(no subject)

Time for a movie review. Today's movie is Hero, with chinese people speaking in what sounds like Mandarin. Brother Roy loaned it to me on DVD. I am pretty okay with subtitled movies in asian languages, people flying through the air in impossible, stylized fights, and the general tenor of martial arts ninja movies. So, y'know, I'm not going to have any problems with this film on any of those fronts.

( General Enthusiasm Follows... )

Summary: This is worth at least a rental even for those who don't watch films that aren't in English. It is about nine million times better than The Last Samurai.

(no subject)

I am done making cookies. Really. For real. I'm tired of cookies and I do not want to make any more any time soon. Next December is probably when I will be ready to consider making cookies again. All I need now is a pie and I'll be all done with holiday cooking obligations. I would have done the pie this AM but I didn't have enough of the right kind of flour to proceed. (My kitchen has three kinds of flour, depending on what I want to do with it. Whole wheat flour is not good for pie crusts. High-gluten white bread flour is also not good for pie crusts.) I'll hit the grocery store tonight and there will be pie tomorrow so that I don't have that hanging over me any further. I don't like being Damocles.

I saw a pileated woodpecker out the window this morning. The pileated is probably the largest woodpecker in the eastern United States since I'm pretty sure the ivory-billed woodpecker is extinct. (gwangi, can I get an Amen or whatever on this?) Pileated woodpeckers are about the size of a crow, striking black and white birds with red-crested heads. Although I grew up here, in these woods, I never saw one in person until about two years ago. Now, while they're not an everyday sight, they're around enough that anyone who spends a reasonable amount of time in the woods and isn't completely oblivious can see one. I'd say that, these days, they're as easy to see as wild turkeys.