I just watched 'Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World' and enjoyed it immensely! My first thought when ads for it came out was, Oh great, another guy flick where getting great revenge makes up for injustice, ala Gladiator, no thanks. Now, I really do enjoy some guy flicks - like terminator, aliens, you know, the SF variety. But people hurting other people on purpose and enjoying it is not for me.

But then I read a couple of reviews that spoke well of the movie, and the series of books that it is based on, and thought, ok, someday, I'll watch it. AND I LOVED IT!

After about 15 minutes, I realized that I was watching a star trek (the original series) knockoff! I mean, we have the strong, courageous yet compassionate captain; the curmudgeonly doctor who provides companionship, friendship, and conscience to the captain and calls him by his first name; the engineer, who protests that he can't guarantee she'll sail (fly) without a better mast (better dilithium crystals); the vast loneliness of the sea (the galaxy); the reliance on the ship for their lives; the attachment of the captain to his ship; the exotic differentness of the natives (aliens); tricky maneuvers to fool the bad guys, and on, and on, and on... By the end of the movie, I felt I'd watched several great star trek episodes!

Of course, I realized rather quickly that star trek is a knockoff of this far earlier genre, and that I am just anachronistically challenged.

And then I remembered that quite some time ago I had bought a Patrick O'Brian novel, so i hunted through my shelves and found it! Alas, it is the 16th in the series, so now I have to go searching for the first one in the series.

But what joy, a whole 16-novel series to discover!

And wait a minute, now that I'm thinking about it, were the Patrick O'Brien novels written before, or after, Star Trek?
hmmm...

Hi Everybody! (All 4 of you...)

It's been awhile since I've exerted the discipline to post, so here goes...

Let's see... I'm taking my final tonight in Linear Algebra. This class was a lot of fun (no, really!) And when I complete this class, I will have 5 more classes to complete my Bachelor's degree. That means, with 1 class in summer, two classes each next fall and spring, I should graduate with my 31-year plan bachelor's degree!

Gosh, I am a sucker for these quizzes!


Heart of Crystal


What is Your Heart REALLY Made of?
brought to you by Quizilla

Whee!

What a wonderful party!  What a fantastic bunch of kids!

Trueman rebelcoyote , Emily emmycantbemeeko , Jacob, Carol spinningmud , Tim, Lisa, Savva, Danika danikakopanke , Daniel captinpank , Daniel's friends Chris and Marina.

And, of course, Bartender and Kitchen Manager Extraordenairre (sp?):  Big Dan!

Games, music, food, stories, drinks...

Dan shut down the bar at 2 am to keep kids from over-imbibing, and everyone slept over.  What an assortment of blankets, pillows, sleeping places!

Oh, and we got to see Trueman dress his wound.  Dan, the nurse, checked it out, and while many others were turning green, moaning eewwww, Dan says, Wow, that looks great!

Thanks, guys, for a most enjoyable, fun time!

Wow, again!

Trilogy Tuesday was awesome!

From the management at the theatre, to the joyfulness and camaraderie of the crowds, to the excellence of seeing the extended editions of FOTR and TTT on the big screen, to seeing ROTK, it was all just AWESOMSE!

The crowd was definitely geeky, and everyone was so excited about being there, and being there with 445 other people who were excited about the same thing! There was general helpfulness, and sharing of doughnuts, books, maps, etc...

I had avoided watching the EE of TTT so I could experience it for the first time on the big screen, and it was wonderful. It was so much fun watching the movies with a crowd that felt uninhibited about cheering and clapping!

Well, ROTK was great, but it definitely left me wanting the DVD extended edition.

I imagine someday (like in maybe five or ten years) they'll do this again with all 3 EE versions. I just hope it'll be more generally available than the 100 theatres this time. (For comparison purposes, ROTK opened at 3,710 theatres today.)

The AMC River East 21 theatre complex is really nice. We got there about 9:30am. There's a ground floor lobby that's fairly utilitarian, then there's a very large, comfortable upstairs lobby, which is where the waiting areas were set up. There were about 70 people in line ahead of us, including one guy (at the head of the line) who had arrived 11 pm the night before, and slept in line. The staff were really well organized, gave us great info on the day. We got nice laminated 'Trilogy Tuesday' id's on a lanyard; they were offering $1 hot dogs and $1 nachos all day, endless refills on pop and popcorn, and pizza ordered in between TTT and ROTK. They let us into the theatre at 10:30, and we saved seats for the rest of the folks in our party. Ben, a friend of ours, had his laptop with a wi-fi connection, so we took digital pictures & uploaded them to his web site. (I'll post the address later... I forget to get it from him...) So, we just hung out, chatted, geeked out on Ben's laptop... The chairs were fantastically comfy. The breaks between movies were comfortably long enough. We went across the street to a deli between FOTR and TTT, and AMC was just great about us bringing outside food in. Everything was handled just so... sensibly. It all made for a great, memorable time.

WOO-HOO!

It's finally here!

So, the FOTR-EE starts at 1pm today. So of course we are getting to the theatre at nine!

I have a bag packed with my "Atlas of Middle Earth", playing cards (Canasta), 4 blow-up punch balls (for bopping around the theatre when we finally get seated, and the theatre is full...), and a nerf basketball.

Trying to decide whether to bring Boggle as well.

Will post sometime tomorrow!

I am sitting here, avoiding my programming project (which is due Monday night), hating the fact that I am in school, and that I also have a final on Monday night. Actually, the final was scheduled for Tuesday night, but since that is Trilogy Tuesday I am taking my final one night early.

I can't wait until Monday night is OVER!

Oh, man, it's just TWO WEEKS to Trilogy Tuesday!!!

Did I ever tell you about the time Danika and I met Dennis Rodman?

Ok, so Danika's and my favorite band is the band Live. And as a member of their fan club, I was entered in a contest in December 2000 for free tickets to a concert along with backstage passes. Well I won!!! and after we peeled Danika off the ceiling, we started making plans to see them when they were in Chicago and Danika was home from college (she was at Scripps college in Claremont, CA at the time.) -- October 2001.

Eventually, things got screwed up with the Chicago concert--Live's meet & greet was cancelled. But hey, there was a concert in like two weeks later in Los Angeles, so I jumped on the web, got some cheap tickets for me to LA, scheduled us for the show in LA, and let Danika know I'd be sleeping in her dorm room that weekend.

So we show up at the House of Blues at Disney at Anaheim nice and early, but since we're on the list of complimentary tickets, we can't get in line with all the early birds... the guy with the list of the comp tickets is late, we get our passes, but they're not "VIP" passes like they were supposed to be, so we don't get to sit in ONLY seating at house of blues, because that's the vip area. So we have to nudge our way on the main floor (no seating). We end up at the front, all the way on the right side, right next to the 12-foot high speakers.

Now, I'm a middle-aged woman (46), and although I love Live, I love my hearing too. (And I also love sitting down! Standing for 2-3 hours is NOT my idea of a good time)

But hey, we stay there, through the opening band (Citizen Cope... definitely NOT like Live), and we've made friends with the security guard as well by this time. (I am definitely one of the oldest people in the crowd) So then there's the dead space between the opening band, and Live, and so I sit down on the step behind me (those of you who know me know I'm not exactly light on my feet...)

About five minutes pass, and then the security guard leans over to Danika and says apologectically (through the unbelievably LOUD inter-music) "Your mom is going to have to stand up when the band starts playing."

So I sigh dramatically, and stand up. It's gonna be a loooong 1-1/2. A couple minutes later, the guard is talking on his radio, listening, talking some more, and then he leans over to Danika (I guess he figured I was too old to understand English, or something...)and says "You guys can go up to the vip seating."

I can just see these security people saying, hey, let the old lady have a seat...

So, I go up to the vip SEATING (a seat, omg, how great, a seat!), but Danika stays where she is, because even if she's off to the side, hey, she's up in front. (And, she has young ears...)

Right about now, you're wondering, what has this got to do with Dennis Rodman? Well, nothing, really, I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it...I just thought it was a funny story from the same night...

So after the show (the show was GREAT, btw), we're just hanging out in the vip area with a bunch of other fans we don't know, waiting for Ed Kowalczyk, Chad Taylor, Chad Gracey, and ... damn, I forget the bassists name... [serve's him right for not coming out to meet the fans]... But there's like, no order to this whole scene, no one in charge, no one introducing... very weird... Anyway, eventually the band members come out, Ed just walks down a line of people, signing CD's as he goes, not really even speaking to anyone... it was kinda weird. Tried making conversation with him, but that fell flat. I figured it's gotta be weird, and tough, after putting yourself out performing, to have to come backstage and 'perform' again... I dunno know, he wasn't very friendly, but Danika did get a nice picture with him.

So then we headed off to another clutch of fans around Chad Taylor, the lead guitar player. And we're standing around, politely waiting our turn. Chad is chatting with this REALLY big black man, who's got tatoos all over, and piercings everywhere (chin, lips, nose, eyebrows, ears-do ears even count anymore?), and he's not particularly good looking... and he notices us standing there, and says to Chad, "hey, these people are waiting to talk to you..." So Chad turns to us, and by way of social-thank-you-hey-I-notice-you-there, Danika says to the big, black man as she's turning to Chad, "Hey, I like your piercings..." to which he responds, "Hey, thanks," and turns away. So now Danika's talking with Chad, and the wheels are slowly turning in my head... Big, black man, kinda ugly, tatoos & piercings, [and I'm enough of a fan of Live to know, somewhere in the back of my brain, that Dennis Rodman is a BIG fan of Live]... and bingo, all the pieces fall into place... That's... that's Dennis Rodman!

So then Danika turns back to me and I say, do you know who that was, with the piercings? No, she says. That's Dennis Rodman, I say... So she turns around to look at him, then turns back to me and says, "You're shitting me!"

"I shit you not", I reply--well probably I wasn't that witty, I probably said, Nope, that's him...

Now, this just struck my funny bone... that we'd been standing right next to Dennis Rodman, that Danika had complimented his piercings, and we didn't know it was him!

And now, I go completely out of character. I think this is soooo funny, I just have to tell him. By now, Dennis is engaged in conversation with someone else from the band, he's turned away from us, but I've just got to tell him.

So picture this: this 44-year-old, 5'1" woman, much too much weight for my height, often mistaken for a garden gnome, patting 7-foot-whatever Dennis Rodman on the arm, "Dennis, (pat-pat-pat), Dennis (pat-pat-pat)", he finally looks over (and down, way down) and politely says "yes..." "You're Dennis Rodman, right?" and he says "Yes...", and I giggle and point at Danika, "She didn't know who you were..."

Danika, probably thoroughly mortified by now, pipes in "We're from Chicago", so Dennis focuses on us, very nice, and says "And you are?..."

Well duh, I thought, I'm nobody, how could you possibly care..., when I realized he's being polite! And I'm not! Again, Danika recovers nicely, "I'm Danika", and I say "I'm Ilene", and he shakes our hands (unbelievable--it's like putting your hand in a pitcher's mitt) and we chat a couple minutes, and then we go on, talking to other folks.

So, that's my claim to... no, not fame, but social stupidity.

OK I'm getting carried away with this meme stuff...

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Been awhile since I've posted. On last Wed, Danika called me to tell me Emily had just called--Trueman had been injured over in Iraq, and another young man in his humvee was killed.

Devastating news.

I'm 46, and was conscious during the Vietnam War--I remember the body counts in the news each night.. yet, I didn't *know* anyone who went over to Vietnam, much less didn't come back.

My God, this is _so_ different. Poor Trueman! And poor Emily! And Robert Wise's family/friends (he's the young man who died...)

I' ve just been recently introduced to LiveJournal by Danika. And reading Trueman's lj has been compelling.



These 'kids', these young adults! I knew them as children. Danika and Emily have been friends since 3rd grade.

I've known Trueman since he was a freshman in high school. As well as Aaron, and David, and Isaac, and Momo, and Mikey.... Such wonderful, delightful kids!

And I have so enjoyed 'peeking' into these kids lives via LiveJournal -- what an awesome communication tool this is.

It has been wonderful keeping up on Trueman's progress, and seeing all the people who care about him, and his friends.

It has been wonderful seeing all the folks who have been 'there' for Emily through all this. And to be able to keep up with what's going on with her.

God, this sounds so corny, but I love these kids.

So let me tell you the tale of how Danika and I got tickets to Trilogy Tuesday.

For those of you who don't know, Trilogy Tuesday is the one-time only showing on December 16th, of Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring (extended edition--yep that's the 3-1/2 hour version), followed by Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers (again, extended edition), followed by the premier of Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King.

And if you've been counting, that's going to add up to 10-1/2 hours of movie viewing in one day! Woo-hoo!!! All three movies, one day, on the big screen!

Here's the rub, though... It's only showing at 100 theaters, nationwide. So, these tickets were certain to be in big demand.

What an understatement that turned out to be! So, the tickets were to go on sale Thursday, October 9th, at noon, available only online.

So before noon on October 9th, Danika and I were on our computers (me at work, her at work) online getting ready to fire up our orders. We were on the phone to each other, marking what was going on online. So noon comes, the screen for ordering tickets becomes available, BUT it says there's no tickets available! Weeping and gnashing of teeth!!! Ah-ha, though, I reasoned... No one could have ordered them that fast... They just haven't got data on tickets available into the system yet. Sure enough, after 15 minutes of nail biting, voila! Tickets are indeed available.

So Danika & I both put orders in immediately. (we've been refreshing our screen over and over so as not to miss this opportunity) We knew we needed 7 tickets for ourselves and friends, and we figured, well, if we both order 7 tickets, we know enough other folks who'd also like to go.

First snafu... it won't let us place an order for more than $120. (The tickets were $30 each).

So we have to start over, sweating the fact that dozens of other folks are probably ahead of us in the queue now... and what d'ya know, it lets us order tickets!!! So we fill out credit card, # of tickets, address, etc and click on 'process order.' Now we get another screen saying that our order is being processed. ELATION... HIGH FIVES, except that it keeps being processed... and processed... AND PROCESSED... AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

So now, Danika gets on her cell phone to customer service, waits about 10 minutes to talk to someone in India, who assures her that no tickets have been sold yet... The server is having ISSUES.

It's at least 12:30 now, but we close our browser windows and (SIGH!) start all over again, BUT NOW the screen says there are no tickets available. DESPAIR!

But then I figure, if the servers having issues, maybe the browser just isnt' able to access the available ticket data. So we go back to refreshing repeatedly.

(A little back story now... A couple of week earlier, I joined a group called a 'line party.' It's a group of folks who like to party while hanging out in line for Lord of the Rings movies... So I join it, figuring maybe they have access to additional info, or maybe they have extra clout in getting tickets, or something! There were about 70 members in the 'line party' when I joined it.)

Finally, the screen comes back with tickets available, we jump on entering orders, it takes the order, goes to the processing screen... and yes, goes to processing...processing...processing...processing...processing...processing...processing...

Give up on this attempt, return to order screen, no tickets available, keep refreshing out of stubbornness, finally, tickets are available again, place an order again, then... processing...processing...processing...processing...processing...processing...processing...

We've been online for an hour and a half by now, in which time the line party administrator has been sending e-mails out as she gets info: keep trying, servers are having trouble; keep trying, none have been sold yet; until I get an e-mail that now says, Drat! They're sold out!

DESPAIR! (and stubbornness!) Danika and I don't believe it. I figure some uninformed person at the theatre told her that they're sold out because they just figure they'd have to be. So we keep trying. Refreshing... when tickets available appears again, I call Danika to tell her, hey, it's up, place your order. She's now got someone else also trying to place an ordre for her on another PC now. And still, all we get is
processing...processing...processing...processing...processing...processing...processing...

By 4pm (yes, it's been four hours now, we're nothing if not determined) I have to leave work to get downtown for a seminar that Danika & I are attending on Thursday nights... And Danika is going to continue trying to get tickets (since she is already downtown). And then she says, hey, how do I sign up for the line party so I can get these e-mail updates from the line party admin? So, I walk her through the signup (there are now 150 members) and go drive from Lake Forest to downtown.

On the way from Lake Forest to downtown, I get a phone call from Danika... She's at the theater, and she just bought 5 tickets to Trilogy Tuesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seems the line party admin sent an e-mail out around 4:30 saying, the theatre got permission to sell tickets at the box office since the online service was so obviously not working., so get out to the theatre quick as possible. Within 5 minutes, Danika was out the door and over to the theater (also downtown) buying tickets...

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO-----HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(btw, all five tickets are spoken for... should have bought 10, there've been so many people asking, do you have any extra tickets...)

OK, game time over... Such fun, so much laughter,

Here's the scores:

Ilene 79
Savva 40
Danika 31
Ron 18
Marco 13

Wee-hee!

(I'm so glad these guys are still willing to play with me!)

Getting ready to play boggle with some of my favorite people: Daryl and Ron (who are awesome 30-something guys from church, working on our heating), and Art Perkins, (late forties, spends his afternoons and evenings refinishing furniture, and spends his evenings/nights doing music in bars), as well as Danika and Savva, and Daniel, who's home from Carthage this weekend. Party! (Emmy, I wish you could be here, but it sounds like you're having a pretty awesome time in FL)

here goes...

I'm trying to get all my Livejournal friends' locations plotted on a map - please add your location starting with this form. Username: (Then get your friends to!)

Ok, I have not been keeping up this journal, and i want to! So, instead of waiting for the time to sit down and compose something witty, I'll just make short little attempts!

Feeling great today! Have been for several days, as well.

Went to lunch with the ya-ya sisterhood today. I love hanging out with these chicks. They are so bold and raucus and fun-loving. We talked about baseball--Yankees and Marlins--all the way to lunch.

Went to Subway; there were 5 of us, and they don't have much seating there; so Donna (48, skinny, caver, EDI manager, likes canoeing naked) commandeered two tables that were stuck together, making seating for 8. So, after we get our food, we go to sit down with Donna, and there's a sixty-something couple sitting at one end of our two tables. So then Susy (50, built like a line-backer, tough-as-nails, bold-as-brass, foul-mouthed--never has a person been as mismatched with their name!) yells to Donna, Ok, skinny-butt, move down. And so Donna moves closer to this guy--he and his wife are kind of trying to ignore us, and Kate (46, red-head, Irish temper, fun-loving), who's near the wife, says, No, really, we're very nice, trying to defuse Susy's boldness, yells, 'Yeah, but I'm hell to work with...'

So these folks scarf down their lunch and leave.

Then, we go over to Starbuck's after lunch. Susy and Kate finished Subway first, went over there ahead of us. So the rest of us catch up with them (and of course they have TINY little tables too, do Donna grabs a chair from the next table. Now, there's a preppy guy standing there (not sitting down), waiting for someone in line, but his sunglasses are on the table. So I go to grab a chair as well, notice the sunglasses, so I go to another table to grab a chair, come back, and Donna's saying to this guy, You want to sit there? He shrugs. (of course he was expecting so sit there) Donna says, Well, there's other tables... and so these two guys go outside to sit down.

Gosh, I love being with these bold, fun women. It's a tonic for my mousy little soul!

Ok, trying this out now...
Can't wait to figure out all the customization options.

Was pretty intimidating choosing user name, journal name, etc..

Here we go...