I guess they don't call them "killer" for nothing

A trainer at SeaWorld was attacked by a killer whale during a performance. The whale dragged the trainer underwater by grabbing the trainers foot - twice. Talk about scary. It seems really weird, but then again, they are wild creatures. As sad as it was to see Steve Irwin die from the stabbing by that stingray, I think these are reminders that the creatures we co-exist with are still wild. And no matter how much we think we know about them, there will always be an element of danger when working with them.

Interestingly, I was watching a video of it on MSN, and they followed up with this little gem from National Geographic. Poor little sea lion - how was he to know that he'd become a mere beach ball in a game between two killer whales? At least he gets out alive, which, I must admit, surprised me.

Déjà vu

This is an interesting article about déjà vu, the feeling that you've experienced something before. There was a theory that, "the phenomenon occurs when the image of a scene through one eye arrives at the brain before the image from the other eye." But, apparently a blind man experienced the feeling both through smell, sound, and touch. This lends more credibility to the theory that, "the experience is caused when an area of the brain that deals with familiarity gets disrupted."

I've experienced déjà vu many times in my life, although I used to experience it a lot more when I was younger. I also used to have premonitions, but haven't had one of those in years. The brain is definitely strange territory in research, and completely fascinating to me. I remember learning in a psychology class about people who have split-brain surgery (usually because they have a lot of seizures, and such), so that the two sides of their brain no longer communicate with one another. So, a person could be in the middle of reading a book and they will suddenly put it down (without meaning to) because the side of the brain that is reading is different than the side of the brain that controls the arm.

Can you imagine? That would be so odd. I learned a lot of other cool stuff in that class. I think if I'd have thought a little more about my major in college, I could have done psychology instead of political science. But, I learned a lot of cool things in poli sci, too, so no harm done there.

Snow update

I haven't yet seen the second round of snow start, but it's supposed to start in the very early morning around here. So, it may be another day of working from home. It's nice that I have that option when the roads are unsafe, or when I get sick.

Over the past few days I haven't left the house except to take out the trash and to get my mail out of the mailbox. Although I still have food and drinks, I will be looking forward to getting out again soon. But it has been nice to have my own personal pajama party in my place :)

Weird November weather

This has been a really odd month for weather in the greater Seattle area. The first part of the month was full of rain and flooding. Just check out this picture for an idea of the flooding.

Now, we're dealing with snow. I've lived in this area for my whole life, and I remember when we used to get quite a bit of snow, and it would stick around for maybe a week or so. But in recent years, we typically get snow for one day and it quickly becomes ice covered with wet slush. This, of course, makes for very difficult driving conditions. People from all over make fun of us for the driving problems that we encounter, but I have to say that the snow we get here is very different from other places. Because we're close to the water, the temperature doesn't stay cold enough to keep the snow dry. Then when it freezes overnight, the road ways become ice and when it snows again and heats up a bit, you get slush on top of it. It's not like driving in drier snow. A friend from Denver, CO, said it was deceptive to drive in snow here because it's very different than what he's used to there.

In any case, I just watched the ground outside of my apartment go from wet rain to covered in snow and ice pellets. Should be fun driving tomorrow. And of course, this is all in time for rush hour commute (although rush hour is now more of a three-hour span). I now hear sirens going, so someone probably plowed into the back of someone else on the road. At least I have power. L. got back up to his place this morning (in Snohomish county) and found that his power was out and the whole area was covered in snow. Crazy weather.

NaNoWriMo update

I'm still at the same word count as my last update post. But, I've decided that I'm not going to finish by the end of the month. Like most things in life, I'm terrible with a deadline and when I attempt to do something at a frenetic pace, it becomes more of a chore than a pleasure. I had the same thing happen when I wanted to turn my card-making hobby into a business. All of a sudden, the thing that gave me an outlet for my creativity turned into something that I *had* to do. No fun there. So, I'm going to keep working on my memoir and keep going with the quantity-over-quality focus, but I'm not going to worry about finishing it by the end of the month. I'm finding that by writing things down, I remember a lot more and I get off on weird tangents occasionally. So, it's a good exercise in memory and in exploration of feelings.

Fast Food Nation

I saw Fast Food Nation over the weekend. I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed, because I didn't think that the film went quite far enough with some of characters and finishing up parts of the story. The last scene is definitely brutal, but if you eat meat, you should be able to watch it and appreciate where your food comes from.

So, I'm sort of unsure what to think. It's definitely important to get the word out about how the fast food industry affects our lives at more than just the waist-line. Like most books made into movies, I think that the book is a better option if you want to know the whole story. But the movie could be a good introduction to people who are curious what the whole thing is about.

Another NaNoWriMo Update

I'm at 17517 words (30 pages). I have a long way to go still, but it's going pretty well so far.

Movies, movies, movies

This last weekend, L. and I took some time to go to the movies. There are a bunch of films that we've wanted to see, but we usually get too busy to see them until they come out on video.

First, on Saturday we saw Stranger Than Fiction, which was really good. Will Ferrell did an excellent job, as did the rest of the cast. It was a really interesting concept for a movie.

On Sunday, we saw Running with Scissors, which is the movie version of Augusten Burrough's memoir. I read Running with Scissors about a year ago, and was completely blown away by the story. Although I liked the book Dry a bit better, Running with Scissors certainly laid the groundwork for what came in Dry. Anyway, the movie version was fabulous. Annette Bening was wonderful as Augusten's mother, and Joseph Cross was perfect as Augusten. It's definitely a heavy movie due to the subject matter, but it spares you some of the details that are covered in the book that would probably make for more of an NC-17 kind of rating.

I'm thrilled to see that Fast Food Nation has been turned into a movie. I can't wait to see it. The book was great, and totally changed my perspective on food. With the exception of Halloween, I have not eaten fast food since around May or June of this year. I actually read Fast Food Nation a couple of years ago, and it changed my eating habits somewhat. But then around May or June, I read Chew on This (which frankly was a lot like Fast Food Nation), and watched the documentary McLibel. I then decided that I would avoid fast food as much as possible. There are just too many reasons to not eat fast food and support that industry. Of course, it goes deeper than fast food, but I've been trying to buy more organic products and food, such as meat, that comes from farms that support sustainable agriculture and humane treatment of animals.