More TCM love

I know I have mentioned in the past how much I love the TCM channel (it is one of my favorite channels and I usually check what is showing on the weekends). I have seen some great movies on TCM (like Now, Voyager, A Night At the Opera, and Christmas in Connecticut to name a few). But tonight, they are showing a bunch of Chuck Jones shorts as well as a short documentary about Chuck Jones and The Phantom Tollbooth (which is on at 11pm but Lucy is taping it for me). This is the perfect remedy to my somewhat stressful day at work.

MINH: Kahn, we have no nanny for Connie.
KAHN: Oh, cruel, cruel fate! This Maui speech could be my stepping-stone from systems analyst to senior systems analyst!

The return

I think that it has been about a month since I last did a book review (and I've actually finished 3 books in that time!) but finally here is another book review (I'm sure all of you were waiting for one!). The book for this week (or month) is "The Hours Before Dawn" by Celia Fremlin. It is a mystery novel set in 1958 London about a housewife named Louise with 3 children including a new baby that cries all night. The family lets a room in their house to a mysterious lodger named Vera Brandon. Strange things start happening around the house but Louise is so tired that she isn't sure what is real and what isn't real. On top of that there is a feeling on anxiety all though the house that may or may not be due to Miss Brandon. Since a lot of the action takes place in the house it feels very claustrophobic but also a little more terrifying since there is no safe haven for Louise. You also sympathize with Louise as she struggles to get through the day through her exhaustion (I'm sure anyone with a new born can understand Louise's struggle). The novel is pretty short (about 175 pages) but it really good. I discovered the book (which has a been out of print for a long time) through Bas Bleu which is one of my favorite bookstores (although it is really just an online store/catalog, there is no physical store). Every book that I have read that was recommended by the catalog (like Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day) has been fantastic. They specialize in more eccentric/lesser known books (basically the complete opposite of Oprah's Book Club). So there are more books from small publishing companies or companies outside of the United States and older books (and less well-known books) that have out of print (like the one for this review). I highly recommend "The Hours Before Dawn" (which may soon be making the rounds through my family) and Bas Bleu.

I'm officially an adult!

Because I did my taxes today (online)! Since I worked a month in Indiana, I have to pay the state of Indiana $6 (so I couldn't e-file) but I have to mail something on Monday so I am going to go ahead and send in all my tax stuff on Monday as well. And it wasn't too hard to do the 2 states (as well as the Federal) using TurboTax (it was much easier than I thought, or was afraid it would be). I was actully really nervous about doing my taxes (like I was going to mess it up and then get audited) but my company makes it easy to use an online service because you can automatically import your W-2 so I wasn't so worried about mistyping a number.

HANK: So Bobby, we got to think of a hero for you.
BOBBY: Do you have a hero, Dad?
HANK: I sure do, and it's Willie Nelson.
BOBBY: How come?
HANK: Well, you might say he's been my inspiration. See, Willie grew up in Texas, and I grew up in Texas. He loves golfing and playing guitar, I love golfing and playing guitar, he's had trouble with the IRS, and I must have spent six hours last April on that 1040 form -- EZ my ass.

It's a shark!

This past weekend I drove up to Ann Arbor for a surprise visit to Rachel and my mom. On Saturday, we all went to Costco (no IKEA for once!) and enjoyed a variety of free samples (although I think that Ellis enjoyed the jelly beans sample the most). We got these really cool (and large) kites (a dragon and a shark) to take with up the vacation house in August. And then we went to see the boat that Trey is working on and played Settlers of Catan while Ellis was napping (and Rachel basically creamed mom and I). Trey made a delicious trout dinner and then Rachel and Trey creamed mom and I at Hand and Foot (we did win one round though). On Sunday, Rachel, Mom, Ellis, and I when to Borders and then to Meijer while Trey got supplies to rebuild the shelves in their basement pantry. The shelves were mostly done by the time I headed back to Ashland, but I will require photographic proof!

LUANNE: And not one of my beauty school credits has transferred to junior college. It turns out you have to get at least a C.

Cecil Jacobs is a big wet hen

I love the book "To Kill a Mockingbird". I have a first edition that a friend got for me for graduation (which makes me love the book so much more because I am reminded of her). I also love the movie of "To Kill a Mockingbird" in part because the screen adaptation by Horton Foote is so well done. So I was very sad to learn that Horton Foote passed away today. I may have to watch "To Kill A Mockingbird" (and cry as usual) this weekend.

Faster than you can say Jack Robinson

I went home two weeks ago (during the President's Day weekend) and mom and I went to a local quilt shop and we saw this really cool pattern that I said would be good to show off interesting quilt material. And then we went on to look at the material at the shop and I mentioned that for some reason I really like the 60s-ish retro quilt material a lot and I would love to use them to make a quilt but I would really want to show off the material. Since my mom is a genius she remembered the quilt pattern that we admired earlier would be perfect to show off the material. So after about 20 minutes of determining which material to use, mom and I went home and cut and sewed the patches together. Mom and Lucy helped me layout the quilt. I wanted the quilt to be pretty random and Lucy wanted there to be a pattern (I won out, reminding Lucy that the quilt was for me and not to worry, the quilt that I have in mind for her has a definite pattern). Mom helped me pin and sew the rows (and smartly marked the rows in order) and I sewed the rows together this weekend:


I'm not sure if I want to add an outside border (it is just big enough for my double bed with a little bit of overhang) and I don't know what quilting pattern to use (I'm thinking maybe a triangular Celtic knot) but I'm open to suggestions. I may try to get a better picture of it.

Arrrghh...

I might as well as have been wearing a eye patch because my depth perception today was totally wonky. I whacked my arm against a door knob (not once but twice) and I hit my shoulder on a wall of my cubicle. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. It will be Friday and I get Monday off due to President's Day so I am looking forward to a nice long weekend at the farm.

"This is no time to go easy on these punks. That's the mistake their parents made." - Hank

Disappointedsville, population: me

I watched Lawrence of Arabia last night on TCM. I've wanting to watch that movie for a while due largely to its reputation of one the best "epic" movie made. I thought the cinematography was excellent (did you know that the lens used to shoot the mirage scene of Omar Sharif is now known as the "David Lean Lens") and the music certainly matched the epic scale of the desert. But I was still disappointed in the movie because I found it really boring. The movie just goes on and on and on (and on and on). I don't have a problem with long movies (see the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice which is 310 minutes or the two Anne of Green Gables movies, one is 194 minute and the other is 240). But holy moly Lawrence of Arabia is a long movie. The action scenes seemed really short and then were long interludes of basically nothing, no character development, no talking. The casting really bothered me too. Alec Guiness is not Arabic, and neither is Anthony Quinn (he is actully Mexican). I liked Peter O'Toole in the role but he looked very odd with his super blond hair and really blue eyes against his really tan skin (apparently Peter O'Toole is much taller and better looking than T.E. Lawerence). I do apperciate that a majority of the extras in the movie are actully Arabian (King Hussien lent a brigade of the Arabian Legion as extras in the film; he also visited the set often and met his second wife on the set). So overall, I was a disappointed in the movie. But after Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca was on so the evening ended on a high note (the Great Escape was on at 11:30 and that was a little too late for me!)

Trifecta

I've been really bad about writing the book reviews on a weekly basis. But I've also been bad about writing post in general for most of the month of January. I will try to do better (I am currently triple booking with The Sea Lady, The City of Ember, and Up the Down Staircase so I should be able to write another review next weekend). Anyway the book for this week's review is "Double Indemnity" by James M. Cain (which is the source material for the movie starring Barbra Stanwyck and Fred McMurray). The book is really short (115 pages) but it really packs a punch! It is the story of an insurance salesman who falls in love with a married woman and is persuaded into killing her husband after taking out a life insurance on the husband (with a double indemnity clause if the death occurs near a railroad track). I love film noir movies (since I saw Murder My Sweet) so I was intrigued to read the book before seeing the movie. But what I think is the most amazing thing is that James M. Cain also wrote two other well known film noir movies: "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (which I got from the library a few days ago to read before seeing the movie) and "Mildred Pierce" (I've seen the movie already, which I didn't like too much, so I am hoping that the book will be better). If you like film noir, I definitely recommend reading this classic in the genre.

100 years at the movies

I've seen this a couple times on TCM (during the 31 Days of Oscar) and I love it every time I see it. And notice the clip of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the end!

The most wonderful time of the year

This is one of my favorite times of year because of TCM's 31 Days of Oscar. And this year, TCM has done a really cool marketing idea making the TCM University. So the movies are arranged by type based on what academic department they would be in. For example Friday's theme is the Physics department and the day is split into three subjects: Astrophysics (and showing The Black Hole, Forbidden Planet, and 2010), Aerodynamics (showing Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Only Angels Have Wings, Flying Tigers, and Strategic Air Command) and Nuclear Physics (showing Seven Days to Noon, Dr. Strangelove, Lil' Abner, Crimson Tide, and The Atomic City). I have to say marketing department at TCM has had some genius moments as evidenced by this ad for Ben-Hur:

Not just for last minute science fair projects

My bathroom sink has been draining rather slowly but instead of buying drain cleaner, I thought I would try a homemade (and more earth friendly) drain cleaner. I pour a 1/4 cup of baking soda down the sink followed by a 1/2 cup of vinegar and then pushed down the plunger so that none of mixture bubbled out of the drain. I let it sit for about 30 minutes and then poured about a cup of boiling water down the drain. And it actually worked pretty well, I still had a little bit of water left in the drain which I think reduced its effectiveness a little bit. But I was reading the comments for the post at website specializing in homemade cleaning products and pouring boiling water down the sink rather than cold or warm water is the best.

What exactly are you trying to do, Hank? Turn our school into some kind of bohemian Montessori lovefest? - Dale Gribble

That fancy internet machine

Over the winter break, I decided that I should go to the eye doctor to get a check-up (it was about 2 years since my last one). Instead of buying glasses from the eye doctor, Rachel talked me into buying my glasses online. So after a few days of looking at the sites and through all the frames, I ordered a pair of glasses from goggles4u.com a little more than a week ago. And today, they arrived in the mail:



Ordering the glasses was pretty easy. The site has a huge selection which can be overwhelming at first but you can narrow down the frames based on color or material. Most of the frames (including mine) cost about $13. The page for each frame lists the measurements of the frame, like the width of the frame, the height and width of the lens area and width of the bridge. And there are pretty good instructions for measuring your face (or your current pair). For some frames, you can try them on virtually. You upload a picture of yourself and the glasses are then superimposed on your face. The scale can be a little weird but I was able to shrink my picture and enlarge the frames enough to make it look slightly normal. There are a couple options for the lenses as well like thickness or made of glass or polycarbonate. They also have bifocal lenses but the frame size has to be large enough for the bifocal. I ordered the polycarbonate lenses that had anti-glare and UV coating and are scratch-resistant which cost about $30. Entering in your prescription is pretty easy but if you are concerned with it, the is an option to fax them a copy of your prescription to them to avoid any mistakes. I had a good experience ordering my glasses on-line, it was way cheaper and the selection was huge and varied (and it was kinda of fun to see myself in frames that I would never wear), but I did get lots input from my mom, Rachel and Lucy before I finally picked my frames.

PEGGY: You may not have noticed it, because I wear bold eyeglasses to draw the attention to my head, but your mother has exceptionally long and handsome feet.

I'll be your handy man (or woman)

I visited Rachel this weekend which means we (Rachel, mom, Lucy and I) went to IKEA. I've been needing a larger CD tower for a while now and I found a nice one at IKEA (even on sale!) so I put it together this evening after I got back from Ann Arbor.

Pod, Pod, Pod

I've missed the last couple weeks of book reviews, but I will try to make up for it. Before I left for the holidays, I read "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" by Jack Finney (first published in 1955 and adapted into a movie in 1956, 1978, 1993 and 2007). The novel opens with the small town doctor in California getting a call from an old girlfriend who is worried about her cousin. The cousin insists the uncle that raised her isn't her uncle. As more and more people in the town insists a friend or family member isn't his or her friend or family member. A local psychiatrist insists that it is all psychologically. Eventually, the townspeople not longer think someone they know isn't right. And then a friend (of the doctor) finds a body in his basement that resembles him (the friend). I have to say, even though I knew the basic plot of the book, it was still really suspenseful. I could definitely see how the novel inspired at lot of science fiction stories. And it was interesting to here the science portion as science was in 1955 (especially considering that the structure of DNA was determined only 2 years earlier). The novel is also the source of the term "pod person" (or people). I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys science fiction.

On the edge of Loonytown and taking the train to the city centre

It's been almost a month since my last post mostly because I was home at the farm during the holiday and there were lots of other things to occupy my time (and a majority of the people who read this blog saw me over the holiday season). And since I have to children, photo-based blog post are not as cute. Fortunately, the amount of snow that has fallen here at Ashland has motivated me to write some posts. Christmas at the farm was really nice (even though I didn't get to farm until 5pm on Christmas Eve) because everyone was there (including 4 children under 5). Deidre and her family (and grandpa) came up for Christmas dinner (and games) which is always fun. The little boys were pretty good but there were some moments between Silas and Ellis that lead to crying (one or both of them). My mom got all the little boys little plasma cars (which could be ridden by adults) which were appreciate most by Silas, Ellis, and Orrin (and by extension Emmet because often he was Orrin's passenger). Bridget and Orrin went to Orrin's parents for New Years so we didn't have a big party this year but we still had a good time singing songs after Ellis went to sleep. Trey and Rachel went home a few days after New Years and so I spent lots of time giggling and watching movies with Mom and Lucy and playing with Vaughn until I drove back to Ashland on Sunday afternoon. I was (of course) kinda bummed to go back to work (my apartment is so quite compared to the farm on Christmas) but work is going okay. I'm moving cubicles on Friday (to a better cubicle with more space) on Friday. Unfortunately, my new desk is at a slight incline so turning around can be a little annoying.

BOBBY: I'm gonna cross the track and bring Mr. Witchard a soda.
HANK: That's crazy! Why would you do that?
BOBBY: I'm giving 110 percent, Dad.
JIMMY: Go to here, go-to boy! I want a soda! Go to now!

Suprises!

For more proof that my mom is awesome (and psychic), I was having a bad day at work on Friday and when I got home a package was sitting on my doorstep which contained this:

It's a rosemary tree!

And then today, a package containing some little ornaments (and some garland) arrived. So I decorated my little tree listening to some Christmas music (so I'm getting a little more into the Christmas spirit)



It smells so good! And it really lifted my spirits.

DALE: I can't keep this up. It's not in my nature to care about others.


HANK: Uh-uh, this is too much. In high school you blocked for me, but I did my job too. I ran through the hole, setting Arlen High School's single-season rushing record, as you recall. But here I am blocking for you, and you're not even trying! I don't even know what game you're playing -- some kind of crazy tennis!

Back and Forth

The book for this week's review (which I read today in fact) is 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. The book is a collection of letters between Helene, a writer living in New York searching for obscure book and famous titles of British literature, and the workers of Marks and Co., a secondhand bookshop, with most of the correspondence between Helene and Frank Doel (as well as Doel family). The letters were quite moving especially since Helene would spend some of her meager salary sending packages of food to the employees of the store (as well as a neighbor of the Doels) during the heavy rationing period of the post World War II. The correspondence occurs over the course of about 20 years. The letters are quite lovely, a times humorous or sad but always with an obvious passion for literature. The book has been adapted into a TV miniseries, the stage, and a movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft (and Judi Dench as Frank's wife). I'm planning on watching the movie sometime (through Netflix) since the book is still very fresh in my mind.

How is a raven like a writing desk?

Because Poe wrote on both of them! The book for this week's review (and the source of the answer to the riddle from Alice in Wonderland) is "The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde. This is the first book in a series about literary detective Thursday Next. Fforde creates an alternate universe where the entire population of England takes their literature very serious (there are groups that maintain the Francis Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare and thousands of people have legally changed their name to John Milton). Crimes of a literary nature (like forgeries of great works) are investigated by literary detectives like Thursday Next. The novel opens with the theft of the original manuscript of Dickens' "Martin Chuzzlewit". Determining the thief of manuscript leads to Thursday chasing a criminal mastermind who later steals the original manuscript of "Jane Eyre". As those who know me well, you can imagine that I love this book (and the rest in the series). The books are full of references to the classics (for example in the second book, Thursday become the protege of Miss Havisham from "Great Expectations"). The world that Fforde created is a good mix of quirky and serious that it isn't too outlandish and crazy. I discovered the second book in the series ("Lost in a Good Book") at a used bookstore in West Virginia (it is a publishing company's in house copy, I'm not sure how it ended up in a used bookstore in a small town in West Virginia). I have all the books in the series (there are 5 all together) but there was a bit a space between the second and the third one so I am planning on rereading the 2nd one before I start the third one (and the fourth and fifth).

Bent as a two bob watch

I had a great trip to Ireland and I got a chance to catch up on some reading so I can finally do a book review after skipping the last couple weeks. Lucy got me the book "Not All Tarts Are Apples" by Pip Granger for Christmas which I read on the plane (and the during the bus ride from Dublin to Clonmel). The book is about an little girl Rosie during 1953 London living with her aunt and uncle above there cafe. Rosie learns that a local "tart" is actually her mother when the owners of the cafe (who are not related to her) want to adopt her. But the family of her mother has some plans for Rosie which may require involvement by all her adopted family to make sure that Rosie is happy. I thought this book was very charming and full of interesting 1950s London slang (which I really want to incorporate into my lexicon!). And it really explored the idea of a non-traditional family in that most of Rosie family was not directly related to her, but lived in her building, were regular customers at the cafe, or people in the neighborhood that cared for her. There is a sequel (and 2 prequels) for this novel, but since Pip Granger is a British author, the paperback is not available through Paperspine yet, so I will have to wait for the prequels to be in paperback form.