April 2005 Archives

Tonight Kim and I went to see a movie I've been waiting for for years, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, partially written by the late, great, Douglas Adams. Kim fell asleep, but that's not a good indicator as it was 10:00 PM when it started and she never makes it through movies that late. I must remember that in the future.

However, although there was much in the movie I enjoyed, I'm not sure how much I liked it. It was...Good. It wasn't great, but I think it comes from two things. First, I've read all 5 books again (for probably the 3rd or 4th time) over these past 3 or 4 weeks AND I've relistened to the BBC original radio series (BTW, trivia question: what happened to Arthur Dent's brother? Answer next blog!) so I think that I had SO much of the text in my head that when they spouted it on the screen, much of it verbatim, I just knew it all already. The things that were new will take some digesting...

Second, I think that the books, as a book, don't really hold together. They're a collection of brilliant skits rolled into a book, and, although I love them, they don't make a coherent narrative. As a result, the movie doesn't either. Although they added some things that I won't talk about to spoil it for other die hards like myself, it just doesn't really flow and is a bit dull because of that. I certainly didn't get the WOW feeling I had after watching the first installment of one of my other favorite books, The Fellowship of the Ring.

Anyway, it's worth seeing, as it is very funny in parts, and touching in others, but...well, I'll be curious to hear people's reactions. Even Kim could go see it and it would be fresh--she was only awake for half. ;)

Ellen's in the guest bathroom, washing her hands, and apparently the towel was missing, prompting the following conversation:

Ellen (yelling out from the bathroom): Hey, what happened to the towel?
Me: I ate it.
Ellen: Oy, yuy yuy! Again, with the eating?

Apparently, she's become an old Jewish man. Who knew?

Yesterday I headed down with Kim and the kids to watch Ellen practice T-Ball. She was really good! I was thoroughly impressed. She raced in on a grounder, scooped it up, and through someone out at first. She seems to be able to throw and catch and hit fairly well. No idea where she learned it.

Now, if we could only get her to pay a bit of attention and keep her glove on and face the right direction and not lie down in the basepaths playing with the sand, I think she could be a real talent...

We spent the entire weekend painting the dining room "Golden Glimmer" and white. It's nice, certainly much nicer than it was, but what a job. I get to paint the ceilings, neck bent, back bent, dripping ceiling white on my head.

I am ceiling boy. All hail ceiling boy.

When you can use a complicated big one! That's apparently the feeling that my kids have, when katie came into our room talking about Lucy:

Katie: I put her in the box, but she clambered out!
Paul: she clambered out?
K: yeah, she climbed out.

Good thing she explained...

So it's been 2 hours and I'm still listening to the radio instead and gnashing my teeth at Comcast. Their support "team" informed me that "There is an outage in your area." No ETA. No shit. Painful.

It's Sunday night, 7:45. The Yankees season opener is on tonight. In 15 minutes. Against the *gag* WORLD CHAMPION Red Sox. At The Stadium. And...what do I see on TV? BLUE. Cable has been out for 15 minutes. If it's not back in 15 minutes, someone's gonna get hurt...

*weep...*

For the first time since last summer, the family has headed west to Iowa. It seems like forever since I've had time to myself, and I'm relishing it. The house is quiet, the phones are quiet, no one is waking me in the morning...amazingly, even the cats are leaving me alone! Perhaps they're enjoying the silence too.

I've been messing around with using our Yamaha Clavinova as a Midi keyboard with my laptop, and it's kinda cool. it's not perfect, but not bad. It's neat to hit a piano key and have the laptop tell me I hit the wrong note, but of course Kim could do that for free...

Air conditioning folks were here today to look over the house and measure for where to put what. Central air is complicated, and expensive, but this house is just too big to not have it. I guess we'll be selling lots of room A/Cs in our garage sale.

It's so quiet here, I'm just not sure what to do. I'm happy just futzing around, really. I like company, but it's been SO long since I've had the house to myself, I'm just enjoying it. Hope no one takes offence if they don't get invited over. It's not you, it's me. Really.