I know. I've been gone long enough to be forgotten. It happens when you find yourself in the midst of a real life, and that is where I've been with a certain country gentleman who has been taking up the lion's share of my time making me laugh, making me cry, and sharing so many good times I haven't had time to do more than the top of my regular list of To Dos.
We went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, hereinafter referred to as HPOP. I have heard good and bad things about the movie but held judgment until I'd actually seen it. Despite putting in my contact and arriving at the movieplex without it, I still managed to see well enough sitting down front to enjoy the movie, despite my date snoozing through a small part of it. Nothing against the movie; he's just the kind of person who usually snoozes through a part of every movie since he's forced to sit still for more than five minutes. (more on that later) I was disappointed not to see more of Kreacher since he is an integral part of the story and continues to be in later books, but overall the movie was very good. It's hard to boil down an 870-page book into a two-hour movie, but I do feel the director and writers got the basics of the book very right. The characters, as always, were well played by a formidable cast, among them, Imelda Staunton and Helena Bonham Carter as Dolores Umbridge, the voice of the ministry for all things medieval and "all's right with the world", and Bellatrix Lestrange, the deranged Death Eater who has been locked up in Azkaban these past fourteen years. Watching such amazing talent living those parts makes the movie a must-see.
Yes, there are lots of things missing, among them the fascinating Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black, but for someone who hasn't read the book since it was originally released or knows the story only through the movies the loss is small. I would have loved a longer movie, even with the country gentleman's snoozing through it (he's quiet about it), but I was definitely satisfied with what I saw and want it for my collection. It's a A- movie that could only have been better. I'm looking forward to more of the same.
My date took me to dinner afterward and then back home and I had a lovely time. Unfortunately, I had to cancel our plans yesterday in favor of work, but we rescheduled and that gives me the certainty we'll be seeing much more of each other, which is a good thing.
Another definite hit on the radar is Californication with David Duchovny that Peter Pan of the airwaves who just keeps getting more and more gorgeous. This time he is a blocked writer who begins to blog for his arch nemesis, the man who is living with his ex-pseudowife and plans to marry her. Hank's one saving grace, outside of his love of all women, literally and figuratively, is that he doesn't lie -- ever. He is, as his ex so aptly puts it, a walking id. Whatever's on his mind is what's passing through his lips, not a bad thing at all, but it does land Hank in some trouble here and there and mostly everywhere.
The part is a huge departure from Duchovny's X-Files persona, Fox Mulder, but much closer to the real Duchovny: womanizer (before Tea Leone) and wild man about town. The show is also a big hit as far as I can see as long as they maintain the current values and writing and another one of those guilty pleasures that will soon make its way onto DVD in the very near future as more episodes become available and are downloaded to my hard drive, which brings me to another reason I have been so scarce of late: burning my own DVDs.
I have been burning all the episodes of shows I like and have downloaded onto DVD for myself and Beanie. For Beanie, I've been burning the third season of LOST, and creating art work for the cases and the DVDs so they look good enough to eat -- or at least marvel at before being shoved into the player to watch. They look lovely and professional on the shelf and I've been told the contents are high quality, too. Once I get all the shows on DVD I will have more time and will only have to do maintenance burns every few weeks, but I have a very big backlog and that takes time when anywhere from 3-7 hours is needed to burn a quality DVD properly and that means not being on the laptop because nothing else should be running in the background to maintain maximum quality. More RAM would help and I have my eye on 2GB for the laptop and maybe getting a switch so I can run the desktop along with the work computer with the flick of a switch. So much to do and so little time to do it all, especially with the country gentleman taking me places and ensuring that I stay in the mainstream of life.
What can I say but oh, yeah?
That is all. Disperse.
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