Then on Saturday I went to the Asian Art Museum and took a look at the Geisha exhibit. There were beautiful paintings, woodblock prints, and stunning embroidered kimonos.

When I was in highschool I thought it might be fun to be a geisha, you know, doing the whole subservient, master lave thing. But who knew you had to wear that awful kabuki painted white face makeup and sing those traditional classic japanese songs. YIKES! I just liked their kimonos, their getas and all those sticks in their hairs.

And no, Madame Butterfly is so not my favourite opera. How maudlin is it to commit harakiri for some guy?

I've been on a movie binge lately. I was off movies for awhile as I started getting depressed during movies for no reasons. This happened when I was looking for a new job.

I felt for sure there were hostile forces, rakshasas for the hindu minded, hanging out in the movie theatres waiting to enter my consciousness and make me even more depressed. But now that I'm three months into my job, I'm much stronger and less vulnerable to attack and I can watch movies in theatres again. I stopped renting movies too around that time, just because they seemed to be such a distraction to my life.

So on Friday, I rented and watched the movie Enigma. It really wasn't the best movie, and I only rented because it starred Kate Winslett and Dougray Scott, the prince from "Ever After" and the villian from "Mission Impossible 2". Much to my surprise Tom Stoppard, a playwright whom I dearly love wrote the play, which is astonishing because this really wasn't a very good script.

I mean, it wasn't the worst movie I've seen in my life but I wouldn't even recommned it as a renter unless you're a Dougray Scott fan and you have to absolutely see everything he's in.

My savings plans is humming along. I opened up a money market account the other day. It pays more interest than a regular savings account, although the rates these days still suck!

I'm still trying to save 10% of my net income every month. It's hard as heck, but I like having lots of money in the bank. It's a good feeling.

It will be interesting to revisit Michael Moore's film on November 3, the day after the 2004 presidential election. On that day, we shall see whether his film has had an effect if any.

I'm a natural analyst. I make a living out of studying trends, numbers analyzing random bits of data to come up with a logical and reasonable conclusion. I have serious fears and reservations about what wil happen on November 3, and Moore's film does nothing to dispel any of my fears.

The San Francisco Bay Area is an anomaly, a glitch, not a window into how the rest of the country thinks. I don't kid myself about this fact, I don't blind myself into thinking that how we think and vote here is any indication of how the rest of the country will think and vote.

If you think Moore's film will make a dent in the voting habits of the red states on that famous 2000 presidential election map, then, well, you're deluding yourself at best and not seeing reality for how it really is.