A little bit of this and that...

Haven't really felt like blogging lately. It's kind of a "why bother" thing. I don't know. I guess I've lost interest in it. I'm considering doing something different - maybe myspace.com or multiply.com for a comprehensive website, but we'll see.

I started my new job duties in mid-May and they are certainly keeping me busy. I find myself mentally exhausted at the end of the day since I'm unused to the mental challenges the new stuff entails. I guess it's really struck home how little brain power it took to do my previous position. Anyhow, I find myself reluctant to get online once I arrive home, so that contributes to the general lack of blogging as well. I'm most often vegging in front of the boob tube or reading.

Finally go around to watching Brokeback Mountain and Crash. I didn't know what to think about the movies before watching them. I found myself feeling very sad for the characters in Brokeback Mountain (hereby referred as BM). Their lives, that of their spouses, children and parents...all were sad. None of them were completely happy and I had to wonder, despite the social environment and stigmatism associated with homosexuality in the 60's & 70's, would their lives have been happier if they had gotten that ranch together? (Although, I have to clarify that the male characters were actually bisexual, not homosexual as I'd been led to believe.) I came away from BM with a feeling that something was lacking but I couldn't pinpoint it exactly. I was holding judgement until after I watched Crash.

Crash surprised me. I hadn't heard anything about it and I was astonished at the rawness of the cultural prejudices shown to the audience. Maybe all the PC-ness of the past few years has numbed us to the horrible truth of racial prejudice. I found myself feeling offended throughout most of the movie. I was offended at the way Matt Dillon treated the HMO customer service woman (who was black). I was offended at the way the gun salesman screamed at the middle eastern man about 9/11. And, I was offended at the way two young black men talked about whites. There was just so much to absorb and ponder during this movie. I found myself alternately gasping in horror, tearing up in sympathy, and laughing from the surprising bursts of humor. I can see now why Crash edged ahead of BM to take the movie award. After seeing both, there is no doubt in my mind that Crash was the better movie.