One ring to rule them all

Forgot to mention yesterday that I caught the last Lord of the Rings movie while I was home, and it was worth every minute -- excellent production values, a stirring story, and good acting. Purists may gnash their teeth over Jackson's omissions and alterations, but aside from the truncated ending (which would have made a three-hour-plus movie even longer) I didn't mind all that much.

Technorati: movies

Happy holidays

Wrapped up some holiday celebrating -- I've been doing Christmas and some of Hanukkah this year, which is really cool -- by going home for a few days. The visit was fairly relaxing and just long enough, the only major snag occuring when one of my bags (maybe deciding it hadn't gotten its fill of the scenery) decided not to get on the plane with me. Said suitcase was delivered to my front door the next morning. I sure hope it got a window seat.

On another note, go Pats! I couldn't think of a better way for them to end the year, especially since it was the Bills who trounced them in the season opener. Guess turn about is fair play, huh?

Technorati: personal

Whew!

Never thought I'd be glad that a Red Sox deal had fallen through. Of course, I never thought they'd try to trade Nomar, either, so there you go.

While talking about last night's Friends episode, my partner and I came up with each character's Peanuts counterparts, as close as we could get them:

Ross = Charlie Brown
Rachel = the Little Red-Haired Girl
Monica = Lucy
Joey = Linus
Phoebe = Marcie
Chandler = Snoopy

I was curious about which character I'd be, and found out what one quiz thinks:


You are Pig Pen!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Well, I hope I bathe more often than he does, but otherwise this is just fine with me. :)

Technorati: quiz

Nomar leaving? Oh no :(

This editorial by the Globe's Joan Vennochi pretty much sums up how I feel about Nomar's possible departure:

The heart and soul of Nomar

Even though he turned down a contract extension last year (just how much money does one person need, anyway), that's no excuse for the Sox to treat him so cavalierly. And Vennochi's right -- if you absolutely must ship out someone, let it be Manny, whose big bat doesn't make up for his immature behavior.

Technorati: sports, baseball, Boston Red Sox

Happy anniversary!

One hundred years ago today, the first successful man-powered flight was made by those pioneers of aviation, Orville and Wilma Wright.

Yep, you read that right. Check out Prairie Home Companion's 12/13 broadcast for the facts. *wink*

Technorati: humor

Bwaahaaahaaaa! (part II)

When I was younger, my brother and I used to waste a lot of time with the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" computer game, a text-based adventure from Infocom that (like most of their offerings) is pretty hilarious, even smart-alecky at times.

Sadly, Infocom's been long out of business, but my brother did find and send me a link that, unfortunately (or fortunately, if you're my employer or someone else I owe time to) I haven't had time to check out:

Infocom Games Playable Online

Happy gaming!

Technorati: game

Bwaahaaahaaaa!

A good friend of mine sent me this fun link:

Holiday Snowglobe

If you grab the globe with your mouse and move it around, you shake things up. Also try just sitting and watching, particularly the snowman being built ...

Technorati: fun

"I love this town, you can see the stars at night ..."

I've got Catie Curtis in my head right now, because I just saw her last weekend at the Somerville Theatre. It was a great show, Catie being quite entertaining in her usual dorky way. Even though only one song was dubbed a sing-along ("What's the Matter"), I found myself humming/bopping along to just about everything.

Today I was surfing Catie's official site and stumbled across Magnolia Street, which has (among other things worth exploring) a library of lyrics/tabs. Guess it's time to dust off the guitar and see if I remember anything ...

Technorati: music, folk

Hell has frozen over, redux

I never thought I'd say this, but *looking around and lowering voice to a theatrical whisper* I'm actually enjoying acting class. I get a kick out of the preparation -- the studying and rehearsing and thinking about the scene (reminds me of my glorious couple of years with the BBT). And giving notes to classmates on their scenes is good practice for directing.

The only thing I don't like is getting up in front of the class and (ulp) performing. Fortunately, my character (Ann, from Sex, Lies and Videotape) is totally self-conscious about people looking at her. Talk about typecasting ...

Technorati: movies, filmmaking, school, film school, acting