This'll be one of those big list-type entries. Last weekend I went to the comic shop and got:

• Midnight Nation #11. Still pretty. Not amazing, but still enjoyable. One more issue, and it'll be done; then I'll reread them all and see what I think, since I feel as if I've forgotten half of what's happened.

• Two The Authority TPBs. Because I forgot that I was supposed to read Wildstorm first. Oops. I knew they were related, but I couldn't remember if I'd been told to read Wildstorm or skip it or what, and plus they didn't seem to have the first TPB of it, so I just took The Authority. Anyway, that made it a little confusing since I missed the backstory, but it was still fun. Unsurprisingly, I love Midnighter. Surprisingly, it was lighter than I expected. I'm not sure why; I just thought it would be even weirder. I guess it's pretty strange for a superhero comic, but I never read them much so my standards are different.

• Too Much Coffee Man magazine. With an extremely timely piece called "Why Patriotism Makes You Stupid," which has a lot of criticism of the Pledge of Allegiance. Also, a very funny article about breaking in jeans.

• Reunion, the "special" Buffy/Angel comic. I felt obligated to read it, in case it came up in the forums. It was pretty bad. A couple of funny moments, but mostly blech.

• Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors. Which is a collection of short stories, not a comic. But I got it at the comic store, so there. I already have most of the stories, because I have Angels & Visitations. Apparently that's hard to find or something. Anyway, it was rereleased as Smoke and Mirrors with a few extra pieces, and now that it's in paperback I figured I could finally justify buying something I already own 50% of. Yeay.

Then, because I don't want to spoil Monty's theories about recommendation karma, I watched Hudson Hawk last night. Which I alternately enjoyed and was bewildered by. So that was worth seeing. Later tonight I'll probably listen to the commentary. And then today I went to the used bookstore. I didn't want to, honest. No, really. Oh, fine, maybe I did. I was supposed to look for Wodehouse books, and I failed miserably at finding any, which was quite surprising. Here's what I got instead:

• Three very pretty Black Lizard reprints of Jim Thompson novels. After Dark, My Sweet, The Grifters, and Nothing More Than Murder. They've all got lovely pulp-style lurid covers, which is wonderful. The clerk said that they must have just got the books in, because normally Thompson's stuff gets sold as fast as they put it on the shelf. So go me!

• Gun, With Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem. I read this several years ago, but it was a borrowed copy and so now I've almost forgotten it and have been wanting to reread it. Plus it's the reason I have several other books by Lethem, since I liked it enough to buy other things he'd written.

• Chicago Days, Hoboken Nights, by Daniel Pinkwater. Non-fiction essays about his life.

After that, I couldn't find any Wodehouse. The guy behind the desk told me look in the humor section, and I still didn't find anything, but I did find other goodies which are probably almost as ingratiating:

• The Complete Yes, Minister. I have seen the show a few times, too. The first blurb inside is from Roy Blount! Not that it needed his endorsement, but it's an extra incentive.

• The Best of Robert Benchley. Which it isn't, because it doesn't have "The Treasurer's Report," and I'm starting to think there's a conspiracy afoot to keep me from ever reading it. Damn them all. Maybe the idea is that this is just some of his best, rather than the definitive collection.

• Supermanship, by Stephen Potter. I now have a few of the --manship books. (According to a footnote, the 'manship' suffiix "is generally shortened by us, now, to 'ship', or even quite frequently merely 'p'." Heh.) Anyway, I'm still not sure if I've actually read all of them, but they're fun to read a chapter or two at a time and giggle over for a while, and then put away. Particularly on a rainy Sunday. I don't know why, that's just a good time for them. Supermanship makes me think of wacky Nietzsche, which is funny all by itself. I read a few pieces at the end about topping people at Christmas, which had some excellent suggestions. One involves making people who tell their children about Santa feeling guilty for lying. And when dealing with someone who doesn't tell their kids about Santa, saying something like, "Of course Santa Claus is not real: and of course not one atom of romance, nor the warmth of make-believe, must stain the black and white of the mind of the child of the rationalist."

• And finally, Will Cuppy's The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody. Which my parents used to have, and which I read when I was a wee lass. And then I vaguely remembered it years later, but I had no idea what it was called or who it was buy. And when I looked for it at my mom's house I couldn't find it. Monty mentioned it somewhere that I'd link to if I could find it, but I can't, so I think this book just wants to be difficult. Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading it and seeing why I remembered it all those years. For some reason, the main thing I remember is the stuff about Lady Godiva. Make of that what you will.

And listen. I will finish Don Quixote within the next month. No, honest. I have started on it again. I don't know what my problem is, I just keep getting distracted from it. But on July 26, Farscape will air an episode called "John Quixote." And while I don't really think I'll need to have finished the book to comprehend it, because c'mon, I think that's a useful arbitrary deadline. Even though now I've got all these other books. Whoops. I did start reading it again last Thursday, and they finally stopped talking for paragraphs and set out again, so I think it'll move along more quickly again. (I like acting as if it's the book's fault that I'm not reading it.)

Now I must go clean out poor Scooter's cage, and tomorrow my family and I will probably try playing Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Expedition. My mom just got it, and it looks amusing. And I was really, really hoping that some games I'd ordered would arrive today, but they didn't. I guess they'll give me something to start a July page with.

Watched the second Donnie Darko commentary track with Johanna tonight. That's the one with most of the cast. It's less about the movie and more about how they all love each other. Um, but it's more interesting than that makes it sound -- they start talking about the movie, and then they're just relating random anecdotes about things that happen twenty minutes later, and what they thought about the script, and it's all very sweet and funny and they all seem to really genuinely like each other. So it's fun, but often it has very little to do with what's happening on screen.

And then Johanna and I talked about the movie a little. I've been leaning toward buying it, and now Johanna is too, which is silly because she and Katie and I are trying to avoid buying DVD's that any one of us owns, because we can lend them to each other. But it's such a good movie. The more I look at it the more I like it. So I want my own copy.

And then we kinda-sorta watched one of the commentary tracks for Dungeons & Dragons. We'd watched it a while ago on video because I'd heard that it was the funniest movie ever (not intentionally, but still). And then I heard that the commentary tracks are even better because everyone is talking about it very seriously and speculating about sequels as if the movie was any damn good. But we just couldn't sit through the whole thing because, oddly enough, the comments are harder to mock than the movie. Once you've said, "Oh, you poor deluded fools," five or six times, it gets dull. So we skipped around a bit. We still laughed a lot, though. Such a terrible movie. Wow.

If you were a normally indolent person who had, for bizarre work-related reasons, spent nearly five hours today walking, walking, walking around city blocks, you would be almost as tired and sore as I am right now. To be exactly as tired and sore, you'd also need to get some sunburn on your shoulders and arms. Which has nothing to do with anything about the media, but it's my damn website and I think I've earned one paragraph of whining. I'd also appreciate a backrub, so if the internet could arrange that, that'd be swell.

And now Katie is laughing at me because last month she walked from Baltimore to DC. Show-off.

I figured it'd be nice if my brain was as exhausted as the rest of me, so this evening I watched Donnie Darko. And one of the commentary tracks, and most of the other extras. I liked it a lot. When you mix a SF story with a high school setting and add some satire, you're pretty much making the movie for me.

I remember that I wanted to see it when it came out originally, and at that time the reviews made me think it was much darker and more surreal. Then in the past few months I've seen some more comments online, and Johanna saw it a few weeks ago, which reminded me that I'd been meaning to see it for months and months. So I was slightly spoiled, but most of what I knew about it is established fairly early in the movie, and I don't think that made much difference. I guess I was mostly surprised by how big the movie was; there are a lot of characters, and they're all actual three-dimensional characters, not just random friends/foes -- there are actually a lot of different stories being told in there. And Mary McDonell is just great -- I kept wanting to give her a hug. All of the actors are terrific, actually, but she really stands out despite the fact that she's not on-screen for very long.

Oh, and I liked the soundtrack, too. I'm sad that there isn't a soundtrack album with all the pop songs, but I actually noticed and liked the score, too, which is something I don't often do because of my musical ineptitude.

So I think all of my senses, and most of my muscles, have been through a lot today. And I expect some very odd dreams to come out of that when I go to bed. Which will be in about five minutes.

"Sex, Age & Death" arrived Saturday. Yeay. So I listened to it a lot over the weekend. It's hard to describe. Not so much depressing as exhausted. Well, the lyrics are dark, but the vocals have this removed quality. Which gets the mood across just as well, it's just different from what I was expecting.

And I'd read this comparison in a review, but "Pale White Girls" totally sounds like a Leonard Cohen song. And I like Cohen, so that's fine. Other tracks remind me a bit of Dylan and Peter Gabriel and, bizzarely, Pink Floyd. Although those associations are fading a bit as I get to know the album better, which is what tends to happen. I usually have to listen to something a lot, and learn the lyrics and the tune, and during that process, my opinions about the songs may change a lot. So I'm not quite done with this one yet. Plus, I started listening to his older albums again because listening to the same thing over and over was getting dull.

There are a lot of little details that make listening to it on headphones (which is usually what I'm doing) more fun. "Inside Your Head" sounds like it's being played in a pub; there are dishes clattering and people talking through most of it. And "10:15" has the little hiss of a record needle through it. Fun.

Then, over at the HPOO forums, someone mentioned Robyn Hitchcock, and I had to go pull out a couple of his albums and listen to them again. In high school I just picked up a cheap copy of "Globe of Frogs" on cassette, mostly because I liked the cover art, and much to my surprise, enjoyed it. Then I got a few more of his albums, and then I found out that I'd gotten hooked on someone who had dozens of albums out. And who was fairly popular among the college crowd, as I was happy to learn a couple of years later. He's like the opposite of Geldof, who goes several years between albums; Hitchcock had two or three a year at one point. I haven't been chasing down his albums as diligently for the past couple of years, mostly because I wasn't listening to music as much and I realized that it didn't make sense to buy a new album when I'd barely listened to the last one. (Not that I didn't enjoy it, I just don't think to put music on as much for some reason.)

Of course, now I've been listening to CDs fairly constantly for most of a week. Although listening to albums I played a lot in high school brings back all sorts of creepy associations because Geldof and Hitchcock turned up on a lot of very depressing mixes that I made at that time. Oh well. As long as I don't start playing The Cure, I should be okay.

And now, some gratuitous links:

• It looks as if HPOO will be shutting down at the end of this month. Which makes me sad. So I'll be going through to make sure I've read all of it, and you should, too.

• This is just neat, and I've been meaning to link to it for ages. It's a lending library run by Mark Anderson. Because he wanted to. Keep the book as long as you like; he pays postage both ways. You can also donate books to the cause.

• Mark also has a very funny weblog, which you should read. Yes, all of it. The entries are sporadic, and most are short, so it won't kill you. Go do it. He's very funny. If you must have a sample, try the 3/38/02 entry, in which he quantifies his laziness. With diagrams! Or possibly, the 4/15/02 entry about Easter dinner, which could describe my family. But use caution when reading the June entries, as there's a horrible picture of a centipede in there. Gah.

• Last night, some highly random surfing brought me to a lovely site of deep weirdness. I refuse to spoil the fun by linking to anything directly, but if you are in the mood to wander around, I highly recommend reading the text-only comic. [2006 update: I think the site is gone, now, but the comics are available here.] There's also a personality test in there; I hear those are quite popular with the kids today. I haven't finished looking at it all yet... because I haven't figured out a couple of the riddles. Um, it was late. And I might be stupid. I'm scared to go back and find out for sure.

I finished Is That It? and it was as amusing as ever. I love this part, from when Geldof was setting up the Live Aid concert, and was trying to arrange for The Who to reunite:

Pete Townshend rang. 'Look, it's no good. I'll do it, but Roger will only do it if Kenny doesn't play. But John won't do it if Kenny doesn't play.'

'John won't do it. Why John?'

'He says it's because of what Roger has said about kenny in the past. John says that Roger can never forgive Kenny for not being Keith.'

Suddenly the live of a rock star seems a lot like the life of a fourteen-year-old girl.

sobell mentioned Daniel Pinkwater over at Chicklit, and so I had to reread his books again. I'm about done with The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, and then I'll probably reread The Baconburg Horror and be done for a while.

I made progress on Don Quixote, too. My new favorite footnote from the translator is the one explaining who Marco Polo is. It even mentions that "an account of his travels has been published." Over the weekend I was looking at the chapter titles. They're very funny when you read them all in a row, since Cervantes is being as dramatic as possible with the titles. Except occasionally there's a chapter called something like, "Which gives an account of things which you will know when you read it." That's funny.

I watched Men in Black, and listened to the commentary track with Barry Sonnenfeld and Tommy Lee Jones. I sorta half-listened to the other one, which had people from ILM and Rick Baker, and was more about how they did the effects.

Tommy Lee Jones is neat. In the commentary, he keeps saying he's not funny, but he is. Not just in the movie -- I saw him on Inside the Actor's Studio and he was very funny, in a dry, deadpan way. I was hoping that Sonnenfeld would talk more about the look of the movie. The first time I saw it, I thought it was great at looking like a comic book. (I don't know if it looks like the original comic, because I haven't read it.) Some of that is the intense colors, and I think some of it is because the camera is comparatively static. Like when Will Smith is running up inside the Guggenheim, and you get shots of him running past the camera over and over again, on higher levels each time, intercut with the alien up on the roof. I could see that being laid out in comic book panels. Of course, it's also funnier that way.

The Sonnenfeld/Jones commentary also has an option where you can see their silhouettes, MST3K-style, as they talk. And they circle things on screen like it's football commentary, which is almost always useless and distracting, but I was kind of entertained by the stupidity of it. I haven't watched the other extras yet because I don't have them -- they're on a separate disk. I ordered it from Netflix and it hasn't gotten here yet.

It's Sunday, and we all know what that means. I read the paper! And now I get to babble about it and act as if this is a weblog. As always, some of these links may die soon, so caveat surfer.

To start off on a light note, The San Francisco Chronicle has a whole section about the wacky illegal hijinks the FBI & CIA got up to at UC in the '60's. And how helpful they were politically to then-Governor Ronald Reagan. I'm just linking to the overview, but there's a whole set of more detailed stories about it in the sidebar. I haven't read them all yet because I'm too creeped out.

In happier nostalgia, here's a great big interview with David Bowie. [This & other links referenced below are long dead now, sorry.] It's one of an occasional series where they have someone listen to ten songs that influenced him/her, and talk about them. Obviously, it requires a reasonably articulate interviewee, which is probably why it's only an occasional series. Bowie's one of those stars who I like just as people -- I mean, I love a lot of his music, too, but even when I don't, I still find him interesting, because he seems like a very bright guy. It's a fun article, and there's lots of little anecdotes, and I really enjoyed this bit:

"Some of the gooniness you hear on 'Ziggy' came from [The Legendary Stardust Cowboy]. 'Freak out in a moonage daydream,' which is the chorus to 'Moonage Daydream,' is sort of his 'I shot my space gun, boy did I feel blue / I pulled down my sun visor and thought of you.' "

Bowie is in hysterics as he sings. "Now that's a couplet to kill for! Such wonderful lyrics," he adds, shaking his head.

Hee. Apparently there's some kind of Bowie exhibit at a gallery downtown (photos from an upcoming book). So maybe I'll get up the energy to go check it out. Maybe.

This story, about a teacher who discovered that grades were being bumped out without the teachers' approval, is basically a local story. But I thought it was an interesting contrast to this. The Post tried to do a survey to determine the number of child abuse cases within the Catholic Church. Nearly half of the dioceses didn't respond (it's not completely clear, but it certainly reads as if the Post was just asking for anonymous numbers). Reading that, I kept thinking that what they need in this situation is a whistleblower, and that it's kind of amazing that in an organization this large, with so many "morally upright" people, that hasn't happened. And it seems as if Mary McGrory agrees with me.

Last night I watched the Farscape "Liars, Guns & Money" 3-parter with Katie and Johanna. And some Danger Mouse, and a documentary-ish thing from the Brazil DVD set. But that's beside the point. "Liars, Guns & Money" is just a crazy set of episodes. During the first episode I kept thinking, "I can't believe this still just the first episode! So much has already happened! Wow." I said something along those lines out loud at least twice, but that's just a fraction of how many times I was thinking it. I still stand by my claim that it's not a good story to show people who haven't ever watched the show before, because it is so dependent on backstory. But if you know the history, wow. Good stuff.

Today was a Boomtown Rats-intensive day, since I'd started rereading his autobiography, and that made me start playing old albums. So I accomplished nothing today, which was fun. Yes, yes, I know: Don Quixote. I'll probably finish Geldof's book tonight, and then I'll get back to it. Stop nagging. And yes, I ordered the new album. And either I calculated wrong, or the pound has lost even more against the dollar, because at this point it's actually cheaper (by about $1.50) to order it from overseas. That's just silly.

Oh, and I watched Futurama (It was one I'd missed! "Shields at full Yarnell!" Ha!) and noticed Dan Vebber's name in the credits. He's the story editor, or was [sniff]. And he wrote two of my favorite episodes of Buffy ("Lover's Walk" and "The Zeppo") and also wrote for Daria (which I don't know well enough to recognize by episode title). So I have a new appreciation for his coolitude. Actually, his name is pretty cool all by itself.

Why does no one tell me anything? Corin Nemec is on Stargate SG1, and Bob Geldof has a new album out. I should be informed, people.

Okay, I'll backtrack. Over a couple of days, I watched the Simpsons DVDs. Hee. They do tend to repeat themselves a bit, understandably, but it's still fun. I found it most interesting when they talked about basic design stuff -- how they didn't want to be too cartoony and unrealistic in the physics of the world, and so on. It was also fun to hear them say things like, "Look, Homer's being a good father! Look, he's self-aware! We'd never do that now!"

I skimmed some of the other Brazil stuff, too. I watched most of The Battle for Brazil, a documentary about Gilliam's war with Universal over releasing it. Although I kind of dozed through parts. I was sleepy. And I took a peek at the "Love Conquers All" studio cut of the movie, just to see what it was like. Yikes. The commentary track for it is a bit dry, but it's also interesting as he points out all of the ways they tried to make Sam more heroic and take out all of the ambiguity. One comment I caught mentioned that in a way the studio cut is more subversive, since it implies that you can have a successful revolution. But it also points out that there's no character development because everyone starts out idealistic and good, and by the end they're the same, but happier. I didn't quite have the patience to sit through the movie again so soon, but I'll get back to that in a week or so.

So I'll probably get to Men in Black on Sunday, because tomorrow I have errands to do, followed by a birthday party for Katie. Happy birthday, Katie!

And tonight, of course, I watched Farscape. 1812 Overture. Tee hee. It was like "Switched on Tchaikovsky!" I'll probably watch it again (or part of it) when I go to bed. And maybe I'll have Farscape dreams, which would be very fun. These aren't very coherent comments, are they? It was pretty, how's that for coherent? Well, I've already chatted with Johanna about it, so I don't have many insightful comments left, assuming I had any insight to begin with. So I'll just move on and maybe add something after I've had time to process things.

But then after it was over I had the TV on, and there was Corin Nemec! On Stargate! All grown up, with big arms. It was disturbing. I don't think that'll get me to watch, but it will renew my wish that someone would air Parker Lewis Can't Lose again. It seems as if Nickelodeon would pick it up.

And finally, Sir Bob. Earlier this week I found out that Geldof had a new album (Sex, Age & Death) coming out... someday. It's been out in the UK since last October, and different places have it coming out here next week or in August. What's up with that? However, I determined that I can order the album from the UK, and that thanks to the exchange rate, even with shipping it would cost me about a dollar more than it would to get it here. Whenever it comes out. So I may order it tomorrow. On the off chance that I'm not the only one who cares, you can read about the album, and all sorts of other things, at his official site.

Geldof is one of my long-term fannish obsessions. I don't think I'd heard of The Boomtown Rats when they were actually around, but way back in high school I worked at a library, and there was a copy of his autobiography, Is That It. I flipped through it to see what he had to say about Pink Floyd and The Wall, and was amused. So I checked it out, and read it, and proceeded to collect Boomtown Rats albums, and liked them a lot.

And then he did some solo albums, which I enjoyed too; The Happiness Club is definitely the best. I had it on tape, though, and it eventually was eaten up by a very bad cassette player. But then Katie found me an import copy on CD, and everything was good again. Except one song has a different verse, which confuses me to this day. Oh, and I eventually found a copy of Is That It? in a used book store, so this quick immersion in Geldof-ia means I'll have to reread it.

Anyway. The new (to me) album is about the break-up of his marriage and Michael Hutchence's death, and so it's apparently very depressing. So that'll be nice. Um. Sort of. But you should go look at his site and read a few of the interviews because he's a hell of a lot more articulate than most pop stars and has a lot of interesting things to say. And I wanted to quote a really funny thing he said about all of his awards, but now I can't find the article. So go dig around. There are also reviews and Geldof's comments about his older songs, and it's all really neat. Ah, wait, I found the quote:

"My medals! I love wearing them to Elton John's annual bash because mine are nicer than his. I'm a Chevalier, a knight, a sheikh and a Prince Tuareg in Western Sudan. I look like Idi Amin when I've got them all on." He admits he has won so many awards, as well as a Nobel peace prize nomination for Live Aid, that he's forgotten some of them; he keeps them in a cupboard, filed away alongside the World's Best Dad mugs his kids give him for Father's Day.

He's adorable.

I thought I'd just check out a little bit of the Brazil commentary track before I went to bed.

You can imagine how well that worked out. I don't know how I manage to convince myself that I have self-control.

It's so fun. 142 minutes long, and I'd be very surprised if there's a total of as much as five minutes when Gilliam isn't talking. Explaining the effects, and admiring the actors, and going on a tirade about Hollywood, and saying "fuck you" to movie critics, and there's a hysterical part when he talks about working on the score and he's basically humming and making odd noises for about a minute straight, and it's delightful. Terry Gilliam should come hang out with me. I know I missed some of what he was saying because I'd start thinking about one thing he'd mentioned while he continued going on to something else, and I realize that's why there's a pause button, but where's the fun in that?

And I have two meetings at work tomorr -- er, later today. So between being sleep-deprived and having images of a horrific bureaucracy in my head, I think I'm set. Whee!

DVD madness is busting out all over! I'm going to try to do this in order, so... I watched Time Bandits last week. Yeay. The DVD had the original trailer, which I'd never seen. It's funny, which I'm sure is a huge surprise. The announcer tries to pitch the movie on the basis of the incredible make-up, and eventually Michael Palin interrupts and suggests talking about the plot instead, and so on.

It's such a good movie, y'know? It's one of those movies that are so good, that I kind of forget how much fun they are. Because I've seen it many, many times, and so I automatically say, sure, it's good. But then I watch it and get all caught up in again and remember why I've seen it so many times. There are so many great lines that I never remember them all, so there's always something that seems new to me. This time it was:

[exasperated shout] "Why are we so stupid?!"

[quiet, sad answer] "I don't know.

It might not transcribe well; the delivery makes it funnier. And all of David Warner's stuff is hysterical. Gosh, it's so good.

Plus, Terry Gilliam movies just have this look to them. I was talking to Johanna about it, and I think part of it is that he's using models (and low budget effects), and so even when you know it's a model, you also know it's real -- as opposed to a shiny computer graphic. But I don't think that's all of it, because I've certainly seen a lot of movies with models, and they don't look the same.

My other slightly insane theory is that there's often a lot of dust in the air in Gilliam's movies. I don't think I can even explain that one, but if you're watching one, look and see. There's all this dust catching the light, and it just makes things look murkier and deeper. It's just a theory. Perhaps I'm crazy. Someday I'll figure it out.

Somewhere I have (or at least, had) an episode of The South Bank Show with Terry Gilliam, and he sums up the movie by saying he wanted to do something clever enough for children, but amusing enough for adults. I really like that. I do wish I'd seen it in the theater, but I only vaguely remember it coming out. I think I remember that the creepy cow-skull minions were in the ads at the time, and that they scared me. Which is great, because they're so random and surreal and required no FX work at all, and yet I think they did their job, which was to be a little bit scary.

As long as I'm going on about Gilliam, I should confess I still haven't finished watching Fear & Loathing. I suspect that part of the problem is that I haven't read the book, so I keep waiting for a plot to happen. I know enough about the book to know better, but I just expect one to turn up eventually. I was enjoying it when I watched it, but I was also tired, so about halfway through I realized I was falling asleep, and put it aside. And because there's not so much plot, I haven't had that "must finish movie!" urge to motivate me. Maybe I'll get to that next weekend. Except now I've got all these other things to watch. You see...

Today I came home to find a lovely pile of packages at my door. Last week I found another fabulous rationalization for my region-free DVD player: I ordered a region 4 Angel DVD that's just got "Rm w/a Vu" and a few other season 1 episodes on it. That's a really good episode, and I'd like to have it on DVD, but not so much that I want to shell out for the entire first season. This way it was about $15 for four episodes, and there's only one really bad episode in that group. So that seemed worthwhile. And it arrived today! I listened to the "Rm w/a Vu" commentary while I had dinner, and then I watched the last act of "Sense & Sensitivity" (which is funny). There's also nice spooky music for the menus. The other two episodes aren't anything special, but it was still cheaper than buying the whole season, so I'm comfortable with that.

And the same place had the DVD for season 1 of The Simpsons. For $22. Region 1, even. Which seemed fairly bargain-like, so I got it. After I was done looking over that, I started to open the third package before realizing I had no idea what on earth it was. It was from Amazon, and I automatically assumed it was something else I'd ordered, and then I realized I hadn't ordered anything from them lately.

It turned out to be the Criterion Collection DVD of Brazil. Bringing us back to Terry Gilliam in a pleasantly circular way. It was a present from someone who likes my recaps. Which is pretty amazingly amazing. It's three DVDs. Three! With commentary from Gilliam, and several documentaries, and the scary version that the studio wanted to release, although I guess technically it's not scary, which is exactly what's wrong with it, but you see what I mean, and I'm just... it's... I'm... wow. I'm happy. I don't know when I'll be calm enough to actually watch it without gibbering.

Oh yes, and then I'd rented Men in Black from Netflix, because I thought I should watch it again before the sequel comes out. Because I'm sure continuity will be very important to understanding it. Um. No. But it's fun, and I thought it would be nice to see again, and I want to see all the extras and stuff.

So basically, I came home today and suddenly had 8 DVDs to watch. I guess I won't have any reason gripe about how there's nothing on TV for a while. Yipes. What was even better was that I was in a really cruddy mood on the way home, because, I dunno, it's Monday. No real reason, just feeling irritated. And all of the sudden life was wonderful. That should happen more often.