As an aside, I have updated the book journal to be somewhat less dorky-looking visually, and also to get my ass in gear about reading. I've been very lazy lately.
Listening: To Eliza Carthy's Angels & Cigarettes. One of those rare things where I purchased a CD based solely on a review and actually like it, a lot. (The title is lame, but the music is really good.)
Bragging: About my cholesterol level. I just had it checked for the first time. It's 147. Although this is more likely due to genetics than to anything I eat or don't eat, but still, I'll take credit for it.
Watching: Stuff. On my new toy. See entry.
Also watching: The X-Files. Artificial insemination... or was it? "Never give up on a miracle"? Give me a break. I have just about given up on the miracle that this show can be good again.
Wondering: If everyone's trips to Sam's Club are as bizarre as mine. Saturday, at Sam's, I purchased the following: a DVD player, six bath towels, a ten-pound bag of oranges, a two-pound container of shortbread cookies (ugh), and the complete works of William Shakespeare.
Seeing: Traffic. Excellent, but Crouching Tiger is still getting my best picture vote. Speaking of which...
This thing is bitchin'. I told you before that what really prompted it was the discovery that Dead Again was available on DVD. I actually bought the movie first, on Thursday, then went out yesterday and got the player.
Of course, because this is just how things are, I got it all set up and it didn't work. My television is one of those cheap ones where the only input jack it has is for cable. So I first wired the whole thing through my VCR, and I did get a picture and audio, but it kept skipping and fading in and out.
So I headed out to my local Best Buy and asked one of the cute boys in blue shirts what I needed, and he handed me a $30 flux capacitor and sent me on my way.
And then it worked perfectly. I watched the director commentary of Dead Again, which was superb. Branagh talked through almost the entire movie, describing locations and shooting problems and casting decisions and everything.
(Okay, I know I sound like I'm the first person who ever saw a director's commentary, but it was my first director's commentary.)
I also bought When Harry Met Sally..., which has some great stuff on it too. During Rob Reiner's commentary, he answers a question I have had for years, which is how they filmed that four-way phone conversation with Marie and Jess on the morning after, because the timing of it is just amazing. (It turns out that they wired the prop phones so that all four of them could hear each other, and 60 takes later, they had the scene.)
By the way, Elise did try to convince me to go the Playstation 2 route for the DVD player. This is right after she tells me how she and her fiance stay up until 4 in the morning playing it. This is exactly what I need.
So, what else? It has been a week since my last update, and yet I can't think of anything interesting to tell you. I think it's February. I seem to remember always taking a hiatus in Februarys (Februaries?) past. Nothing interesting happens to me in February.
I didn't win the $80 million Powerball, but neither did anyone else, which means it's up to $91 million on Wednesday. I do amuse myself by the fact that I don't buy lottery tickets until the jackpot gets up this high. As though $10 million, which is what it starts over at after someone wins, isn't worth my time.
I got carded buying alcohol on Saturday. That was kind of interesting. The guy apologized for it, which is funny, because I was falling all over myself with the excitement of showing him my driver's license. Maybe he was new, maybe he was blind, or maybe he just knew it would be the highlight of my day.
Okay, I'm completely annoyed. Three different times today I e-mailed my netaddress account from work with little things that I wanted to make sure I put in here. Well, don't you know, netaddress is down for maintenance and I cannot access my little reminders. Getting carded was one of them, but I cannot for the life of me remember the other two.
Dear God. You wait a week for an update and all I give you is this? I don't deserve you.
