So I finally gave in and bought a one-year bible. It’s been a dream of mine since college to read the bible in its entirety, and not just the passages they dole out ritualistically in church readings or the ones that get attention on the History channel with those fanatical doom and gloom evangelical and conspiracy theory pundits. The theatre lit professor who was teaching my class on Samuel Beckett, the playwright, lambasted the whole class for our humongous bible illiteracy. Beckett, like most scholars of his time, knew the bible inside and out and used biblical references throughout his work. I can still hear Ellen Mease screaming “And you all missed 90% of them,” and then going into a tirade of the inadequacy of the American educational system. “How are you supposed to read great literature and understand what the authors were trying to say if you don’t get the biblical references?” We all rolled our eyes secretly, eyes that said “yeah, yeah Ellen, whatever.”

But I never forgot her remark. I hate when I don’t get the references; it like so bugs me. I feel stupid and out-of-it when I don’t get things because I’m a smart girl and should get these seemingly simple things. But I never got around to actually wanting to fulfill this dream until a few years ago.

I started on my one-year bible plan three years ago, and that unfortunately only lasted through the middle of February before I gave up. It was too hard. The bible study plan I was using started off in The Old Testament and I don’t know about you but there are parts of the five books of the Torah that are just, I don’t know, unreadable. The people who put together the one-year bible must have first hand knowledge of the bible’s put you sleep state because each day has a reading from the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. Leviticus and its endless dietary restrictions should only be taken in small doses.

I also found the one-year bible online after I bought the book, so dummy me didn’t even have to spend the money. Oh well. My only issue with these bibles is the translations. Although I’m used to reading the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation, personally I like the New Standard Version (NSV). The NRSV takes the wonderful and violent language of the NSV and waters it down, makes it politically correct and I think infinitely more boring. But the one-year bibles that I saw at the bookstore in the Embarcadero only came in the New Living Translation (NLT) and the New International Version (NIV). The NIV is the most popular translation but it only came in the compact version, so I ended up buying the NLT not only because the book was bigger but I wasn’t sure what to make up the NIV introduction when I read that evangelicals endorsed it. That statement, I am embarrassed to say, was enough to scare me off that translation.

The online one-year bible gives you more options to translations, which I wish they would do for the book version. I guess it makes sense for the publisher to print translations of bible that they know will be bought.

So okay, I know it’s March 7 and I have January and February to get caught up with in my reading plan, but I’m hoping that I will be able to fulfill my dream to read the whole bible.

So I talked to my boss this morning and she told what my raise would be. I got the highest amount you could get for the review I received, which wasn't much, really, but considering last year was not a financially stellar year for the company I'm happy I received a raise at all. I've been at companies where they've held back raises because the finances were so bad or haven't given them at all.

I don't think I've done that badly at this company. Since I left my other job in 2004, my salary has gone up 12%. The yearly bonus will be small as well, but I'm just happy becauseI haven't worked for a company that gave out yearly bonuses in a long time. My thinking is, whatever money the company can give you is a good thing.

I'm not going to lie and say I'm not pleased that "Crash" won the oscar for best film. "Crash" was an excellent ensemble film dealing with so many relevant issues from racism to caring for an elderly parent to the seeming inhumanity of the health care system to children getting more love from their nannies than from their parents to human slavery to arab race relations.

It was an intense movie with some of the best realistic dialogue I've seen in a film in a long time, outside of anything David Mamet or Quentin Tarantino have done. I also liked that it was a relatively low budget film of $6.5 million that made $55 million at the box office. Now that's one heck of a return on investment.

"Crash" dealt with perhaps what some people say are mundane issues, but they are issues nonetheless that so universal to anyone living in America right now.

When I went to a Robert McKee seminar last year, the man himself even raved about how great the movie "Crash" was and one that we all needed to see. This praise was coming from the same man who totally dissed "The English Patient" a year previously. Guess the guy really knows his movies. I wasn't even going to see "Crash" until Robert McKee recommended it. I don't think the movie was even marketed that well when it came out, and made the amount of money it did from people seeing the movie and telling their friends.

Not that "Brokeback Mountain" didn't cover a relevant subject, but "Crash" I think just covered more issues and did it in current day. And with the disgusting political correctness that is taking over everything from the coverage of the news to what people say, "Crash" was a like a big "F-U" to all of that, and said "you know what, this is how life really is and no change in vocabulary is going to change it unless we confront it and transform it through the medium of film."

So back in the early 90's when I was dating stockbroker boyfriend who used to wake me up in his luxury high rise apartment so he could watch the opening of the stock exchange, we often talked about what else, stocks. I told stockbroker guy, who was managing millions of dollars of retirement portfolio funds at the time, to hang onto his AT&T stock. I told him AT&T stock was a good investment, even though at the time AT&T was in divestiture at the time and was selling off parts of the company. The jewel of the company, the AT&T labs, would be left intact with the company.

Well it's like so many years later, and AT&T is once again making the news first with the purchase of SBC and now with the announcement today of the purchase of BellSouth.

Even though stockbroker boyfriend wasn't a very good match, way too much alcohol and partying for my taste, I know he kept his AT&T stock even though he really, really wanted to unload it. I hope he's happy now that he followed my advice.