- One thing I forgot to add to yesterday's list of anticipated reads is "Season 2" of Warren Ellis' newuniversal will be coming out very soon as well.  Just in time to help with the sting of THE 4400 getting cancelled...

- I hope these fine neighbors of mine do not attract the wrong sort of company with their Craigslist ad. For those not familiar, the game involves sacks of corn being tossed at an inclined plane with a hole centered near the top.  Scoring is similar to horseshoes.  A decidely un-raunchy summertime game common in the South.  Shame on me for spinning their ad that way.  :P  Shame shame.

- Mario Kart Wii comes out this weekend! 

- Recently watched the 1931 Dracula again, turning on the new Philip Glass score about halfway through.  Hadn't seen it since Saturday afternoon TV as a young'un.  Love the score, and was interested to realize how much of my own emotional cues while watching movies are predicated by the music.  I think I am going to look for the score for ipod or on disc somewhere because it struck me as being very good background music for writing; it had a strong sense of mood and motion, without being too distracting. Some of the best scoring occuring during the battle of wills scene between Drac and Van Helsing.  Some other thoughts follow:

       -To a large extent the scenes were constructed like a play, with plenty of walking on and off the set. (Duh, as it said on the opening credits, it was based on a play!)

       -So much was left out that my adult mind would have sworn was included.  Never once do you see Drac's teeth--in fact, he goes through odd facial contortions at times to keep you from ever seeing them.  Ditto bitemarks.  Every act of biting is accomplished, without fail, behind a blacked out screen or a cape or off screen. 

       -If Hollywood ever wanted to refilm this loyally, the character of Renfield would have to be played by Jim Carrey pretending to be Brendan Fraser.  Or vice versa.

       -The bats were hokey, but obviously the best they could do then. The rats and bugs coming and going from coffins were filmed in a way that even creeped this jaded 2008 dweller out a little.  BUT THEN THEY HAD TO SHOW THE ARMADILLOS.  I have no freaking idea what possessed them to add armadillos to this decrepit mountain castle scene, but there they are, in all their odd glory.

       -The words, when shown on screen were left there for a very long time.  Particularly an extended newspaper clipping scene.  I imagine this was because literacy wasn't what it is now, and they allowed plenty of time for slow readers to read it, as well as for someone to read it to their neighbors who had never taken up with book-learnin'.

       -Another noticeable sign of the times was the open air operating room.  Brain surgery was going on in what was functionally the equivalent of a garage with two-deep seating along the walls.  

       -At one point Drac says, very dramatically:  "There are far worse things awaiting man...than death."  Which struck me as a very Lovecraftian thing to say.

I checked this out from the base library, not realizing that it also contained the Spanish version of the original, filmed by night on the same sets, and Son of Dracula, Dracula's Daughter and House of Dracula.  Enough to make a film fest all by itself--if I hadn't also checked out the The Wolf Man and Frankenstein DVDs.  And each of them also contain several movies of their respective Universal Monster... Kind of a neat collection, though I doubt I'll watch much more than the classics, ie before they descended into pure campiness.  Anyone out there have recommendations about which I cannot miss, and which I most certainly should avoid?

I defeated the tall grass in my new lawn, but not without casualties...

First I had to go across town so I could buy a used one from Craigslist.  It worked fine there, so I took it home--where it refused to start.  I fiddled with it for a good twenty minutes before I figured out the cable for the dead man grip was too loose, and obviously the seller had prestaged it to start with the actuator manually bumped open.  Of course I figured this out AFTER I had already given myself a blister from trying to start it so many times.

So I manually bumped the actuator open and lo, it started, and I mowed.

Some.  Because the safety thing shook itself closed and the mower cut off after about half the front yard.  When I reached to push it back into position for re-starting it, I quite naturally burned my finger on the OHMYGODSCORCHINGHOT piece of metal dammit-thing.  Blister #2. 

Then I figured out a way to adjust it permanently that doesn't impede the safety cut off feature. (Go Me!) and kept right on mowing.  (Intrepid, aren't I?)  Kept right on mowing until the mower ran over this seekrit hidden pipe cover cleverly hidden in the tall grass.  (Unlike the other one in the yard which is in a small clearing so as to make it visible.)  The mower promptly makes a Popping-Screeching noise and a whiff of blue smoke escaped as the machine turned itself off. I was immediately worried about cracked engine stuff from the blue smoke, but it seemed to be fine for restarting...once I spent about fifteen more minutes straightening out the body of the lawnmower with a pair of pliers so it wouldn't impede the blade. 

OK, so finally ready to go back and FINISH the front yard, which should have only taken 20 minutes, tops, and has now taken over an hour.  Amazingly, I get that done. Then go to the rolling hill of my back yard... Where something in the angle makes the mower blade start hitting the body again.  More fixing.  And then something else (gremlins disturbed from their rest in the rusty pipe I hit?) makes the safety fix I had rigged, become, well, unfixed.  

Ugh.  So at least now the yard is finished.  I lost just about every battle, yet the war itself is mine!

After all that frustration, I saw that my kids had called (here's where we segue into the part that makes me feel all better about the afternoon....) I called them back and let me say, getting them to talk for any period of time on the phone is tough.  They are just at that age.  But a tiny miracle happened today, perhaps instant karmic reconciliation for World War Lawn.   My oldest (10) and I ended up talking for a very long time, probably a half hour.  Pretty good when Dad has to fight for five minutes in a row on the phone.)  And what, pray tell is it that would prompt my reticent eldest girl to be so chatty for so long? 

The Zelda game on the Wii.  :)

Hey, I'll take it.