Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle trying to eat a plastic banana. I gotta tell you. I don’t know what I gotta tell you, actually, as yesterday was a fairly non-descript day as days go. I like a nice descript day but alas that was not to be, yesterday-wise. As I am writing these here words in these here notes, I believe I am about to have an allergy attack, so I will nip this damn thing in the bud and take my Claritin-D right now. There, I have taken my Claritin-D and hopefully that will nip this in the proverbial bud. What does that mean, anyway – nip this in the bud? Ah, something about removing a bud from a flower and thereby preventing something.
Yesterday was a day, I suppose. Fairly non-descript, if you must know. I didn’t get up until noon after nine hours of sleep, which I really needed. I had an interesting dream that seemed to be on a loop, as I would wake up briefly, then fall back asleep to the same dream. Have you ever had a dream on a loop? Once up, I answered e-mails, had telephonic calls, and did some work on the computer. We’ve added Ilene Graff to the Kritzerland show, so I had to place the two numbers she’s doing and I’ll have to write commentary for them, although I believe we’ve done them at some point so I may be able to cut and paste or, at the very least, paste and cut.
At around two, I went to the mail place and picked up no mail and a couple of small packages. Then I went to Gelson’s and got the makings for my meal o’ the day. One eight-ounce cube steak (only around 500 calories), some mushrooms, an onion, and some asparagus. I came home and cooked the steak in the skillet, then sautéed the other stuff and put it on the steak. It was actually very good and very filling and really only about 700 calories all in. I had some cantaloupe for dessert. I’m trying to lay off bad sweets for a while. So, I may, in fact, make a couple of eggs in a little while, just to get up to 1000 calories. I re-proofed packaging and that’s gone off to the printers for printing. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
First, I finished Stagecoach. It’s really not very good and not a patch on the butt cheeks of John Ford’s original film. I did like Ann-Margret, and Van Heflin is just great. But it just meanders along, we get a couple of rather silly action scenes, and then it’s over. The transfer is better than the DVD, which was rather brown and ugly. Here we have decent color and it’s got nice clarity. I will say that the Jerry Goldsmith score is kind of distorted several times when it gets loud. Then I watched Melvin and Howard, a movie I have managed to miss all these years. I’m not quite the Jonathan Demme fan that others are – for me, his best film is Silence of the Lambs and that’s a very atypical film for him. The movie started off great – ten really great minutes with Paul Le Mat and Jason Robards, Jr. as the titular characters. I thought I was in for a real treat. Alas, that’s it for Mr. Robards – one scene with a little reprise of it at the end. Well, for me, you can’t call a film Melvin and Howard and have one scene like that. Because you keep waiting for Howard to come back. What we’re left with is some good acting and a film that just is a series of sequences, some better than others. I didn’t hate it or anything, and I know it was a critics’ darling, which I kind of understand. The transfer is kind of a typical older Universal transfer – it doesn’t quite look right, but the color is nice.
Finally, I watched Miss Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit. I first saw it on TV when I was around seven and it seriously creeped me out. I wanted poor Olivia out of that horrible place and the movie seemed like it ran six hours, due to her ordeal. Watching it now, it’s rather antiquated, but Miss de Havilland is really great and so is Leo Genn as her doctor. And it’s only 105 minutes long, not six hours. The transfer seems fine but there isn’t a whole lot of grain, which, given the number of opticals in the film, is a bit odd.
By that time, I had to buckle down, Winsocki and write these here notes about a fairly non-descript day.
Today, I have stuff to do, I’ll add the commentary, I’ll hopefully pick up packages, I’ll eat no more than 1000 calories wherever I go, and then at some point I’ll relax. The lunch was moved to Friday and I’m not sure I can do it, as Grant and his wife, both of whom had recent birthdays, and I are going out to dinner.
Tomorrow, I have a work session, which I’m hoping will be fine. We have a new pianist for this one show, but Richard Allen will be here to supervise and hopefully all will go smoothly and easily because I have no time to fret over such things. Friday is the lunch meeting wherein I will eat no lunch, and then a birthday dinner with Grant and Lydia. I have no idea what the weekend holds.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do stuff, add the commentary bits, eat no more than 1000 calories, hopefully pick up packages and mail, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after my fairly non-descript day.