From what I heard on Jian Ghomeshi's show, I think I'd actually be interested in seeing a war movie: Passchendaele (which he pronounced "Passiondale"). Too bad it doesn't premiere until Rememberance Day in Canada, and I don't think there are any release dates for the US yet. (Cynically, I'm going to guess "summer blockbuster season".)

I finally got to see the movie.  I was amazed by two things: one, how much Lyra reminds me of an older Bug, and two, a scene that wasn't in the book [spoiler here].

When I saw that scene, I was stunned.  I actually paused the movie, stood up, and said out loud to nobody in particular, "She... Oh my God, she actually ---!"  And apparently Pullman came up with that idea, too, so I guess the Word Of God says it's canon.

One and a half missed hours of my life.

Poll #1185401 Movies
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which of these movies have you seen?

What movie would you most likely insist that a good friend watch, if they hadn't seen it?

My primary aesthetic reactions are chronicled here (in good_eats).

Other things I noticed:

• This film is set in London, right? So why is there a period in the sign above Mrs Lovett's shop? Mrs doesn't take a period in British English. Did that happen only recently?
  
• The bench outside the Judge's house looked suspiciously modern. There's nothing about the casting of the iron sides that would have been impossible, but the stacked-bubbles look of the ironwork feels a bit wrong for some reason. It feels like the engineering of it is too modern, I guess.
  
• The movie didn't really feel like a Tim Burton job until I saw Mr Todd holding the gears of the chair.
  

Still, an entertaining and musically sophisticated flick.

I've been avoiding Amazon.com's "Unbox Video Download" because the terms of use on a PC, last time I checked, were fairly heinous. But now they've got their service hooked up to TiVo, so you don't have to authorize Amazon.com to do anything to your PC -- you can just let them upload movies and TV episodes to your TiVo series 2 or 3.

They've got a fairly good selection on TiVo Unbox.  You select a movie, pay Amazon.com through their regular checkout process, and they send it to your TiVo.  In the case of movie rentals, you pay $3.99 and it stays on your TiVo until 24 hours after you first start watching it.  So if you rented Little Miss Sunshine today and then got called out of town for a few days, you'd still have it waiting when you got back.

Not bad -- and, of course, I get a kickback.  (There's your granum salis.)  I haven't tried it yet, but I'll report back with the results when I do.

What began as a routine invasion of Iraq for some American soldiers almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident, when the troops got lost at night and mistakenly marched into Somalia.  U.S. sources say the soldiers will leave immediately for Equatorial Guinea as soon as the Somalis are ready to resume control of a representative democracy, with similar stops planned in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and Cameroon, since we happened to be in the neighborhood anyway.

(inspired by this story)

Where's Tully Bascombe when we need him? (The Mouse that Roared is second only to Duck Soup on my lists of best satire, best war movie, and best political movie -- above Dr. Strangelove on those lists.  Duck Soup is, moreover, my favorite movie of all time, so The Mouse that Roared never had a chance at #1.)

Three things that made me happy today:

• Resigning from both chess games with honor, and realizing that I enjoyed them enough that it didn't matter that I lost.  I'll probably return to those boards in a few days to analyze them.
• Having an early VD with Jodi (dinner and a movie)
• Specifically, watching Sweet Land (about which more later, probably in a day or two) and talking about it afterward.  For now, I'll just quote without context: "Hallo, hems."  And I want an icon of Brownie's "Have more pie" line.
  

Three things I accomplished today:

• Configuring the assistant director's new Treo smartphone to connect to the Exchange server
• Taking some pretty good photographs of one of the new employees, for our website
• Finding a supplier for custom compounded medication for Pied, and then finding an even better supplier after she started drooling, Turner and Hooch-style, following the administration of 1mL suspension p.o. (apparently the fish flavoring is what did it; the better supplier makes their own fish flavoring from scratch)

Lots of people I know seem to be enjoying this, so I'll give it a try.

Three things that made me happy today:

• Seeing BzzAgent's new site, which is wonderfully informative and well-designed
• Teaching Jodi the basics of chess at Kaleisia
  
• Overcoming her beginner's luck twice, both times somewhere around her KB2.

Three things I accomplished today:

• Diced celery, onions, and sweet potatoes, and minced carrots in preparation for dinner tomorrow
• Played chauffeur for Jodi and Amanda so they could see Because I Said So
• Got three more books ready to send out to PaperBackSwappers
  

Anyone else thinking about seeing Nightmare Before Christmas 3D Friday night at 8:10pm in New Tampa? We should get tickets!

Pee Wee Lives!!



Too damn fabulous. I HAVE to have this one.

Crossposted to latin_lovers:

Contra sicilianus numquam pugna cum mors acta est.

Is that a pretty good translation of "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line" (a classic quote from The Princess Bride)? I tried to avoid a literal (temporal) translation of 'when', and I found a dictionary entry that said 'actus esse' can be used for 'to be at stake'.

I suspect it sounds a little bit off to someone who's actually been using Latin more recently than I have. I'd welcome any suggestions to make it sound more like an actual proverb or epigram might have.

Jeff Conaway as Kenickie	Jeff Conaway as Zack Allen

I just finished watching Dickie Roberts, Former Child Star. I don't know who recommended it to me, but it was pretty good. If you can't stand David Spade, just watch the credits -- they're hilarious.

In other news, I'm sick. Haven't been in the office all week. Fever of 102.7 F earlier tonight. I slept all day and I'll probably do the same tomorrow. This sucks.

I saw most of King Ralph last night, despite the fact that the opening credits are done in Zapf Chancery. (I very nearly abandoned it for that reason alone, but I'm biased; my high school newspaper used Zapf Chancery for its masthead, so I'm a bit sick of it.)

I enjoyed it, actually -- and three actors in it would go on, ten years later, to work together in the Harry Potter movies. The actors
who play Vernon Dursley and Mr. Ollivander play a lord and a high-level official in King Ralph, and another lord is portrayed by the man who later provided the voice for the Sorting Hat.

Watching Vernon Dursley smile graciously (and therefore in a most un-Dursleyish manner) disturbs me a bit.

Ben-Bob says check it out.

I really want to see The Education of Shelby Knox, but it already aired on PBS and nobody in OCLC WorldCat seems to own it yet. Damn, it looks good...