Burn After Reading [the] Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Sarah and I just watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I know, I know, Welcome to 2004! Well, better late than never. Actually, we bought the movie on a whim at an HMV in Ireland at a drastically reduced price. Shades of Being John Malkovich*and 12 Monkeys make it intriguing and more than a little creepy at times — but in a really emotionally engaging way. So, yeah — don’t ever erase someone who cares about you from your mind; it’s pretty much the cruelest thing I can think of.

Earlier this week, we hit the movie theater for the latest Coen Brothers flick Burn After Reading. Maybe I’m going soft in my old age, but that one didn’t sit nearly as well with me as Fargo or The Big Lebowski.* It just didn’t seem as clever, relying much more on screamed curse words and lame sex and adultery themes for the entertainment. Even the Brad Pitt character was funny but vapid — and mostly just vapid. I don’t know, maybe I’m getting crotchety, but I expected more of them.

the IRL meetup


Tonight we met the Eurotrippens. They are really cool people.

One thing we Sarah noticed: they are the first American couple we have ever met over here where both parties are American. I thought that couldn’t be true when she first said it, but when I think about everyone else from our budding little ex-pat community in Regensburg (thanks go to Christina for her organizational efforts), they’re all not a couple, or not both American.

One thing I noticed: meeting people in real life, with whom our first contact was via our blogs or other websites (or, in our case, a BBS) has been a singularly cool experience, every time.

In roughly chronological order:

  1. Sarah (homerun on the first at-bat!)
  2. Miss-Efficiency and her husband via BookCrossing
  3. Zmrzlina via BookCrossing
  4. Ron & Kaori via BookCrossing
  5. a bunch of German bookcrossers at various meetups
  6. Margot and Nick, indirectly via BookCrossing
  7. Christina and Rainer
  8. and now B and Jim

Are we just lucky? Or are you all as thrilled with your on-line meetups as we are? You can post anonymously if you want.