Cramps: For those of you who do not suffer the monthly slings and arrows of cramps, let me help you understand the sensations. Imagine if you will tectonic plates embedded in your abdomen (that by itself may make some of you flinch and cringe, but it is only the beginning). These plates, as tectonic plates will do the world over, GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDD against each other, one trying to subsume or slide over the other. They mesh in unholy partnerships and break apart again in great geysers of superheated steam. They clench in grips of steel and rip open fissures that reach down into bottomless chasms. They do this day and night, relentlessly, while we are expected to continue functioning as if we don't have the Pacific shelf trying crawl its way across North America to meet the Atlantic plate. So next time someone mentions cramps to you, just think big numbers on the Richter scale.

Movies: Spiderman 2. Big, bright summer entertainment. The film equivalent of a new Janet Evanovich novel. Nothing too taxing on the brain, but more plot and story than in the previous installment. Kirsten Dunst still managed to whine and mewl her way through this role. If I was being catty, which I am not, I would point out her straggly hair, bony fingers, thin lips and snaggle teeth, which only make her "acting" all the more painful. If you can't tell, she's one of those actresses (liek Bridget Fonda) who just makes my skin crawl for no apparent reason. She's no worse than many of the generic female clones, but there is something about her that is supremely irritating. Peter Parker would be far better off without her.

There were a few small details that bugged me about this movie. It's supposedly set in New York, and yet when Peter Parker drops his motor scooter to become Spiderman so that he can deliver pizza in a timely manner (not timely enough, as it turns out), he returns to retrieve the bike unscathed and unstolen. The daughter of his landlord invites him to have chocolate cake with her, and yet the remains on the plate are from the far-inferior yellow cake. The evil genius builds his mega-tonnage evil contraption on a rotting pier which should not be able to bear the weight of a Mini Cooper, much less a fusion generator. The results of the fusion machine, a burning ball of gases, is extinguished in the river. This is similar to putting out the sun by pissing on it, but suspend our disbelief we must. All that being said, it was mostly entertaining. If you can ignore that Dunst woman.