I must really be a sentimental person at heart, because I loved the movie "Pay it Forward". I've been reading the reviews, and they'e mostly all panned the movie. But too bad, I liked it.

Helen Hunt was great, playing the same kind of low class waitress type character from "As Good as it Gets". She sports a total bleached blonde look, and looks really scary in her outfits and her makeup. She really looks the part of a secret alcoholic mother. Kevin Spacey was also good as the scarred social studies teacher. His performance reminded me of his performance in LA Confidiential. Spacey is a great technical actor, and you have to really watch his face and all the emotions that flit through it. He's playing his usual type of character too, but he's so good at it. For a change of Spacey character type, watch Hurly Burly. Spacey looked so cute in that movie, where he played a smarmy Hollywood executive. Haley Joel Osment was also very good as the child of a alcoholic mother and wife beating father.

Although the idea of "Pay it Forward" isn't new, think of the "random acts of senseless kindness" saying, it's nice to see the concept revived again in a major hollywood movie. I've always believed in the concept of paying it forward. So many complete strangers have come to my aid over the years, that I've made it a point of also helping total strangers, or people I might not know very well. It's my way of thanking the people who have helped me, by keeping their kindness going.

The reviewer at Salon.com was so cynical. It doesn't surprise me that their online site isn't that profitable. Their writers are the type of people who never have anything good to say about anything and anybody, and who needs more that kind of cruelty in the world. Didn't they mother teach them that if they have nothing good to say, they should just keep their mouth shut? I wouldn't mind if their criticisms were valid, but it's done with such an attitude of cultural superiority. Like who made the writers at Salon.com our cultural czars? I don't think the writers at Salon.com would like anything unless it was anti mass popular culture. What a mistaken attitude to have for an online magazine, that after all to be profitable, has to appeal to a mass popular culture. Whatever.

I liked Pay it Forward. I wonder if it did well at the box office. It would be interesting to find out.

I am going through shopping withdrawal. I even logged onto the auction website for Enron just to see what they were offering. I was so tempted to bid on a laptop.

I lost my MAC lipstick last night, which upsets me, but now I can go to the mall to look at lipsticks at the MAC counter. The MAC counter is always a zoo, but maybe it would be fun to look for a different color. I've been wearing the same lipstick colour now for two years. Maybe buying some new lipstick will cure my shopping fix. I hope so.

My babes, the Oakland A's have won the American League West title!

My church is having an "Old South Dinner" in a couple of weeks. Our congregation is full of southeners, and this is their way of celebrating their heritage and past. There used to be a woman who used to go my church from New Orleans, and her house was full of old family antiques and silver pieces which were over a hundred years old. Her name was Nina, and every generation a girl child was named Nina, so the Nina I knew was the fourth Nina. She even had a painting of the original Nina on her wall.

When I was in West Virginia, the person I was staying with, gave me a cookbook called "The Best of Southern Living Recipes". I told the organizer I would bring a "real southern dessert", which means I should spend the weekend checking out the recipes in my new Southern Living cookbook.