The Good Shepherd

So I went and saw "The Good Shepherd" tonight. One word comes to mind - interminable. I really wanted to like the film; it's got a great cast and is set in an interesting world, but the plot is so byzantine and the pacing so plodding that I just couldn't get into it. It doesn't help matters that I didn't care about a single one of the characters. That's not entirely true, I suppose I did find the John Turturro and Robert De Niro characters intriguing, unfortunately their combined screen time is probably somewhere around thirty minutes. The film is getting good review apparently, but try as I might, I just couldn't find it in myself to like it.

Humbug no more!

Up until a few days ago, I really wasn't feeling Christmas this year. It's not that I was feeling bad about it or anything, it just wasn't eliciting the usual excitement. But no more! My Christmas spirit is now fully engaged. It was, of course, music which snapped me out of my holiday malaise. Ironically one of the songs to wake me up to the holidays was the dreidel song. At the beginning of the week I was helping the 3rd grade I tutor with a worksheet about Hanukkah, and when part of it talked about dreidels I asked if he had ever heard the dreidel song. When he said no, I was compelled to sing it for him (I had a little dreidel/I made it out of clay/And when it's dry and ready/dreidel I will play...).

The other song to get my Yule Log burning might also seem a strange choice, but I contend that it is, hands down, the best Christmas song every. Fairytale of New York by the Pogues. If you've heard it, then you know that I speak the truth. It's just so perfectly wicked.

I'm back in the Christmas game, so a Merry Christmas to all and t all a good night!

Never Loan Books

Ever since discovering LibraryThing a few months ago I've been having fun adding my books to my library (see widget to the left). I'm not sure what it says about me that I think that data entry is fun, but that's a topic for another day. As I was going through my books to find more to add I suddenly realized that my copy of Watchmen was missing. I'd loaned this book to a friend over a year ago; a friend with whom I've since lost touch. What gets me about the situation is that it's not the first time that it's happened. Years ago, back in my middle-school days, I loaned my prized copies of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series to a friend who shortly thereafter moved to Belgium. I never saw those books again. And so, I'm forced to admit the wisdom of a throw away line from Battlestar Galactica (yes, yes Watchman and BSG in one entry, I am an uber-geek), "Never loan books."

Does this mean that I'll stop sharing books that I love with friends? Of course not, but I think from now on I'll just assume that I'll never get them back. That way I can only be pleasantly surprised.