August 18, 2004

"So you don't blame him?" "Blaming is for God and small children"--Papillon

Dreamed of our old Electrohome TV set; a non-existent episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in which Mary went on a date and her date threatened to strangle her with a scarf, and his relatives showed up and it turned out this was a kinky game he played with all his dates!

Got a Prince Valiant reprint and seven new Classics Illustrated comics.

Headache.

Finished the Ten Commandments comic.

Dinner was scalloped potatoes and ham.

Baked raisin bread.

Went to the Simplicity Meetup.  There was nobody else there, but I wasn't really eager anyway.

Saw Franklin J. Schaffner's Papillon at the Revue, with Steve McQueen as a convict who repeatedly escapes from Devil's Island.  Long and rather conventional, but I'm a sucker for there macho epics. (It was projected on video, and the sound could have been better.)

August 17, 2004

Dreamed of being in a motel room with my parents; the TV broadcasts ending after midnight, and signing off with the "Good Night" song that concluded The Lawrence Welk Show(?); wanting to turn off the TV  but needing to fix the remote control, so I turned the lights on, despite the parents being asleep; visiting an historical theme park in England near the Channel; waiting for a ship in the English Channel port of Southampton.

Went shopping.  I also got new pajamas.

Dinner was chicken curry.

Went to a Book Club Meetup. Someone there is organizing a group that'll meet next Monday.  We'll decide what to read then.

Went to karaoke and sang "If I Were a Rich Man," "Danny Boy," "Folsom Prison Blues" and "Hey Jude."

August 16, 2004

Dreamed of waking up early in the morning and feeling the cool autumn air; seeing the Cinematheque schedule and noticing The Searchers added at the last minute; the song "Donkey Serenade" (which I just heard them singing on The Judy Garland Show); having only an old diary to write in, which was already filled; seeing the start of the third Matrix movie but losing interest because I hadn't seen the second. [I still haven't seen either sequel.]

Got a Cinderella comic.

John and Kathryn brought over dinner.  Unfortunately, they didn't arrive until 18:30 and I had to leave before then because of the Aspergers Meetup.

It isn't my day.  The location was shown as a Starbucks at 42 Avenue Rd., #1740, but it turned out there was no such place. (Maybe it was at 1740 Avenue Rd., #42, but I still couldn't find it on the map.)

I ate at McDonald's.

August 15, 2004

Donkey (Eddie Murphy): "When this is through I'm gonna need some therapy.  Just look at my eye twitchin'!"--Shrek

Dreamed of visiting London in my college days, just before the Spring Break.

Saw Shrek again at the Bloor.

Dinner was pizza.

Saw the rest of the DVD of The Judy Garland Show.  She and Mel Torme do a stunning duet of "The Trolley Song"!

August 14, 2004

Dreamed of comparing the different stages of a computer game to different neighbourhoods in Toronto; discussing why Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring was so wonderful.

Saw the Korean musical The Last Empress at the Hummingbird Centre.  A most unusual spectacle.  Of course, I got a headache.

Dinner was takeout Chinese food.

Saw a DVD with scenes from the early 1960s variety series The Judy Garland Show.  Its hostess looked the worse for wear by this time, but her singing was still heroic.

August 13, 2004

"Smile.  Not so much"--Eyes Without a Face

Dreamed of the teachers at my junior high school in Sackville calling me in for a visit; turning out that they thought I was dying(!).

Saw the video of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going.  It's a romantic story about a woman on the coast of Scotland waiting for the wind to calm down so the ferry can take her to the millionaire she's engaged to, and she meets another man....  Pretty atmospheric.

We did the July book accounts.  About $200 profit.

Baked whole wheat bread.

Saw George Franju's horror classic Eyes Without a Face at the Cinematheque, for the second time.  Creepy in a very French sort of way.

Couldn't resist bidding on some more issues of the Menomonee Falls Gazette.

August 12, 2004

Dinner was chicken (which I fried).

Went to my Geneva Centre group.  One of the people there (John) was talking about how he'd put together a video presentation.

Started the Classics Illustrated comic about the Ten Commandments.

Saw a DVD of Cecil B. DeMille's Male and Female, a silent movie starring Gloria Swanson.  It's a movie of J.M. Barrie's play The Admirable Crichton, about a butler who gets stranded with his masters on a desert island and becomes the new master.  Much titillation, in the typical DeMille style.