Things to do with Natalie Portman's V.

- Tonight, I'm seeing V FOR VENDETTA on IMAX with my friend Vic. The film, featuring a masked Hugo Weaving and a bald Natalie Portman taking on a futuristic, totalitarian Britain, is based upon the Alan Moore graphic novel, which I've heard is very good. (Moore, apparently, has disowned the movie because it didn't fit his vision, but ah well.) I've heard mostly good things about the movie, which is being produced by the Wachowski Brothers, makers of THE MATRIX and the fantastic BOUND. V factors in violence, anti-government protests, kickass special effects and a complicated story that makes reference to the British occasion of Guy Fawkes Day. It sounds like part-fun/part-term paper.



- This is Channing Tatum. Even though his stage name is pretty damn terrible and even though he is the latest in a long line of underwear-model-turned-actors, I think he is keen. So I'll be seeing this guy in the Amanda Bynes cross-dressing/high school soccer comedy SHE'S THE MAN sometime this weekend, pretending that I'm in the theater because the movie is based upon Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT. Really, it's not just a remake of JUST ONE OF THE GUYS. Anyway, I love it when 25-year-old underwear models play average, 16-year-old high school students. Ri-i-ight. (This guy has another, well-received independent movie that's coming out later this year. It's called A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS. It's bound to be better than SHE'S THE MAN, anyway.)
- Happy St. Patrick's Day, by the way. Don't drink and drive. Or whatever.



- I keep going to VH1's website to watch that awesome spit-catfight scene between women nicknamed "Pumpkin" and "New York" from THE FLAVOR OF LOVE, a dating reality show that has rapper Flavor Flav trying to find true love THE BACHELOR-style. It's fantastic, like a car wreck.
- My friend Shalewa came by and cleaned my apartment this week, which reminded me once again that I have entirely too much damn stuff. To catch up on all the reading I've intended to do throughout my life, thus, I should probably start reading two or three books a week. If I live until I'm 150, I may finish them all. I've not actually finished a damn book in ages. This weekend, thus, I really ought to read something. I just can't decide what.
- The Center for Puppetry Arts, one of my favorite, oft-mentioned local landmarks, holds regular classes for kids that teach them how to make their own puppets. Looking over their website, though, I see that one of the staff there is teaching a Simple Sock Marionette Construction Workshop for adults on April 20, and, forgive me, but I think this would be a really fun, really different way to spend an evening with friends. (Of course, my friends once followed me into a corn maze for fun. Maybe we're just an odd sort.) I mean, some people do scrapbooking workshops. Why not learn to build your own sock puppet? I've got a lot of old, tacky socks with lost mates. Maybe this is a way to put them to use.
- Some of my friends were surprised that I splurged and paid someone else to clean my apartment, wondering why I just didn't do it myself. In reply, I read them the memo this Shalewa left me on her receipt for the cleaning:
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* Okay, so your place is an all-day job. Done by two people. On meth. But I did what I could before I had to leave. I didn't get to the dishes, and I didn't get to dust the way I would've wanted to, but I think you'll be okay with it. If not, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! THANK YOU SO MUCH! - SNS

P.S. I couldn't get all of the trash bags in my car. Uh, you didn't want those old, old pork loins in your refrigerator, did you?
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Still, some people consider what I did a luxury, even if it was required in some way. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: If you could pamper yourself with one luxury to ease your everyday life, what would you get? A cleaning service? A butler? A secretary? A chauffeur? Dog walker? Any chores you would pay someone else to do? Care to name any luxuries you give yourself right now?