On a more upbeat note, this past weekend was the District 55 Toastmasters conference, in San Antonio. My friend Shafali, who had already won at the Club, Area, and Division levels, took second place in the International Speech contest at the District level. I'm so proud of her. I heard some good talks on leadership, and I got re-fired up about Toastmasters, deciding that perhaps I really could be club president in the coming term. Jon came along, and he's bound to join soon, too. There's a local club that meets on Saturday mornings, so we might attend that one.

Then on Sunday, Ben joined us for The Mummy Returns. It was pretty cool. There were some plot decisions that I didn't find satisfying, but it looked really cool. And there was no more blood than a scratch on the face, which was rather weird, considering somebody got ripped into four pieces. Very cartoony. Also, we were treated to some movie trailers that look promising: Tomb Raider (yay, Laura!), in live action with lots of computer effects, and Final Fantasy, in really spiffy computer animation of the quality seen in the Starship Troopers: Roughnecks series. Jurassic Park 3 looked skipable, though Sam Neill is so lovely, I might suffer through it just for him--as a rental.

And speaking of hotties in movies, Hugh Jackman is doing another film, due out June 8. It's called Swordfish, and it's about hackers (ho-hum). I received an email about it because there is some serious Dell product placement in it. Interestingly enough, Dell doesn't have to pay for the placement, just provide the servers and racks temporarily. How wild. Maybe in Rocky XII you'll see people playing Inevitable.