Well, dear readers, here it is, Sunday, a day of rest, and yet I shall not be resting because I’ve got work to do and do it I must. In fact, I shan’t really have a day of rest until next Saturday. But I’m getting ahead of myself, or, at the very least, aknee of myself. Are these notes scary? I only ask because I’m listening to the new Kritzerland master, which I’ll be announcing on Monday, and it is very scary and I wonder if that’s affecting my writing style for today’s notes. I feel as if something is going to jump out and be scary right now. I’ll tell you what’s scary – what’s scary is the amount of spam I get at one particular e-mail address, that’s what’s scary. I’d say about six every half-hour, sometimes more. I occasionally wake up to find seventy or eighty have come in overnight. And there is nothing one can do about it except shut that e-mail address down. However, it’s the one I use for my eBay dealings, which means somehow all these spammers have found this address from eBay – after all, how else would they find it? I use that address for no other purpose. Still, I’m tempted to nuke it and start using a Gmail address because Gmail’s spam filter catches all spams and then I simply won’t have to have all that crap in my inbox. We shall see. Yesterday was a pretty nice day overall and even underall. See what happened there? While I was typing that sentence a spam arrived. I got up late, answered e-mails, nuked spam (another just arrived), had a few telephonic calls, and then went for a sandwich and no fries. After that, I picked up some mail and no packages, did some banking, then came home and wrote the blurb for our new release and sent it off to the designer. Then I went with a neighbor to a little Japanese jernt not too far from here – she ate and I had a little snack – a small California roll. That was fun, and then I came home, did a little more work on the computer and then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched the final installment of Lord Of The Rings – The Return of the King. It was the longest of the three films and felt it, frankly. I really grew weary of the battle scenes – they all felt the same to me and they just went on and on and all had the same structure. Then I got a little tired of Frodo and his waffling and occasional stupidity. Yes, I know the ring was messing with his mind, and that may play well in a book, but on screen, for me, it became an irritant after a while. And then there was that Bert I. Gordon sequence – you know the one – I called it Middle Earth vs. The Spider. I did like the performances and certainly the film looks splendidly splendid. The effects are terrific, Howard Shore’s score is long and loud and I’d be hard-pressed to recall a single theme in it. The transfer is tops. I cannot imagine sitting through longer versions of these films, especially Return of the King. I understand that the longer version of the first film is supposed to make it easier to understand, so maybe I’ll give that one a try some day. As it is, I’m glad I saw the three movies after all this time – but I certainly wouldn’t put them anywhere near my top films of all time list.
After the movie, I began listening to the new master and I sent six tracks to the web guy so he could prepare the announcement page for Monday. And that was that. And this was this. Sometimes that is this and this is that, but that was just that and not this and this was just this and not that. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because it’s getting late and this music is freaking me out.
Today, I shall get up, put labels on boxes, then the helper will be arriving and we’ll address both CD boxes and book envelops and then put postage on everything. We’ll also continue doing some organizational work. Once the helper is gone, I’ll rustle up some grub and then continue catching up on my backlog of Blu and Ray films.
Tomorrow, I’ll be up at six to announce the new Kritzerland title and then hopefully I’ll be printing out lots and lots of orders. And then the rest of the week is nonstop meetings, telephonic calls, shipping, and then it will be time for me to be on my way to Washington to see The Brain From Planet X.
Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora and the Ascot Gavotte because today is the birthday of our very own FJL. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our very own FJL. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR VERY OWN FJL!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, address packages, put postage on packages, rustle up some grub, and then watch a few motion pictures on Blu and Ray. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I put these scary notes to bed.