Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

If you like your iPad, well, you're not alone. It the sort of tool that's so new and revolutionary, that you're not quite sure what you're going to do with it when you buy one. But when you do, it integrates into your life in a way you never thought possible. For me, I have my flip phone (with no Internet or emails) and then have my iPad as my personal music player, office, email station, number cruncher, and so much more.

But more than a functional tool, there's the entertainment. Like eBook apps. And sweet Jesus, look what's creepin' out of the App Store now:

Doesn't Leonardo DiCaprio look like Marlon Brando?

I know this has nothing to do with the Middle East--or surfing it--but I do have to say: Doesn't Leonardo DiCaprio look like Marlon Brando here?

DiCaprio, about to play J. Edgar Hoover
says he isn't afraid to play complicated characters

Coppla's classic, The Godfather, staring Mr. Brando himself

In DiCaprio's new movie, he plays J. Hoover. Directed by Clint Eastwood, Leonardo reportedly sat for "hours at a time" while make up artists game him "liver spots, yellow teeth and big, bulbous love handles."

Seems like a good film. And I've been really getting into looking at plot, story, theme, etc, in movies. I think it's a wonderful unintended consequence for spending so much time looking at such things in my book, Surfing the Middle East. I love films that show the drama in the main character, the trials he (or she) goes through, and the compromise of morals, decay of values, or general experiences that bring the views along for the growth in the character. It's just great stuff. Such development helps explain why we humans do what we do. Nothing on this Earth inherent, it's just a product of our surroundings, and our adapting to them. (Perhaps that's why Hoover was so famous for dressing in drag . . . the goddamn stress got to him!)

(I've also seen The Rum Diary & The Ides of March. Anyone else seen 'em?)

Traveling--Ubatuba, Brasil to Santa Barbara, CA

OK, I'm back in the USofA now. And for those interested in a Serious Travel Route, check this out:

Ubatuba to Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo to Washington Dullus, Washington Dullus to LAX, LAX to my parked motorcycle (where there is free motorcycle parking at LAX for up to a month, the time I was in Brazil)--to the HWY1, where I jammed up to Santa Barbara, CA.

Yeaow!!! It took me 29 hours!

And just in case you tried to pull up the walking or driving distance from Ubatuba, Brazil to Santa Barbara as I did on Google Maps, well, it just doesn't know. Bummer. Guess someone will just have to try it and write a book about it.