A male guest in our all female household took a shower and afterwards said:

"You know what 'exfoliate' means? That there's sand in the soap."

PG: Hey Nacho, what’s your favorite snack food?

Nacho: When the fantasy has ended/ and all the children are gone/ Something good inside of me/ helps me to carry on.

PG: Singing? Oh…okay. You’re really going to--

Nacho: I ate some bugs/ I ate some grass/ I used my hand, to wipe…

PG: Whoa.

Nacho: my tears/  O Pistachios! / Pistachios! Pistachios! (diddle-diddle-dee, diddle-diddle-dee) O Pistachios!

PG: Good choice. Nice and healthy.

Nacho: When I am eating at the party. Everyone is dancing, happy, party.
But Nacho is not dancing, he does not dance at the party. Where are the pistachios?

PG: You really love them, don’t you?

Nacho: At night I play my games/ I go to sleep, I think of pistachios/ The people in the street/ they eating treats, they eating candies.

PG: Any other favorites?

Nacho: Pistachios, number one/ the secret of desire/ RAPAPAPAPILIAPUPALIAPUPPA/ Pistachios, number one/ they put the people all on fire/ RAPAPAPAPILIAPUPALIAPUPPA/ Pistachios, number one/ eat them on the playa/ RAPAPAPAPILIAPUPALIAPUPPA

PG: Alrighty then. I’m gonna go with no.

"I know the best pub in Edinburgh!! It's the oldest pub in the town. So we can get drunk in an historic place for cultural reasons." 

From my international travel companion Miss Mands.

PG: Reality television has grown in popularity over the years. What are your thoughts, Morpheus?

MORPHEUS: It is everywhere, it is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes.

PG: I know, right? It even has it's own Emmy category now.

MORPHEUS: It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you .

PG: Do you think that this trend will fade out anytime soon?

MORPHEUS: You are a slave to it. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.

PG: Okay, sure. But some people would say that about all television, not just reality shows.

MORPHEUS: It's a system. That system is our enemy. Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. People are part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.

PG: I'm surprised you feel so strongly about this.

MORPHEUS: Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

"I feel like a half eaten cookie."

From the beautiful SE Carter, whom I have had the privilege of traveling all over the world with on many grand adventures.

"Epics always have cute guys."

Thank you Miss K Keller for your astute observation.

She was thinking of Orlando Bloom in Troy. I don't like him or it. I have to say when I walked into the movie theater to see a 20 foot poster of Russel Crowe as Maximus my first thought was, "Get over yourself."

Then I watched the movie. 5 times. In the theater. (Not a record for me, BTW,) While I do have two Gladiator posters in my office, my infatuation with Russel Crowe has long faded and I now have simultaneous crushes on Robert Downey Jr. and David Tennant. Does Avengers count as an epic?

"Grilled cheese ignite!"

I do not recall the purpose for this declaration but when HBR uttered it I wrote it down immediately. As far as battle cry's go I would say it as as good as "SPOON!" that the Tick says with gusto whenever evil is a foot.

Go ahead, say it. Say it as loud as you can in a very public space. I dare you. Make that a double dog dare.

This is an important directive for tyrants and writers. Writers should be constantly on the lookout for new material. Your brain records everything, now your ability to remember it may be shite, but it’s all in there and your subconscious will bring it to the surface and you might not even realize it.

I know this is true because whenever I watch a movie from my childhood I realize there is an element from the film that was burned into my neural circuitry and when I wasn’t looking it made its way into the pages of my writing. For a concrete example is the warehouse at the beginning of my book Trespassing IS the warehouse from Adventures in Babysitting. Now I only know this because the movie plays a couple times a year on cable. But the minute I saw it, I knew it was the absolute truth.

Armed with my blue pen and journal, no one is safe from my roving eyes. Mannerisms, clothing, and Muni time activities are mine for the taking. You never know how each of these tiny, seemingly irrelevant, bits of information will work its way into your writing. Trust your brain to bring you what you need but writing it down, being intentional with your observations will help too.

Another important directive for writers (and probably tyrants) is: “Your focus determines your reality.” When Qui-Gon Jinn told that to a young Anakin Skywalker it redeemed Phantom Menace for me. But we can talk about that one another time.