Power of prayer

"Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found," the New York Times reports. I'm not really surprised by the results of this study (despite what my church pastor says), but as pointed out in the article, prayer, as a supernatural phenomenon, may be something that can't be scientifically quantified.

Cesar Chavez Day

"César Estrada Chávez was a Mexican-American farm worker, labor leader, and activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers. His birthday on March 31 has subsequently become a holiday in a handful of U.S. states..."--from Wikipedia

Other pics

My mom once referred to this plant as her baby.


Old claw-foot bathtub in my dad's backyard.

My dog, Bootsie. Adorable, isn't she?

Mountain views

Pictures taken last week at picnic area on TransMountain.

Dooce on "Big Love" and Mormonism.

Now these are what I call cool kids

Can't decide whether I loathe these people or want to grow up to be just like them. via kottke.org

Memorable in a bad way

Have you ever watched a movie so disturbing that when it ended you were completely stunned by it? A movie that hits you right in a gut, so emotionally disturbing that you end up thinking about it for days afterward? It's a rare occurrence for me. Even if I consider a movie to be memorable (whether sad or thought-provoking or whatever), most of the time I will watch it movie then forget about it right away. However, three movie-watching experiences stand out in my mind as traumatic:

• My Girl. I was 8 or 9 when my family took me to see this movie. The title character was odd yet relatable. The whole movie is very emotional in the way that coming-of-age movies usually are, and then the shocker ending tops it off to make this movie unbelievably sad. How can you get killed by bees? This was the first time I cried during a movie.
• American Beauty. I saw this movie in high school with my dad and my sisters. I remember driving home that night in complete silence, then thinking about this movie all night and the next morning. With all the bleak, depressing, and immoral things that were portrayed, my innocent view of middle-class life was gone forever.
• Rosemary's Baby. Talk about frightening. I saw this one on TV late at night, not really knowing what it was about other than it was a horror movie. I think if I had watched it in a theater I would have walked out. The beginning of the movie is like a regular drama, then it takes a very unexpected (at least to me) Satanic turn. A standard over-the-top horror movie I can handle, but this movie is so realistic despite the far-out plot line that it totally freaked me out.

There have been a few others, but those are the ones I remember most clearly. It really is amazing how a work of fiction can have that much power over you. A lot of times you don't even know what you're getting into, you see a movie because it's well-reviewed or you go with someone not knowing what the movie is about. I wouldn't say I regret seeing those movies, but I definitely wouldn't want to watch those kinds of movies every week. It's good to challenge yourself and shake up your world view every once in a while, but nine times out of ten I would rather watch a movie like Wallace and Gromit than a movie like The Exorcist.

The first computer dating service started in 1965? Interesting.

Spam poetry

From a spam e-mail I received tonight:
Subject: permissive churlish
businesslike sophomoric, strategically a the in momentary, sparkling are tin induce with malevolent incorporate
---some text about a drug company I should invest in--
scientifically to salivate M, and grinder parking volatility vortices, agonizing

Nice piece by IreneQ on grace.

Extreme food

Feature on some of El Paso's biggest food items. Check out the size of that burrito.

Picture of pro-immigrant rally in Los Angeles.

Elizabethtown

How could you not like Elizabethtown? Impossible. So many great scenes. The never-ending phone conversation, the part where Orlando Bloom looks at the stove burner and runs to the funeral home, the road trip home where he lets the ashes fly into the wind while that amazing Elton John song plays in the background, need I go on? My only criticism is that it's possibly too much content for one movie. I could see this as two separate movies, one for the love story, another for the father's funeral. It's sprawling and meandering, for sure, but I didn't mind the lack of focus. The humorous details and random detours are part of the movie's charm.

Always next year

Duke lost, guess I'm out of the office pool, as I had them winning the whole thing on my bracket. Darn.

Bush and I finally agree on an issue

I definitely support Bush's proposed guest-worker program. Doesn't look like it will get past Congress, unfortunately.

A new venture

Bored with the old, wanting to do something slightly more ambitious, I'm setting up a new space on the web. I dedicate this space to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider. Coolness, hipness, popularity, who needs those things when it's far more interesting to be on the outside anyway. Expect links, news, photos, and the occasional personal post, all from the perspective of a twentysomething girl from El Paso, Texas.