I’ve just seen the first four episodes of Angel: what a disappointment! Didn’t I see more or less this same series twenty-odd years ago?

In the episode “I Go to Pieces” I had the solution as soon as the exposition was done: Ronald the neurosurgeon spies on Melissa through the bug he planted when he worked on her optic nerve. But no, that wasn’t flashy enough, it had to be yogi-magic.

And who the heck wrote Oz’s lines on the beach? When did he become a stoner?

In 1997 I decided that the symbolic pleasure of spitting in the wind was not worth putting my new home address on record. So, in defiance of any number of Hollywood talking heads who admonish us (with surprising accuracy) that it’s not important how we vote so long as we do our bit to legitimize the incumbents, you won’t see me wearing an “I Voted” sticker today.

I removed the Paypal button at the bottom of this page. It was a bit embarrassing to have it there, particularly when (I feel as though) I haven’t had an original thought in months.

The rainy season is a fickle thing. As I emerged from underground this morning, the sun made me wish I had worn a hat.

Watching Harvey last night for the first time, I was pleased by the ambiguity about the rabbit’s visibility to others; the effect was somewhat spoiled by the movement of doors at the end. The production notes on the disc point out that most scenes are single shots, without closeups, imitating the stage; someday I’ll watch it again and pay attention to camera movements.

Mom’s other offspring gave her a DVD player in December; for her birthday (a bit late) I found a bargain box of movies with Alec Guinness: Kind Hearts and Coronets (a favorite of hers), The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit, The Captain’s Paradise (which I first saw a week before) and The Ladykillers. I was surprised that she had seen only one of these. — As I suspected, The Captain’s Paradise is the only one of these not made by Ealing Studios, where there was a rule that crime must not go unpunished.