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Nothing princely about the new Harry Potter
I should know better than to get too worked up anticipating the release of movies. I should know better but I don't. I'd heard dark rumblings about the less-than-warm reception given advance test screenings of "Half-Blood Prince". I'd hoped that the delayed release meant some rethinking of the story line, but I was wrong ( Read more... ) -
Woody, Woody, wherefore art thou?
When Woody Allen writes lines for himself it's best if he's the one who speaks them. When handed off to TeeVee people to deliver they are missing something: they are missing the delivery of Woody Allen.
As in Vicky Christina Barcelona, which is missing Allen's long-time cinematographer, Gordon Willis, as well as Woody's voice. The narrator is ( Read more... ) -
In a nutshell
here is what my life has been like for the last two weeks:
"Hack Gasp Wheeeeze"
"Hack Gasp wheeeeze"
"Gasp Wheeze Cough"
"Hack Hack Gasp"
I haven't been this sick since I don't know when - but it's been years and years. And I've got no clue as to where it came from but I pray to a merciful Providence it will just GO! -
Where have all the delis gone?
The best deli sandwiches I've ever had in my life came from long-gone (alack the day) Sam & Andy's in Knoxville, Tennessee. Real pastrami, not that stuff that tastes like corned beef. In the day, those guys were good enough they didn't have to weigh or pre-portion meat and cheese. They just piled it on until it looked right, or felt right ( Read more... ) -
Everybody knows your name
I'm an orphan. As such, mostly I long to be where everyone is someone close: a sense of family and good friends; people who want me around. But lately I've been wondering if maybe I should opt for the opposite. Maybe I should pick a place I'd like to be where nobody knows me, where nobody knows my name. Reinvent myself, or maybe be who I really am ( Read more... ) -
Now the phone
My landline is apparently trying to talk to itself. When I got home my answering machine is full of "messages" sounding like white noise and static, then "we're sorry, due to telephone company facility trouble your call cannot be completed ( Read more... ) -
TeeVee: Just wondering
Why is it that if there is a movie on TeeVee that I like, even if I have the same movie on tape or DVD, I'll watch it? What's with that? Tonight on po' people TeeVee is one of the Harry Potter movies. The DVD is on a shelf right behind my head. I can watch it anytime, so why can I not watch something else? -
And I can't help but wonder where I'm bound
I always figured that, at some point, I'd reach a place in life where I'd be living in a place somewhere in or near the mountains: Montana, northern Idaho, maybe even somewhere in Oregon. I like the seasons and I especially like a good winter with snow ( Read more... ) -
Why I like computer chess
On the advice of my friend Marisa, I decided to give BSG (Battlestar Galactica for the unitiated) more time to grow on me. I stayed with it through disc three of the first season and had decided that I had to accept the fact that it wasn't compulsory for me to like the same things that the people I like, like ( Read more... ) -
Columbine: Lessons Learned, Lessons Lost
(from Massad Ayoob's blogA decade ago today, I was on the West Coast, teaching at the Firearms Academy of Seattle, when word reached us of the horror that was happening at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The incident left not just a deep scar on the collective American psyche, but a festering wound that has never quite healed. It’s a ( Read more... )