That must have been the mindset of whoever named that poor horse.  I get it that he’s all almost-Triple-Crown-having and everything, but, in spite of my prayers for a Triple Crown winner ever since I got into horse racing, I find myself desperately hoping that Big Brown can’t manage the distance in the Belmont.

I like the horse.  Really, I do.  He’s pretty, he’s talented, and he’s got a cute little birthmark.

I don’t want him to win the Triple Crown.

‘Why?’ wails some random Big Brown fanatic.  I have two main reasons, one of which is good, and one slightly smaller, nastier, much more selfish and bad reason.

Main Reason #1 (also the good reason):

He doesn’t deserve it.  Before you get all mad and try to hit me, hear me out.

I said Big Brown is talented, and that’s true, but the eleven Triple Crown winners weren’t talented–they were extremely talented.  Even Omaha, widely considered the least impressive of the eleven, was a very talented horse.  But more importantly, the horses they ran against were also very talented.  Secretariat wouldn’t have looked quite as impressive if he hadn’t had his Sham trying to catch him at every turn, would he?  Affirmed’s Triple Crown would be nigh on forgotten if Alydar hadn’t so persistently pushed him, making work for every cent of the purse.

This year’s crop is…lackluster at best.  The less politically correct word is ‘crappy.’  The only colt who could truly run with him is Colonel John, who was thwarted by traffic problems and would likely have given a better run on synthetic anyway.  The only filly who could truly run with Big Brown is no longer with us, but that’s another matter entirely.

Big Brown has not had to work for a moment of this Triple Crown trail.  He hasn’t earned it.  He doesn’t deserve it.

Main Reason #2:

Big Brown.  *shudders*

Sir Barton
Gallant Fox
Omaha
War Admiral
Whirlaway
Count Fleet
Assault
Citation
Secretariat
Seattle Slew
Affirmed
Big Brown?

Does that look right at all?  They couldn’t have named him something cool or impressive?

The Other Reason

If Barbaro couldn’t do it, I’d rather not see a horse who couldn’t have run with him for half a mile do it.

The Mask of Zorro is probably one of the coolest sword-fighting movies ever, but there are still things that bug me! It seems pretty clear how Don Rafael figured out that Diego was Zorro in the beginning of the movie–a mask that only covers the top half of your face and then speaking to the guy in a normal voice can be likened to ripping said mask off and announcing, ‘Ha ha! I’m the guy you’re looking for!’ It’s also fairly obvious how he figured out that Alejandro was actually the new Zorro, for the same reasons, and because ‘Don Alejandro’ was the new guy. Kind of suspicious, that; a new guy arrives and your archnemesis miraculously reappears after twenty years of silence.

Captain Love of the Blond Mullet Club was instantly suspicious of Alejandro when he arrived and took a place among the dons, despite the fact that he’d seen wanted posters with Alejandro drawn on them, but never actually seen him in person, and Alejandro had changed his appearance considerably. Alejandro joked at his expense, but unless Captain Mullet was extremely paranoid, that could easily be construed as male posturing. (Alejandro was the new guy, so he had to prove that he wasn’t the weakest pup in the kennel.)  So why did he suspect Alejandro of being the other Murrieta (sp?) brother right away?  Because his name is Alejandro?  You will not convince me that he was the only person in the area named Alejandro.  It’s not exactly a rare name.

When Diego goes to Don Rafael’s pad to kill him and get Elana back, Don Rafael says, ‘You are not the man I saw last night.’  Diego should’ve responded, ‘Well, no crap,’ but instead he just kind of shook his head.  Don Rafael then has the blinding revelation that ‘that was your master, Don Alejandro.’

…?!  How does he know this?  ‘He looked at him’  Yeah, well, sure.  Except that when Diego and Alejandro first go to Don Rafael’s party as ‘Don Alejandro and his servant, Bernardo,’ Diego states that Rafael would ‘never look a servant in the eye.’  I took this to mean that he wouldn’t recognize Diego because he wouldn’t look at him.  If he had never once glanced at ‘Bernardo,’ then how did he make that connection?  And if he had looked at him, then this just makes no sense at all.

When Diego shows up all ‘I’m goin’ kill you,’ Rafael recognizes him immediately.  If he’d looked at ‘Bernardo,’ doesn’t it stand to reason that he would recognize him then, too?  And if he’d looked and recognized him, A) he should have called him out or sent guards to kill him–reacted in some way–and B) he wouldn’t have had the blinding revelation this late in the game.  Either the writers didn’t think about this at all, or they were crunched for time and they didn’t want to go through the whole process of having Diego reveal to Rafael what we already know.  Although it would’ve only taken five seconds: ‘Hey!  I’m Bernardo, Don Alejandro’s servant guy!’

Why is Captain Mullet apparently unable to come up with any good lines?  Were they just purposely making him an idiot to make everyone else look cool?  I mean, come on, ‘Two men…one dead’?  Probably the lamest line in history.  Or at least in this movie.

This movie definitely needed a script doctor to go through and point out those couple of plot holes–and to correct Captain Mullet’s lame comeback issues.

However, there were a lot of things I love about this movie.  The sword-fighting has levels of awesomeness that cannot be described.   The explosions were majorly awesome.  There were moments that made me unable to stop giggling for so long I had to pause the movie.  People took a realistic amount of time to die.  Captain Mullet, for example, doesn’t die two deaths, as some people assumed; he was still alive from being run through with the sword, but he would have died soon after, had he not been crushed by a ton of gold bricks….  Diego got to have some last words because his bullet wound didn’t kill him right away, which is usually true of bullet wounds to the area in which he was shot.  In most movies, everybody is just dead right away, unless they need to give a long-winded farewell speech.  I liked it that it wasn’t the case in this one.

Today, my normal routines have been disrupted.  You see, I generally get up, do the normal waking-up things, eat breakfast, and then check my email (in the exact same order every day, of course).  Afterward, I do chores and do the things which I planned to do when I woke up that morning.

Today, someone I live with stayed home.  This means I am not alone.  Do you see why this is a problem?  No?

When I’m alone, I can move freely throughout the house.  If there are dishes to be done, the sink will naturally be free and the kitchen empty, so I can do them when I planned to do them.  If I need to dust, there will be no one standing in front of something I need to dust, no one using whatever it is I need to dust, no one taking up space in the room which needs dusting.  I can eat when I planned to eat because there is no one in the kitchen or the dining room being in the way.

I’m not alone, so I can’t do things whenever I planned to do them…because there is someone here, being in the way.  My entire cosmos has tilted and I am not pleased.

My cat is not pleased, either, because the someone came and knocked on my bedroom door, which woke her from her daily twelve-hour nap.

Pancakes are one of the tastiest breakfast foods there are. According to Wikipedia, pancakes are a ‘type of flatbread prepared from a sweet batter that is cooked on a hot griddle or in a frying pan.’ That doesn’t even begin to cover it.

People like their pancakes a lot of different ways. If you follow the Wikipedia link above, you’ll find that the U.S. and Canada are pretty much the only peeps who consider it a breakfast food (although that doesn’t mean we can’t have breakfast for supper ). Everybody else is like, ‘Oh, well, we can eat it with dinner, or maybe just after dinner–no, wait! It’s a dessert!’

This is just crazy, because as everyone who’s ever been to IHOP knows, you can eat pancakes anytime you want.

Some pancakes are prepared a lot like crepes–all thin and stuff, but not quite the same. Some pancakes are made with some funky replacements for flour, like cornmeal, oatmeal, or even something called ‘buckwheat’ flour. Sometimes, people mess up their first attempts at pancakes and end up with something dubbed ‘pancake chips’–more on this later.

Pancake preference is wide and varied. Some people like theirs soft and heavy; other people prefer light, crispy pancakes. Pretty much everybody likes them fluffy, though.

You can put a lot of different stuff in or on a pancake, too. You can put all kinds of fruit on top of a pancake, and you can put blueberries, bananas or strawberries into the batter. I’ve spoken with some pancake lovers, and apparently Cracker Barrel has the best blueberry pancakes of all time. These blueberry-loving peeps said that the blueberry pancakes actually tasted like a blueberry donut, only a pancake, so it would be more accurate to refer to them as ‘blueberry donut pancakes.’

Some people like pecans or other nuts in or on their pancakes. You can put bits of bacon and/or cheese in the batter. Vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg also add a little different flavor. Undoubtedly the best thing to put in a pancake is chocolate chips. Mmmm….

You can put pretty much anything on a pancake. Maple syrup, or any other flavor of syrup you want (they range from maple all the way to blueberry and strawberry syrups), whipped cream, butter, fruits, jellies or jams, and even peanut butter (although why you would when you could just eat a peanut butter sandwich is beyond me).

Personally, I like a regular pancake (light and fluffy with a crispy edge) with butter and just a dab of maple syrup. Although chocolate chip pancakes are also quite lovely.

Pancake chips are the tasty, albeit incredibly odd, result of not putting enough batter on the griddle. They are small and thin and crispy, like a chip (crisp, whatever), but they’re pancakes. … Yes, I know. I didn’t mean to. Don’t try to make them, as you could accidentally make something not nearly as tasty.

Mmm…I want pancakes now. I’ll bet there are some extras in the freezer….

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Also, today, outside the house? A minivan got pulled over by an undercover cop car, and then another cop showed up with the drug dog and searched the van. It was very exciting, although I don’t think they found anything because everybody drove away in their respective vehicles. And I think the drug dog was more interested in playing with his handler than sniffing for drugs. Still, not something that happens outside my house everyday!