more evidence of spring.

the great blue heron is back. i saw him wednesday afternoon walking home from work. at least, i assume it's a him. one would expect the females to be sitting on eggs this time of year, not standing nonchalantly in a creek maybe a hundred feet from traffic.

and i saw a bluebird this year! apparently, they're coming back to the area. it's odd, development hasn't slowed a bit, but we're getting birds back. not only bluebirds and herons, but raptors as well. i've seen more hawks in the past year or so than i ever saw when i was a kid. my dad and i figure that now all the farms are being turned into developments, farmers aren't killing them anymore. funny how that works, isn't it? you'd expect the destruction of open space to result in the destruction of the wildlife, not cause it to thrive. i suppose the alternative explanation is that as human growth encroaches on what used to be the animals' habitat, human-animal interaction will increase, cf. mountain lions in california. i'm not entirely sure that works around here, though, because it's not wild open space that's being built on, but rather space that was already human-occupied. not that i'm an ecologist or an environmental scientist either. perhaps some research is in order. i have heard from other sources already that the eastern bluebird, at least, is actually experiencing a resurgence in this area.

also, all of my tomatoes have now sprouted. would anyone like some tomato plants? :)

i have created life.

my tomatoes have sprouted!

well. some of them.

happy easter.

another spring holiday.

i'm sick. "late flu season" indeed.

good friday service.

one good thing about helping to organize communion at the church this time of year is that i am never faced with the (admittedly somewhat unique) question: is the communion bread kosher for passover?

happy passover.

i ate too much last night ^_^ i shall have to make more matzo balls. i believe it is impossible to have too much matzo ball soup. mmmm....

too far?

last friday we went to see Thank You For Smoking (which, btw, i recommend. it's very funny). it is an R-rated film. attached to the film was a trailer for a new movie called United 93, about the flight of that number which crashed into a field in western pennsylvania on september 11, 2001.

yes, that flight.

from what i understand, the hour-and-a-half long movie is more or less supposed to be in real-time, showing what happened on that flight, bolstered mostly by the phone calls the passengers made before it went down. i can understand that. it seems the movie was made under consultation with the families of the victims, and they feel it's a respectful treatment of the topic. it's slated to screen at the Tribeca Film Festival in lower manhattan.

the issue i had with the trailer is that they cut to the news footage clip of the first tower at the world trade center on fire and the second plane coming in and hitting the south tower.

what. the. fuck.

it's a freaking movie trailer! they don't warn you, they don't have a note that it's attached to the film. you're in there for entertainment, and you see that shot, and it's not a movie, it's not special effects. everyone knows that image. you're watching real people dying on screen. i mean, you have a choice not to go see the movie. i personally won't, i don't think. but you can go see it, if you want. people can make responsible choices. but i'm sorry, i don't expect to see that shot, probably one of the most iconic shots of that day, up on a movie screen for entertainment. they had to stop screening the trailer in a manhattan theatre because people were getting so upset, and quite frankly, i'm with them. sure, make the film. tell people it's out there. but don't use fucking news footage like that in a movie trailer, especially one for a comedy. i don't care if it's an R-rated comedy, and the audience is supposed to be adults prepared to encounter adult themes. it may not be too early to make a movie about sept 11, but it is definitely too early to use that kind of footage in a trailer for it.

of time, and other things.

alright, let's see if blogspot will eat this post. nothing strikes confidence in the heart of a blogger like clicking "Publish Post" and getting the message, "This blog cannot be found."

passover starts wednesday night. so why have i just put a loaf of banana bread in the oven? banana-cherry bread, no less. i'm having a love affair with dried cherries, at the moment. probably because i don't like the taste of ripe bananas, but i also don't want to throw them out. i guess i'll be eating a lot of banana bread over the next 3 days.

post-eating aside, this blog is suffering again, i've noticed. i come up with all these cool ideas while i'm at work, but i can't blog from the office anymore, and equally, since i don't even have my own office anymore, typing them out and mailing them to myself at home is equally fraught with potentially unhappy consequences. the problem is, once i get home, i'm so tired. all i want to do is veg.

oh look. people are over.