CC Discovers Gene Kelly; Jack Discovers Squirrels; Cities Discover Christmas

Just Finished Reading: Loop by Koji Suzuki

CC has discovered Gene Kelly. She's seen him before of course but it wasn't until yesterday that she REALLY decided that she liked him a lot. She was home for lunch and Turner Classic was showing the That's Entertainment series. We tuned in somewhere in the middle of the first one and they were focusing at that point on Gene Kelly.

She kept saying how amazed she was that he could dance so well and still manage to look . . . masculine. Well you have to admit, the way people dance these days, especially your Broadway-style dancing, the men tend to look a bit gay. Ok, maybe more than a BIT. But back in those days, it wasn't like that. Watch the old MGM musicals and you'll have no problems believing that these very male characters can really dance.

What changed along the way? I have no idea. I was telling CC that part of the reason the men didn't look gay while dancing was that their steps were slightly different from their female partners. If you watch them, the men take more butch stances and strike stronger poses. The women tend to move more gracefully and elegantly, adding a touch of the feminine. When they dance alone it's not as noticable but when they dance together, there's no doubt.

So if you're looking for last-minute gift ideas for CC, you can't go wrong with Gene Kelly movies. Anything but Singing In The Rain, which we already have. :-)

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There are squirrels out there. Oh yes, there really are. Up until this morning you only ever saw a lone squirrel in the distance or maybe just a tail scurrying up a tree. Not so today. Today there were squirrels and they were out in force.

I suppose it's due to the weather. This time of year they must be finalizing their nests and filling them up with nuts and things. They were certainly out in force. I was walking the dogs along the usual route when they suddenly stopped and assumed the "I see something" position. Ears up, nose twitching. Then Jack started barking and attempted to take off on his own. Katya naturally followed and since they were properly leashed, I went with them. When they both take off at once, you really have to plant your feet solid to slow them down.

Anyway, it didn't take long to discover what set Jack off. Squirrels. I saw two of them myself, dashing across the street in front of us.

The funny thing is that there is NO way Jack could ever catch one of those things. They're so FAST and they move in 3 dimensions. That's something that would really mess him up. When they come to a wall, they don't stop and turn around, they go UP.

I hope those squirrels take to their nests soon though. Walking the dogs this morning was a little too much like exercise :-)

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Talk about your Christmas miracles, it appears that some cities out there have discovered that the "Winter Holiday" we celebrate every December 25th is actually called Christmas! Can you believe it? After all these years they finally remember the name.

It started back in the 90's, city governments were getting sued or swamped by protesters complaining that they DARED to say Merry Christmas on a sign or had a Christmas tree on city properly. The whole business was rubbish really. A bunch of holiday Grinches trying to ruin it for the rest of us. Each year it got progressivly worse until it reached it's peak where school districts no longer gave time off for Christmas and instead had scheduled a "winter holiday." How lame is THAT?

Well Christmas is back and with a vengeance and it's about damn time if you ask me. This nonsense about not being able to publicly name any religious holidays is just too tiring. Having a Christmas tree on city property does NOT force Muslims to be Christian any more than coloring a manorah in elementary school made me Jewish.

So let's knock all this foolishness and get back to what this holiday is all about: presents, football, and eating LOTS of cookies :-)

Ok, ok, and Jesus' birthday too. :-)

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The Holiday Is Ending

Currently Reading: Loop by Koji Suzuki

And so we reach the end of one holiday season and the beginning of another. Thanksgiving 2005 is in the books. We're all well-fed and dreading the inevitable resumption of normal life Monday morning. It doesn't matter what you do, the past four days have been a vacation (unless you're stuck working in retail in which case it's been a living hell). Time to get back to work.

Unfortunately, most people will be pulling double duty for the next month. The end of Thanksgiving, as all retailers know, means the beginning of Christmas. So while we've all enjoyed the nice, relaxing pace of Thanksgiving, we all look at the calendar with dread seeing that December starts on Thursday leaving us just 24 days after that to cram in all our shopping.

My opinion on those after Thanksgiving sales really shifts this time of year. On the one hand, those people are NUTS. Waiting in line at 4 in the morning just to get into a Walmart? Are you kidding me? That's just CRAZY! There was nothing in their sales circular that was such a good deal that it was worth being at Walmart before dawn. On the other hand, those people probably have most of their shopping done already while the rest of us have to sweat it out for a few more weeks.

It sort of mirrors my general feelings about Christmas too. Yes, I'm very happy with the whole "season of giving" and so forth. I wish folks were that nice to each other all year instead of just compacting it into a month. But you know, it can be a LOT of pressure trying to figure out what to get people for Christmas. Everyone has at least ONE person who's just IMPOSSIBLE to buy for.

I see a lot of nodding heads out there. Actually, I think everyone reading this is nodding their head. I guess that makes it yet another universal truth.

Some people try and get around this problem by asking for Christmas lists but even then there's no gaurantee that plan will work. Say you get a list from a person and everything on that list is boring and un-festive? What happens, for example, if you ask your wife for a Christmas list and she hands you a list of kitchen appliances? Well mister, you'd better come up with something OFF that list because if she only gets kitchen appliances, it's going to be a COLD night for you in more ways than one.

Another way to get around it is by giving a gift card. Those are useful up to a point but it's sort of like you're giving up or worse, not even trying to figure out what gift to give. If, for example, you give a gift card to a music lover because you really want to get them a CD but you just aren't sure which one to buy, that's fine. They'll be happy to have it. But if you give someone a generic department store card with no thought behind it, don't be surprised if they aren't as "thrilled" as you were hoping.

It's a little more difficult for me, this year, trying to find gifts for everyone. CC's going to be a tough one. Her list is almost all appliances and "useful" things. Finding something fun for her is going to be a bit of a challenge. Same thing with my sister and her family. We moved out six months ago and I think I've seen them since only twice? Three times? Certainly not often enough to get an idea of what they'd like for Christmas. And then there's my mother. Usually she's the easiest to buy for because she drops hints all the time. Well, as I said before, been gone 6 months. No hints.

As it stands right now, I've got three people covered already. It's still November for a few more days so I suppose I'm not doing too bad. Still plenty of time to figure out what to get these folks. And I also have the added advantage of having CC too. She's pretty good at helping me come up with gift ideas. Together I'm sure we can come up with something. If not, well, I guess it's a stack of Target, Borders, and Best Buy gift cards for everyone :-)

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Holiday Baking

Currently Reading: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Yes, it's that time of year again. I think I mentioned this in the previous blog entry but it's the time of year when we STUFF ourselves with turkey :-) One of my all-time favorite times of year :-) But what I forgot to mention is that it's also the time of year when we all turn our homes into little bakeries and start whipping up all of those great holiday treats.

This year, since it's our first year in our new apartment, we're doing a little baking of our own. Normally the family would do its own baking of course. Pies for Thanksgiving, cookies for Christmas, that sort of thing. Well, we can't just go over there for Thanksgiving dinner and not take something right?

Today I'm making a Boston cream pie. You've probably had that before even if you didn't know what it's called. It's a yellow cake with a layer of pudding in the middle and frosted with chocolate frosting. Great stuff. I'm also making a small pan of fudge. My sister's kids will probably take most of that, which is fine. More of the Boston cream pie for me :-)

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Finally!; Dining Out; 3 More Days!; Recovery Update

Currently Reading: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

If you've seen CC's blog then you know that yes, we FINALLY got a dining room table. We didn't have one when we moved into the apartment you see and for the past 6 months we've just been eating off TV trays. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but when your dining area is 4 feet from the living room and with a clear shot at the TV, there's no reason why you can't sit down at the table.

I was actually surprised that we found the table at Walmart of all places. Normally you have to go to a furniture store for something like that. The problem was, we went to all the stores in the area and the tables they had were not really what we were looking for. All we really wanted was a simple table, wood. Given the layout of the apartment, a big, fancy table would have looked really odd. And the new trendy tables just don't match us very well.

Our new table is a simple, caramel-colored oak table with four chairs, no pads attached. Simple. If we decide to change color shemes, we just get new pads for the chairs. Everything can match with no problem.

The real adventure was getting this all up to the third floor. As you may recall, I'm not allowed to do anything strenuous until around the 9th of December. Getting it out of the store was no problem. They have plenty of people to help you lug big items to your car/truck. Of course, you can't take those people home with you.

So, what we did was open the box right there in the truck in the parking lot of the apartment. Then in several trips, we took everything up piece by piece. Ok not really piece by piece. I can carry more than just one table leg. After several trips we had it all piled up in the dining area and I spent the rest of the afternoon putting together chairs. CC, ever the trouper, put the legs on the table.

Now, you do realize that this means we can actually entertain right? We have a table. People can come over and eat dinner. Gosh this means we'll have to be social now. :-)

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We had dinner out again on Saturday. We both really enjoy that. Ok, I'll be honest, mostly what I enjoy is not having to cook :-) Things that would take me forever to put together I can order from a restaurant and have it sitting in front of me within 15 minutes or so. GOT to love that :-)

We didn't go any place fancy, just over to Appleby's. Not a bad place, good grilled food. We'd just finished putting together our dining room set so we were both pretty hungry. Imagine the irony. We finally have a table to eat off of and what do we do? We eat out :-)

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Hey! Just three more days until the best eating holiday out there! That's right, THANKSGIVING! What are we giving thanks for? Apparently an abundance of turkeys! No, no, that's not true. It's all about those pilgrams being glad they didn't end up as roadkill during their first year here . . . and an abundance of TURKEYS!

The best way to celebrate this holiday is with TURKEY of course, but also with pumpkin pie and FOOTBALL! Tradition has it that you stuff yourself as much as possible during the first half of the first football game then you fall asleep on the sofa in front of the TV and wake up at some point during the SECOND football game wondering what the hell happened, why the uniforms are different, and who won the first game. THEN you start stuffing in the leftovers so you don't get stuck eating turkey for 3 weeks :-)

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So, how are we doing with our recovery? Well apparently it's making us refer to ourself in the third person, which is annoying so we'll stop that right now :-)

I'm doing pretty well now actually. I don't get sore very often anymore, which is good. I'm no longer taking the prescription pain killers either. I tossed those last week. Normal Advil is just fine. Walking the dogs again, no problems there so long as they don't see ANOTHER dog and try and run for it. That still prompts some strain and sore muscles.

My diet is back to normal WOO HOO! No problems eating anything, which is great. In fact, I'm pretty much back to normal except for not being able to do anything strenuous. No heavy lifting, still can't do that. Sometimes I still get a little sore in the abominal muscles but that's not very often and not severe.

Guess you could say I'm nearly fully recovered. Just have to be patient and heal up the rest of the way :-)

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Let The Complaining Begin!

Currently Reading: The Big Red One by Samuel Fuller

It's one of those universal thing, like death and taxes. Every year books are turned into movies. Most of them are smaller books or genre-specific like crime or romance, but once or twice a year you have a HUGE blockbuster type movie based on a HUGE blockbuster type book. In the past years we've had the whole Tolkien Lord of the Rings series and the still on-going Harry Potter series, which will be the topic of complaints all across America tonight.

Actually, the complaining is already starting. Despite a whopping 89% favorable rating over at Rotten Tomatoes, what stands out in most reviews are the complaints. I even saw one article over on Fox that does nothing BUT complain. No, wait, they refer to it as "listing differences from the book." Yes, they list those differences but in only one case to they list a change in a positive light.

Mostly what I'm seeing falls into one of two categories. The first group is complaining that the new director is a little too much like the FIRST director and he's taking the series back to a more literal translation. The guy who did the third episode was much more stylistic in his approach and wasn't that just WONDERFUL . . . so they say. To be honest, I never had a problem with either method. Being literal worked great for the first two movies, which were based on much shorter books. Starting with book 3 though, the amount of text being translated to the screen grows dramatically! Naturally you can't be literal when the source material is so huge. Things have to be cut, combined, reworked to fit the time frame of a movie. And let us not forget, there were quite a few complaints about the third movie for just that reason, too many cuts.

Of course, cuts is the second category. Everyone has their favorite characters and scenes from the books and they expect to see them in the movies. They work themselves into a frenzy if their chosen one isn't featured prominently. Take this new movie. According to one "complaint," Victor Klum and Fleur (I'm not even going to look up her last name) hardly speak even though in the book they're both given HUGE back stories. Ok, yeah, so? It's something I remember talking about with movie 3. When you have that much basic plot to work with, you HAVE to cut down the little stuff along the way and when you get right down to it, Harry's fellow competitors in the Triwizard Tournament really are just there for the plot. Hell Fleur eventually ends up marrying one of the Weasleys and she's STILL not that major of a character.

One of the things that makes J. K. Rowling's work so great is her attention to detail. All those layers add up to a very rich literary environment. It makes for a good read. But it also makes converting it the work to film pretty tough. Some of the details can be worked in as background or scenery but when it comes to each character that crosses the paths of the protagonist, that's quite a bit more difficult.

Cut the director some slack. The movie will be great, we'll all enjoy it and we'll have a wonderful time. If you prefer the books, then stick with the books and stop trying to ruin it for the rest of us.

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