Happy Easter to the Western rite Christians! and next week for ya'll Eastern Orthodox peeps! :)

Kelly Clarkson on why she would never go the anorexic Hollywood route: “What? Don’t eat carbs? I’m gonna eat bread. Jesus ate bread. Eat bread! Shoot, I ain’t got this ghetto booty and big cheeks for nothin’.” Puwahaha. That made me laugh. I don't know how badly I misquoted her, but I saw that on one of them shows like ET or Access Hollywood or sumfin' last night.

I saw "Anger Management" with Tara and Taneka last Monday. It wasn't that good. I was rather disappointed with how stupid it was. And how there were idiots in the theatre laughing all hard, stompin' their feet during parts. It was really not all that funny. Wait for it to come out on TV to watch the subliminal messages in this film. They kept showin' this one billboard I swear was a recruitment for the Army. They even mentioned twice in the airplane scene that our country is going through a tough time. Hmph. We shoulda gone and seen "Bend it Like Beckham" or whatever it's called. I only heard that movie earlier that day from my translation professor and my Pakistani classmate cuz they were discussing it as we were on our way to visit this Arabic translator at the World Bank. Then I asked one of my other Pakistani friends if she'd seen the movie. She had and she said it was good. Wish I woulda gone and seen that one instead. Ah, well...

The next night, Tuesday, I went and saw the Afro-Cuban All Stars. Some may be familiar with the Buena Vista Social Club, a famous Cuban band. Well, a member of the BVSC started the ACAS. His name was something like Juan de Marcos Rodriguez. And the Afro-Cuban All Stars is an inter-generational band. It combines old and young members playing traditional music with contemporary innovations. It was cool. They played about 2 hours. The one guy who played the violin was cute. Most the girls in the group I was with agreed. Hehe. I went with people from my undergrad institution. I've still got my old e-mail address and I'm on this e-mail list and I saw there were free tickets to this show, so, hey - free's the magic word. They were actually posta have this show a while back, but after all 9/11, because of whatever security concerns, the concert was cancelled.

Anyhow, since I went with peeps from my old uni, I saw two of my old Spanish professors. I caught Dr. Schneider and Dr. Bell on what I was up to. Professor Schneider was happy to hear about what I was doing and curious as to what I thought of everything. You know, Iraq crap and what not. She was telling me how she holds peace protests/vigils around her neighborhood and occasionally you get the cars that drive by yelling at them. She said that one time this guy starts yelling at them. She had to leave early, but some of the other women stayed and were able to get this irrate man to stop and talk to them. In the end, do you know what he said? That fool said something along the lines of: "Well, after September 11, we had to go after somebody, right?" Arghh! Isn't that the kinda stuff that makes you wanna pull out your hair? To think, he is not alone in how he feels. Stupid Americans...

And Dr. Bell wants me to e-mail him my info cuz he wants to publish a little sumpin-sumpin' 'bout me in my old department's newsletter. He also told me how he wants to form an Islamic Studies program there. He said we owe it to the UMBC community, with all it's diversity and given the current situation. He said he's working in conjunction with another one of my old professors in the Poli Sci department. Dr. Bell would take care of helping institute the Arabic language aspect of the program (since he's in the language department) and my ex-prof, Dr. Cantori, would handle the Islamic studies, since that's more his area. I think that's cool if they get this goin'. But they still need more contacts cuz it's gonna take some more people to be able to run such an endeavor. Yup...

So, what the heck is up with "them" putting in Garner as the interim leader of Iraq? What kind of sense does it make to put a pro-Israeli butthole in charge of an Arab country like that? Oh, how sensitive the US is to other people's feelings. Jerks. Got some Zionist tellin' them what to do. I'd be mad if I were Iraqi. Actually, I kinda am. That was something we talked about in my one class: how General Garner was appointed interim president and that he was pro-Israeli. He signed public documents that testify to that. And he was also president of a company that manufactured missiles. So, where the heck are those weapons of mass destruction we were posta find over there? Could it be cuz that's not even the real freakin' reason we bombed the hell out of them? Well, it's not. Check out this article by Arianna Huffington. She's someone I wanna check out now. Her latest book is "Pigs at the Trough." Maybe I'll check it out along with Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men."

Anyways, I'm gonna go chat with Tara 'til I start to get sleepy. It's 10am and I should go to sleep soon. Heh - told y'all - I'm a vampire. :-P