I will report on Dave. And how we watched the Wall, a very important piece of artwork, We don't need no fucking teacher control. I'l tell all. Everything, goddamit. Just you wait and see!