Cheese! School! Cheese School!

Engh! Engh! Readers! Hey! (envision Arnold Horschack-esque sqirming and arm raising...)

Alert! There. Is. A. Cheese. SCHOOL. Two. Blocks. From. My. House. Where they teach you? About cheese? And how to eat cheese? And what to serve with cheese? And where you get to, again, eat really good cheese??? Head spinning. Palms sweating. Homer Simpson-like drooling beginning.

North Beach, you just earned another significant notch in your belt as being a cool place to live.

Chillin' smugly in my 'hood, yo

So get ME. My North Beach 'hood was recently recognized as one of the "10 Great Neighborhoods in America," in addition, notably, to the Pike Place Market area of Seattle. Can I pick 'em, or what?

As I'm spending more time wandering around North Beach, I'm finding my attitude about my neighborhood greatly improving - award or no award. When I first moved here I was all crinkly-faced and crabby because, after all, I do live one block away from this cheese-laden tourist fest and that's maybe not, well, the greatest thing. But as I'm starting to check out more of the surrounding areas, I'm realizing that North Beach is packed to the gills with charm and color and cuteness. I mean, where else can you have a church that resides at 666 Filbert Street that's just a few blocks from Kerouac Alley?

Next to-do is to explore some of the restaurants and bakeries in the area.

Open Letter to the movie"The Notebook"

Dear the movie "The Notebook,"

One might think that because you were only $10 at Target this weekend, that it would be okay for you to come home with me. The fact that I've become deeply crushy on Ryan Gosling lately made you all the more appealing - I mean seriously, look at him. Who wouldn't spend ten bucks on that?

And yet. Not since I went on that weird emotional Hallmark/Lifetime Movie Of The Week Tivo marathon last Christmas have I experienced such mindless, saccharin pablum. You, the movie "The Notebook," were awful. As in, You-had-me-at-hello/Bridges of Madison County cheese-coated awful.

Where to even begin here? Was it the utter lack of subtlety inherent in any Nicolas Sparks movie, or the total lack of sophistication and coherence that disappointed me most? You're telling me the best that a dark, brooding soul like Ryan Gosling can do on a first date is take his girl to Small Town Main Street and tell her how he used to lay down smack in the middle of the street at night and watch the traffic lights switch from red to green? He is supposed to be borderline retarded?

Remind me to write an open letter to James Gartner about his work in this movie and then roll it up and whap him upside the head with it. Ryan Gosling, we have to talk about this. Do you hear me, young man? Joan Allen and Sam Shepherd, don't think you're getting off easy, either.

Feeling like I could have just spend the $10 on more Method cleaning products and been a lot happier,

Beth

Well? Don't 'Cha?

God Bless You, Internet.