Happy New Year, 2012
This entry was posted on 1/5/2012 1:04 PM and is filed under blather, Movies, Books.
Thanks to those wacky Mayans, 2012 has as ominous a reputation as 1984 did. I remember Johnny Carson had giant eyes put into his backdrop in reference to Big Brother. They were so unpopular they didn't last long.
Just like Big Brother didn't quite show up in 1984, but modern day London is working hard on making it a reality, the world isn't going to end this year, just because a bunch of Mayans got tired of extrapolating out their calendar.
And if I'm wrong, well; Good job, Mayans!
We rang in the new year the way we always do; at home, sound asleep.
Steve and Pam came over for dinner early in the evening. We had owed them a steak dinner since Christmas 2010 so it was about time we all had the same night free.
Jay cooked a sirloin tip roast and served it with all kinds of veggies. It was spectacular.
We watched some sort of sporting event, I paid no attention to that. Pam and I talked movies and books. We both have new Kindles and are excited about the technology.
It poured rain all evening and at nine the rain turned to snow. That's really the worst of all possible weather; snow over ice. So Pam and Steve hit the road early and although I stayed up till midnight, Jay went to bed as soon as the year turned on the east coast.
2011 was a good year for us. We had a lot of fun and I for one, did several big new things; I went to NYC for the first time. I learned to shoot guns. I went hunting.
2012 is going to be even better; I'm going to be a grandmother. That's fairly huge.
Yesterday, Carolyn came over and she, Josie and I watched the Lord of the Rings from beginning to end. Mostly extended editions. I say 'mostly' because when I opened up my copy of Fellowship, I discovered to my horror that the second disc of the movie was missing. This is troubling for obvious reasons but also because I swear I checked to make sure all the discs were there when the last person who borrowed them brought them back.
Also, Target doesn't carry the extended edition anymore and neither does Best Buy. I made them check their inventory.
So, we watched the first half of Fellowship with extended scenes but had to watch the second half on a theatrical release version.
No biggie but that's not the point, is it?
I like lending my dvds to people. I like spreading the joy. I can't do it anymore if folks wreck them.
Zack and Katie came over and joined us for awhile in the afternoon. Zack had to work so they couldn't stay too long. They watched a few hours and left before the battle of Helm's deep.
Both Carolyn and Josie fell asleep during parts of the movie. Who could blame them? The room was dark, the sofa comfy and the fire warm. They only slept through some of the down times. They woke up in time for all the cool battles.
Our tv room dvd is a boze sound system. Great sound, not so great dvd player. It's very temperamental. It won't play a dvd if it has even a microscopic blemish and once it declares that it can't read a disc, it won't. All my other dvd players will play the disc but the boze just says "No. Go read a book, you lazy brutes. You've been watching for ten straight hours, are you in traction, or what?"
So we had to finish The Return of the King on the porch. It's not as warm but the couch is very comfortable. The screen's not as big but the picture is even better. And the dvd player works all the time.
We finished shortly after nine. A little over twelve hours. That's not so bad. In fact, I loved every minute of it. The girls humored me, and I appreciate that.
Carolyn did say she wants to read the books now. She should. Parts of the movie are way cooler than the book, there are parts that I'm glad were left out (Tom Bombadil, anyone? Anyone?) but there are also really cool parts in the book that are ignored by the movie; The Scouring of the Shire, for instance. Plus, everything makes more sense in the book, ie; who wore the Three rings? Why were their futures also bound to the One? Where were the elves going and what was the feud between the elves and dwarves about?
I know.
I'm such a geek.
"Six baby horses! Who cares? I love myself."
