(My technique is to ambush you guerrilla style.)

D. sold his digital rangefinder. A check
appeared this afternoon, in a white envelope, which I discovered
after holding it to the light. My grandmother
would have at least enclosed it in a folded sheet of paper.

An Eastern European couple has moved in next door.
We don’t know their names but they’re our
generation and the girl was wearing a moo-moo.
Their house is the only one with a garden
and a wide front porch. The yard is small but so green
and red and purple it feels like 12 feet of Mississippi
in the middle of our city,
leaves so dense it makes you dizzy

(I’m sorry, I really can’t get “Game Theory” out of my head.)

Ok, so I haven’t seen that many this summer, but here’s my reviews of the ones I’ve seen so far:

HARRY POTTER & the order of the phoenix
First impression: dark! But amazing! Wait a minute, not so amazing! Who was that director? He’s not as good as the last director. His television background is obvious: all the scenes had jarring cuts, there was no flow, no smooth transitions. It played like a sitcom…but a dark, psychological sitcom. THE PLUS: seeing the Potter Pack grow up, and the conflict become more internal than external. MINUS: directing.

SICKO
Well done by Michael Moore. Sure, it’s propaganda, but it’s well-edited nonfiction propaganda, and if you’ve never wanted to live in France before, after this movie you’ll be renewing your passport. The film offers no solutions, but spends its time effectively raising questions to a bipartisan audience. Also makes excellent use of personal story to pull along the narrative, rather than relying solely on Mr. Moore. Viva la France!

KNOCKED UP
Stupid. I mean, there were a few good lines and decent supporting characters and some Norman Lear-esque subplots involving the sister & her husband, but overall, nothing to sneeze at. The chic was especially lame — one of those “too perfect to be real” characters. Netflix it, if you’re interested at all.

RESCUE DAWN
Great. Christian Bale is my hero. Such a great actor. He had to be to carry this film, and to put up with Werner Herzog. Also, his 10% German accent was spot on. Excellent performance by Steve Zahn as well. Overall, solid happy ending autbiographical war film.

Zuk-Lloyd Associates Hires VP Milk Consumption & Waste Production

(Warrenville, Ill. – July 20, 2007) W. P. Keever has joined Zuk-Lloyd Associates, Inc. as Vice President Milk Consumption & Waste Production. Keever, who weighs seven pounds and is 20 inches tall, is the youngest member of the executive team. He was born on July 20, 2007 at 8:10 PM.

Keever came to terms with Zuk-Lloyd Associates after a marathon labor negotiation that lasted 40 hours and 40 minutes. A company spokesperson reported that the recruitment process began nine months earlier.

Other promotions reflect growth

Zuk-Lloyd Associates also announced a number of promotions within the company. Three IT executives have been promoted from vice president to newly created positions. H. Keever is now mommy, J. Keever is daddy and J. Lloyd serves as Uncle J.

In other promotions, Managing Directors P. R. Lloyd and L. Zuk-Lloyd have been named Grandpa and Grandma, respectively.

Zuk-Lloyd Associates, Inc. is a creative services company that turns out high-power graphics, illustrations and copy for companies, agencies, multimedia producers and publishers. No project is too large or too small as we dance merrily across a keyboard or skateboard upon a mouse.

# # #

Shameless plug: if you haven’t already, buy my friend Kate’s book: A YEAR IN JAPAN, full of cool illustrations!

Well, possibly, during a 3-week vacation to Southeast Asia that’s turning into more of a humanitarian mission than anything else — although we wouldn’t have it any other way.

During the trip (Oct.), I will be meeting with some compatriots from EDC, Right to Play, and my friends at Grassroots HRE (GHRE). Much of the trip will be spent documenting, via photo/video, whatever we can manage to document and take back with us.

In the meantime, if any of my five loyal readers are able to contribute a digital camera or camcorder, books, webcams, or whatever else you think might benefit Burmese rights workers and their children living in exile from an oppressive military regime, let me know.

I just read tonight about a new law passed last month in Thailand, restricting the movement of all migrants: Burmese living in Thailand are now not allowed to be out past 8pm; own mobile phones; use regular phones without the permission of Thai authorities; ride motorbikes or drive cars; gather in groups of more than 5 people; live in overcrowded temporary housing; or work in Thailand without an expensive permit. GHRE is reporting that many Burmese are getting really depressed, since they can’t even ride a motorbike to buy food because (a) now they can’t operate vehicles and (b) the long commute mean they’d break the new curfew.

Construction worker U Kyaw Min says, “We are supposed to be dead although we are still alive. If the Thai authorities respect the rights of migrant workers, they wouldn’t need to issue this kind of restrictive law. As a migrant worker in Thailand, if we don’t have freedom to work and freedom to live, we don’t want to be alive in this world.”

HERE ARE SOME WAYS YOU CAN HELP:

- Join the U.S. Campaign for Burma, or at least come to the next meeting we have in Boston
- Donate some stuff (via me) to Burmese migrant workers in Thailand
- Watch Mizzima.tv
- Watch video podcasts on One World TV
- Urge your Rep to co-sponsor the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 44) to renew the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act. This policy works by cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars to the regime and prohibiting western companies from doing business in Burma. Call:

Rep. Mike Capuano (D) – 8th district
Contact Staffer Christina Tsafoulias – phone: 202-225-5111

Rep. William Delahunt (D) – 10th district
Contact Staffer Cliff Stammerman – phone: 202-225-3111

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D) – 9th district
Contact Staffer Bruce Fernandez – phone: 202-225-8273

Rep. Richard Neal (D) – 2nd district.
Contact Staffer Bill Tranghese – phone: 202-225-5601

A bracket popped off — because of the dang elastic I wear on it all day — so I went in for a fix. The office is so crowded now; my orthodontist has become very popular. There are 8 or 9 assistants, or so it seems. Today, D. worked on me. He’s a good kid, and an excellent assistant. “I hope you’ve been getting big raises,” I told him.

“Ha, you do?” he laughed. “Well, I’ve been here since the beginning.”

“Yeah,” I said, “So have I. And I’ll probably be here another five years.”

I am Patient #55. The 55th patient to be treated since the business opened…and one of the last to finish. Still, I don’t mind: I get free a free toothbrush every appointment, all the employees know me, and there’s something reassuring about the routine appointments — my apartments and boyfriends and jobs have all changed in the past 27 months, but my trips to the orthodontist have stayed the same. Consistency is a virtue, right? Something will feel very strange when this is actually over, and not just my teeth.

Nothing new to report. The adventure continues. My guess: November.

We ran miles tonight around Castle Island. The sea looked like sky and the sky looked like dust, but it was fog. Huge airplanes would come roaring out of the clouds, flying lower than usual out of necessity. You could almost see through the windows of the Lufthansa flight, eye-to-eye with the middle-aged men and the young women in uncomfortable shoes and no jackets. All the other planes were standing by on the runway, which we could see from the dock. Neon white-blue lights flashed off each plane, pulsing in a quick line. I imagine the passengers had become anxious, all that waiting. What I didn’t imagine was Belgium, or Spain, or Jordan or Mozambique, Cambodia or Fiji or Austria, though I would have liked to be headed to all of them.

The ITCH is coming back — perhaps because I haven’t left the country in three years. I can feel it though, and it’s like the calm before the storm, although tonight the storm never arrived. We just ran and ran around the bay, ate baked scrod at the Fish Pier, bought strawberries at Stop & Shop until we noticed the clouds had completely dissipated. But I’m serious about the ITCH; it’s like a freight train. It’s going to hit soon, and I’m going to freak out and give away all my possessions again and hop on a Lufthansa or Singapore Airlines plane with my new backpack and a few key pieces of technological and AV equipment, and that’s the last you’ll see of me for at least five years. Then Tapioca World Tour will once again earn its title. You think I’m joking but I’m totally not.

In the meantime, DD & I are starting a virtual band: BUBBY. We will exist only on the internet, our music recorded all via GarageBand. It’s an experiment to see how big we can get without actually existing as a musical entity. I love turning nothing into something.