Recently, PBS has been showing Jane Austen adaptations, and I recorded the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, which then prompted me to purchase the DVD special edition. It really is a wonderful movie (and book), and not just the ultimate chick flick, though almost all women swoon to Colin Firth's Darcy. As I mentioned in a recent post, period pieces are fascinating to me, and the peculiarities of English upper-class culture at the turn of the 19th centure are especially so. Everyone is just so proper (not in the MC Hammer sense), which is why this scene has special appeal to me. I'm not sure exactly when in the story Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth Bennett, but I know this is when I did.

That was one long shrug. I started reading Atlas Shrugged way back in May of 2007, and I’ve probably finished a dozen other books since I started it. That's not to say that I didn't like it though, just that it’s a book that's a bit tough to find time to read. The book is just too thick to bring to the beach (I like to read one-handed there), and it requires too much thinking to read in short spurts like before going to sleep. Oh, and it's 1,168 pages. That said, it’s one of those books that everyone should read. In fact, if everyone in the country read this book, none of the current candidates for president would have gotten anywhere near a nomination, and the non-sensical anti-corporate sentiment in the country would disappear. Well, that is if everyone could read at a level that would allow them to appreciate it. Sadly, there’s no way that today’s high school kids could get through it, even if it was its own full-year class. Ayn Rand was amazingly brilliant, but accessibilty isn’t exactly a strong suit of her writing. That’s a shame, because it's incredible how relevant this book is, considering it was first published over 50 years ago. If you do want to try to get a young adult interested in the book, you might want to highlight the sex in the book. That Dagny sure gets around...

Happy Easter! While my family doesn’t celebrate the holiday in the religious sense, it’s a nice opportunity for us to get together. Now that I’m home, I’m just about to start my Easter tradition - watching The Ten Commandments. Network TV plays it every year on Easter weekend (it was on a couple of days ago) and one year (I’m not sure which one, but it was at least a decade ago) I flipped to it and got hooked. Now I have it on DVD, so I don’t have to put up with countless commercial breaks and it doesn’t take as long to watch. I tend to like period films (Amadeus, Pride & Prejudice, etc.) because there is such a strong contrast to modern culture. It’s interesting to think about how we’d spend our days if we didn’t have TV, the internet or video games. While the movie may not be Biblically accurate, I enjoy the tale. Plus, Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner are just too cool. Add in the elegantly gorgeous actresses to covet (wait, did I just break one of the commandments?) and pre-digital special effects and it’s hard to look away.

Here is a glimpse into a strange world. My world. A world where F1 practice is akin to the Super Bowl. That's right, I'm talking about practice. Finally, after all those months of winter testing and speculation, the Formula 1 season has begun. So I sacrificed a couple of hours of sleep to follow the first Friday (it was Friday in Australia) practice session in my usual fashion - Speed TV on the television, and live timing courtesy of the official F1 website on the laptop. I’ll be doing the same thing tonight for qualifying and Saturday night/Sunday morning for the race. Yes I know I’m sick, but if I’m willing to trade sleep for something, it has to be irresistable. And in my odd world, F1 is.

Last week I bought Jazzy a frisbee. She’s had one before and has always been a skilled frisbee dog, even though she almost always prefers to fetch a ball. So I made sure to hide all the balls and showed her the new target. She was very excited and caught the first one, even though it’s been years since she’s played this particular game.

While the recently ended writer’s strike was a pain for those of us missing our favorite shows, there was definitely a silver lining for me. With nothing but reruns of my usuals, I branched out a bit and found some new faves. Bones is one that I really like - it’s a forensic crime drama, but what really makes the show is the excellent cast and, of course, the romantic tension between the two leads. I’m such a sucker for that. I’ve also been watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which has a lot of potential but had a disappointing “season finale.” A recent bittersweet discovery is Firefly, a Joss Whedon (of Buffy and Angel fame) show from a few years back. Somehow I missed it when it was on, but I Netflixed the DVDs and I’m astonished that such a quality show was cancelled in the middle of its first season. It’s a scifi/western hybrid, but again it’s the great cast and excellent writing that sets it apart. It is a cult hit and spawned a feature film, but as of right now there are no plans to further the story. Bittersweet, indeed.