Roar of the Rings

OMG I can hardly believe this: the Brad Jacobs rink are Olympians now. They won.

Gatsby liveblog

Hunh, I've never seen a movie with DiCaprio before. Wonder if he'll be any good?
I'm bored already. These credits are boring.
Oh, yep, green light. Check.
What - a sanitarium? Nick's a morbid alcoholic? Ooookay.
The therapist doesn't need to be told what 1922's like. That was clunky, Baz.
Is this party scene an actual cut from Moulin Rouge? This guy - Tobey McGuire? - has an annoying voice. Pity he's doing voiceover.
I wish they'd gotten Judd Hirsch to be the therapist. (Wait, is Hirsch still alive?)
Oooh, like the curtain shot. Oh, now it's annoying. So's Jordan.
Carey Mulligan's charming, at any rate. And I like the actor who plays Tom, though I dislike Tom as a character, as I'm meant to.
This is a very early introduction of Tom's mistress, isn't it? Oh, to make Daisy more sympathetic, I guess.
The green light flashing after Daisy's "little fool" story made me laugh out loud!
Can I get through this?
Oh, God, Gatsby's literally reaching for the green light. Or Daisy. Sigh.
Valley of Ashes? The eyes brooding, I remember, but not the ashes.
Oh, Myrtle's husband is so nice! And the phrase "let's misbehave" ending the scene is so clunky!
Maybe I could fast-forward to Carey Mulligan scenes.
Oh, God, a bunch of extras from Moulin Rouge just jumped in.
Love the lingerie here (Nick's second-time-ever getting drunk), but I pretty much hate sleeveless undershirts on men. It never looks good to me.
Oh, no, another party scene. At some point - and by "some point", I mean half an hour in - I'm tired of them.
Yeah, I'd be in the library at the party, too.
This makes no sense, but that might be a flaw in the book. The party is so big that if Daisy ever did come, how would she ever find Gatsby?
Ah, Gatsby at last. "Rhapsody in Blue" has the unfortunate effect of reminding me of United Airlines. Was "Rhapsody in Blue" composed yet? Well, Nick's just lying around drunk; I have time to find out.
"Rhapsody in Blue" is 1924.
"Little Montenegro, jewel of the Adriatic Sea" - that line was missing, sadly.
Oooh, speakeasy in a barber! I like those little windows.
I'm glad not everyone in the cast isn't Caucasian, but it's feeling a bit heavy-handed. Well, a lot of it is. I'd say DiCaprio and Mulligan - and perhaps McGuire - are rising above the material.
Ow, ow, ow, all the things that one has to guess at in the book are hammered home aloud here.
Here's how you can tell I never watch movies: isn't Tobey McGuire a superhero, maybe Spiderman? I just can't imagine.
DiCaprio's looking a bit old to play Gatsby, isn't he?
Oh, Lord, I thought this would get better after Daisy and Gatsby met again.
Oooh, I like the woodwork in Nick's house.
How are they having this tour in an hour?
"Five lost years trembled on Daisy's lips, but all she could manage was 'I've never seen such beautiful shirts before'" - see, I always think that line was because she was shallow. YMMV, I guess.
Gatsby gets an ominous phone call, and wind blows in, and the organ starts, and - sigh.
For letters that were received in the trenches, they're remarkably free of dirt and smudges.
I did an hour; I'm done.

if a tree falls in the woods...

My insistence on privacy has had a weird side effect: recently, I logged into Facebook, expecting to see the annual array of birthday greetings. I found none. None at all, except a private message from a relative. Apparently, my insistence on privacy on Facebook made my birthday hidden - which is a good thing, except on my birthday itself.
I appreciated the greeting from my relative, and enjoyed all the face-to-face birthday celebrating. Overall, I feel loved and am happy about my birthday. But still, part of me got so used to the dozen or two "Happy birthday!" greetings from people I hadn't seen much (if at all) for the last two decades that it felt less like a birthday! Weird.

belated, and posthumous, birthday wishes

Dear Kibbee,
Yesterday would have been your birthday. Celebrating it a day late wasn't actually uncommon; we're bad at remembering your birthday (and we haven't even come up with a birthday for the newest cat yet!). I miss you. I miss your smallth and brownth, and your way of finding a lap where there isn't one. Weirdly, one of the laddies did that a few weeks ago, and while it was sweet, it was sad because it reminded me of you. I haven't let myself think about you much in the last few weeks; now that I am, I'm weepy. You would have left by now, I fear, were I typing this with you here.
My side is usually unoccupied at night, and it's usual for my lap to be empty. It's not that the other cats aren't occasionally social, but they're not as persistent as you.
I could go on at some length, I suspect, but all of it would come back to the same point: I miss you. I wish you were both well and here, mildly indignant that we'd missed your 18th birthday yesterday. I would have given you tummy pats.

Not smug, but right

This won't make sense, sorry! Just had to get it out of my system. I just responded to some passive aggression from a friend by responding in kind. I suspect she'll think I was unaware that she was being passively aggressive, but she won't be sure. I'm not sure which idea I like better: that she was aware of my passive aggression in kind, which makes everything fair, or that she wasn't aware of it, and thought she got one over on me. But here's the thing: she didn't. She'll never understand that in this case, lately, I've been burning the city in order to save it. Or something like that.
I'm mildly curious about whether, in a month or two, this post will make sense to me; I'd be surprised if it makes sense to anyone but me (except probably the SO) even now.

Dear Lilibet - anyone else probably should skip this

Oh, my Kibbee. I miss you. It's bothering me that now both your brothers have decided to adopt your dad, and I'm alone. But that wasn't what I logged on to write.
The batting me - "hello, I would like petting" - drove me crazy at the time, but it was prissy and very you, so I miss it. Phibba Girlie Brown, a cobbler with warmth and flavor, brownth and warmth and smallth. Bunny feet, like a jackrabbit, and a strippit tawny tummy, and very small paws. Tete petite, et nez minuscule. Little, Brown, and Company. It's weird not to have leaflets three anymore. Weirder still, and sadder, to think I'll never give you tummy pets again. Weird ways of liking asparagus, and baked bean sauce, and pine needles. And broom straws, and (when possible) wheat weavings.
The stealth way of sneaking onto a lap and being there for a while before I even noticed, and your tenacity about staying. The obliging way you had of waiting until it was absolutely necessary to jump off me when I rolled over at night, and then waiting until I settled again, so you could jump right back on and continue sleeping on my side. Waiting in the mornings for me to be awake enough to pet you properly, and usually being in the bathroom waiting for first markies after I showered.
And that first night, when I had you sleep on my red sleeping bag because I worried you'd pee on my bed, and I had you sleep up by my head so I didn't roll over onto you. You were very good about staying there. All those times we put post-its on your tail, just so you'd run around and get them off. That last night, when you stayed on the bed almost all night and let us pet you.
I'm hoping this will be cathartic for me (if tedious for anyone else to read). You would have hated how weepy I am. But really, I want this to be an aid to memory; I don't want to forget any of the things I loved most about you. You were small and brown and perfect. You were Phiboku, and you had a brown nose, and a tail like a lemur's. You were a preferred pet.

Heartbreaking confusion

We put the girl-cat to sleep today, and now the boy-cat - who lived with her for well over 15 years - is wandering around trying to find her. I keep trying to explain, or just to comfort him, and it's not working. He's not howling or anything like that, just bewildered and, I think, convinced he'll find her if he just keeps looking. Damned if it isn't making me cry.

damning with faint praise

I was listening to a Nightwatchman CD and trying to find songs I like - I really enjoy Tom Morello's voice, but he's got some lyrics that sound as though Trent and Jesse wrote them, y'know? Anyway, I was listening to one song and I thought, "wow, this isn't bad - it's reminiscent of Paul Gross, just maybe not quite as good". That might have been the moment when I realized I wasn't listening to very good music.

Manu! Manu!

The Spurs are my favorite NBA team, and Ginobili my favorite Spurs player, so you can imagine my delight when he proved that he deserved to start tonight's game by winding up with a double-double. If he retires after this season, this is a great way to play the last home game. And if not, I'll look forward to more Ginobili next season - and for the rest of these finals, of course.

Silver or gold

The men of Northern Ontario - well, for these purposes, let's say Canada - just made me tear up a bit: they're playing in the gold medal match tomorrow at the curling world championships. Regardless of tomorrow's result, they should be proud of a good week in Victoria.

Ride forever

Last night I was driving home on a quiet road that wasn't in the middle of nowhere, though it seemed that way. I was listening, for the first time ever on the ipod, to Paul Gross singing "Ride Forever". Which, yeah, isn't the world's best song, but it gets across the feeling of wide Alberta skies and seemingly limitless spaces to ride a horse.
So. Driving on a stretch that seemed more rural than urban, a song about riding forever - and in front of me, no more than a mile or two away, someone set off a huge firework that made a lovely wide circle in the sky. It was just a really nice moment.

incoherent curling squeeeeeeee!

OMG OMG OMG Northern Ontario won the Brier! And will go to Worlds! OMG OMG OMG! And they'll get funding for training, so maybe they'll be even better - or as good; I mean, they won the freaking Brier - in the future. Squeeeeeee!

most likely Brier scenario

I have to share with someone, aside from the SO: with one draw left, it's looking fairly likely that Northern Ontario will make the finals at the Brier. If they don't, it's possible that Quebec would. As Newfoundland-Labrador is already assured a place in the finals, this is delightful. Fingers crossed that either NL or NO (or QC, if it comes to that) can win it all, though with Ontario sitting 10-0 I wouldn't hold my breath. Still, though: exciting to imagine the possibilities!

Northern Ontario!

Right this second, the scoreboard at the Brier has the improbable: Northern Ontario in first, Newfoundland and Labrador in second, both with 4-0 records. Of course, since they're playing each other right now, that will change. But still: I'm going to enjoy the next hour or so of amazing scoreboard.
(And yes, I know Ontario is listed third, also with a perfect 4-0 record, but I'm just going to enjoy those top two, okay? Ontario or Manitoba or Alberta always wins, it seems).

the stoic squirrel

I've been weirdly obsessed with Alanis Morissette's song "Uninvited" in the last few days. I'd almost forgotten about it - I think I'd had it on a cassette in the 1990s, but then I switched to CDs and my ipod and it was lost in the shuffle (no pun intended). Anyway, in my recent obsession, I even downloaded a cover of it.
In both the cover (by Westworld) and in Morissette's original, it sounds as though they say it "must be strangely exciting to watch the stoic squirrel". From context, I'm pretty sure the line is "...the stoic squirm", but "the stoic squirrel" always amuses me.