Latest Edition of This and That

Titiya Plucksataporn (I am not making this up) shot a smooth 68 and is now tied for second in the Dubai Ladies Masters Golf Tournament.

"Quantum of Solace", a poor title to begin with as it means a quantity of grief relief and that, as I see it, is not exactly strong motivation to see a movie unless you are looking for something to dampen the old hankie with, is the hands-down, no question, inarguable WORST James Bond movie ever made. The writing was abysmal, giving us as it did over-lapping story lines that were never remotely clear, the action sequences even worse, being chopped, spliced and special effected into incomprehensibility and the acting, apart from Dame Judy Dench as M, was leaden and cliche-ed. I do believe that a drama is only as good as its villains and in this movie the villains fell far short of believable. Should I mention what I thought of the background music? Probably not.

A department store named Conway, pronounced cone-why by Latinos, has opened in David. The store is a Target affiliate (Target in Panama, who-da thunk it?) and consists of three stories of STUFF. I have always made it a point to avoid places that have a lot of STUFF, because I might just inadvertently find STUFF I want there that, prior to the sighting, I didn't even KNOW I wanted. For this same reason I don't even thumb through magazines looking at the ads. I have enough STUFF to suit me and like to merely replace the STUFF I have as it wears out. Right now I could use a new pitching wedge. Not everyone feels this way, I know. Woowoo Charly, for instance, only shares my point-of-view to a degree. Although in no way is she a material girl, yesterday, as we meandered through the store looking for one of those things that fits in a kitchen drawer and keeps your silverware separated - the old one is cracked, stained and ugly - I noticed a certain gleam in her eyes that was not there before. There is STUFF here, I sensed her thinking, that I want. How do I feel about that? Great! I love it when SHE wants something. She asks for so little.

The Abominable Doctor Panagas was smiling and juggling scalpels as Woowoo and I entered his office. "Buenas tardes, good to see you again" he said as he caught the sharpened knives in one hand and offered up the other for a shake. He was eye-balling my third eye hungrily as he did so. "I see you have a new one for me" he said with a widening grin, "but how can I help the lady?" Woowoo pointed out the age spot on her cheek that had recently turned funky and the Abominable Doc's eyes suddenly shone even more eerily. "Come into my lair, I mean my examining room and we will take a closer look." First thing he does after that is measure, that's right measure, the spot on my forehead. "Hmmmm," he says. "this is borderline. I will try to freeze it, but if it is not better in a month you will have to come back so I can chop and hack, I mean, carefully remove, the damage with a small curugia." (surgery) He then whipped up a nice smoking batch of liquid nitrogen and, using a long handled q-tip-like device, proceeded to repeatedly press the nitrogen, what felt to me, deep into my scalp. Hurt like hell. He was much gentler with Woowoo Charly, saying her problem was not dangerous (don-zzger-oose his pronunciation) but nevertheless needed to be taken care of before it became so. He then froze up a few other spots on her upper chest that she hadn't previously noticed. Following her treatment, he put us both into a deep hypnotic trance and gave us a post hypnotic suggestion that said when we receive our bill we will take it immediately to his receptionist and pay it without a second thought. He then snapped his fingers and off we went. I'll see him again next month. Merry Christmas, Doctor.