3 Ring Binder

Speaking of objective beauty: what makes Helen Mirren so damn sexy and how can I get some? Seriously – she’s one stunning older woman! Having just recently watched the Queen (in which Miss Mirren was fabulous!) we were really happy to see Helen as a presenter at the Academy Awards last night. Each time I see her I have a renewed sense of awe at just how attractive she is. Lest you should think my sexual allegiance may be threatened by this feeling, I assure you, I was equally as impressed with the difference a good haircut can make on Javier Bardem , I just have no cultural history with Mr. Bardem - a situation I plan to rectify soon. In looking for good photographs of the two, I think I stumbled upon something. Part of the attractiveness of each of them is in their motions. They each carry themselves with grace, dignity, and some je ne sais quoi! That's what I want to better define.

In a stellar display of primacy of consciousness, I ignored known rules of geometry yesterday. For whatever reason, I felt the need to describe a god’s eye to Stephen. (You kn ow, it’s one of those things where you wrap the multi-colored yarn around 2 sticks in the shape of a cross, or an "x", and end up with a square of multi-colored yarn wrapped around 2 sticks that you hang in your room until you’re 15, then chuck in a fit of “what was I thinking?”) I picked up the chalk and began to draw: first the sticks, at least showing an understanding of the order of operations, then the yarn. As I wrapped the chalk-line yarn around the stick-figure sticks knowing full well that developing a square of yarn was my goal, I began to force the yarn outward in between the sticks. Even though it seemed weird, I figured that it must be that way because the entire point of my drawing was to show the design of the square. It was only when Stephen pointed out that the yarn, as a line, would ru...

(originally 6/07) Recently I have been using the expression "cool beans" to mean "sounds good to me". Since I love colorful expresssions and have a little more than a mild obsession with from who, what, where, and when these little gems hail, I have discovered a new source of etymological information: wiktionary . Etymology: It is originally from Boston, when the baked beans that had just come out of the oven were cool enough to eat, the cook would announce, “Cool Beans.” It became more popular as a result of a Bush Beans commercial in the mid 1980s, when the talking dog, Duke, said it in one of their commercials. Cool beans, huh? Update: I just got a new game, Orijinz, that is dedicated to the derivation of colorful expressions in common use. Have it - haven't played it yet. I wonder what it would take for a new expression to really explode into our cultural lexicon. Hot checkers! Let's see where that goes.