Current mood:	Dissertation stress
Current music:	Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil"

How low can I sink?
One of the fine things about living abroad is that standards shift. My attitudes about cheating mutate. My thoughts about US foreign policy get grumpier. And my taste in various things shift about.

There's no more telling index of this than movies.

As the tight-fisted descendant of tight-fisted Scotsman, in the US I rarely see a non-matinee, and -- let me tell you! -- it better have some damn werewolves or something in it. Since there's about one movie a year that fits the bill, I don't see too many movies.

In Bulgaria, I'll see anything.

I mean, for the gods' sake, I saw Deuce Bigalo: Male Gigalo here. I saw Charlies' Angels. And Charlies' Angeles 2.

Y'see, it costs about $1.25 to $1.60 to see a movie here, normally. The theater is actually very nice. And if I get a gut-buster popcorn and a coke, then I'm out the grand total of 4 leva, which comes to around $2.50, tops. (The dollar's fallen: I used to see movies for fifty cents to a buck, and that thar popcorn would be about a buck-eighty).

Anyway, this inane ramble is getting to one point: Gothika. Y'see, a friend said, "Let's go see this!" And I shrieked and insisted it was a festering pile of dung. They insist that friends liked it. I pointed out that in this region, people also like killing each other with rusty spoons.*

* Don't worry, I'm not going all Robert Kaplan, I just like making fun of Seselj.

HRB Index: 79 (-10 from relaxing and sleeping in, +5 from dissertation stress, +1 from screwing up spaghetti sauce last night, -2 from finding a store that sells Stoli, +1 from awful anticipation of seeing Gothika.)

Current Book: Young's The Colonial State in Africa in Comparative Perspective. Always wanted to read it, found a copy on sale. Yes, I have odd tastes in light reading.