DISQUS

We must both be geniuses! Yeah, there's a 'feel' to independent film...to the extent that some mainstream films seem independent to me, and vice versa. It hit me yesterday that I think it's this focus on 'moments' rather than the whole plot that gives a film that indie feel. Wes Anderson films are sort of in the middle, as you say.

That's a good page to remember...I haven't been all over the Wordpress site yet. Thanks! My issue is that you can't use custom templates on blogs hosted by Wordpress; you have to use the ones that Wordpress provides. Now, if you write a good template, and get Wordpress to adopt it on the .com site, then you can use it on a hosted blog.

And I think I'm capable of writing the html and css files to build a template. What I can't do is figure out the MySQL and php stuff to host my the blog myself, which is what you have to do if you want to use custom themes. In other words, I could build it, but I can't use it until I can figure out how to host it myself, and not with wordpress.com (which is a separate, less geek-oriented site than wordpress.org, which has all the developer and source code info).

Hee. I've only been there once, but I quite enjoyed it. I'm sure I'll get lots of chances next year. For this, though, I've been partially successful at getting a St. Louis group going, so I think I'll stick with that. Going to see American Idol with people = less lame than going to see American Idol alone. ;)

Sometime I'll have to pick your brain for stuff to do and see (and eat!) in Austin.

No kidding. The judges have established time and again that this type of bubble-gum pop is not really her forte. My eyes almost rolled out of my head when the choir came on stage. I hope they don't shoehorn her into that mold for a full album. Unbelievable.

Kat has really been taking a beating from the judges lately, and from the internets especially since Chris left (as though it were her fault). Some people are like "oh, she thinks she's better than the judges, and she's so uppity complaining to them that they've been to hard on her." Well, they have been too hard on her...on the other hand, I think they're pushing her hard because she really is capable of more than she's been giving. You can see that in the behind-the-scenes clips.

I don't think she's got anything to be ashamed of in the competition (unless perhaps allowing them to write her such a horrible single to close with last night). But you're right, Taylor seems to have taken the place by storm somehow. He can sing, sure, but mostly he's got a stylistic and originality advantage over Kat...Kat has the best pure singing voice, but I don't think she hit her full potential on Idol.

Wow, long comment. I've clearly been thinking about American Idol waaaaaay too much. :)

I never really wanted to go to Greece that bad until I saw Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, part of which is set in Santorini, Greece, and now I'm dying to see it myself. Where in Greece did you go?

April - Virginia Woolf is so amazing. Have you ever read anything by her? I've really read A Room of One's Own and her first novel, The Voyage Out. I'm looking forward to reading all the other things she's written.

Hee. I haven't even read that much about Alexander...even without historical inaccuracies, the movie stunk. Your comments only give me more reasons why it stunk!

Jennifer - Yeah, I accidentally spoiled Mark on my livejournal review of the episode. Oops. Hope he's not too mad.

Carol - The UPN station here isn't anything to write home about, either. The CW should be better...I assume they'll be able to use the old WB affiliates. I'll have to lend you my VMars Season 1 DVDs sometime. If you like character- and arc-driven shows, it's right up your alley!

Bucky?! Really, April? Meh. I was blown away that he made it as far as he did. Not that he was really *bad*, but he just wasn't that great. Mandisa was great, but not really my style. I miss Lisa. She definitely deserved to stay more than Ace and Bucky, and probably Kellie.

Now I've given up caring about anybody except Katharine and Chris. And Elliott a little.

Someday I need to post about my proposed new voting rules for American Idol. :)

I didn't realize it was a book until I was at Plaza Frontenac last week and they had it for sale at the ticket counter. Interesting. Hopefully I'll be able to see the film this Saturday. Have you see it yet?

Carol - I forgot you were in Austin! I was there in January, but I was pretty busy so I probably wouldn't have had time to stop by anyway. I forsee lots of Ramen in my future, so I'm sure I'll be up for a homecooked meal at some point! Thanks!

Thanks, Annie! I'm getting a masters in English. My undergrad profs always told me I should major in English...only took me three years out of school to convince me they were right! (My undergrad was communications.)

Actually, I'm working with Windows XP. I know, I know. But the book I've got is actually geared towards Windows users, and everything I've done matches pretty much exactly, using PHP5.1.2, Apache1.3.34 (I tried with Apache2.0.55 first, but the configuration files were enough different that I couldn't figure out how to make it recognize PHP), and MySQL5.0.18. Now, I think the book is actually using an early MySQL release as well, but since it set up the same, I'm not sure what would be different that might be messing it up.

I've got PHP talking to Apache just fine, but when I create the PHP file that checks for MySQL connectivity, it just comes up with a blank screen. (It's supposed to say "can't find MySQL" if it doesn't connect and "connected to MySQL" if it does, and I can get the PHP to give me the straight html if I take out the mysql_connect command, but with the mysql_connect line of code in there, I just get a blank page, in both Firefox and IE6.) Oh, and I did install the precompiled packages of everything...I tried compiling my own the first time, and I'm not that much of a programmer yet. Baby steps, you know? ;)

Tonight felt sophomoric. Like, last week, they were working out the kinks, but there were a few "wow" performances that snuck through the overall nervousness. No "wow"s this week, because most of them were playing it too safe, and ended up just being totally unmemorable. Which is sort of how I felt about the guys least week, so it'll be interesting to see what they do tomorrow.

Jessie, thanks! I haven't had this blog very long. The internet and I go way back, though. It's great to see people from church blogging--it's so much easier for me to get to know people through writing like this than conversation (since I suck at conversation!).