Her breakthrough, of course, was playing Selena. A movie in which the heroine dies. Just saying.

Jamie Foxx is the new Dakota Fanning.

I think Beyonce has at least three movies about to come out. I am relieved that I am unable to name them all. Does she need her own thread? Only asking.

This Fucking Old House, episode 14:

The toilet in the “master” bath has been running. Mr. Mora (who is TJ, by the way; I would like very much to stop referring to him here as “Mr. Mora”) purchased replacement tank innards on his last trip to Hell's Depot (sometime before Christmas) and finally had the time ( a “day off”) today to do the job, which he started at 3:30 this afternoon. At about 3:45, he interrupted me at my computer with a request for some decision-making assistance.

Two flights of stairs later, I was greeted in the bathroom by a severed toilet tank lying on its side in the tub, and a toilet bowl lifted precariously off the crumbling tile and rotted subflooring beneath it. TJ had broken off the tab on the back of the bowl when whacking it with a wrench trying to release the bolts securing the tank to the bowl. And then, of course, discovered the disintegrating floor.

I'm still not clear on why he needed my assistance with the decision to go buy a new toilet.

We returned home after an hour and a half round trip to Hell's Depot with a sprightly new model on board, along with a half sheet of 3/4 inch plywood with which to attempt replacement of the subflooring beneath the toilet. While I concocted dinner, TJ wrangled with the mess, then took a quick trip to a buddy's house to borrow jig- and reciprocating saws.

Until such time as we can afford to have a professional

well, someone with some rudimentary carpentry skills, come in and do the job sort of right, the corner of the bathroom floor will remain an abortion of torn-up tiles, sawn-out subflooring, and new plywood, all topped with a spanky new toilet.

My husband is not a domestic aesthete.

as long as everything goes where it should. (this is all purpose advice, by the way.)

Fun parts done then.

I saw the trailer too. For a big budget movie like that, a year is not that far off.

I'm sitting here in the office, doing what must be done, but I am bored out of my mind.

I just heard a CNN reporter mention to "Mount Arafat."

My lease is up at the end of February and I have still not received a new lease. Despite two phone calls requesting one. And the woman at the management office who I just spoke to said she "doesn't know yet" what the new rent will be. Bullshit.

I suspect that the increase will be about $100 a month but it would be nice to know before the last bloody second exactly what it will be.

Read your current least - I bet it says something about a notification period. It could be only 30 days, in which case they're still in compliance - but it might be 60 days, in which case they're late.

If they're late, and therefore in violation of the lease, use it as a bargaining tool and get the increase to go into effect on April 1st instead of March 1st.

yeah, I'm going to do that tonight.The apartment is not rent-stabilized which means we are operating under a whole 'nother set of rules than would normally apply.

Yeah- but your lease is still enforceable.

We have a whole floor of files that needs to be scanned and stored. We hired an outside company to do this, and for the next two months or so 10 new people are cramming into three rooms, including 2 small offices across from my cubicle. Here's the problem- they want to chat. I'll give a polite smile and "good morning" but I have no interest in making new friends, especially as they are rather intrusive about it. 2 different people have tried to have conversations with me, out of the blue, while I'm staring at my computer screen. Why is it that people think I'm approachable when, really, I'm a bitchy recluse?

Nope - I thought it was just an idiot saying Arafat instead of Ararat. I wasn't listening to the context carefully. Turns out I'm the idiot.

punch one, the rest will stop coming up. better still, punch yourself and shout "shit fuck piss" every few minutes.

I'm largely dissatisfied with most arrangements. Postage, for example. And the price of an ambulance ride. And there's Food and Wine magazine, which I didn't subscribe to and don't want, but keep getting anyway. And my cable TV service. And the porn that I get in my e-mail.