Tag: dvds

Dicks Update

Since I last posted about my quandary on which Detective TV series to watch, I’ve managed to watch ’em all.

I started by freebasing on seasons 7 and 8 of Monk. It was great to finally get some closure on the whole Trudy (Monk’s deceased wife) mystery. They did a great job on tying up any loose ends by the last episode. It will be fun revisiting the series again one of these days.

Turns out the batch of Columbo stories had two of my favorites and another ep I’ve always regarded highly. My favorite story will be in the final batch (I just love “Columbo: Undercover”), but this batch had the delightful (and sad) story written by Peter Falk: “It’s All in the Game”. This one had Faye Dunaway and Claudia Christian as the conspirators, with Dunaway making a play for Columbo and Columbo seeming to play the game. Only the second time where he lets someone off (Christian, not Dunaway). The other episode from the batch that’s a favorite is “No Time to Die” which is remarkable for not actually having a murder in it. Instead, Columbo and his nephew have to race to clock to find out who kidnapped his nephew’s brand new bride.

I’d also mentioned that I’ve been rereading my Campion novels. So now that I’m done with watching those other mystery series, I’m revisiting the Peter Davison series now. Watching Mystery Mile right now and I’m quite impressed with the translation from the novel to the TV version. (Currently rereading Police at the Funeral and I remember that story very well.)

Oh, and Moon over Soho, the sequel to Midnight Riot (both by Ben Aaronovitch) is now out in the US, so I’ve been reading that each night. Enjoying it much as I did the first book.

A Good Time for Dicks & Other Things (wait a second…)

I know, I know, you think I’m talking about Terrance Dicks in that title. But no, that’s not what I’m talking about.

This has been my week for reacquainting myself with my favorite Detectives. Last weekend I started rereading my collection of Albert Campion novels. This week, the latest DVD set of Columbo movies came out. Then I got back into watching Monk, where I’d last left off near the end of season 6. So I finally got around to ordering seasons 7 & 8. And to top it all off, The Doctor Who TV Movie finally came out on DVD this week in the US.

So of course, on Thursday, I received two packages in the mail. I knew one was one of the two seasons of Monk, and suspected the other of being Columbo and Midnight Riot (a mystery/sci fi novel by Ben Aaronovitch) which I’d ordered together. I decided on the walk home that if it were season 7 of Monk, I’d start watching it, but if it were season 8, I’d watch Columbo first.

It turned out that Amazon combined two of my orders together (probably to save themselves the shipping costs, since I always go freebie when I can) and the package ALSO had the TVM! Well, Sylv trumps all, so I watched the TVM with Sylv & Paul commentary first. And then have been freebasing season 7 of Monk ever since. (I watched 4 eps today. Might watch another after some computer time.) It helps that the latest Columbo batch has only one story that I really love (it’s the one written by Peter Falk, of all things…) The last batch will have quite a few gems, including my favorite story of all, Columbo Undercover. (It’s the only Columbo where no one is murdered.)

Midnight Riot, BTW, was a fun read and I’ll be getting Ben’s second book, Moon Over Soho when it comes out. I wound up reading for almost 4 hours straight last night to finish the book. I love freebasing on books too, apparently. 🙂 Hope he gets some more novels out there for my enjoyment. 😉 (The Also People by Ben A has been in my top 3 Doctor Who books list since I first read it. The other two are Left-Handed Hummingbird and, hey, a book by Terrance Dicks: Timewyrm: Exodus. Maybe I was writing about Terrance Dicks in my title after all!)

In other news, I spent my birthday money from the folks and my sisters on a Kitchen Aid mixer, which arrived early this week. And today I finally used it – to make bread! Yay! I include a photo for your disbelievers!


My first loaves of bread and my new mixer!

I made honey whole wheat bread from St. Marten’s Table (Amy got me their cookbook this Christmas. Alas, the restaurant is no longer in business.) It’s pretty tasty and the smell is (as all bread) WONDERFUL. For supper I had a sandwich of the bread, Black Forest ham, Havarti cheese, lettuce, and baba ganoush. Very tasty! (It’s about 8 points, but I think it’s worth it.)

Oh yeah, points… We decided to try Weight Watchers at work and I figured “what the hell…” We started Thursday, though I actually started keeping track on Friday. Been dipping into my extra points bucket this weekend, but I’ll probably do OK. I’ll be interested to see if I lose any weight over the 12 week period.

Been having some quality parental time of late as well. Had dinner with the folks on Thursday (we went to Club 55 where I had ravioli stuffed with smoked artichoke hearts – yum!) and then yesterday was Hoity Toity Grocery Day. After a lunch at First Watch (a breakfast & lunch joint) we shopped at Trader Joe’s, and then on the way home stopped at the ginormous Kroger in Englewood that has everything from an olive bar to a sushi bar. (It’s where I got my baba ganoush.)

Today I did laundry and baked bread. Those two go well together. 🙂 Oh yeah, and watched several episodes of Monk. 3 good things that go good together!

…and they lived happily ever after.

Without intending to, I apparently got onto a Fairy Tale kick. Early today I finished watching all of the Faerie Tale Theatre stories, ending on “The Dancing Princesses,” one of the many stories I’d not seen the original time around. But more than that, I just finished reading Fitcher’s Brides by Gregory Frost. “The tale of Bluebeard, re-envisioned as a dark fable of faith and truth,” as the cover says.

It was when I’d reached disc 3 of the 4 disc set that I was looking for a new book to read and remembered Fitcher’s Brides. I’d bought the book knowing little about it except that it was used, only $2 (or maybe free with a coupon), and looked unread. It had looked interesting enough at the Bookery Fantasy (which is where I’d seen it) that I got it. Years ago I’d read a book of reimagined fairy tales called Red as Blood by Tanith Lee, which I had liked well enough. So I thought I’d probably enjoy this novel.

Thing is, as I was reading the introduction to the story, I realized I’d never actually read or heard the tale of Bluebeard. And while I was reading the intro, I remembered “Hey, I have a book of Grimm’s Grimmest fairy tales. I should read that too!” So while Fitcher’s Brides was my bedroom book, I read Grimm’s Grimmest in the library. (Only took 3 days for it – it’s a pretty short book.) It had a version of Bluebeard in it – “Fowler’s Fowl” – which, along with the introduction, pretty much educated me in the general Bluebeard lore.

Despite knowing what basically would happen by the end of the story, I found Fitcher’s Brides a good read. Indeed, I think I liked the book even more because I knew, generally, what would happen later. For one thing, it made the grimmer bits a bit less grim. 🙂

As for the remainder of Faerie Tale Theatre – the latter half was a bit easier to swallow than the earlier stuff I’d talked about before. Perhaps because I was less familiar with the stories (I’d seen very few of the third and fourth disc stories), but also because the stories weren’t quite as misogynistic as the earlier ones. (More Andersen, fewer medieval tales.) There were still a few surprises. I guess I had never known the original ending to “The Little Mermaid” before – I found myself teared up at the end of it. (And then read about Hans Christian Andersen’s even more religious version after watching the story.)

I found “Rip Van Winkle” (as directed by Francis Ford Coppola) to be far too stylized for my liking. Actually, it looked too much like a pantomime than anything. (I wonder if it was the inspiration for Duvall’s other children’s series, Tall Tales and Legends. I never cared much for that series – not like Faerie Tale Theatre. Probably because of the lack of Eric Idle and/or Jean Stapleton.) Oh, and in other director coups, they had Tim Burton directing “Aladdin.” (That one wins simply for having Leonard Nimoy as an evil magician and James Earl Jones as the Genie of the Ring and the Genie of the Lamp. Heh.)

Although I’d not seen “The Dancing Princesses” as done by Shelly Duvall & co, I knew the story from another telling of it. I liked how they tackled it and I think it could go up there with Eric Idle’s “Pied Piper” and Jean Stapleton’s “Cinderella” (she was the fairy godmother, if you’re curious) as favorite Faerie Tale Theatre stories (despite Peter Weller’s stupid mustache).

I could probably continue my fairy tale trend – I’ve got an eBook of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories which I might read. I don’t think it has “The Little Mermaid,” however. (It wasn’t in the table of contents, but then again, neither was the first story in the book. Just what one needs – an eBook that’s been coded incorrectly.)

Anyhoo, Lucy’s sleeping on the chair arm beside me. Linus is who knows where (probably in the living room chair). I’m still fighting my cold. (Hey, when I get a cold, I know how to hang on to it!) And tomorrow’s a family reunion. Good times, good times. 🙂

Welcome to Faerie Tale Theatre…

Of late, I’ve been watching all of the Faerie Tale Theatre stories (thanks to the complete DVD set). Many of these I’d not seen since I was a pre-teen/early teen. And a few I’d never managed to catch in the first place.

This was probably my favorite Showtime series. (I also liked Q.E.D. but I remember so very little about it now. And I don’t recall if that was a Showtime exclusive or not.) I was jealous of Shelly Duvall for having the perfect job – play around and recreate my favorite fairy stories from my childhood. I’m only about halfway through the DVD collection (so I haven’t gotten to my favorite one – The Pied Piper) and it’s been rather, um, illuminating.

So like, in Rumpelstiltskin, a woman’s father lies to the king about her, the king threatens to kill her if she doesn’t spin straw into gold, she successfully does it (thanks to a not-terribly altruistic fellow) three nights running, so the king makes her his wife… Greedy much? Nasty much? Then, thanks to a promise made under duress, the woman has to give her child up to the not-terribly altruistic fellow (who already took her locket and ring). So we get our happy ending with a woman living with a man who threatened to kill her unless she made him rich… And I liked this story growing up?

Rapunzel… Oh my. Hubby steals radishes for preggers wife, witch demands unborn child as payment. Child is raised in seclusion in a tower. Finally meets a guy and gets knocked up, so he’s blinded and she’s banished to the desert. Obviously sex is bad, m’kay? But it’s all happy in the end when they all meet up in the desert.

Thumbelina always keeps meeting men who want to marry her without her consent. (Then, in this version – I haven’t looked at the original texts yet since I’ve only watched it tonight – she winds up marrying a guy she barely knows.) Sounds like poor Peri in Doctor Who.

Most of the Faerie Tale Theatre productions are fun, colorful, and chock-full of actors to watch out for. However, Mick Jagger as the Emperor of China… Not terribly PC. (Indeed, there were only two or three Asians in the production – Mako being the main one. I thought we were starting to get enlightened in the 80s.)

Some of the actual stories I like better than others for their portrayal of women. They did a great job with the Princess and the Pea. Liza Minelli’s Princess is quite the independent woman. It even had a believable love story in there. (Unlike the “love at first sight” Rapunzel & Sleeping Beauty.) Thumbelina, OTOH, winds up having to clean up or serve all the men she meets.

So it’s been fun watching these as an adult with certain sensibilities. OTT Italian accents in Pinocchio? Check. Slanted eyes for Caucasian actors in The Nightingale? Check. Crappy portrayal of women in far too many of these stories? Check.

And it’s been fun actor watching. Vitto Scotti as a fruit seller? Check. Jean Stapleton as an ugly ogre? Check. Burgess Meredith as a mole? Check. Princess Leia and the Greatest American Hero as a couple? Check.

I hope I have as much fun with the rest of the series. (I most likely will. Plus it’ll be good to see the story that had me fall in love with Eric Idle back when I was a youngin’. Oh, and that helped me memorize over 100 lines of Browning’s poem. Heh.)

Thinks

I’m nearly caught up with grading again. Always amazing how it seems to run away from me. But I stayed at work until after 5 yesterday grading tests that were beginning to smell they were so old. And I got a few other things graded today which had been molding. The trick is to now stay on top of things. (I think I should stop assigning round things since it’s harder to stay on top of round things than flat things…)

My latest DVD watching has been Into the Labyrinth. I loved this show as a kid and became a Ron Moody fan because of it. I always enjoyed the various “characters” he played in the series. It was a number of years later that I discovered that there was more than one season of the show. Thanks to the DVD set, I have begun watching season 2. Amazing to think that the visuals were even worse in season 2, but Ron still gets to dress in cool costumes, so I figure I’ll enjoy season 2. Season 3 doesn’t have him, but at least it still has Phil Church (one of the kids who help Moody’s character – and the cute one that I had a crush on as a kid). Oh, and Pamela Salem (Belor) will also be there to chew the scenery, so I’ll probably have fun with season 3.

One thing that I’ve decided is that it’s fun to watch early 80s British children’s television programming on a widescreen high def TV. Heh heh. (Almost seems a waste of all that high tech-ness, but I love the irony.)

I’ve been helping dad with some YouTube videos for Westar. So far I’ve edited two short excerpts and uploaded them, though I may have to work on the second one. The sound on it didn’t come out too well. Feel free to check out the clips. The first is of Elaine Pagels talking about the origin of Satan and the second (with the crappy sound) is Karen Armstrong talking about “what is religion?”

My superintendent had seen a neat animated clock on one of the other schools’ websites and asked if we’d be able to put a clock and/or weather thingy on our website. So I looked into finding standards compliant, handicapped accessible, ad-free (or non-obvious) solutions. And I think I got it. The clock is basically a live clock of your own PC rather than a world-time clock (those were all ad-laden that I could find). I found that Weather Underground had the least-obvious advertising weather stickie, so included that as well. (Their own page, like so many other weather pages, is chock-full o’ ads. If only the National Weather Service had widgets like that – they’re ad free.)

I’ve been busy and I hope to spend some quality time tomorrow working on college stuff. My task for tomorrow? Write about astrology and how it’s not a science. Should be fun. As per the assignment, I’m going to suggest feng shui as another example of a pseudo-science. (I love the Penn & Teller: BS episode on Feng Shui and bottled water.)

Enablers suck…

So, like, I have a DVD buying problem. I buy too many DVDs. (Though I do love watching them and I don’t watch much regular TV, so that’s something at least.) But periodically DeepDiscount enables my DVD buying addiction. About twice a year or so they have a 20% off sale. And I buy far too much stuff.

Well, they’ve topped themselves this time. Their Winter Sale is 25% off! So I bought the boxed set I’ve been eying for awhile (The Michael Palin Collection – the only travelogue he’s done that I own on DVD is Sahara, but I’d love to get ’em all. Now I will!) And I waited a little bit since Season 4 of Doctor Who came out today (pre-orders don’t get sale prices) so I ordered it as well. Yay me! Boo DeepDiscount for enabling me!

BTW, the sale ends November 23rd, so get your orders in soon! They have several coupon codes you can use (but you only get the 25% off once, even if you try using a different code later) including the following: SALE, DEEP, PRICESEARCH. DeepDiscount often has the cheapest prices for DVDs (though I often start at DVDPriceSearch first). Oh, and they always have free shipping. Hope you find a DVD or seven that you want there!

Obsession

I’m a collector. When I get interested in something, I have a tendency to collect stuff regarding that thing, usually to obsession. I got to thinking about it recently when I was talking in SMAS about my Sylvester McCoy photo collection. I was ruminating that I now had so many photos, it was hard to find one for sale that I didn’t already own. I thought “I’ll bet they’d be surprised to see the size of the binders I’ve got all my photos in.” Then I decided I’d do a LJ post about it – and some of my other obsessions.

My photograph collection originated as a “scrapbook” collection (long before “scrapbooking” was a verb). And it’s all Helen Hayes’ fault. See, I was reading one of Grandma A’s Reader’s Digress when I saw some article (or maybe ad) with a lovely photo of Helen Hayes. I asked Grandma if I could cut out the photo and she said I could. I still have that picture from the mag – it’s part of a collage I made several years ago (late 80s) that hangs in my den. Although some of my tastes have changed and are not reflected in this collage (which actually had a couple of different permutations until it settled on its current one), I like it just as much when I finished it. And there’s enough stuff on it that I still like (like Helen Hayes).


Click the image for a larger version of the collage. How many people/shows/etc can you recognize?

Moving from scrapbooks to photos happened because of two important things: Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Memorabilia store and Whomobilia. Both were mail order companies (Whomobilia in the UK) that I’d receive catalogs from. Jerry was first – I bought several black & white and color 8x10s from him. Movie stars and TV stars and occasional movie posters. (My giant, and I MEAN giant, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory poster came from there. Three times the size of a standard marquis poster, IIRC.) I was actually a movie poster & photo collector then. (Mom & dad started the fire with movie posters with a Willy Wonka marquis as a Christmas present when I was young & impressionable.) In 1995, I went to my first Doctor Who convention (Visions ’95) and managed to start properly on my Sylvester McCoy photo collection. And then came eBay. Gah, eBay, you are EVIL!


The Doctor Who binder is half photos and half scrapbook with magazine cut-outs. The two Sylv folders (Color and B&W) are just photos of varying size.


A binder next to a roll of duct tape, just to illustrate how thick it is.


I also have a binder of non-Sylvester McCoy photos which includes most of the Jerry Ohlinger photos as well as other convention guests from conventions.

So, now I have a substantial photo collection which rivals my earlier scrapbook collection of TV guide & other magazine cut-outs.

I used to have a substantial video tape collection, but I have upgraded to DVD. According to DVD Profiler, I have 434 DVD titles currently. The number of actual discs is considerably more. And I’m doing a good job at getting ’em all watched (and rewatched – which is why DVDs are brilliant). Just about any time DeepDiscount.com has one of their 20% off sales, I spent at least $100 on DVDs in my wishlist. I go to theatrical movies now with the mindset “should I buy this on DVD or not?” (My summer theatricals are all “yes.” Now I just have to wait for the DVDs to come out.)

(For photos of the DVD, CD, book, and toy collections, check out the gallery I put up on my website.)

I used to be an album collector, but only of a few groups/musicians (Neil Innes-related things most likely). However, when CDs came around, I switched to ’em with little effort. I now have a goodly CD collection which I have converted (mostly) to MP3s. I have nearly 10,000 MP3s (over 40GB) in my collection, and only a few are download purchases (and I have no illegal MP3s in my collection – anymore.) CDs which I don’t have MP3’d are Doctor Who audio adventures which don’t include Sylvester McCoy (with a few non-Sylv ones I’ve ripped).

I don’t remember if I posted photos of my finished library (if I did, I didn’t tag it properly). But as you can guess from other posts about books, I’m obsessed with them too. (Current obsession, Lois McMaster Bujold books.) Back when the New Adventures of Doctor Who first came out, I was thrilled when 1-800-Trekker started their Pen of the Month Club. For a substantial fee, you’d get a 1-800-Trekker pen and 1 (and later 2) free books! I think the last of the 1-800-Trekker pens (which was living in the bathroom at mom & dad’s cottage) dribbled out its last bit of ink and they are no more. However, I still have all of the New Adventures and Missing Adventures that I got from ’em! I made an important break-through in obsession control when I was collecting the BBC 8th Doctor Adventures. I found I wasn’t enjoying them AT ALL. So I (and this is profound, folks) STOPPED BUYING THEM. Wow. That was an epiphany for me. There are still a few sitting there which I’ve not read, but I probably will someday. (I stopped right before Lawrence Miles’ Interference two-parter. I’d hated everything else he’d written (yes, hated) and I refused to give him any more of my money, cheap bastard that I am.)

But it’s not just Doctor Who books in my collection. I have thousands of books. Well, OK, only 1300+ books according to LibraryThing. (I do own more than that, but some of ’em don’t auto-detect in LT or in Book Collector and I didn’t want to bother adding them manually.) Thanks to the lovely shelves that dad & I put up, I have nice homes for my books. And a wonderful place to sit & read ’em.

Other obsessions of mine include toys and stuffed animals. I still buy toys and stuffed animals (though usually the animals are souvenirs to places, like zoos or similar). I love physics toys most of all and have quite a few of mine over at the school for use as demos in physics class (with duplicates here in case they get broken there). I’d’ve taken a photo of the animals sitting behind my sofa, but the kitties have messed ’em up and I didn’t feel like putting ’em back yet.

In a previous post, I wrote about my webcomics obsession and showed photographic evidence of that. (Indeed, my collection of webcomics-related swag has increased since that post.)

So, yeah, obsession. Got that. In spades. And hearts and diamonds and even clubs. (Oh, did I mention all of the packs of playing cards I’ve got? Jennie Breeden of Devil’s Panties now has Men in Kilts playing cards which I should get…)

Snow & Shrek & Decorations

To my major surprise, school was closed again today. Although we didn’t get as much snow as Wednesday, the roads were awfully bad and weren’t going to clear up soon enough to have school. Once again, I’m not complaining!

So I called the parental units and wondered if they wanted me to bring some ravioli for lunch and Shrek 3 for watching. They agreed. They provided the sauce and salad, I provided very yummy frozen ravioli from Market Day. It was an excellent lunch (and easy to prepare). Then we watched Shrek 3, the first time for all of us. (I somehow managed to miss it in the theaters, but I know I’d enjoy it since I loved the first two films.) For my second surprise of the day, I discovered that Eric Idle is in it. I used to be a much better fan and knew when, where, how, to what extent, etc for any of Eric’s film & TV roles. And as I suspected, I enjoyed the movie. We all got a good chuckle out of it.

The rest of my day has been finishing up the decorating and getting my pool table down in the basement until after the holidays (it was either it or the piano, and the pool table is a mini one with easily removable legs). BTW, does anyone want a piano? It’s free – all you have to do is come and get it! (It might smell of cat pee – that would be from Leo.)

The place isn’t overly decorated (heck, there’s only one thing I’ve added in the library – well, two if you include the balsam candle I’m burning) but I think it looks nice. I think I need a nice holiday rug for the spot where my pool table was. Even the blasted piano is decorated.

The kitties think it’s great that I put this huge Tree O’ Toys up for them. Once again, I’ve decided to go with home-made ornaments (from my purchase last year from Oriental Trading Co.) and that was a good idea. The bottom of the tree looks like a war zone. But I don’t mind – it’s fun to see ’em play.

Yay! Lucy’s decided to join us. Linus and I are sitting here & cramming for the Critical Thinking final exam. We have until next Thursday to get it done, but I’m going to cram tonight and maybe do it tomorrow morning. And then I can be done with college until mid-January. Yay!

The Lobster Quadrille

A co-worker of mine and his wife (also a co-worker, coincidentally) went to Portland, Maine a couple years ago & fell in love with the lobster there. He decided that what we needed to do, during the gray days of January, is have a good ol’ Lobster Boil in Ohio. Last year was our first time doing it and we all had a great time. (I probably wrote about it, but couldn’t find it in my cursory glance at my calendar.) This Saturday was our Lobster Boil, and we probably topped last year with it.

Around 1pm on Saturday, the lobsters (from Maine, of course) were delivered, still alive & kicking. Well, I didn’t actually ask if they were kicking when they arrived, but they were certainly alive. The folks & I arrived at the doin’s around 6:40pm (we’d’ve been there sooner if I’d not made a wrong turn – whoops!) There was lots of stuff to eat, including one of those chocolate fondue fountains. Those are fun! And my favorite dipping item was bananas. (They also had strawberry, marshmallows, donut holes, and grapes.) There were plenty of things to eat for those who weren’t fans of lobster (dad). Mom & I, however, each had a nice BIG lobster. They were good and I did a really good job of getting the meat out. It’s all due to the fabulous tutoring that I’ve received from hergrace. 🙂

Some of the folks that judiang and I traveled to Italy with were there, and it was fun to reminisce. Lots of conversation was going on – there were probably 30 or more people there – I didn’t bother counting. The three of us had a nice time – catching up with former co-workers, talking to spouses we don’t usually get to see, and even chatting with folks we hardly ever get to see at school. It’s really nice having co-workers that know how to have a good time (and are willing to have Saturday deliveries of overnighted live lobster – heh).

In other news, earlier that day, I purchased 2 more DVD sets (both complete series, thankfully). The first was The Flash, a TV show that I loved when it was on. The folks gave me dough for my birthday, so I purchased it with that. The other series was Alien Nation, another show that I loved so it died. *sigh* I’m looking forward to watching them both and watched the pilot episode of The Flash tonight. Mucho fun!

The weekend before the 5-day weekend

We have 2 days of school this next week, and then a nice 5-day weekend. So I spent a stress-free day, which started with going into the school & turning off all of the servers. Why, you ask? Well, the KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) Switch got all screwy the other day and was preventing our backup server from booting. There were only 2 people on computers when we went in (Why??? Why was anyone at the school on Saturday morning????) but we kicked ’em off (nicely) and turned everything off & on again. And it looks like everything is now responding favorably to the KVM switch.

Dad and I then drove off (separately) to Troy and met at the Chinese Buffet for lunch. I let him pay cuz I only had enough for tip (which I gladly gave). The we parted – he onto Goodwill & the UPS Store, me onto Walmart, the bookstore, and the Piqua Mall. Walmart was where I picked up Madagascar & breakfast & got some cash. The bookstore was having it’s 20% off sale, so I bought myself some books, got ideas for Christmas presents for me (so the parents can pick them up tomorrow when they go to the sale) and well, didn’t find anything else for anyone else. Alas!

I headed off to the Piqua Mall and purchased a ticket for the 3:40 showing of Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire, but still had an hour to kill. So I sat on a bench and read more from Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal. (Good book, BTW.) I then stood in line to get into the theater and eventually found an empty seat in the aisle. (I’m not used to going to movies that other people see – it was almost claustrophobic!) We had 5 minutes of commercials and 15 minutes of previews. And then the movie. YAY! Great movie! IMO, the best yet. When I got home I called the parental units & said we had to go see it next weekend. I’m ready to watch it again. 🙂

While I ate supper (chicken salad on Club crackers) Leo and I watched the extras for the Charlie & the Chocolate Factory deluxe DVD. Great extras. And I think I’m going to like the movie a lot more on the second viewing now that I know where it and the book differ. And let’s face it, Deep Roy (all of the Oompa Loompas) kicks ass. 🙂