(no subject)

Whee! Such funness.

I got to hang out on Saturday with manderspander, Amanda, who's been my best friend pretty much since birth. We didn't go out to see RotK, like we'd planned, 'cos her dad was sick and couldn't drive us. (Everybody I know is sick. Coworkers, family, friends - why am I still healthy? I think I'm getting sick, but it might just be psychosomatic because I've been expecting to become ill for a week now.) Did not matter, because we just spent time together yakking and watching movies. I spent the night.

Sunday, I arranged to get together with my friend Rikki. We went to Wal-Mart, where I finally got to take my Visa gift card for a test drive. I got:

* The DVD of A Knight's Tale. Which has been on my list of I Have It On VHS But I Need To Get The DVD Eventually for like a year and a half now - what? Shut up. I like it. I know I shouldn't, but I just do. Anyway. Wal-Mart finally marked it down to under ten bucks, so I grabbed it.
* Best of Bowie. Because if I'm going to wear a t-shirt with his face on, I suppose I ought to listen to his music beyond what gets played on the radio.
* The Ben Stiller Show DVD, because it came highly recommended by a couple of you. Also, it was cheap. What? I don't care how many recs I get, I'm not dropping more than, say, twenty-two bucks on something I've never seen before. Especially when I should make something of an attempt to keep to the list that I just made for myself two entries ago.

And, after dubbing around randomly for a bit (during which I slipped into Olympia Sports and FINALLY got that Varitek player t-shirt I've been wanting), we went to see Peter Pan, the highlight of which I had assumed was going to Jason "I managed to make Lucius Malfoy heart-stoppingly sexy" Isaacs. Not even. He was brilliant, of course, but, but . . . it was just so amazing. See, I love the book. I love the details and the meanderings of the story and the level of darkness. Does it even need to be said that not a single production I've seen has come anywhere near it? Well, no more. This movie was perfect. I cried on and off for the first fifteen minutes just because it was so wonderful. It may change the story and play havoc with the details, but it has the soul of the book. It is childlike in a very real sense - the mistake people is assuming that children are sweetness and light. I was too utterly mesmerized to exchange the usual (whispered, I'm not completely rude) comments with Rikki. I run the risk of repeating myself, so I'll stop gushing now, but if you haven't seen it? Go. Go.

Then, I got to rent The Order. I'd been looking forward to it all month because it's just fun to see what weirdly obtuse thing Heath Ledger will be in next. I was actually kind of surprised when I was able to understand and follow it the whole way through. I didn't care for it too much, but I wasn't quite in the mood. I think that in a different frame of mind I'd enjoyit, so I'm going to give it another try sometime. (Interesting bit of trivia; The Order was written and directed by Brian Hegeland, who also wrote and directed A Knight's Tale, and it also features two other main players from AKT, Mark Addy and Shannyn Sossamon. Who, it turns out, is not annoying when she's not playing Jocelyn the evil bitch from hell.)

Yesterday, I watched my Coupling season two DVD. Eight of nine episodes. (I skipped the first because I saw it once on TV and just squirmed in embarrassment the whole time. Usually, the "Jeff is weird and does weird things" humour is spot on, but that one was just - no.) You'd think I'd be exhausted after all that, but I was still fresh, so I put in Ben Stiller, praying that money had been well-spent. I made it through four episodes before I finally hit that stage of glazed consciousness where you've just watched too much TV and are not absorbing anything any longer.

SHOCKING NEWS FLASH: Ben Stiller is funny and talented. And also kind of hot. Who the fuck knew? I sure didn't. He's been hiding it well ever since There's Something About Mary. Which my mom and I rented years ago, and when it was over we defintely agreed that we'd rather have that three bucks back. And it's been more of the same ever since. Oh, Ben. What happened?

Then Rikki and I got together again today for part two of our post-season shopping. (Rikki: "Tell me not to spend any more money." "Okay." Two hours later: Me: "Rikki, don't buy those. Put them back." "No. I can buy them if I want." "Well, you said . . .") With the Borders gift certificate I got from my grandmother, I got:

* The Knight's Tale soundtrack. Hush. I've listened to it before, and it's a good CD. That's all.
* Night Watch, last year's entry in the Discworld series. Finally. While it was good enough to be worthy of buying in hardcover, which is a rare honour indeed (I hate to spend the money on hardcover; I'd rather wait a year for the paperback - exceptions include, and are more or less limited to, Harry Potter), all my other Discworld books are paperback. The hardcover wouldn't match. And they have to match. Because I am neurotic. Anyway, Night Watch is hands down my favourite Discworld book and I'm so happy that I finally own it.
* Sir Apropos of Nothing, by Peter David. This book is apparently what he was working on while New Frontier languished on the backburner. It had damn well better be good enough to justify the extra year's wait.

And I have a few bucks left on it to go toward something else some time next year! Score.

With the Hot Topic gift card Rikki gave me (and a little bite off my debit balance) I bought a beautiful cigarette case with a fairy painting by Brian Froud on the front. I pulled out my Djarums to measure them against it, since cloves are longer than regular cigarettes and I wanted to be sure they'd fit. And then I realized that by standing in the middle of Hot Topic with cloves in hand, I had quite suddenly become a vessel for the spirit of the Poser Goth Cliche. Thank god I was wearing that Varitek shirt - I think the bright Red Sox red is what chased the evil spirit away.

Rather an unsettling experience just to have something shiny and pretty to hold the cigarettes I hardly ever smoke.

Other purchases:

* Almereyda's Hamlet. YAY! So that makes, uhm, one item on that list. I went to three places before I found it, too. I found Firefly everywhere, but nowhere at a price even remotely comparable to the one at Amazon, so I'll just order it there. And I'd pretty much counted on having to order Oak-Mot online, too; I just figured that asking at Borders couldn't hurt anyone. Much.
* I bought the Reality Bites DVD at the same place. The cashier must have thought I was such an Ethan Hawke fangirl. Heh.
* With the Casablanca gift certificate (and again, a little bit from the debit card): The first five issues (or all five issues, I don't know how long a run it is; I could flip to the end of issue five to check, but I'm terrified of accidentally reading the wrong panel or something) of 1602. Because a) the premise (Marvel characters transplanted to the year 1602) is quite cool, and b) it was written by Neil Gaiman, who can do no wrong. I also got volume five of Ultimate Spider-Man. Which certainly took me long enough, considering that a little more than a year ago I was all in a kerfuffle because number four had finally come out. What can I say, I spotted a shiny fandom. Or something.

And finally, I stumbled upon a used copy of the soundtrack to Kenneth's Hamlet. I love the music on that movie but probably never would have bought the CD at full-price. Seven bucks was quite a different story, though. =D

And then Rikki and I watched some of her Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon DVD - and I'm talking the newly released uncut subbed version, which is precisely how I've been wanting to watch Sailor Moon for years. Now she's watching something else and I'm sitting here with sore arm muscles from having poor typing posture for so long. I refuse to proofread this entry.

And tomorrow, we're going to meet my friend Laura for lunch. I haven't seen her in ages, so I'm happy.