the pod bay door

First of all, it’s Tuesday evening, I’ve returned from working out, and am inhaling toxic fumes in my house. Workers were here earlier today, ripped out my kitchen window, cleaned out the rotting wood and whatever else they found, reinstalled it with new window goop stuff, and the fumes are stomach turning. Thank God it’s “warm” out, all my windows are open and the overhead fan in the kitchen is rocking. But my stomach hurts.

It’s the beginning of the movie awards season. The New York Film Critics Circle named Far From Heaven Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis Best Actor for Gangs of New York, and Diane Lane Best Actress for Unfaithful (now that’s a surprise!). Far From Heaven won 5 awards. The winners of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards included About Schmidt for Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis (Gangs of NY) and Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt) for Best Actor (a tie), and Julianne Moore Best Actress for her work in Far From Heaven and The Hours. The Boston Society of Film Critics Awards are never predictable. Best Picture went to The Pianist, a Holocaust film and a comeback of sorts for Roman Polanski (note: official site is in French), Best Actor to Adrien Brody for The Pianist, and Best Actress to Maggie Gyllenhaal for Secretary. The information above comes from the brilliant page of Alex Fung, the Film Awards Archivist Supremo!

But wait, there’s more! From Anne comes this: The Hollywood Stock Exchange! YES! But what is it? “Buy shares of your favorite actors and their new movies and watch their values rise or fall based on their success. Stocks soar with a blockbuster opening at the box office and plummet with a bomb no one went to see.” You begin with $2,000,000 “Hollywood Dollars”. It sounds like a blast, I’m joining today!

Geoff and I are planning a short article for Feliciter on blogging. We will not break new ground necessarily, but will report on the current state of the art, and how it is being used now in the library world, and what applications or uses might be forthcoming. We had our first coffee meeting today, and hope to have an outline in the next day or two. I am near the end of Rebecca Blood’s book, which is a joy to read: straightforward, lucid, clear and obvious, presented in a crisp writing style that holds my attention.

I receive the Sunday NYTimes, and in this week’s Magazine is their 2nd Annual Year in Ideas. It is fascinating, and I’m kicking myself for not keeping last year’s issue. Check out genetically modified saliva, the crying baby translator, and the self-cleaning dinner table, to name a few. Rebecca also mentions this issue.

From Milk and Cookies comes the Stewardess Uniform Collection. This may seem odd to some, but students of fashion would find a site like this quite useful.

I finished a workout after work, ran errands, and returned home to load a new #15 b&w cartridge in my HP 812C, only to have it fail. Frustrated, I returned to Staples and swapped it, and when I arrived home and installed it, the same thing happened. I was incredulous. I surfed HP web pages, eventually found schematics for the model, and while staring at the cartridge casing noticed a small piece of metal was missing, the contact for the cartridge to connect to the printer. Argh! The part is probably worth 12c, so tomorrow I’ll bring it in for repairs which will probably total $50…