Director Robert Altman died yesterday. I can't say I'm sad, exactly, because I've never been fond of him as a person. But he did contribute a great deal to the formative early days of Combat!, and for that I am grateful. And I guess since Vic Morrow was generous enough to attribute some of his skill at directing to things he learned from Altman, I'll follow his lead and not say anything mean about Altman here.

Ohmygiddyaunt! My little brother Johnnycake has been accepted to Harvard Law School! Is that the ultimate shinyness or what? I'm so proud of him!

And what a great excuse to go on vacation to Bawstun next year, eh? "I've never been to Boston in the fall...."

"Thank the Lord and sing His praise -- tell everyone what He has done!"

My keys and coat were returned to me this morning! What an answer to a weekful of prayer!

See, last week I for no real good reason hung our coats on the rack at the back of church after the service. Larry had a council meeting, and I didn't feel like hanging on to the coats for the extra hour or so we'd be at church, so I hung them there. I've never hung them up before (and I think now I never will again). When we were ready to leave, my coat was gone! And my keys were in the pocket! So we alerted Pastor and he said he'd call us if anyone reported that they'd accidentally taken the wrong coat home... but no one ever contacted him. Or us. If they found the keys in the pocket, they would've known my name because I have one of my Recon dogtags on my keychain and it has my real name on it as well as my call sign, and there are only three people in the phone book with our last name, two of which are me and Cowboy and one of which is Noumenon.

But no one ever called us, and I asked our Pastor's Wife at choir practice on Wednesday night if they'd heard anything, and they hadn't so far.

So we spent a week praying that they'd just be returned this morning, that someone had accidentally taken the wrong coat home and didn't realize there were keys in the pocket, so just figured they'd return it the next week. And it seems that's what happened, because when we got to church this morning, there was my coat, keys in the pocket still :-D Hallelujah!

This article about being a Johnny Depp fan is really funny just because it's true. When you get to the paragraph that begins: "It appears that Johnny Depp is so talented in our eyes that his fame stays untarnished, no matter how many celebrity clichés he falls into," well, that's where my giggles and nods of agreement turned into full-blown "right on!" laughing. It's just so dreadfully true!

"The Prestige" (2006) -- Initial Thoughts

Just got back from The Prestige. It left me... disquieted. It was well-acted, nicely filmed, and entertaining, but I'm left with a very odd energy running through me. Which is why I'm blogging and doing email right now instead of hopping straight into doing my Nano stint for the evening. I don't think I could focus on it, and if I tried, Pike would probably get all twisted or something. And I don't want to risk that.

The Prestige hinges on so many secrets (a few of which I guessed, a few of which I didn't), that I don't want to say much about it here. And I wanted a teensy bit more from the ending, just like another 30 seconds or something. If you're a devotee of Hugh Jackman or Christian Bale, you'll probably enjoy it (I am, on both counts, and I did, except for this fidgety aftersense). Don't expect it to be brilliant, just expect it to be entertaining.

Oh, and that was David Bowie? As Tesla? Really? Weird. Totally didn't recognize him. Andy Serkis had a nice smaller role, though. Yay Andy!

(How odd is this: the word verification word that I have to type in to post this is the usual sort of nonsense word... except that it begins with the word 'trap'. How freakily apropos.)

"Flicka" (2006) -- Initial Thoughts

Cowboy took me to see Flicka tonight. By accident. He thought he heard someone talking about it and saying it was really funny and involved rabbits... but I think they were talking about some other movie.

Anyway, Flicka is awesome! Totally in love with it! Probably my third-favorite horse movie now (after The Man from Snowy River and The Rogue Stallion). In fact, if I see it a few more times I might even start to like it more than TRS. Seriously, a good horse movie. In fact, just a plain good movie. Lots of family conflict, but without someone being evil. The dad doesn't understand his kids, but it's not 'cause he's bad or mean, just 'cause he's stubborn. It reminded me of the many times I went head-to-head with my own parents. I'm hideously stubborn, after all ;-)

As I believe John Ford once said, although I can't find the exact wording at the moment, there's no more beautiful image you can put on film than a running horse. And Flicka is full of horses. Lots of sweeping shots with nothing but horses and amazing Wyoming countryside. I want to move there right now, buy a ranch, and spend the rest of my life sweaty and dirty and smelling like horses.

Oh, and if they should suddenly decide to make a movie about my life right about now, Alison Lohman can play me. Totally. Can you believe she's actually a year older than I am though? Weird!

Ooooh, Pierre Jalbert just sent us a group letter thanking us for the fanzine! Here's what it said:

"Thank you very much for sending me your litarary production from so many dedicated fans. It is indeed astonishing that after 40 years it still captivates so many people.

"Now that I'm retired, I'll enjoy reading them. Kindly convey my thanks to the authors.

sincerely,
Pierre Jalbert
"Caje" "

Big grin here :-D

Oh yeah, I started my NaNoWriMo novel tonight. Got in 2,169 words, so yay me! I need at least 1,667 every day to hit 50,000 by the end of the month, so I'm well on my way :-)