Eminem Fonts?

Someone came here today looking for Eminem fonts. I guess that's not quite as racy as Eminem slash...

I remembered something else we have planned for the weekend. Movies! We have three movies checked out from Netflix at the moment: Rob Roy, Like It Is, and A Walk in the Clouds. And Marty got a few movies for his birthday last week, too: classic Planet of the Apes, new Planet of the Apes, and classic Grinch (I told him if he wants the new Grinch he'll have to buy it himself). So I expect we'll try to make a dent in that list over the next few evenings.

And something else I am thinking about... Indian food. I think we may be due for another trip to Tandoor. Or maybe we'll actually try Darbar India in Branford. (I keep saying we're going to go there, but we never do.) I hear they have a weekend buffet... mmmmm.

Friday Update

Have you been to dollarshort.org? This is one of my favorite weblogs. I don't know why I haven't linked to it before. Mena is a funny, talented writer and a creative designer. I think I discovered this weblog during the Blogathon back in the summertime. Check out her great pictures from her recent visit to the Pacific Northwest.

Weekend. I can't say how glad I am. I have a few plans this weekend -- tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut at long last (it's way overdue) and Sunday I'm meeting Clarissa for lunch. I also plan to sleep, work on the xmas shopping, and maybe unpack a few boxes from the attic, if I can think of somewhere to put all that stuff. I think we are going to have to break down and buy a cabinet or something to put these things in. I don't know how much longer I can go without access to my waffle iron. Waffle irons, I should say.

So, everybody sing along with *NSYNC now: "Oh yes it's Friday night, and I just (just just just just) got paid..." Yeah, I know it's hard to swing that five-part harmony all alone, but do your best.

Suburban Decay

As promised, here are my pictures of the Ghost Parking Lot. I took them a couple of weeks ago in the parking lot at Hamden Plaza, which is a garden variety suburban shopping center located in Hamden, Connecticut. Well, garden variety with one small exception.

In the late 1970s, Hamden Plaza became the home of several public art installations. They are located throughout the shopping center parking lot and sidewalks, and many are run down or just plain incomprehensible to contemporary eyes. Still, some of them are interesting. One of my personal favorites is "Pacer Pelts," which features two metal bodies from child-size racecars set into the side of the Marshall's storefront.

But none of the art is as large -- or visible -- as the Ghost Parking Lot. Right up along Dixwell Avenue, at the front of the plaza parking lot, you'll see a bunch of cars from the 1960s and 1970s buried under asphalt. Why? Well, it's art. Pretty creepy art, made even creepier by all the weeds and broken asphalt and rusty car parts poking out.

I was surprised to find that there are quite a few sites on the Internet with information about the parking lot, so check them out if you have the inclination:

• Roadside America has a great review of the Ghost Parking Lot with lots of information about its history.
  
• SITE Environmental Design is the original designer of the Ghost Parking Lot -- check out their picture from when it was new.
  
• Preservation News has placed the GPL on its list of "The Most Important Threatened Historic Places for 2001." Scroll down to see what they have to say about the lot.
  
• And here are some scary pictures of the lot. Scarier than mine.

There used to be more cars in the Ghost Parking Lot, but they took a row out earlier this year to expand the parking lot at Chili's. I wonder how long it'll be before the rest of them are removed.

Early Bird

I woke up before 5:00 this morning. Ziggy didn't even have anything to do with it. Huh. It was nice to have a little time to check up on some of the online journals I read, though. I haven't been able to keep up lately.

These last few days I've been unusually emotional. Things I would normally take in stride are feeling very difficult, and the strain is wearing on me. I wish I could just hide away until I stop feeling like this. It shouldn't take long -- I'm sure this is temporary -- but unfortunately I don't have the luxury of withdrawing from circulation.

But feeling like this reminds me that I am grateful for the people who make my life easier when things get difficult. I hope that I am as helpful to them when they're not feeling good.

Out of Bed

I like to go to bed when Marty does, but I usually can't get to sleep as early as him. (I don't get up as early as him in the morning, either.) So tonight I went to bed and got back up.

I received a jury duty summons in the mail on Saturday. This is the first time I have ever been called for jury duty, despite the fact that I've been voting since I was 18. No, wait, maybe I did get a summons once, years ago, when I was about to leave the country, so it was waived. But this time I'll have to show up. The date is in mid-January.

We watched Shrek tonight. It was funny. Kind of not what I expected, but in a good way. How's that for a succinct (yet unrevealing) review? I thought Princess Fiona was prettier as an ogre than as a human.

That reminds me. Back in the summer, Marty and I were at Burger King one day. They were having a big Shrek promotion, and so along with their Frozen Coke they had a green frozen drink. I don't like a lot of green candy or drinks because I'm not too fond of lime syrup. So I was asking Marty what flavor he thought the green freeze was, and he said, "Shrek flavor, of course!" He cracked me up.

There are other things to write about, but I can't seem to remember what they are at the moment.

Back to Work

Where did the weekend go?

Breakfast today: coddled eggs, grits, sausage, and leftover maple pumpkin rolls. Perfect for going back to work (Marty and me) or getting on the road for a long drive (Anna and Gene).

Lillian Vernon Online appears to have greatly improved its online shopping interface. It's still not perfect, but it's much more functional than it was a year or so ago. I'm still not sure my order went through properly. I'll keep you posted.

And now it's time for me to get ready for work.

It's about Iowa

Continuing the festive birthday holiday fun, today we went to New York to see The Music Man. You can read about the trip in my latest journal entry.

I am thoroughly enjoying the four-day weekend. We have had great food, excellent company, fun activities -- and we've also gotten a lot of work done around the house. What more could I ask for?

Happy Birthday

Today was my sweetie's 33rd birthday. Here he is right after dinner, before we had birthday cake.

Marty had a good birthday. He had the fun of putting together this birdhouse that his dad sent, and he got some other nice presents too. A Billy Joel CD, some historic airplane xmas ornaments, a few DVDs, and a very bright work light for projects in our very dark house.

For dinner we had leftover turkey baked into enchiladas -- Marty's mom's recipe -- and they were great. I love this recipe for leftover turkey. Then it was time for ice cream and cake. I had made a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, with chopped pecans pressed on the sides. Then I put little pink and white hearts on top (since I couldn't locate any birthday candles in the house) and it was very festive.

Tomorrow we are going with Marty's mom and stepfather into New York to see The Music Man on Broadway. I can't wait. It's one of my favorite musicals, and Robert Sean Leonard is playing the lead role of Harold Hill at the moment. He's an actor I like very much, so it will be pretty cool to see him perform in person.

Happy Thanksgiving

This has been a happy thanksgiving around these parts. Marty's mom and stepfather are here, and we had a fun day together. The food all turned out just right and I was very organized -- we were eating by 2:30 this afternoon. In all the years I've cooked Thanksgiving dinner, I think that's the earliest I've ever managed to get everything ready. Not that I think it's better to eat earlier, necessarily. It just worked out really well today.

Check out the picture up above. This is a platter that my mother-in-law, Anna, painted for us. I am so proud of it! The green goes perfectly in our dining room, and the peaches and plums are so pretty. I think this may be my favorite of all the things I have that she's painted, but it is very hard to choose among so many beautiful pieces. Today we served the turkey on this platter.

After dinner we unpacked 18 boxes from our attic. The house proper has been free of boxes for awhile -- a year or so -- but the attic still has lots of stuff that we need to go through and organize and put away. We've had my mom's china cabinet for over a year now, but we had never unpacked the china and crystal and everything. So this afternoon we brought the boxes down -- not all 18 boxes had china and crystal, I should say -- and unpacked them in the dining room. Anna washed all the dishes and glasses while Marty and Gene dried them and I kept unpacking more boxes. After everything was clean, Anna put the crystal in the china cabinet and we figured out where we want to put the rest of the stuff. Tomorrow we will reorganize some of the storage areas and see if we can get everything put away.

So we had a productive day. And Ziggy was very happy that there were 18 boxes of paper after we finished unpacking all that stuff. See?

Prep Plans

Tonight after work I cooked a skillet of cornbread for the dressing tomorrow. I also tidied up the dining room and washed up all the dishes. Here's what I have planned for tomorrow, starting first thing in the morning:

• make pie
  
• make cranberry sauce (and chill)
  
• start rolls (these take several hours)
  
• prep turkey and cook
  
• mix up dressing
  
• make salad and vinaigrette
  
• cook potatoes
  
• prepare green beans
  
• make gravy
  
• eat!

Ow.

Headache tonight. But at least I don't have a concussion. I guess I should feel lucky.

Four years ago on the day before Thanksgiving, Katynka and I went out to dinner at Mario and Luigi's, my favorite restaurant in State College, PA. We figured it would be a good night to go out in a college town -- nobody would be around, with all the students gone home and everyone left in town visiting with their families. So we walked down there after work for an Italian feast. I wanted to have the M&L vodka sauce one last time before I moved to Connecticut a couple of weeks later.

Sure enough, the restaurant was practically deserted. The only problem was, they were out of some things that I wanted to order that night. Not exotic things, like squid ink pasta or anything, but basic stuff that they always have, like gorgonzola cheese for the salad, and macadamia nut torte for dessert. The gorgonzola was the worst part. I was astounded. How could they be out of gorgonzola? I think Katynka was afraid I was going to have to be forcibly removed from the restaurant.

And now it's part of Thanksgiving lore, the Gorgonzola Trauma. Like I said to Katynka earlier today, I hope I don't have flashbacks tomorrow. Some kind of post-traumatic gorgonzola stress disorder.

Anyway, tonight I was in the grocery store picking up a few last-minute items for Thanksgiving, mainly stuff for the salad, and decided I should get some cheese for it. I looked all over the fancy cheese section and could not find gorgonzola. Finally I did find a block of it (not crumbled) and bought that. But I thought it was funny that the tradition continued.

Maybe tomorrow I will tell you about the stress caused by gravy...

Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

I am really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. It's going to be nice to have dinner with our family in the dining room we painted this spring. Last year was fun -- Dixie and I went to the Macy's parade in New York and had Thanksgiving dinner at a diner -- but it's going to be neat to do the traditional things again this year.

I am thankful for so many things this year. My family. My friends, both old and new. The fact that Marty and I both have jobs. My health. Music. And so many other things.

It is rainy, gray, and cold here today. The kind of day you expect from Connecticut in November, but the kind of day we haven't seen too many of yet this year. It's quite a rude awakening. Brrrrrr.

Movie Report

Marty and I enjoyed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone last night. I've read all the HP books and he hasn't read any of them, but he seemed to like the movie just fine. The thing I liked the most about it, I think, was that the sets were almost exactly as I had imagined when I read the books. The Gryffindor common room, in particular, was like seeing something right out of my own head (except, of course, it wasn't -- it was right out of someone else's).

Saying that I liked the sets the best doesn't mean I didn't like other things about the movie. I enjoyed all the adult actors very much, especially Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman, and I thought the kids did great. I liked that the movie was so very faithful to the book's plot.

The one thing I didn't like very much was the music, but I've already written about that in my music log so I won't go into it here.

A couple of other things -- the theater was not very full for the 7:30 PM Sunday show, which surprised me a little considering all the hype and how difficult it was to get tickets around here on Friday. There were several families with kids, and some couples, but the theater was probably only 35% full.

A few rows ahead of us were two people dressed up like Harry and Hermione, with official Hogwarts robes and school uniforms and everything. They weren't kids, either, in case you were wondering. Definitely in their twenties. I hadn't realized that Harry Potter would become a dress-up fandom, but I suppose I shouldn't be completely surprised by it. (Stop shuddering, Katynka.)

Speaking of dress-up fandoms, we saw a trailer for the next Star Wars movie (along with about 15 other previews for other movies). What is it, Send in the Clones? (No, I know, Attack of the Clones.) It wasn't what I expected. I hope there are other trailers that feature action from the movie (or at least, that there is some action in the movie), because this one was all about Anakin and Amidala falling in luuuurrrrrve. To the point that they showed Fantasy-Islandesque scenes of them wandering along paths and lounging in meadows, with Amidala wearing increasingly more romantic gowns, talking about their relationship. Even the presence of Ewan McGregor's new Jedi facial hair couldn't make up for all that mushy stuff.

As you can probably tell, I was not too stoked about the preview, but I am going to try to suspend judgment until the movie comes out next May. Maybe this was a relationship-oriented trailer for the Harry Potter audience, and there's an action one out there somewhere that we'll catch when we go to see some other movie. I hope.

Judging from the rest of the previews, The Lord of the Rings still looks like it's going to kick every other movie's ass this year. I need to reread the first book before that comes out. And that Monsters, Inc. looks very cute. I think we may go see that soon.

Something to Smile About

It's been a great weekend... and it's not over yet! We have tickets to see Harry Potter at 7:30! Woo-hoo!

I spent today doing a little birthday present shopping for Marty... I won't mention what I got, although he hardly ever visits Raspberry World, but I did find exactly what I was looking for. So that was rewarding. I also started a little Christmas shopping, but there is still much to do. I need to take some time to organize the things I have already bought so I don't go getting duplicate gifts for people.

The weather was mild again today -- it's been just gorgeous during the days, although it gets very cold at night. While I was out I took some pictures of the Ghost Parking Lot. I'll try to post them soon. If you've never seen it, you won't believe it...

After the shopping I stopped by a friend's house to see her decorating and landscaping. It was beautiful! Wow! It's always so neat to see how people decorate, how their personalities are expressed in the decisions they make about their homes. Also, it's great to see people who are comfortable in the places they live.

Well, time to have a little dinner and get ready for the movie. Another good thing about this weekend: three day work week. That's something to smile about!

Sunny Sunday

I just added a killer salad to the recipe page: Amanda's Mandarin and Almond Salad. Amanda and Frank brought it over for dinner last night, and now I can't wait to make it myself. Try this one for Thanksgiving. I bet it's always a hit.

Marty got up at 3:30 AM to watch the Leonid meteor shower this morning. We met as he was coming back to bed and I was getting up (around 5:00). He said it was great! But he was very, very cold. And he's still asleep now.

We spent yesterday cleaning up the downstairs. Finally, finally. We've had power tools, boxes of tile, two-by-fours, copper pipe, utility buckets, and plumbing supplies all over the place down there for months. It's so much better. I can hardly even believe it's the same house. What a nice change.

It's great to get the downstairs presentable before our Thanksgiving guests arrive. There's still a lot to do upstairs before Thursday, but I feel so much better. Of course, things will start getting a little messy again in the next few weeks as we continue with work on the downstairs bathroom (still not finished) and the hallway wallpaper, but this is such an improvement.

The sun is up now and it's a bright day. Looks like winter out there, although thank goodness we haven't had any snow yet. The bluejays are going crazy this morning.

Turkey Tips

I've been thinking about all the Thanksgiving dinners I've cooked over the last ten years or so, and the lessons I've learned about cooking a turkey. I never had a big disaster, like leaving the plastic bag inside the turkey cavity while I cooked it, but I've certainly figured out some things over the years. Here are a few of them:

• First, don't buy a huge turkey. Many people believe the bigger the turkey, the better. In my experience, the big ones are tough, dry, and harder to cook properly. Even when I baste, the outside gets dried out before the inside is done. I have combated this in two ways -- first, by cooking a smaller turkey. (For me, never more than 13 lbs. If I can find one less than 10 lbs, I am ecstatic. This year my turkey is 12.67 lbs.) The second way to avoid a dried-out bird is simply by roasting the turkey upside down -- breast down in the pan. This keeps the white meat (which has a tendency to be dry) much moister than basting alone can, and the bird seems to cook more evenly. My recipe for this is here.
  
  
• That frozen turkey always takes a lot longer to defrost than you expect. They say to thaw it in the fridge for a couple of days or so. In my experience, it never, ever thaws in two days. I always end up thawing it in cold water on Thanksgiving morning. My advice is to either get a fresh turkey (not frozen), or put the turkey in the fridge this weekend to thaw. I bought a frozen one tonight and it's in my refrigerator right now. Not my freezer. I just hope it'll be thawed by Thursday.
  
  
• Be sure to get that bag of nasties out of the turkey's innards. If you've cooked a turkey before, you know what I'm talking about. Usually a turkey will have a little paper or plastic bag inside it with the giblets and livers and such. Whether you want to use those parts for something or not, it's important to get them OUT of the turkey before you cook it. Especially if the bag is plastic.
  
  
• The turkey doesn't have to come out of the oven fifteen minutes before you sit down to eat. In fact, it's a lot better if it comes out much earlier. Because for one thing, it's easier to cut after it's cooled for awhile. Also, if you're like me, you may not have a lot of space in your oven. Having that bird in there means I can't cook my rolls or side dishes until it's finished. And I would much rather have my cornbread dressing come to the table piping hot, than a hot turkey that's going to be impossible to carve well until it cools down. Instead, I cook the turkey earlier in the day, then tent aluminum foil over it as it cools. I carve it in the kitchen and serve the slices on a platter. If I do it way ahead of dinner, I'll refrigerate the sliced turkey before time to eat, then heat it up a little (on the platter) in a warm oven just before dinner.
  
  
• Maybe I should also mention that I am opposed to stuffing a turkey. But this isn't a lesson I've learned, it's just a prejudice I started out with. To me, stuffing (or dressing) is just plain nasty when it's been inside a turkey, and it's a lot more likely to be harboring dangerous bacteria as well. It's also harder to tell when the turkey is done when it's full of stuffing -- and by the time you get the middle of the stuffing done, the outside is most likely overdone.
  
  
• Finally, two last things. Use a meat thermometer rather than relying on the pop-up button on the bird. And don't use sage. Unless you want to, of course, and you know I'm not coming to dinner.

Well, there's probably more. But this is all I can think of right now.

Thanksgiving Menu

Well, it's about that time. I'm just finalizing my shopping list for this weekend -- have to get ready for Thanksgiving next week.

I like to cook Thanksgiving dinner and have done it probably eight of the last ten years. Many times, early on, I made way too much food. I've kind of pared it back some over the years so that it's more manageable and so that we aren't groaning under the leftovers the next week. Even the "pared down" version is still a big meal, but not so out of control.

Here's what will most likely be served chez Susie and Marty:

• Roast turkey with turkey gravy
  
• Cranberry sauce
  
• Southern cornbread dressing
  
• Garlic green beans
  
• Mashed potatoes (you can never have too much starch in a meal, right?)
  
• Green salad with vinaigrette dressing
  
• Maple-nutmeg pumpkin rolls or potato rolls

I haven't really decided about dessert yet, but it will likely be something along the lines of lemon pecan pie or sour cream pound cake. Or maybe a nice buttermilk pie or chess pie (old-fashioned favorites around my house).

Remarkable

Tonight after work I had to meet an appraiser at the house. He looked all over and took a bunch of notes and pictures. When he was leaving, he told me that it was "remarkable." Now I keep thinking of that Seinfeld episode, "The Hamptons," the one about the ugly baby. "Remarkable." Hee!

Busy day today. Every day seems to be busy lately. But it has been a nice week so far. I had lunch with people a couple of days -- always a treat for me -- and I also have weekend plans to look forward to. Saturday and Sunday. So that is a pleasant state of affairs.

And next week is Thanksgiving, which is also something to look forward to. Not only because I'll have a short week at work! Marty's mom and stepfather are coming up for the holiday, and it will be very good to see them. And I like to cook Thanksgiving dinner, too. Plus, we are all going to New York next Saturday to see The Music Man on Broadway. I can't wait! Yet another one of those musicals I know all the words to...

Of course, all these plans mean that something needs to happen to the downstairs. We aren't quite so buried under powertools as we were a week ago, and the shopvac has moved from the living room down to the basement, but it's still kind of a wreck down there. I guess I should stop writing here and go see what I can do about it.

Nice Surprises

I woke up to an e-mail bringing me the news that a dear friend of mine has begun a new personal Web page! Check out Room to Play. It's so pretty! I wonder if there is a Web Ring for pink sites? We could start one...

And another happy surprise: a new Odin Chronicle is up. I only wish my days could be spent as productively as his.

Speaking of cats, don't miss Shelley's Evinrude Fashion Show. I am all over the whole "cats wearing clothes" thing. Unfortunately, Ziggy does not agree.

Time for Clementines

Clementines are in! I brought a box of these babies home this weekend. Yum. There's something exciting about seasonal fruit. That first real peach of the season tastes so much better than the ones you can get in the grocery store in December. With clementines, I always remember that I love them, but I can never remember just how good they really are until I have them again.

For the less nutritionally-minded, Mallomars are also in season. I learned last week that Nabisco Mallomars are made only between October and mid-March, because of their susceptibility to heat and the difficulty of shipping and storing them in warmer months. This explains why I sometimes look for them in the grocery store and can't find even a trace, while other times they are right there, out in the open. Another mystery solved!

The Mallomar site is funny. I like the Fun Facts:

• Mallomars are an enrobed product. This means that the chocolate is poured over them instead of their being dipped into it.
  
  
• Mallomars are celebrities, having been seen in such movies and TV shows as When Harry Met Sally, Regarding Henry, First Wives Club, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, and Rosanne.
  
  
• Mallomars are primarily sold in the Northeastern US, Florida, and California.
  
  
• 70% of Mallomars sales are in the New York Metropolitan Area.

See, you learn something new every day!

Dangerous Music

Just got in from a nice walk on the rail trail between Hamden and Cheshire. We got out a little late, so the sun was already starting to fall and the temperature was dropping. But it was a nice, brisk walk.

On the way over to the trail I played some Eminem for Marty. He'd never heard it before. Now he's talking like Eminem. On the way home I asked him, "Do I turn left or right at the next light?" And his answer was, "I don't give a f---!" He cracks me up. We need parental warnings for explicit lyrics around here right now.

I told him if he can't stop himself from copying the way Eminem talks, he shouldn't listen to it. There are very few careers where that kind of language is going to be a competitive advantage. And I'm pretty sure engineer isn't one of them.

Weekend Update

It's a beautiful day here, and most of the leaves are down in my back yard so the blue sky is very, very visible. It's windy outside, and inside too. This window next to the computer really needs to be reglazed. Or probably just replaced.

Been kinda quiet around Raspberry World these last few days. I'm still kicking. But I haven't been keeping up with the journals I read, or the people I e-mail, or posting new pictures, or anything online, much.

However, I've been thinking about music a lot, and listening to music a lot. I even updated my Music Page on Friday or so: Burn, Baby, Burn. (I realize those of you who already check my music page all the time have already found this. And for those of you who do check my music page all the time, let me say thank you. I appreciate it.)

Finally, one more note about music. New York London Paris Munich is a really cool music weblog. I've never really read any music logs before, but I can see them in my future. Anyway this one is part of a larger site dedicated to writing about music, Freaky Trigger. It seems cool. I like reading about how music connects with people's lives. Like in this entry from the weblog.

Font Fiend

Mouser Fonts has great fonts for PCs.

Busy Week

My computer's acting so weird. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it's taking forever to do anything. Like it took me 15 minutes this morning to get into Eudora and download my two new messages. Huh. I keep getting these "tgshell" errors. I don't have time for this right now. This week is the busiest one I've had in a very long time.

Tonight a friend is coming to spend the night -- someone I've known since college! She lives in California but is on business in Boston this week and has tomorrow off, so she's driving down this afternoon. It will be great to see her again. It's probably been ten years since we last saw each other, although we talk on the phone fairly regularly. Anyway I've been getting the guest room ready this morning, and trying to figure out what to cook for dinner.

Tomorrow night I'm hosting a little get-together of the Hamden Slashers. I'm making dinner and we're going to watch a Canadian movie. I hope the excitement doesn't kill us.

I don't even want to talk about work. Suddenly it is the busiest part of my life. Today I have four or five major things to get done by the end of the day, and I don't think it's going to be easy. Plus I have a doctor's appointment this morning at 7:30, and I need to leave on time this afternoon to get home before my friend gets here from Boston. Busy day.

Speaking of work, this picture was taken the day before my friend Clarissa's last day (she left for a different company about a month ago). Someone kindly forwarded this picture to me this week. Don't we look happy? It was so nice to see Clarissa's smiling face again. How I miss her!

I Can't Wait!

Thanks to Lucy for the link to this article about the new Harry Potter movie, which is set to release in the US on November 16. Sounds like it's going to be a great movie. I can't wait to see it!

Last night at the dinner table I spent 10 minutes explaining Quidditch to Marty... I think he will enjoy the movie, although he doesn't seem to have any desire to read the books. (He's not much of a novel reader, and he doesn't devour juvenile literature the way I always have.) But I expect we'll be headed to this movie shortly after it opens. Yeah!

(Also check out Lucy's next post, below the one about the HP movie. Oh, man!)

Guy Fawkes Day

I found a great site all about Guy Fawkes Day, which is today. Check it out.

It probably all sounds very archaic to American readers, but I can assure you that these Guy Fawkes traditions were alive and well when I was living in England, 20 years ago. We'd go down to the village for the bonfire and the fireworks and to watch the Guy burn. We even studied the origin of different types of fireworks in school -- such as the Catherine Wheel, which was based on a torture device, supposedly used on St. Catherine of Alexandria.

So tonight I'll think of the bonfires and the cold night air, and how I would always burn my mouth on hot tea and jacket potatoes.

Et Tu, Random House?

Every morning when I crank up my computer, my first stop on the web is Random House Dictionary's Word of the Day site. It just takes about a minute to read, and it makes me smarter. What could be better than that? I've been reading it for three years or more, since before Jesse Sheidlower left to become the US Editor of the OED. It's a great site.

This morning when I went to get today's word, I found this announcement. What else could this be but cutbacks? My god. What a shame.

I'll miss you, mavens.

A Lovely Day

Today we visited friends in the Hudson Valley. What a nice area! I've never spent much time there before. It was a beautiful day so we went out to Sunnyside, Washington Irving's house in Tarrytown, NY. We took a tour there and walked around the grounds, and it was a very enjoyable afternoon.

And of course it was great to see our friends again!

I have been working on the music page lately and intend to do a big update pretty soon. Stay tuned.

Hasta la Vista, Baby!

And so we come to the end of another action movie festival chez Susie and Marty, with a viewing of James Cameron's The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Here's a report.

The basic premise of The Terminator is that machines have taken over the world in the near future (2029), and the last remaining humans are fighting for their lives. The future is a nuclear wasteland of rubble and darkness, with huge killer machines running rampant over everything. One man -- John Connor -- leads the human resistance. In a move of great strategic thinking, the machines decide to send a cyborg killing machine -- a terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) -- back in time to 1984 LA to kill John Connor's mother before John is ever born. Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton, is clueless about the future, of course, and when the terminator arrives to hunt her down, her life is turned upside down as she runs from it and fights it throughout the movie. To even the playing field a little, John Connor (her son) sends back a soldier from the future as well -- to protect his mother from the terminator. This guy, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), ends up being John Connor's father. (Time travel is just a convenient plot device in these movies. They don't worry too much about brain-twisting paradoxes like on Star Trek.)

A terminator is hard to kill. Almost impossible to kill. And when you think it's dead, it almost never, ever is. And it's a machine, so it never gives up. It will keep going, and going, and going until it reaches its goal, like an Energizer Bunny with evil intent. This simple premise is surprisingly effective. It's scary and personal, and provides lots of opportunity for fight scenes, chase scenes, shoot-'em-up scenes... opportunities which director James Cameron takes advantage of very effectively. At the end of the first film, the terminator is finally crushed in a hydraulic press, and Kyle dies to save Sarah, and so she is left to ride into the sunset with her unborn son and the knowledge that she must raise the child to be a warrior in the future.

In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), John Connor is now a young teenager, and another terminator is sent back in time to target him and his mother. This one is even more advanced, made of liquid metal (special effects had advanced quite a lot from 1984 to 1991), and is played by Robert Patrick with great effect. The adult John Connor has once again sent back a protector to help combat the terminator, and here's the twist -- he sends a reprogrammed terminator to help her, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The new (evil) terminator is a more advanced model (T1000) than Arnold's terminator (T800), and it's even harder to stop.

Both movies are very good, if you like scary, violent action movies. (I sometimes do.) Despite being filmed in 1984, with primitive special effects by today's standards, The Terminator stands the test of time. It feels much less dated than Batman, which was made five years later.

Linda Hamilton is great in both these movies. Her progression from a scared waitress in the first movie to a badass paramilitary revolutionary in the second movie is surprisingly believable. She spends the first part of T2 in a mental institution, and throughout the whole movie there's a dangerous edge to her character that reminds the viewer that she may be right about the future, but she's still more than a little crazy. But who wouldn't be? To be snatched from her safe and comfortable life by a killer machine from the future, to have a child fathered by a soldier from the future, and then to train the kid to be a military leader so he could go forward and send his father back in time so he could be conceived? It's heavy.

It's interesting to see how differently Arnold Schwarzenegger is presented in the two movies. In 1984, when The Terminator was made, he was a relative newcomer to movies (his previous big hit was Conan the Barbarian). The Terminator was the movie that made him synonymous with the action genre. His portrayal of the terminator in the first film is perfect, and the perfect role for him. As a single-minded killing machine, he kills people, many people, in direct and creative ways. And sometimes he just uses big guns to kill a whole bunch of people at once. But he's cold, and inhuman, and impersonal. You can almost believe he's a machine.

Seven years later, when T2 was released, Ah-nold had cemented his image as an action movie star with movies like Predator and Total Recall. But by that time he'd also appeared in the comedies Kindergarten Cop and Twins, two movies that gave him a chance to show a softer, more comedic side to his acting. I think casting Schwarzenegger as the "good" terminator in T2 was a stroke of genius. He's still playing a machine, of course, which does not require a particularly taxing emotional range, but now his character embodies humor and nobility as well as the obvious action-movie virtues ("good with a gun"). His interaction with John Connor (the kid) is played up a lot, with the kid making the terminator swear not to kill anyone -- and the terminator complying, for the entire movie. You can see how the progress of Schwarzenegger's career shaped the role, to some extent.

One thing I really like about the terminators is that they do seem like machines. Even in T2, when Arnold isn't killing (only maiming), the machine always sees the quickest and most direct way to accomplish a goal. Unlike humans, who look for the on-ramp or wait for the elevator, the terminators save a lot of time by crashing through walls instead of looking for doors, riding motorcycles upstairs in buildings to save time on the elevators, and driving trucks off of overpass bridges to get on different highways. The terminators go for the straight line, the fastest route between A and B. They really think outside the box.

Director James Cameron is no big favorite of mine -- I absolutely hated the movie True Lies, and I refuse to see Titanic -- but the Terminator movies are really something special. My final verdict: I like both The Terminator and T2, but I definitely prefer T2. Both of them are violent movies, and scary too, but to me the second one is more complex, in a good way. Plus, Linda Hamilton's hot. And I like watching Arnold playing that role. I know some of his lines are just gimmes, but they're so quotable. Besides "Hasta la vista, baby," there's "I'll be back" (again), and "No problemo." Can I help it if I'm easily amused?

Come and Get It!

The Recipe Page is updated with nine new recipes today! Also, I've added pictures of some of the dishes. Hope you enjoy checking out the new stuff.

I've been feeling a bit under the weather this week, so I spent yesterday evening just reading some Phantom Menace fanfic and taking it easy. I like the weekend.

Marty's out back right now, using a tile-cutting saw on the back steps right under the study window. The back yard is full of wet, bedraggled leaves today, all brown and burnt orange and faded pale gold. It's unseasonably warm for November. I'm really not complaining.

Tomorrow we are headed over to suburban New York to visit a friend from grad school. She and her husband bought their house just a couple of months before we bought ours in 1999, but we've never seen it. So that should be nice. Also, it's an opportunity to drive the new car. So that'll be extra nice.

That's a Lot of Beer

That picture up there is the beer list from Eli Cannon's in Middletown, where Marty and I went last Monday night. I should say, it's the list of beers they have on tap. They have 28 kinds on tap and hundreds of others in bottles. The list is written on a chalkboard so big it almost covers up the table, as you can see in the picture. The dates over to the right indicate when the keg was tapped.

They didn't have the Russian Rogue this time. That's always one of my favorites.

Hello Birthday

According to my Hello Kitty 2001 calendar, today is Hello Kitty's birthday! It's also my friend Ellen's birthday today.

I already have the Hello Kitty calendar for next year, thanks to Clarissa. It is adorable -- HK is dressed up in clothes from all over the world, and the months are written in all different languages. I love it!

Tonight we watched the movie Terminator. I hadn't watched it in years, and really, the main reason I wanted to see it again now was so that we could watch Terminator 2, which is a movie I love. We'll watch that this weekend. We are really getting our money's worth from Netflix.

In Terminator, the humans are fighting against HKs, machines they call Hunters and Killers. Or perhaps HK is just another name for Hello Kitty.

Can you imagine a Hello Kitty Terminator? Hee!

Papa Dylan

For all you Bob Dylan fans out there (and I think you know who you are), the latest Rolling Stone magazine has a Bob interview and a Bob cover. You can also read it online at the RS website.

From last week's e-mail:

Hey Susie -

I'm taking a poll (OK, I only asked one other person):

You get to spend one romantic night with a Dylan--who is it going to be--Jakob or Bob? Pere ou fils?

Try not to think about Bob Dylan's teeth.

Let me know.

Heh. Can anyone guess who I would pick? In a fantasy world, I mean?

Confidential to the Dylan fans:
M, you can't see his teeth in the picture.
L, I see what you meant about his fingernails.