I do have the VHS version of the 1945 film that starred Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, & Jeanne Crain though. I want to get it on DVD, just haven’t run across it ever nor looked on purpose for it. It is one of my all-time old-movie favorites. The film is well done, and won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color in 1946, and had three other nominations as well.

Leave Her to Heaven catalog card on My Library Thing account.

Inside the book, opposite the first page of the actual story which is on the right, is a quote from Hamlet, which is, of course, Shakespeare:

I declare the rest of today, Day after Birthday Recovery and Sinking into Egragon through Literary Portal Day.

Cheerio!

So I went to bed at 6:30pm and just layed there, watched TV and rested. Frank went to the store and got TV dinners for the children, and some mac and cheese from the deli and a ham slice for me. He warmed them up and it was a good dinner. In bed. I stayed there and it was good to do. I had chills the first couple of hours under the covers, but that went away eventually. Eating was devine, I had a big appetite, but exhausted, so it was good to have simple food prepared and served by someone else. I hadn’t been hungry, without realizing it, in a couple of days.

So this morning I woke up feeling fine, except for the obligatory allergies of Spring.

Victoria woke up in the middle of the night, well, actually it was 10pm a bit thereafter and threw up again. Frank helped her.

So that’s that. She seems OK now. So do I. Hope it hold out. We are going out to do a few errands, and see The Pacifier if all goes well.

It’s just a little trimmed, it’s a little tree. 4Ft. Tall, it looks like a minature Christmas Tree, it’s like a Full Fledged tree, just small.

It’s also ALIVE.

Alberta Spruce, of some sort, it’s going to get a couple or so feet taller, and end up about 4 to 5 feet wide. We’ll plant it in our front yard somewhere.

It’ll be something in future years for us or someone else to decorate for the season outside. We’ve not really had anything to do that with before.

I have a long strand of cranberries on it, and mini-white lights, 1 and a half strands of those. Also a couple of other little things. Most of my Christmas stuff is just too big for that tree.

I made a paper star for the top. [It's a kid's site, but the star was the only online directions for anything that'd work for a tree that I could find]

http://www.dltk-kids.com/usa/fold_and_cut_star_shape.htm

I made two of them, pooked out the fold lines of the stars after cutting the folded paper, to give it more depth, then used a stapler to attach them together, bizarre, but I figured at night it’s not visible, and even if they are, in day or at night the tree lights will add sparkle, hopefully At any rate that’s the only way I could figure to get them together with what I had available .

It looks alright, kind of nice. I have a light from the light strands inside of it.

The Gigantic Star atop our Huge Tree is nice. That what it looks like if one doesn’t think about it being a minature tree in the first place. I don’t have any other large ornaments on it, just a few smaller things, but most of my stuff is in the garage. It’s just too much, too big and heavy for this little tree.

So that’s that. Tomorrow is Christmas Day. Presents to open. Then in the afternoon we have a present for the whole family, we’ll be going to see “The Incredibles” at the theatre. Last Christmas we did that for the first time, we saw Peter Pan, so it’s a new tradition that we will “try” to keep each year. We don’t have any family around here, so it’s just us and since we love movies and are visual, it’s a nice thing to do. I used to think it a terrible thing to go to the movies on Christmas Day. But after all I always didn’t like Christmas Day much past the morning, it was dull and boring. No more excitement. No mystery about what presents you might be getting, or about the ones you are giving to others. The pleasures were had and gone. They linger, not entirely gone, but the newness of it all wears off, and a little time together seeing something new at the theatre seems to get our attention off of the “Stuff” and onto enjoying the time together, without being sprawled out in front of the TV or something like that.

Since we hadn’t seen The Incredibles yet, it was the one we decided to do this year for Christmas. We are looking forward to it!

Oh, the theatrical one was good, but this one will be much better.

It’s the way of the good movies. They save the good stuff for the DVD, leave it on the cutting floor for the theatres.

It ensures people going out and buying or at least renting the movie once it comes out on DVD.

LoTR gets it better. They have released the theatrical on DVD first, and saved the Extended for months later. So how much money do REAL LoTR fans sink into the DVD’s?

I don’t know.

What I do know, is that on the day new stuff comes out, you get the cheaper prices in stores, on some discs. The one in particular, that this post is about, is found at Costco for 24.99. That’s the one to start with, the price, to gauge other stores by. Costco will have the disc for LESS than actual “List Price”, but then, no one hardly sells DVD’s at “Actual List Price”. Next consider that Costco will be pricier than most other stores on first day of selling. Costco doesn’t play the games that other stores do. So they hold steady, until they want to get rid of something near the end of stock.

Since Fry’s has come to town I have pretty much considered them the next one to check prices on. Nearly always, get their price, and compare it then to Best Buy and Circuit City, and the winner will be Fry’s by $1.00, at the least. This is opening day, first day of sale, mind you.

After that day, you must compare shopping, and find it for the Costco price, or a little less, or for much more. Target is key: much more. What will the price be at Best Buy, Circuit City, and Fry’s tomorrow? They know. I don’t until tomorrow. But most likely I won’t check tomorrow, since we’ll get the DVD today.

That will leave us with the full collection: Widescreen Theatrical release of all three. Widescreen Extended Release of all three. That’s a lot of discs. Add movie ticket prices in …

Considering it all, we’ve not gone overboard and gotten LoTR this and that. We just have the two-sets x 3. Total discs in our LoTR collection: 18. That’s a modest collection

To that you can also add the inspiration for the movies: the books. So far we’ve bought a large paperback omnibus version, as well as a hardback set. That’s all of them, starting with The Hobbit. [we bought these before the movies came out, yes, much later than we should have ... tsk tsk at myself, and at you if you haven't yet read them!]

I admit fully I’ve not loaded most of the extra DVD’s into the player or computer, yet.

So now the breath is held to await further announcements of Peter Jackson and The Hobbit. I don’t mind turning blue. I like blue

I am a SF lover, just constrained by my own ignorance of what’s out there.

I like Cordwainer Smith, and tried to find whatever paperbacks of his I have in boxes, and only could find the one “The Instrumentality of Mankind”.

So we have looked in the bookstores in the little town near us, two used stores. Nuthin. In Barnes and Noble one day we looked, couldn’t find any, then asked and they said they had none in the store but they could order it for us [No thanks!]

So I started looking on eBay and online other places and … did a bit of extra research to be sure of what I was looking for.

I have just “won” an auction for a pb of Norstrilia, 1974 first printing of it. It’s a cohesive edition of two stories brought together as the one novel, but it’s not the same as other editions [of the novel] and the stories are longer in other version of separate stories [additional material] … I won’t get into the details, but to say, I will be collecting the various pieces of this story, as well as other CS stuff.

So that book, as well as the Galaxy Oct 1962 mag with The Lost Ballad of C’Mell as the cover story will be on their way to me soon. The art on that magazine cover is really nice, and more than half the reason to decide to get it.

See the cover here. [opens in new window]

Cordwainer-smith.com is run by the authors daughter. I hope to get some things from that site eventually, sooner than later.

Secondary: movies

I started looking at The Chronicles of Riddick before it came out earlier this year, and found that “Pitch Black” was it’s predecessor, and so we rented it, and I fell in love with it. TCoR just recently came out on DVD, and we have it, it’s really good too. We also now own “Pitch Black” on DVD.

This is really nice Sci-Fi/Fantasy stuff. Two totally different stories with the same main character, and not made as movie from books.

One that is sensitive to violence and language must take care. For me, it’s part and parcel of my visualness to love Sci-Fi and I don’t mind the violence and turn a deaf ear to the rough language parts. For the most part, both the movies do use fine language, and the worser parts of it are used in areas one might expect. If that makes any sense at all.

Richard B. Riddick is a man on the run from Mercs, an escaped convict, someone “raised in the penal system”. He’s the anti-hero, and so well does Mr. Deisel play the part, it’s very likeable. Frank likes “TCoR”, but not “PB”. Goes hand in hand with the fact that I like “Aliens” etc. and he doesn’t.

One will find reviews of this material online on various sites, and you’ll see the love it or hate it or can like it but want to cut it down, folks. I echo what so many of the “love it” say. It’s really complex and interesting.

So that’s a smidgen of my personality eeking out for y’all to see. :veryshocked:

I found these:

Blade: Trinity comes out on Dec 8

Lemony Snicket comes out on Dec 17

Spanglish comes out on Dec 17

Phantom of the Opera comes out on Dec 22

Of the above, those are the ones we are interested in that are coming out, a small percentage of the stuff coming out

But of the above, only 1 is probable as a family movie … Lemony Snicket. Now, I know there are folks that don’t like those books but I’m not sure as to why. I haven’t read them all, just half of the first one, but I found it interesting, a Barnes and Noble evening it was, and I just haven’t thought to pick it up again since then. I first did that earlier this year before I knew it was coming out as a movie.

Another on the list, Spanglish, I have there since I saw the trailer for it and it looked interesting. If you saw 50 First Dates, as we did on DVD, I took note of the trailer since it looked to be in the vein of that, to a small degree, as in “serious” not “slappy silly”. 50 First Dates had some stuff in it that I’d have done without fine, but Adam Sandler was a nice guy in it, and we really liked the storyline and how it worked out as a greatly positive movie in human character and morals. So I have NO IDEA what I am saying about the movie in question, Spanglish, just that I have a hint of feeling that it’s interesting, but not that it’s a good movie. Must look into it further. In any case, it’s not a children’s movie.

The one children’s movie I’m looking forward to is “Because of Winn Dixie” which finally comes out on February 18th. That’s another Barnes and Noble evening book. I picked it up sometime in the past year or so and read it in full, thorougly enjoying it. I’d seen it many times over, passing it up before. That night I just for some reason was compelled to pick it up and was drawn deeply into the story immediately. I really was predjudice of the book because of the title. I felt at odds with it. Something in me challenged that for some reason, and I read it that night. I was delighted to find out it was to be movie later, and have been waiting for it.

The Phantom of the Opera I am looking forward to greatly. Frank and I have been fans of the show via Audio-CD for many years. We’ve never seen the show, so the next best thing, and maybe a really great thing overall, is a movie version of it, done in the 21st century … the epic beautiful visuals possible in movie making today are wonderful.

Blade: Trinity that’s for me. I’m the Sci-Fi nut. I haven’t seen a Blade in the theatre yet, so I’m looking forward to making Frank go to see it with me

——

So then there are some movies out now that are possibilities … The Incredibles is one. So that’s that for now.

I’ve felt bad for birthday people born around Christmas … it’s tough. I know of people born much closer of course, and Victoria, on “schedule” would have been born the first week of December. Oh, the feel bad and tough part is only how the whole year is empty for them, and then Christmas and birthday crammed upon one little segment of the year.

Why do I feel like that? Two things remind me of it:

1. My birthday is in July and it was perfect placement, IMO all my young life. I never had to go to school on my birthday, and it was practially mid-point of the year between Christmases.

2. I know that when we have week after week of nothing fun to do outside of the house, suddenly invites and times to do something somewhere else all pop up for the same weekend or the same day, and some thing has to be turned down… if only these things would iron themselves out to not clog up one time space, but spread out a few weeks to allow liberal time to be spent at home and out doing in leisure, instead of feeling cramped and missing out on things, and whirlwinding it every so often, and total downtime the rest of the month or two until the next whirlwind time.

These two items have given me empathy for the last part of the year birthed ones. Silly, yes. Silly? No not really though. For I see how tough it is in our home to distinguish between birthday and Christmas gifts for our daughter, like she gets two stages of Christmas, a month apart. I don’t mean for it to be that way, but it’s the way it ends of feeling, for to get her something nice for her birthday and then something nice for her for Christmas is hard on the other children, I see how they see it. They can’t parse it out as adults and see that in other parts of the year THEY get that special birthday stuff. I do see it though that it’s a blank year with a birthday and Christmas just a month apart.

My desire at any rate is for this not to be an issue. Christmas has scaled down heavily in our home, and my preference is to give nice things to them throughout the year, not save up a bunch of stuff to give for Christmas and at Birthday times, and the rest of the time is just regular blah year, no gifts.

So with that said, we have had slim pickings the last few years, with last year the worst year. This year is much better, at this point, compared to last year.

Saying that, now I’ll post a link to my favorite toy shop online. We have patronized this business some and wish to do much more of it. I love the stuff this man makes. It’s really nice wood and well made, and customer service is really real.

Vermont Wooden Toys

If you are interested in well made simple nice hardwood wooden toys for boys and girls, made in America too, that’s the place. Doll cradles, and carriages, trains, planes, trucks, cars, of SO MANY SIZES! Blocks, pull carts … on and on.

We don’t have blocks from Vermont Wooden Toys, but I really would like a very large set of them. From the look of all the other toys we have gotten, his blocks look the nicest of any I’ve seen online, in catalog, or in store. We got a cart stacking tray set of blocks for Asa last Christmas, at one of the wholesale clubs, and it’s alright, but the quality is just so minimal. We sucommed to getting that for him, since we couldn’t get any blocks from VWT, pricing structure between the items being vastly different. If one can afford to spend some money on a large set of low-quality, I advise to spend that or a bit more on much less product of High quality, like at VWT. Lesson here learned. I see that cart and it’s just not interesting to me, let alone much to the children.

I like toys to be minimal in looks, nice lines, simple, wooden toys can be plain. It’s an idea that you’ll find in several educational philosophies, of which to none I subscribe, but feel akin to in many ways. Overlapping ideas, that’s all.

So it’s turkey week. We’ll have a turkey on Thursday, and I’ll probably make a Cheesecake for Victoria’s birthday cake. She’ll be thrilled about that.

We have dropped the traditions of making a certain kind of cake for b-day, and now make simple easy ones, or special gourmet ones, but not the decorated Wilton type ones anymore. Cake that is more eating-probable in our house is Cheesecake anyhow. Or carrot cake, but rarely another kind of cake. We have a small piece and no one feels much like eating it up.

So then, since Thanksgiving is exactly the day in November when a month later it’s Christmas, it brings to mind the other tradition we are starting, going to the movies as a family on Christmas Day. Last year was the first. We saw Peter Pan, opening day, and loved it. I have to do research to see what movies are playing on Christmas Day, I’m not sure if there is a debut film for families that we’d like or not.

Speaking of Peter Pan, the connection to a future movie is Neverland, about the author of Peter Pan. We are looking forward to seeing that film later.

We saw Peter Pan (2003) on it’s opening day, December 25, 2003. It’s the first time we went to the movies as a family! So we are all awaiting the DVD’s arrival later this afternoon, when Frank will bring it home, if all goes well. We’ve only seen it the one time. It’s impact was far deeper than that one time would normally give