I just took the What kind of dog are you? test that Xeney mentioned the other day.

I am... get this... a BASSET HOUND. You betcha! Here's what it said about me: You are one laid-back individual! You cherish your "down time" and treasure the moments that you have no responsibility to anyone but your couch and TV set. You are easy to get along with and are extremely low maintenance. You probably love to hang out with your friends, as long as it is in a low-key environment. Although some might consider you lazy, you prefer to think of yourself as "relaxed." Your no-frills approach to life makes you a refreshing friend to all.

Well, yeah, that's me all over. Bassets of the world... veg!

I know there is absolutely no way this is even possible, but in Elizabeth's Dream World, there is a poetry gnome that rearranges the Shakespeare magnet poetry set I have on my refrigerator while I'm asleep. I swear, every time I go to the fridge and actually pause to look at the phrases that are put together, they're different, and I have no recollection of putting them together myself. The only one up there I actually made is the one that says "Never Kill All the Lawyers." I don't know who made the rest of them, which are certainly not poetic enough to post here.

Okay, maybe they are, but I'm too lazy to get up and go to the refrigerator to see exactly what they say. I can just tell you that they're different than the last time I looked.

Saw Anna and the King last night. Not my choice, but Susannah called me on Thursday and told me that the group activity last night would be her, Lynne, Jan and myself going to the movie then returning to her house and collecting her husband and taking him to our local pub for a beer because his birthday is today.

So that's what we did. The movie was... okay. Everyone has a tendency to either love movies or hate them, but this one is just about in the middle for me. I had a hard time getting used to Jodie Foster's English accent, but once I did, I didn't notice it. It was beautifully shot, and Chow Yun-Fat, who I've never seen in anything before, was good. It was a little long, and of course the storyline was a bit different from The King and I (most notably in that no one ever broke into song), and I probably could have lived with just renting it, but it wasn't a complete waste of time.

I may have liked it better had we not been sitting in front of a row of bratty barely-adolescent girls who WOULD NOT SHUT THE FUCK UP during the ENTIRE FUCKING MOVIE. It wasn't just whispering, but low voices, and giggling. Whenever the movie got slow, I would fantasize about turning around and saying something to them, but of course I didn't, mostly because I didn't want them throwing shit at us for the remainder of the movie, which they almost certainly would have done.

We were comparing what we wanted to say to them after the movie, and Lynne had the best one. Inspired by the preview for Girl, Interrupted, she thought we should have turned around and told them that Susannah was on weekend leave from the local mental hospital, and one thing that sets her off is people talking through movies, so they should consider themselves warned.

Susannah is the gutsiest one of us, though. At the end, while we were waiting for the aisles to clear, she said quite loudly to Lynne and I, "Hey, did those rude girls behind you ever shut up?" while said girls were still standing behind us. They obviously pretended not to hear, since it probably wouldn't bother them anyway.

Anybody want to know what I got at Sam's yesterday?

No?

Oh... okay.

I've decided I have a favorite painter. It's Magritte. While I enjoy museums and have a certain appreciation for various periods and styles, I've never really been drawn to any one artist, until now. (Something you might recognize is the painting of a man in a bowler hat with an apple concealing his face, which made a prominent appearance in The Thomas Crown Affair this summer.)

What I really like, however, is his "Empire of Lights". He juxtaposes light and dark in the same painting, i.e., a dark street scene with a lone dull streetlight, but above the rooftops is a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds. (Ici est un[e?] exemple.)

They're quite compelling. Apparently there is an entire series of them, and although I've only seen three, I've loved all of them.

So there you go. I like Magritte. And he's Belgian, not French, just in case you were wondering.