OGIC continues a new meme: name five movie quotes that pop immediately into your head.

1. “I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me.” (In a Lonely Place)

2. “Careful man! There’s a beverage here!” (The Big Lebowski)

3. “Mistakes? We don’t make mistakes.” (Brazil, said just before a circular wall section falls through the floor)

4. “You’ll catch your death of cold!” / “Yes, I probably will. But that’s all part of life’s rich paegant, you know.” (A Shot in the Dark)

5. “Sex with you is a Kafakesque experience.” (Annie Hall)

First Omar Hariri. Now Tung Cheehwa. The way things are stacking up, we won’t have many international political figures left to write angry letters about.

Fortunately, there’s one constant in international politics: upheaval is good for a little pocket money.

With shameless financial incentive in mind, I called my Vegas contact, Chuck Bamboono, to get some hot tips. Here’s what he had to say.

BASHAR AL-ASSAD:
Odds of Resigning: 4 to 1
Tell: “The withdrawal should be very soon, might be during few months and not after that. I cannot give you a technical answer.” Well, that’s putting it lightly. Uncertainty is a harsh mistress. It’s either resignation or untimely assassination, my friend. Get out while you still can.

ARIEL SHARON:
Odds of Resigning: 200 to 1
Tell: Even with Arafat, you can’t stop the animosity. And do you think Sharon wants to stop now that the alleged “dream” is just beyond reach?

GEORGE BUSH:
Odds of Resigning: 5,000 to 1
Tell: Stubborn is as stubborn does.

Well, since everyone seems to be following Terry’s lead, here are ten things I probably shouldn’t have done. This is by no means the list.

1. Talked my way out of being mugged while at gupoint on a bus in the Mission. Even managed to keep my wallet.

2. Wrote a feature length script in 24 hours, declared the script “experimental” to avoid heavy criticism, turned this piece of offal in for academic credit and was told by adviser that it was “one of the best scripts I’ve ever read from a student.”

3. Confused the dates of a major exam, went into the test cold without having read any of the material, relying upon hazy memories of reading the books in my teenage years, and was able to pass with flying colors, even recalling specific passages to back up arguments.

4. While in kindergarten, I was given a mathematical workbook. The book was intended to enrich me. It was suggested that I do the exercises, but I somehow construed this to involve the completion of entire workbook over weekend. Shocked parents, friends of parents, teachers.

5. Had sex in a museum while it was open.

6. On a dare, I once snorted about ten packets of Sweet & Low in a row at a 24 hour diner, to demonstrate that sugar substitute was a convicing cinematic substitute for cocaine.

7. As a teenager, to see how fast my mother’s shitty Ford Tempo could get, I slammed the gas down, cranking the speedometer hard to the right, and drove past a sitting fuzzmobile at 3 AM. Paranoid that I would be caught, that my license plate had been jottted down and that my underage drinking (one beer) would be discovered, I parked in an alley for an hour.

8. To see how long I could last without sleep, I once stayed awake for four days straight. Believe it or not, this was done without drugs.

9. Carried on an affair with a married woman. She was about twenty years older than me.

10. Was once escorted out of a building, according to “office procedure.” There was no explanation for my termination, nor any opportunity to explain my side of the story.

• A.L. Kennedy weighs in on how we should adjust our attitudes to lost keys.
• Apparently, quelling indecency over the airwaves wasn’t enough. Now the bastards are going after pay TV. If there’s any positive spin on this, perhaps this will stop Anna Nicole Smith.
• A principal has banned a lesbian student from appearing in a yearbook. Her crime? Wearing a tux. No word yet on whether neckties are the next to go.
• Forget the fact that Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep is a coming-of-age tale. Eileen McNamara walked away from the novel convinced that that it contributes to the deviant sexualization of minors. Yup. We all know how Lolita led to an unprecedented spate of professors sleeping with twelve year old girls in 1958. America is still reeling from that dark chapter in the history books. Stop these novels from being published before it’s too late! Dammit!
• D.H. Lawrence’s legacy is being re-evaluated. Lawrence was not, in fact, a water skier, but a writer of several stories and novels.
• Zora Neale Hurston’s lost plays have been located and published.
• Pulp fiction isn’t enough for Stephen King. An anthology series based on Nightmares & Dreamscapes is in the works.
• Tim Dolin lists the top 10 books on George Eliot.