April 3, 1992
Dear Everyone:
I have a cold. (What,
again? Didn't I do that just
a few weeks ago?) I keep telling
myself that this is just a
little cold.
(Yeah, and Moby Dick was just a
little fish.)
There are some 200 distinct viruses that cause the
common cold, or flu. Once you
catch one and get over it, you're immune to that particular bug.
One down, only 199 to go.
That's why children get so many
cold; they have so many "new" ones to choose from.
At the same time, the "old" ones are constantly
mutating (remember
The Andromeda
Strain?). The next time
one comes floating by, your immune system may, or may not, recognizes it
as one it's dealt with before. That's
why some people are constantly catching "new" colds while the person
next to them can go years without getting one.
Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, the farmers go right
on growing pigs and ducks. What's
the connection? There are
basically three kinds of flu (or cold) viruses:
human, duck and pig.
Humans can't get duck viruses and
ducks can't get human viruses; but pigs can get both.
(Remember the
Swine Flu shots?)
So a pig gets a duck virus and the human virus into
its system and "cooks" them together for a little while and presto!
Out pops a totally new virus.
This is why all the major
viruses, including the great Spanish Influenza of 1917, come out of
Southeast Asia.
Movie review:
Basic
Instinct. Do not, under
any circumstances, waste your time or money on this one.
It's not worth it.
It has been grabbing a lot of
attention lately, but for all the wrong reasons.
Sharon Stone
(she played
Arnold Schwarzenegger's less-than-idyllic wife in
Total Recall)
manages to prove early in the movie that a) she does not sit like a
lady; b) she doesn't wear any underwear; and c) yes, she
is a natural blonde.
But that doesn't prove she killed
anyone with an ice pick.
And as for all those erotic "love" scenes, about
the third (or fourth?) time they hop into the sack together, the
audience is groaning, "Oh, please!
Can't we have a little plot
development instead?" “Jeannie's”
comment: "I don't think they
meant for this to be a comedy." This
is because the people in the theater kept laughing in all the wrong
places.
I thought the critic in the local paper was a
little cruel to refer to the film as an opportunity to see
Michael Douglas
"waddle naked across the room". Actually,
his tush is in pretty good shape for a man of his advancing years; but
it's not worth paying three to four dollars to see it.
Because Stone's character is bisexual, a lot of gay
rights groups have protested against the movie and even threatened to
give away the ending. A clear
case of condemning something without having seen it.
You can't give away the ending of
a whodunit where the producers never decided just who
did do it.
And the whole mess leaves more loose ends in a
plate of spaghetti. As a "thriller", it's a pain in the (bare) ass.
Don't waste your popcorn
allowance on it.
In other news…
“Melanie” has discovered a forensic
anthropologist-turned-mystery writer and has loaned to me three of her
books. So I'm looking forward to
a quiet weekend of mayhem and murder while I try to get over this cold.
Love, as always,
Pete
PS. Did
anyone notice that I got the month wrong (April 20 instead of March) on
my letter that the week before last? Neither
did I until I went to file that last week.
Silly me.
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