Browncoat

So underrated! I love that movie, too. Cary and Katharine have so much fun! I also enjoyed The Holiday, despite Jack Black. Also underrated. Drew really grew up well after such a rocky start. I never can decide if I like The Wedding Singer for just the music or for the story, too, but I like it a lot.

I love Notting Hill.

Ugh, FJ. My first thought was that it was probably originally in French, and the only play originally in French I could think of was Cyrano de Bergerac, probably because Peter Dinklage was on CBS Sunday morning yesterday, and he is in the new Cyrano movie. Of course I knew it was so so wrong, unless the 20th century has been extended significantly, but it was all I had. I don't think Godot would have ever come to me, not even if I waited all night. (See what I did there?) The only TS I got was shoot.

Yep, and maybe once he gets his grown-up teeth he'll be a little less bitey. At the very least, the grown-up teeth won't be like tiny little needles.

I'd be extra annoyed if I forgot a See's gift card! That candy is soooooo good! Today I am peeved that my printer has decided that it does not want to print black. It will happily print all the other colors, but apparently black is broken. The people at Best Buy have informed me that it might be sort of fixable, but it's a pain, and probably not worth it. To be fair, this printer is more than 10 years old, so I'm probably lucky it has lasted this long. Anyway, I am further peeved that Best Buy doesn't have the printer I want -- the sign on the shelf even said that particular model is not available on line. To top that off, the camera I bought myself back in August won't play well with my iPad. When I tried to import photos from the camera to the iPad, the iPad told me that it couldn't import because the camera uses too much power. No idea what that means, but I decided just to get an SD card reader and transfer from the card instead of the whole camera. But guess what? Best Buy doesn't have any of those on the shelves, either. The silver lining is that if I go through my airline's portal to order these things, I can earn miles in case I ever get to fly again.

Terry Brooks has a new novel -- "Child of Light". It mostly reads as a standalone, like the first Landover novel, but I suspect there will be more. I love his world building.

Somebody needs to stop chopping onions and clean up all the dust in here.

I'm watching this morning's show now, and this "Hail and Farewell" segment is killing me. They always do such a nice job, I think, given the time constraints. And at least they acknowledge that they can't include everyone.

I just saw the new one, and the conductor Kiss did clear his throat.

Current peeve is with myself. I was all the way to my destination this past Friday when I realized that I'd forgotten my watch charger at my house. No one at my destination had one I could borrow, as no one else has an Apple watch. Which meant I had to go buy one. On Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, the only place where I was that had them in stock was bloody Walmart. On Christmas Eve. In a rural area. On Christmas Eve. The store was positively packed, and I think I was one of maybe five customers who had masks on. The store employees had them, but the vast majority of customers did not. And of course, the electronics department was pretty much as far as possible from the entry door of this giant Walmart. The only good part was that I was able to make the purchase in the back of the store and I didn't have to wait in the endless queue at the front. Still, if I hadn't been so stupid, and if I'd remembered my charger, I wouldn't have had to even go out. To top it off, I realized hours later that I have a Walmart gift card! I'm a little salty that I forgot about that, too. My new charger will live in my car.

Agreed that they are our friends, and I do my very best not to kill one on purpose, but that doesn't mean I'm not terrified of them.

4/5 for me this week.

I love Rosemary Clooney’s green velvet dress in the party/dance scene.

I finally saw the LiMu ad with the spiders. Ewwwww, and ugh. Apart from just the spider on Doug’s arm (ew), that’s not really how spider bites work. Reactions to spider bites are generally pretty localized, although if not treated, tissue necrosis from a really venomous spider can spread. The last spider bite I got just itched at the bite site for a day or two. One of my friends was bitten by a brown recluse, and the reaction he had never spread more than about an inch or two from the bite. Also, most spiders really have to be provoked and fear for their lives to bite — like they’re being sat on, or are hiding inside your bathrobe when you tighten the sash. I say all this as an extreme arachnophobe, which is the main reason I hate that commercial.

Some channel I watched today ran both versions randomly. I found myself tensing up, wondering which one it would be, and being annoyed when it was the new one.

Instaget FJ for me tonight. It probably helps that I’ve read “Into Thin Air” many times — the part of the clue about losing toes immediately made me think of frostbite, which led me to Everest. I also got the TS of thoroughbred, kingmaker, and Louis.

One of these days, I really should go to Poplar Forest. It's only about an hour or so from me.

I can't believe I missed FJ. I just completely blanked, and it seemed so obvious when the correct response was revealed. But I did get Thomas Jefferson, and I just said radio instead of transistor radio. Do you think they would have given it to me, or at least asked me to BMS?

I did that once, in a hotel parking lot. The back tire of church van that parked next to me was over the line, though, and the van itself was very crooked -- I had to get in my car on the passenger side and crawl over the stick shift. Backing out was challenging (backing up in a car is challenging for me under the best of circumstances). I left a note that said, "How would Jesus park? A damn sight better than you!"

I have to credit Dick Francis for assistance in knowing steeplechase. I've read most of his books, and nearly all of them are at the very least horse-racing adjacent, and some of those races were steeplechases.

I got FJ tonight. I thought about the year, then decided the places sounded like they might be in Ireland or the UK. I almost said cross-country, but then realized it probably involved horses, and came up with the correct response in plenty of time. It actually didn't occur to me until Ken said it that the two places named were churches, hence steeples. No TS for me tonight, though.

@Netfoot, I re-read the novels of Pern fairly frequently. I love them! I first encountered them in the late 70s, with Dragonsong, and as long as you stick with the ones written by Anne herself, I'd say go for it. But I would recommend staying far away from the ones written by her son, and just chuck the one written by her daughter into the sea. No need to afflict that abomination on anyone. It's telling, I think, that I can't even remember Anne's children's names.

If my car were broken down in the middle of nowhere and I saw that thing rolling toward me, I would run like the wind in the opposite direction. Maybe climb a tree -- surely it doesn't climb trees?

It was an instaget for me as well.

I will, too.