I was supposed to go on a date today, but yesterday I got shot down. That day being Christmas (merry Christmas indeed). I came back from a party only to get an e-mail saying she wanted to cancel because she "met somebody" recently that she was kind of into and didn't think it fair to meet with me.

Okay, granted the heads up is always appreciated as it is much better being told than being stood up (which happened to me once and whoo-boy, was that a soul-crushing night). And it's somewhat better than having it be a Dead Man Walking type date where the other person pretty much isn't into it from the get-go and the end result is an hour or so of complete awkward humiliation. Of course, the "I just met somebody" could be a lie, the simplest way of saying "remember how I said I'd like to go out with you? I lied," especially as it came the day before the actual date.

On the other hand, if it wasn't a lie, there's still plenty of things about the "I just met someone" blow-off that sticks under the craw. Like how it could mean that she was open to having a relationship, it's just that somebody beat me to it. Like, if we would have had that date on Tuesday instead of Sunday, that could have been me. And the other thing being that what the message also says is "I'm in love and having loads of sex. You are not. Good luck with that."

Which is how I wound up seeing "House of the Flying Daggers" today, which is an absolutely breath-takingly beautiful movie. If Zhang Ziyi isn't that most beautiful woman in film right now, I don't know who is (the quote about her in the New York Times' film review sums it up- "Occasionally, Ms. Zhang bares one of her lovely shoulders. If she showed any more, the projector might catch fire."). But none of which is the point of this here post, this is- is it a sign that you've been seeing too many movies lately that you're starting to dig the Fanta commercial starring the Fantanas? I wanta Fanta.