Garcia-Bernal, Luna, and a Cuaron

I probably should have known about this earlier, but I just got wind of the new movie that features the long-awaited, at least by me, reunion of Gael Garcia-Bernal and Diego Luna (who looks strangely like Brandon Flowers on the poster). And the fact that this time around its directed by the other Cuaron ain't too shabby either. They play brothers in this film, which I don't quite buy. And those of us who enjoyed *ahem* certain scenes from Y Tu Mama Tambien know why its also kinda lame. Oh well. It looks cute enough and seems to have a killer soundtrack.

Twitter, twitter, twitter

I was all atwitter today because I had a new follower on Twitter, and so I thought that would give me more blog exposure. Well, it turned out to be a spam account offering a free WalMart gift card. Oh boy! Incidentally, I have now joined Twitter although I refused to ever, ever join. If you want a tweet about my blog updates, please visit Ms. Read @ Twitter!

Writing Buddies, Yea or Nay?

I say nay, and that's not because of the other person. I realize that people have lives and a lot of us are often too busy to write. I say nay because you think that a writing buddy will always be there to move you along, or to inspire you to write. But the only person that can inspire you, is you. Maybe if I found someone locally and we had to report to each other in person every week on a particular day, I would say yea to the idea of writing buddies.

the library keeps hitler: the unknown artist in storage

I checked out Triumph of the Will from the library because I'm interested in things like propaganda and how people can be manipulated through words and images. My library is self-checkout, but to return it you have to give it to someone at the desk. Well, today was the day to return it but I felt really uncomfortable handing it in because I didn't want my co-workers thinking I was some sort of Neo-Nazi. And then I thought about how yesterday was Hitler's birthday and that it might seem like I watched it in honor of his birthday. So I just kept it. Hey, I don't get charged late fees and I still am interested in watching it. At least I didn't check out Hitler: the Unknown Artist, which is actually a book we keep in storage. And at least I don't share a birthday with him like these unfortunate people.

wasted weekend

Instead of writing this weekend, I played The Sims 2. And, yes, my sim also works on a novel, and yes, she gets more done than I do. I missed the news over the weekend (that's how much I played) that British author J. G. Ballard died yesterday (BBC). I wish I was still at Borders so I could make a display in his honor. I remember watching an interview with him in the dvd extras for Empire of the Sun and being blown away at how straight-laced and personable he seemed considering his often dark subject matter. But then again I've always found that people who write the weirdest, darkest things turn out to be the nicest people on earth.

Oh, another thing...

I thought I had such a clever idea. Years from now--when I'm a blogstar--I was going to start a community for new writers and I was going to call it Novel Novices. Well, come to find out that such a thing already exists. Except, for some inexplicable reason it has to do with Twilight. Shoot! Remind me one day to post a rant about Stephanie Meyer. Although Stephen King pretty much said everything for me, it would still be fun to write.

Ms. Read

In my google quest to find out whether someone already had the id name Ms. Read -- and might one day begrudge me the use of it -- I came across some interesting (sort of) facts:

• Miss Read is the pen name of an English author. Here is a link to her Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Read. I must have been really tired last night cuz I could have sworn she wrote novels in the 1800's, but now that I look her latest book was published in 1996. Not as cool.
  
• Ms. Read is also the name of a plus-sized clothing store.
  
• And Ms. Read is apparently a restaurant/cafe owned by the above mentioned clothing company that is only located in Malaysia (?)
  

Why now?

I am currently musing about the events of the past few weeks which have inspired me to start this blog. On Monday, I started my new job as a technical writer for a local and very small software company. So I could, technically, say that I'm a professional writer. Actually, during the interview process I remember the founders of the company asking me if I ever kept a blog. My response was "I've tried, but my life really isn't interesting enough." Well I guess the events of the past few weeks, this day in particular, have kind of bloated my ego to the point where I've decided to keep one. Whilst working at the library, I ran into a former writing instructor whose first question was, typically, "So have you been working on a novel?" And when I told him no, he told me that I was the best writer he had come across in five years of teaching so how come I wasn't?! Nothing like that compliment to boost said ego. But then there's always the comments from people like my good friend who once said "You should watch Ace in the Hole. I think you'd like it because you're a writer. Well, not really, but you know what I mean."