Jane Austen Book Club

I saw Jane Austen Book Club today in Gilbert.

A Saturday Well Spent

Today I had a brie and turkey sandwich lunch at the Desert Botanical Gardens and again took some time to walk through the Childhood Dreams sculptures, explored the Hall of Flame fire museum, called relatives, bought too many books at Changing Hands, visited my favorite canine Brady and took him for a long run, borrowed a friend's cable television to catch the end of a Psych episode and all of a Burn Notice, and met up with friends to see Stardust.

A truly excellent day.

However, no day is perfect. Today I confirmed that grabbing onto a cactus, while the natural and reflexive thing to do, is not a good way to break one's fall. (No, this didn't happen at the DBG, so you need send no garden police after me.)

Hall of Flame reminded me of home, it having so many Wisconsin artifacts and roots.



Stardust Trailer

Bourne Ultimatum

I saw Bourne Ultimatum today. It was a guilty pleasure, given its excesses of violence.

I'm a popcorn addict.

Cauliflower never tasted so good

Dad and I made Rachael Ray's pork with fig sauce and cauliflower puree this evening. It was delicious. We finished off the Poirot disc, a couple episodes of Have Gun Will Travel (season two), and an episode of Hustle (season 2). It's a television binge but I got home too late this evening to head over to the Desert Botanical Gardens, which dad visited today and he says plants are in bloom and beautiful. I hope to make it over there soon to check it out.

Guedo's

I left work a little early today to tidy up and then picked up my dad at the airport. We went to Guedo's for a fish taco dinner and then made Rachael Ray's mustard crusted salmon without the mustard, which was very good, as an after dinner snack and leftovers lunch to take to work tomorrow. For once it was really a thirty minute meal. We watched a couple episodes of Poirot (from NetFlix) before dad fell asleep on the couch; figures with the time differential.

Wolfgang Puck's Curried Chicken Satay

I made Wolfgang Puck's curried chicken satay this evening, as instructed in the February issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray. I'm unclear how many servings it was supposed to make, since I ate them all myself while watching Jarhead from Netflix with no trouble.

Jarhead was disturbing but worth watching. Affords some perspective.

Wallace and Grommit: Curse of the Were Rabit

I watched Wallace and Grommit this evening, courtesy of Netflix. Kind of cute.

Pirates 2

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (Dead Man's Chest) at the AMC Ahwatukee last night. Ahwatukee is a local name with similar fun properties to "Wauwatosa", I suppose. Anyway, the movie was pretty fun. I hadn't seen it because I refused on principle to go to the movie alone and I couldn't seem to drum up any interest. Most of the fun of seeing the first Pirates was the crowd I saw it with. But I really like popcorn and the movie was pretty good. The little kids crawling around under the seats during the movie was kind of cute too. Not sure I'd want to take kids so young to this movie, but what do I know.

The joke goes after the first Pirates movie we came back to the house and were so giddy with piratical excitement we went to download that pirate song, "A Pirate's Life for Me". And entered "pirate music" into the music swapping engine of the week, and back came a result set of a million entries, because, hehe, it's all pirated.

Traffic getting there was awful. I mean, I suppose it was normal, but it wasn't the non-traffic I prefer. Sometimes I really miss the similicity of the not-owning-a-car, walk-to-work lifestyle. Google Maps said it would take 15 minutes to get there, it took me more like 50 and I didn't manage to get into the right parking lot, just one that was close enough I could walk there. Missed some of the beginning, and that's always annoying. Better to get it all from the start, and ideally to catch a few previews first. Chalk it up to an off night, I suppose, but the whole driving thing is a stress source. I keep telling myself I'm getting better at it.

I've optimized my living location for short commute to work. The Sunday WSJ article on happiness advises this, that commutes tend to be a significant source of lost time, stress, and chaos. I think I could stand to live a few miles further west, though, in more of a Tempe area. More coolness per square inch over there.

The Great Train Robbery

I saw The Great Train Robbery this evening with my parents. Played it on the Mac mini with those delicious Harman Kardon speakers. A really great movie.

Illusionist

I absolutely loved seeing The Illusionist this evening. What a beautiful and compelling story.

Raising Arizona

This evening I went to the Netflix Rolling Road Show showing of Raising Arizona. I hadn't explored that far east before today and checked out the "ghost town" near the state park before the show. The show itself was great fun, complete with inflatable screen and pre-show antics from the scavenger hunt teams.

The Sentinel

I saw The Sentinel at the AMC movie theatre on Stapley today. I don't remember it as being all that good. Maybe okay-ish.