Flaming June, Huh? Where’s Bleeding Terry?

Oh, haven’t I been quiet. Here I am, disappointing an audience of thousands! The arrogance of celebrity is an awful thing!

The dog had his second jabs last week, so he’s allowed outdoors in seven days or so. The fact that we still have him is a minor miracle—mom’s found it particularly tough to cope with his antics. He needs proper exercise badly.

I’m still on the old computer. I tried formatting the hard drive last weekend as a last resort. It being so large, this took the better part of 24 hours, at the end of which I found the process had settled the issue permanently—chug chug chug on the bios screen ad infinitum, unable even to boot from floppy! It’s dead, Jim…

I did learn how to take the thing out and put it back in, anyway. I gave it a trial run. Easier than I expected. Now I just need to get round to buying one of the damn things and try not to feel too pissed off about it.

We really enjoyed the final Lord of the Rings picture. Ironically, I think mom’s ended up being a bigger fan than I am. When she first heard about these things three years ago, her reaction was derisory. This is one of her famous u-turns. 🙂

The quest for Orson Welles’ canon (i.e. The Twelve) on DVD is almost over. I need F for Fake to complete the set. I also managed to pick up a DVD dub of the 1982 Arena special off ebay—I remember watching it when it was first screened, and I guess it was partly responsible for my interest in OW’s work. A good nostalgic trip, that. A more frivolous purchase was an OW album autograph. I don’t generally collect autographs, but it was only fifteen quid, so… you know? I plan to mount and frame it beneath a Third Man still and hang it on the wall. (We’ve been here nine months now, and still my walls are completely bare. This needs to change radically.)

Paul Gravett just sent me a gift: Marvel’s Essential Fantastic Four #3, a phonebook collecting #41-63 of the original comic’s run (midway through the famous Stan Lee-Jack Kirby era). Haven’t seen these stories for years, so I’ve had fun looking through it. Must read it one of the days.

Read Ingrid Bergman’s autobiography a while back. It was inspiring, moving, funny and sad. I’ve haven’t read many biogs that have such a deeply intimate feel; if you ever get a chance to read it, you really will walk away feeling you know this person better than you’d have ever imagined, warts and all.

Today’s excitement (er, yes) was getting speaker stands for my rear speakers. So now I can position the things appropriately and get the ‘home cinema’ experience, or so it says on the label. Good! X-men (my test DVD) admittedly sounded much better this way. Currently spinning: the remastered Ziggy Stardust CD. Hey, this one always sounds good!