11:57 p.m. - 27 December 2002
Computery Christmas
Christmas has mostly come and gone (we've already spent time with his family, and my parents and sister will be arriving tomorrow), and the theme the last couple of days seems to be computer problems. Lee wanted a new video card, so I got him one, but it doesn't want to play nicely with his old one. He needs the old one to work so that he can continue to play Red Baron online. So far, he's been through a couple of OS changes and I don't know how many reboots.
Then earlier this evening, the laptop decided that one of the Windows files is corrupted or missing, and it wants the original setup disk to fix itself. Except that we don't have a setup disk for XP Home, which is the OS it's running, since that came preinstalled when we bought the thing. I can completely reinstall the OS, but that will require formatting the hard drive, and I'm not quite to that point yet. Argh. If it's not one thing, it's another. Amazingly enough, my computer's been running Win ME for a long while now, and it's fairly stable. I just have to work around a couple of things...
Other than the computer woes, it's been a good Christmas. Lee's parents gave me two new pieces of All-Clad (a 7" fry pan and a 1 qt. saucepan), and Lee bought me The Annotated Hobbit, which I've already finished reading. I kept thinking that it would be great if this author would do an annotated Lord of the Rings, but that might be asking too much. We've seen The Two Towers twice already, and while I was violently opposed to some of the changes that were made after the first viewing, I didn't mind them as much the second time. Sort of.
When we saw it the first time (on opening day, of course), I was really pissed about the changes made to the character of Faramir. I'm still upset, but I see that they did it to emphasize the differences between Faramir and Boromir without making the movie even longer. In the book, there's a lot of dialogue between Frodo and Faramir, and the differences between the brothers are made obvious there. But since the movie is already 3 hours long, by having Faramir be tempted by the Ring but then recant, there's some shorthand at work in showing the differences. I know I'm not explaining this well, but it's past midnight and I've been up all day.
I was even more amazed with Gollum the second time around, though. I'd love to see Andy Serkis get a supporting actor nomination at the Oscars, but I doubt he will for a character that's completely digital, even if it is based on his movements and expressions. Then again, I believe Robin Williams was nominated for his role of the Genie in Aladdin, so the precedent is there. And Gollum steals the movie.
Anyway, like I said, it's late, and I don't feel like writing more fangirl adoration of the movie. Maybe later.
