Rumors

So Amanda ran into one of our neighbors yesterday and it appears that the consensous is that we must be building a house. Huh? I guess the girl pieced together that 1. we would only be renting for a few months. 2. We had a kid. And 3. We're old. So apparently that means we're building a house.

I guess we make those types of leaps all the time using what we know.

I suppose I'm just let down that she doesn't think we're superheroes.

Last King of Scotland

Looking for something else, I discovered that Giles Foden's novel The Last King of Scotland is due out as a movie soon. Such a great book. If the movie is done well (like The Constant Gardener or Hotel Rwanda) it should be well worth the ticket price. But it could be difficult to show Idi Amin's sense of humor without making him less than the monster he really was.

It stars the guy who played Mr. Tumnus in Narnia, Forest Whitaker and Gillian Anderson - that X-Files girl. It's just a shame they couldn't get Rachel Weisz...

Watch the promo and tell me what you think.

Obligatory 9-11 Posting

It was tragic. Lots if of people died. Lots of people survive without those loved ones who died.

But it didn't really have an impact on my life in any way beyond the superficial. I've never been to New York or the Pentagon so the new highschool in Heyworth seems more out of place than the construction site in New York. I knew no firefighters or office workers or Penagon officials or ambulance drivers. I didn't watch the 9-11 telathon.

This may sound insensitive but this is how my life has been impacted: I take off my shoes at airports. Honestly, that's about it.

Maybe it's about proximity. When I hear "New York" I have about as much personal connection to it as many people do when they hear "Africa". I get sad when I hear about college kids getting jailed for doing nothing more than forgetting their IDs. I dream about starving families living within sight of the Intercontinental Hotel. That's where my heart aches. But New York is fiction to me.

Veggie Tales on TV

It was only a matter of time before Veggie Tales sold out to corporate America. That time was at 9:00am this morning on NBC. I sit here watching "Asparagus of La Mancha" as part of the new "Veggie Tales on TV". They make a point of saying that this is different from the DVDs. So far nothing "Christian" but also nothing the least bit offensive.

I reserve passing judgement...for now.

Doppelganger

Last night I was watching National Treasure there was my brother Pete acting as FBI sidekick #1. I was reminded that we all have a doppelganger somewhere in the world. The eyebrows were a bit too thick and he stood up straighter but it was almost Pete. Sort of a Hoolywood transformation of Pete, like when Hulk Hogan suddenly became Hollywood Hogan.

In college I found mine, or at least others found me as him. I was traveling to speech tournaments throughout the midwest when, gradually, people started complimenting me. At first it was nice, especially since by then I had decided to coast through the sunset of my scholarship years and simply be happy to be traveling and not care about actually doing well, but soon it became disturbing. People would come up to me and start into the middle of some previously begun conversation. They would make inside jokes that I didn't understand or reference some tournament I had never been to. It wasn't until they started congratulating me for a speech I never gave, in an event that I didn't compete in that I realized what had happened. And also someone asked why I had changed into my casual clothes right before awards (Note: those were my competition clothes.)

His name was Jeff Archibald and he was a much better speaker than I was, dressed better, and was much more popular than I was. He was also about five inches shorter than me. I think he might have been from one of the Kentucky schools or maybe Middle Tennessee State. But he could have been my movie double if he had a step to stand on. Assumming that some movie, of course, called for a better looking, more talented version of me with a slight southern twang in his voice.

I'm also playing with the idea that we all have not one, but several. I think it might be continental. Or racial. I have an Indian friend who looks like a Bollywood version of Dustin Hoffman. I once met a Congalese version of Jason Rennert. My father once made a breakfast appearance as a Singaporean businessman. And I know I've seen others.

We all have one. He might not sound like you or act like you but he looks like you...from a distance...when you squint...in the right light...with different hair...and clothes...and maybe glasses.