JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

“Lying to the northwest of ancient Herculaneum, this sumptuous seaside mansion was buried beneath 30m of petrified volcanic mud during the catastrophic eruption of Mt Vesuvius on August 24, AD79. Antiquities hunters in the mid-18th century sunk shafts and dug tunnels around Herculaneum and found the villa, surfacing with a magnificent booty of bronzes and marbles. Most of these, including a svelte seated Hermes modelled in the manner of Lyssipus, now grace the National Archeological Museum in Naples.

“The excavators also found what they took to be chunks of coal deep inside the villa, and set them alight to illuminate their passage underground. Only when they noticed how many torches had solidified around an umbilicus — a core of wood or bone to which the roll was attached — did the true nature of the find become apparent. Here was a trove of ancient texts, carbonised by the heat surge of the eruption. About 1800 were eventually retrieved. . .”

The library of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, in The Australian. Via 3Quarks.

I have no wi-fi in the house. I keep calling PLDT for a broadband connection but have not spoken to a human yet. Marat the MacBook has no internal modem. James T. Kirk the iBook  has no Bluetooth. Eomer the iPod can take files from Marat and Capt. Kirk but can’t transfer files from Marat to Capt. Kirk. I didn’t have a USB modem, blank CDs or a flash drive, I refused to leave the house, and I wasn’t typing the same column twice. Menage a quatre in Emotional Weather Report, in Gadgets, in the Star.

Cat Paradise, originally uploaded by saffysafina.

Mat is 7 years old today! His hobby is climbing things when no one is looking. His favorite movie is Duck Soup starring the Marx Brothers. He hates having his fur brushed. Mat likes being sung to, as long as all the lyrics are replaced with “meow”. We also call him Memento Boy because he seems to have a short-term memory problem: he can’t remember that he just ate five minutes ago. Here he is testing his birthday present, a Friskies Cat Paradise, while Saffy plots an invasion (Her father is Russian).

P.S. We don’t know Mat’s exact date of birth, but he must’ve been was about one year old when he appeared on our doorstep in 2002, and then we decided he was a Leo.

I haven’t seen The X-Files 2 yet. The Alamat Twins bailed on me, citing deadlines at work. You…you…yuppies. Expect a visit from Flukeman any moment.

So I went to see Wall-E instead, and it’s lovely. The Pixar movies work because despite being impressive technological achievements,  they’re never just about the technology; they’re all about The Story.

Wall-E takes place 700 years in the future. The human race has literally trashed the earth and abandoned it. People live on huge starships where everything is done for them by robots. Cut off from their home, they pass the time consuming empty entertainment; they’ve forgotten what it is to be human. Meanwhile, back on the abandoned planet, all the robots left behind to clean up the mountains of garbage have broken down. The only one left is Wall-E, a plucky little machine which repairs itself using salvaged junk. It leads a melancholy existence, watching a videotape of Hello, Dolly! over and over again; its only companion is a cockroach. Then a spacecraft lands and dispatches probes in search of signs of sustainable life. . .

There’s minimal dialogue in Wall-E; the story is told with music and the moving image. Call it pure cinema, a descendant of Fantasia and 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are numerous references to the Kubrick, including machines “dancing” to a Strauss waltz and the “apes” learning to walk upright. Wall-E asks important questions about the future of our species without ever sounding like an essay. It’s a message movie by people who really know how to make a movie. Andrew Stanton directs. The excellent musical score is by Thomas Newman; Peter Gabriel collaborates on the theme song.

A study shows that being normal is actually extraordinary. I, for one, don’t know any normal people. I wouldn’t know what to do if I met one. 

“Normal people may be nicer than average, but they also have character traits that aren’t universally appealing. They’re not adventurous. They’re not above average in intelligence, nor are they outgoing. Truth be told, a lot of our best qualities are unusual. A sense for music like Mozart’s is certainly exceptional. So is the ability to speak six languages, or the courage to leap onto the subway tracks to save a stranger’s life. . .” 

Typically Twisted in Psychology Today. 

Koosi basket case, originally uploaded by saffysafina.To mark Mat’s upcoming birthday—he’s turning 7—we’re giving a copy of Molly Katz’s 101 Reasons to Dump Your Man and Get A Cat to the reader who sends us the Best Photo of their cat. To join, email a photograph of your cat along with the cat’s name, age, and a short list of her/his likes and dislikes, to urban.matthias@gmail.com. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, August 20. Top five photos will be posted on this blog.

Sample entry: Koosi Galadriel Ivanisevic O’Brien-Bale is 9 years old but acts two. She likes to be addressed as Mighty Goddess Bast. She hates being bothered when she is skulking, because she’s supposed to be invisible.

To see the contestants, click on Koosi’s photo.