Were that it was true!

Thanks to Gabriella for sending me over to this site. Isn't my card gorgeous?

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Seems a little harsh to me ...

Thanks to Sparky for posting his. Unfortunately he's been banished to the second level, so we won't be running into one another for all eternity.


The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Fifth Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Yippee-ki-yay! I'm goin' to the movies!

Just received my "movietime email" from the local theater, letting me know the shows and showtimes for this weekend. Live Free or Die Hard starts showing at 11:00 AM and keeps right on until 10:00 PM.

Yes, I appreciate film. Cin-e-ma. But even more than that, I love movies. And my favorite action hero is back and I am SOOOOO gonna be there. Though 11:00 does seem a little early for blowing up buildings, doesn't it? Or am I getting older (just like McClane)?

Good riddance, Tank

Tank Johnson, Chicago's answer to Paris Hilton, has finally been let go by the Bears.

Mr. Johnson has rolled blissfully along, exhibiting hideous judgment and breaking laws and squandering every chance the Bears and the NFL have given him for redemption, blissfully confident that he can get away with anything because he is ... well .. HIM. Rules don't apply to people like HIM, do they?

This sad saga began in earnest last December. His home was raided and the cops found guns and marijuana. The grass belonged to his good friend, roommate and bodyguard. The guns belonged to Johnson, which put him in violation of his probation for a 2005 gun charge. It's important to note that, in addition to grass and guns, there were young kids in the home, because it was Tank's weekend to play Daddy.

The Bears told Johnson that they felt this situation was serious and he had to "clean up his act." Johnson said he would. Then he and his bodyguard went clubbing. Twelve hours later that bodyguard was dead, shot because someone bumped someone on the dance floor.

Now surely this was serious, right? But see, the Bears were in the Super Bowl for the first time in 20 years! And since he is special, the courts gave Tank Johnson special permission to leave Illinois to play in The Big Game.

Tank served 60 days in Cook County Jail this year. He promised that NOW he got it. NOW he knew that he had to clean up his act.

That's why the Bears were unhappy to learn that last Friday Tank had been stopped at 3:30 AM last Friday morning for speeding, and refusing a Breathalyzer test.

I hear murmurs that the Bears will be sorry they cut this guy because he'll be snapped up by another team. Well, God help that team.

In praise of 1940s New York City

I watched the movie Laura over the weekend. (Thanks to Malcolm for making it top of mind for me again.) It's a completely sumptuous black-and-white movie, a famous film noir. But while I have a weakness for murders and whodunnits, that's not why I love Laura.

Everything about it is so idealized, romantic and gorgeous. The crime that sets everything in motion is a hideous murder (I'm not giving anything away here). A woman answers the doorbell only to get a face full of buckshot. At close range. EWWW! Yet the murder takes place offscreen and even as the police investigate the crime scene, there's no blood. Anywhere. There's beautiful furniture and priceless antiques and a beautiful portrait of the title character. There's a bar for cocktails, but there's no blood spatter, no brain matter, no stray teeth stuck in the upholstery.

Because this isn't Martin Scorcese's New York. It's Manhattan in the 1940s, at it's most sophisticated. Women have names like Laura Hunt and Anne Treadwell and they wear hats and gloves. They only leave the island of Manhattan to go their weekend places, in the country or perhaps the Hamptons, or maybe to the Kentucky Derby, to mix with the horsey crowd. All the men wear ties, everywhere. (All the lovemaking, like the violence, takes place offscreen, but I wouldn't be surprised if the men wore ties with their pajamas … no, make that smoking jackets.)

Everyone is smart. Everyone is witty. Each bon mot is better than the last, no matter how many cocktails are sipped.

The women keep journals and diaries. The men write their women letters, even though they live only a short cab ride apart and will be seeing one another for dinner this coming Tuesday. It's not unusual for a lady to commission a portrait of herself (like this one of the main character) and then fall in love with the artist.

I hope I'm not making this movie sound trivial because it's not. It's storytelling of a very high order, with terrific performances from top to bottom. It is also an almost perfect example of filmmaking in the 1940s. It reflects who and what America wanted to be as we came out of The Great Depression and believed there was an end in sight to WWII.

I wonder what current movies will be remembered as classics 60 years from now, and what they'll say about us.

(For those who prefer books to movies, if you can lay hands on Laura by Vera Caspary, read it. It's a great read because it's written in three different voices -- each chapter is told by a different character.)