Last night, Fuzzy and I went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

First things first – the movie experience:
The line was the longest I’ve ever seen at the Century theaters. Down one row of cars, around and all the way up the next, and then part-way around the theater building as well. But thankfully it was the 10:15 show, so there weren’t that many children there.

The crowd, was pretty cool, really. A sold out show, of course, and no fistfights over seats this time. (We opted for the top wings, where the angle of the seats and the curvature of the screen let you feel almost like dead-center, without fifty people climbing over you to get to their seats. Two beach balls were in circulation as we waited for the previews to roll. The energy was good.

The previews:
A Series of Unfortunate Events: Jim Carrey plays about half the characters, and it looks suitably creepy. I’ve never actually read the Lemony Snicket books, but now I’ll have to.
A Cinderella Story: Not on our “must-see” list. I have a feeling we’ll end up watching this on DVD with our nieces, come Thanksgiving.

Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement: This will be a concession to my inner teenaged girl. I love the first movie, this one looks like it will be charming and funny as well.
The Polar Express: This is one of my favorite children’s books, and favorite Christmas tales, of all time. I’ve known about the film since last November, and even though I’m anti animation (in any form), I still want to see this.
Spider-Man 2: Yeah, it’s on our list for summer. Isn’t it on everyone’s list for summer?
Catwoman: Another on our summer movie list.

And the movie itself? That’s “below the fold.” If you’ve read the book, then plot spoilers won’t bother you; if you haven’t, read with caution. And if you’re a stickler for seeing movies with NO preconceptions, you might want to stop here, anyway, but know this: I LOVED IT.
Continue reading →

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Bravo. We Americans tend to use the masculine form, no matter the gender of the person we’re lauding, so much so, that when I see someone using brava I’m always confused for a fraction of a second. A small fraction, but, still…

Bravo, the cable channel, is becoming my new favorite place to hang out on television. First it got me addicted to The West Wing, and the Cirque de Soleil, then it added Queer Eye, and the quasi-improvised relationship show, the name of which is escaping me just now.

Basking, is what I can’t wait to do this weekend: in the sun, in the pool, in the coolness of the now-air conditioned bedroom…really I’m not vegetating when I do this, because my mind is always working. The brain is cool that way.

Blogging. I don’t really think of this as a blog as much as it is a journal, because I don’t generally update more than once or twice a day. And I’m not just posting links. But a ship’s log is more than just notes about the weather, and therefore I use the term anyway.

Books. I’m back in a reading mood, and it’s sparked a new idea for how I want to log my reading (and blog my reading) from now on. I’m planning a new version of Zenitopia, and will unveil it later this weekend, I think.

Business is slow. The guys are asking me to cut my assistant’s hours (but we’ve already cut his number of days), and my fingers are crossed that he’ll do well at his interview because he’s my friend, and I’d rather have a happy, well-paid, friend than an unhappy assistant who is bored and cranky because right now we’re not busy enough.

And yet, on the horizon, business is starting to improve as we point our company in a new direction.

Change is good.

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A is for the ache in my throat and lungs when I woke up this morning, chilled, even though Fuzzy was fever-hot, and wrapped around me. It’s so rare that he’s sick enough to stay home…

Craving fruit, I went exploring in the fridge and found apples, which made me think of the episodes in The West Wing that mention apples and peanut butter as an official snack. I remember having that combination in pre-school, actually.

I also remember having fun with AlphaBits cereal in pre-school, and having a teacher who made us spell polysyllabic words with the sugar-coated letters, before we were allowed to eat them. Then again, I also used to try to find words in the letters of alphabet soup. Ahh, childhood. Funny macaroni and a bit of tomato base, and you were both fed and entertained.

We are now the proud owners of two window air-conditioners. The first has been set up in the bedroom window, the other will go into Fuzzy’s computer room, and between that and the fans we should be comfortable this summer.

We thought about putting in a/c, but neither of is in the mood for contractors to be here banging away inside the ductless walls and floors, or for the expense, just now.

And anyway, it really doesn’t get that hot for that long here. It’s just that the bedroom – our bedroom – only has windows on one side because it was an addition, and there’s no cross-ventilation, so it gets very very stuffy in the summer.

The window fan has helped a lot, but the a/c should allow me to have blissful summer sleep, this year.

Yay.
Coolness.

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Browsing through my blogroll yesterday, I found that someone mentioned a meme called AlphaBytes, in which participants write a series of 26 posts during the month of June, one for each letter of the alphabet. Now, I’m a meme-slut as much as I am a domain-slut, so of course I HAD to do it. Anyone who wants to participate is welcome to. The only other request from the folks who created it is that each AlphaByte post contains a link to their site.

Not only is the reduced-fat orange loaf from Starbucks really fluffy and moist, and tasty, it apparently has real orange chunks in it, as well.

(I wonder if it technically counts as fruit…)

I say… And you think…

1. Lover::Mine
2. Ridiculous::Absurd
3. Oscar::Wilde
4. Tennis::Anyone?
5. Account Balance::Debit
6. Hickey::Mouse
7. License:: to Kill
8. Breathmints::Altoids
9. TexMex::Chilli
10. Stepmother:: Evil

Like this meme? Play along here.

I set the skin aside for the rest of the weekend, came back to it today, and followed one of Sarah’s tips, and stuck the position stuff in the css rather than the hmtl, and, after some cursing, first at the graphics, and later at myself when I realized the problem was my typo of parentheses instead of curly braces, we have liftoff. Yes, this is my new summer cafe skin.

(And the change in art should not at ALL imply that I don’t love the various blogware that Sarah’s created for me, I just…get bored all too often.)

I managed to create my very own blog skin for MT, and you can go look at it by clicking here, but when I copy and paste it into THIS blog, it utterly fails to work, which I don’t understand at ALL because it’s the SAME installation of MT.

Oy.

So, yeah, an evening completely wasted.

Today, we took Zorro and Cleo to the park, and let them run around a bit. Cleo is woefully out of shape, and still has issues being away from me (if we’re all out together, Cleo has to be where I am), and Zorro gets tangled in leashes a lot, because he has absolutely no sense of his own space.

Still, nothing is cuter than a happy dog, racing across an expanse of grass in the afternoon sun, and then jumping up and down with excitement when they are told they’re GOOD.

Of course, we forgot to bring them water. Or rather, we brought water, but not anything to serve it in, so we didn’t stay long, because they got parched really quickly.

And now, lazy beasties that they are, they’re flopped, Cleo in my denim chair, Zorro on a towel underneath the chair, both snoring happily and dreaming little dog dreams.