Manda Mia

This is our week for spring cleaning. Yesterday I threw out about 100 old taped-off-TV videos. (The rule of thumb: if it's available on DVD, toss it!) Today it was the bathroom. It's amazing how many different shampoos two women can collect!

While in this mood, I decided that my posters had to go. They were all theatre related (there was an Apollo 11 poster up a few years ago but it kept falling down), and as I haven't bought a cast recording since Thoroughly Modern Millie four years ago, I decided they didn't apply to me anymore. So off came all the Phantoms and David Campbell posters. When searching for poster rolls to stick them in, I can across a Rent poster, bought on tour in 1997, stuck on the back of my dorm room door for a few months, then stashed away soon as my brief love affair with that show ended. I thought of throwing it away, but it's still in pretty good condition so it avoided the first dumpster round. Today, for kicks, I hit eBay to see what it might bring in auction. I found a windowcard (smaller, on thicker stock) of the same design that went for $56. Pretty incredible, I thought, but surely a regular poster would go for less. A little more digging and I found an online store selling the exact poster I have for... $225! Wow... LOL. Frankly, I'd be happy to get $5 for it.

While all this cleaning has been going on, I've been taking stock of things that could be sold online: unwanted yarn, unwatched DVDs, VHSs (do people buy these anymore??), computer parts, every Nora Roberts book from 1992-1996, plays from my month-long period as a theatre major, theatre programmes, and about 150 cast recordings. I've been threatening to sell on eBay for years, but I've always been terrified by the shipping portion. Not even taking into consideration the buying/finding of packing materials, the post office is a 2 mile walk from here - not bad but still not exactly pleasant when carting boxes. Recently one of those eBay drop-off stores opened within sight of my house. That will be nice for large items (perhaps the poster..) but I can't imagine dragging a hundred little items over there. I think I've decided on Half.com for most of the media items. It shouldn't be too hard to stick a CD into a padded envelope. Once I get the hang of that I can branch out to eBay for the Playbills and such. Anyway, that is the plan... Hopefully I'll go through with it this time!

1. If you could suddenly speak one language fluently (that you don't currently speak) what would it be?
I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I'm not meant to speak a foreign language. What I'd really like to learn is how to read lips!

2. If you were to suggest a foreign film, that you really enjoyed, what one would you suggest?
Amélie of course. And L'Appartement... Crimson Rivers (the ending of this one is silly but I forgive it because the mood is mesmerizing up 'til then). Switching to German, there's Run Lola Run and Goodbye, Lenin!. I think that's enough. :)

3. If you had to call another country home (other than the one you currently live in) what one would you choose?
I always say Australia, but probably anywhere with a warm climate would do. We've finally hit Spring-like weather here this week, and it's amazing how much more complete I feel with the sun shining and a breeze coming in the window.

4. If you went out to buy an import music CD, what one would you buy?
Hmm.. I'd like to have a legal copy of the Rain soundtrack from New Zealand.

5. If you were to chose an ethnic dinner, what would it be?
Something I've never had before - like Sushi or Thai. It's funny - I felt worldly this week because I bought flour tortillas for the first time. LOL.

After giving Blockbuster Online two months of my life, when I went to cancel today there was a place for comments. "How can we improve?" it said. "Would you mind taking a minute to explain why you've decided to cancel your account?" So I typed up 5 or 6 sentences (more information about the DVDs on the website and on the disc sleeve; either open a store here or shut up about those free coupons; don't leave me hanging for a week wanting to know how Bleak House ends while you suddenly decide to ship #6 from my queue; etc.) and I got the message in the title of this entry. I had to pare my comments down to 3 compact sentences. So... you want to know but not really, eh, Blockbuster?

How about this for some awesome news: new feature-length productions of Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park and Persuasion are being prepared for a "Jane Austen Festival" on Masterpiece Theatre this November. As if that weren't enough, there will also be a new miniseries of Sense and Sensibility shown at the same time!

I'm most excited about Northanger Abbey. The only previous version of it is pretty darn bad, not even the presence of faves Peter Firth (with seriously scary hair) and Robert Hardy could make it more palatable.

Emma Watson reportedly quits Harry Potter

Yay! I mean, I didn't really expect to get through all 7 films without a change of cast, and if it's anybody, I'm glad it's her. Daniel Radcliffe is signed up through the end of the series, and Rupert doesn't sound like he has any intentions of going anywhere. I will miss Emma's slightly snooty accent in Hermione, though.

*sigh* I've turned into such a horrible blogger this year. My knitting blog is averaging one post a month and it's not much better here. I am coming up with new blog ideas in my head all the time but laziness sets in, and they never go any futher.

An example would be March Madness. I'm a sports agnostic 11 months out of the year, but in this state it's tough not to get sucked in. All three of my alma maters made it into the field of 64. Plus, my high school's boys team made it to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1990. (When I was there it was always the girls team that made it to championships.) I was going to write a blog post about how watching Louisville this year made me really miss the good ol' days when Pitino was at UK. How remembering the scrappy, full court pressure of The Unforgettables makes Tubby's school of play look almost pedestrian. But just when I decided to jump ship and root for UofL this year, they lose that blasted game yesterday. GT is already out (first round). I have every expectation of UK following suit this afternoon vs. Kansas. And, frankly, I really don't care about high school ball. So now I'm back to where I started: I can safely ignore the sports section of the newspaper for another year ...excepting the Derby, of course. ;-)

(By the way, did you hear? The Queen is coming! I'm strangely excited.)

Guess I managed to write some semblance of a blog entry after all, eh? Heh.

So far I've managed to thoroughly not repair a lamp and to disassemble a heater a little too well. The heater is now clean, which was the original intention, so at least it looks its best even if it is now destined for the junkyard. I wonder what else I can break before sunset...

I waited until both of these were out on DVD before renting. Now that I have them in hand I can't decide which to watch first!

Update: Coming in I had less expectations of The Illusionist so I watched it first. Rather predictable, I thought, but still an enthralling film. And Philip Glass did the score. :) I'll watch The Prestige this afternoon.

Final Update: Well, I seem to be in the minority in preferring The Illusionist. The Prestige is more of a puzzle but the massive amount of spite and arrogance contained within turned my stomach. And then there's that whole absurd scifi thing. Neither movie is perfect, but I think what it comes down to is I care more about The Illusionist's characters so I'm more willing to overlook the flaws.

As a side effect, I'm now keen to see some Jonathan Creek. :-)

A New England supermarket chain accepts orders for personalized cakes through e-mail... Do you see where this is going?

HTML cake!

[via This Is Broken]

I have found my new favorite spam e-mail phrase:

"Is your pet red-carpet worthy?"

Heh. Another says "Spend more time on nature, less with pc." Well, it's nice to know they have my own best interests at heart, eh? ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day, all! Unfortunately I am sick as a dog so it's unlikely I'll be able to comsume much chocolate and sweets, but I'm trying to make the best of it. Luckily, I got a head start last week with SweetTarts Hearts and Tart Sweethearts. Alas, it's been hard to find regular Sweethearts around here this year, or at least I haven't seen any of the single-serve boxes. That new Tart variety is pretty nasty!!