I like the film Vanilla Sky. A lot of people don't share that opinion with me, I know, and that's fine. (Vanilla Sky is in my DVD collection.) Vanilla Sky is a remake, and I've been curious to see the original, Mexican, version, Abre Los Ojos. I haven't been able to find Abre Los Ojos at Broadway Video until yesterday, because I'd been making three mistakes.

First, I hadn't asked any of the employees there if they have the film. There are several reasons for that, and none of them are that I was afraid to ask. The main reason is that Broadway Video's Mexican film section is small enough that I could see with "mis ojos" that Abre Los Ojos was not on the shelf.

Second, Abre Los Ojos is a Spanish film - not a Mexican film. I learned that on Internet Movie Database yesterday. I'd been looking in the wrong section.

Third, I'd been looking under A for Abre Los Ojos. I stumbled upon it in the Spanish movie section yesterday under O for Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos), which is kind of strange, since the DVD isn't dubbed into English.

I watched Abre Los Ojos last night. It was the second time in recent memory that I liked an American remake better than the original version. (The first being The Ring versus Ringu.) I felt that Vanilla Sky developed its characters better. The "Seven Dwarfs" in Vanilla Sky were scary, and therefore it was easy to buy the concept that they might be behind a conspiracy. We never get to meet "The Partners" in Abre Los Ojos, I got no sense of what type of people they were, and I really couldn't tell how realistic the conspiracy claims were.

I felt that Vanilla Sky was one time that a bigger budget made things better. The special effects made the question of reality much more vivid, and made LE seem more believable as a forward-thinking, futuristic corporation.

In Abre Los Ojos, the "other woman" was a two-night stand, a stranger without a last name. In Vanilla Sky, she's a long-time friend that both the male leads care about, and that somehow made her hurt feelings more painful.

This may sound kind of shallow, but I felt that Tom Cruise made a better lead character. Tom Cruise is a superstar actor, famous for his handsome face. I found myself caring more about his facial disfigurement than I did about Eduardo Noriega's. - No, that's not right. I realized in mid-sentence that it was more than star quality. In Vanilla Sky, David comes across as a more charismatic person, with big connections, throwing big parties - a person whose lifestyle depends on his good looks. In Abre Los Ojos, César is rich, we're told, but I never saw him with a lot of friends or followers. (Plus, David's injuries are portrayed as more extensive than César's - effecting his movement and well-being as well as his looks.)

What I found especially interesting was the idea that Penélope Cruz played the same character in both films, and yet she played the character differently each time. In Abre Los Ojos, Sofía is a serious, almost tragic, person, deeply effected by César's accident. In Vanilla Sky, she's much lighter, more flirty, and somehow not so clinging to David. I think that part of it is that in Vanilla Sky, Penélope Cruz is speaking English as a second language, with a heavy accent, and she comes across as more exotic - someone beyond David's world, and in his eyes, a mystery to uncover, a rare prize to acquire.

I think that Abre Los Ojos is a well-made film, but I do think Vanilla Sky is better.

There was a letter from Kelly in today's mail. That was a real emotional roller coaster.

I un-installed Accelerator tonight. Phillip asked me to. I feel glad that that's over.

I got three automated email responses from Earthlink Support, each exactly like the others, which lead me to believe that at least two of those "An error has occurred" messages were bogus. It probably also means that, as Phillip pointed out, I wasn't the first person to report a loss of Favorites.

The solution that Earthlink suggested worked perfectly, it wasn't too complicated - and it wasn't at all obvious. It made sense to me in hindsight, but I don't think I would have ever hit upon that solution on my own.

Meanwhile, Earthlink's Accelerator seems to be very "buggy." Even after three re-installs, it doesn't always start on startup, like it should. Sometimes, it opens the directory window instead of starting the program. We then have to start Accelerator manually. (If Accelerator isn't running, we discovered, Internet Explorer isn't able to load web pages.) I'm wondering if it's all worth it - I mean, how much time have I already spent on this, just so web pages can load a few seconds faster? Should I just un-install it, or should I see if either Accelerator's diagnostics or Earthlink Support can help? I'll leave that up to Phillip to decide - it really effects him more than me. Earthlink's web site claims that Accelerator works with "Netscape 4.7 and higher," but I don't believe it. For one thing, when I'm online with my Netscape, there's no sign of activity in the Windows taskbar icon. For another thing, unlike Phillip's Internet Explorer, my Netscape loads web pages just fine with Accelerator off. The strongest piece of evidence, though, is when I log off, a little message pops up to tell me something like "Accelerator wasn't able to speed up your online session because you didn't have any online activity."

An interesting thing happened during my online time this morning. Accelerator didn't start - again. I got the directory window instead, so I re-installed Accelerator (the third re-install) and then logged on. I lost the connection, but instead of the Total Access panel offering me a chance to re-connect, it was the good old Windows dial-up window. I read my email, read news, and visited Neopets without either TotalAccess or Accelerator and did just fine.

You know what I'd like? I'd like one of Earthlink's support staff to read these latest blog entries.

The sunset was awesome this morning! Huge multi-textured clouds filled the eastern sky, all colored bright red - like upside down mounds of cranberry sauce. At various spots along my route across campus, people were stopped, admiring that amazing sky.

I really hate what computers have become.

Phillip wanted to install Earthlink's "Accelerator" for a faster connection, but, of course, in order to do that, he had to install Earthlink's "TotalAccess" software which, of course, put an annoying task bar on the top of our screen, and, of course, changed his Internet Explorer settings - including getting rid of all of his Favorites.

I'd previously discovered how to stop TotalAccess from automatically starting Internet Explorer, and how to keep the task bar from always being in the foreground, then last night and this morning I tried to figure out how to restore Phillip's Favorites.

Finally, this morning, I decided it was Earthlink's duty to tell me how to undo what they'd done. I went to the support section of Earthlink's web page, filled in the form with only the information I thought they needed (since I wanted an email response, why should I give them a phone number?), and clicked "Submit." I got an annoyingly vague An error has occurred response. I clicked the back button, filled in every field, including the last 4 digits of my credit card (whatever they needed that for), and clicked "Submit." Again: An error has occurred. All the information I had entered was complete and correct, so I figured the only thing that could possibly be a problem was the format of my phone number. I tried every format I could think of: Parenthesis around the area code, no parenthesis, dashes between the numbers, spaces between the numbers, no dashes or spaces, even no area code. Instead of a relaxing morning reading email and online news, I spent my before-commute time screaming at the computer: "WHY? What do you WANT?" Finally, on the ninth attempt, my question got submitted.

All I want from an Internet Service Provider are two things: a good, reliable connection to the internet, and good customer support (which I'd never have to use, but would be there just in case). I can set up my own browser, thank you. I can close pop-up windows myself, thank you. The bottom line: I want my ISP to be invisible. Is that too much to ask for?

Here's where my mind wandered on my commute home today:

I've said before that the Writers' Group tends to be a bit too nice - hesitant to give hard criticism. But I know these people well enough that I can tell when they like something and when they don't. I could tell last Sunday that they really liked my unfinished story about Victor a lot. I still don't have a title for it. I am anxious to keep working on it.

Unfortunately, last night was Tuesday - my TV night, with the triple lineup of The Gilmore Girls, 24, and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. Last night offered an extra "bonus": the debut of that silly Queer Eye video ("All Things (Just Keeping Better)"). So I didn't make any time for writing.

Last night's episode of The Gilmore Girls was a rerun, but it was an especially good episode. It was a great example of the quirky, unexpected, and very human writing I enjoy about the show. Rory, away at college, makes a dinner date with a guy from English class. She's nervous because she's never had a "real date" in her life. Her mom, Lorelei, isn't much help because she's never been on a "real date" either. The date is a disaster. Rory can't figure out what to talk about. The guy tells her about his hometown, and about his brothers and sisters, and poor Rory kills it by saying "Oh." (Long, awkward silence.) Then she comes up with that awful "urine mints" story. Later on in the episode, The Smiths' Rusholme Ruffians is playing in the background as Rory goes down to pick up her laundry and discovers that a cute guy has put her laundry in his laundry basket to keep it from being dumped on the floor. (Earlier, Rory had complained to her mom about how inconsiderate her dormmates are with other people's laundry.) Rory thanks him, they start talking and discover that they have quite a bit in common, including a mutual love of The Smiths. They really hit it off. The cute guy starts to bring his laundry upstairs, and Rory asks him if he'd like to go out for coffee sometime. The cute guy says, matter-of-factly, "No," and leaves the room. There's a closeup of Rory looking confused, a fade out, and the credits roll as Rusholme Ruffians continues.

My country's politics are heavy on my mind today, and I don't know why. Maybe it's due to spending part of my day off yesterday reading the wonderful anti-consumerism logic of The Plain Reader, or maybe it's because it's the Christmas season. I don't know.

I was reading another story on Yahoo! News this morning about the glorious capture of Saddam Hussein, while behind me, NWCN was telling me that 37% of all the children in Oregon are living in poverty.

The local news is celebrating the announcement that Boeing will build the 7E7 in Everett, bringing 1200 new jobs to the area, thanks to $3 billion in tax breaks, and I keep thinking about a recent Yes! Magazine "Page That Counts" that pointed out the tens of thousands of workers Boeing has laid off while these plans were underway.

My flu was still lingering yesterday (and it probably still is), and it didn't put me in the mood to do much of anything, so I have a few thoughts to catch up on.

Sometimes I am way out of step with popular opinion. I'm not into masks or costumes, but I actually thought that if I didn't bring a mask to Phillip's office party, I'd look and feel out of place. Phillip had a plan for a mask, but it didn't work out, so he didn't bring one. Then it turned out that no one at the party wore a mask, and I was one of only four people (out of close to a hundred) who entered the mask contest. I didn't win.

The German girl was at Phillip's office party, but no one sitting with me knew her name or what she does in Phillip's organization. (It's a huge group, and it's split into two buildings on opposite sides of the campus.)

We rented two DVDs yesterday: Finding Nemo and Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life. They were both entertaining, but I wasn't very impressed with either one. Finding Nemo had amazing animation, but it wasn't a significant advance over the previous Pixar films I'd seen.

I don't really need more books on my shelves, tables, and nightstands, but The Lutheran Peace Fellowship was having a book sale after church today, so I bought these books to help a good cause: Christian Mysteries (part of the Sacred Symbols series), The Pocket Zen Reader, All Men Are Brothers (by Mohandas Gandhi), The Art Of Doing Nothing (by Vienne & Lennard, and The Plain Reader.

The story I've started writing about Victor got a great reception at Writers' Group today. Barbara and Don especially encouraged me to finish it.