I had me the day off. Hence the two postings this morning.

Here's what I did.

1. I didn't fax my numbers in this weekend, so I had to run in to work to do it. But I was out of there by 8:10.

2. I went grocery shopping. I forgot trash bags. We're down to the last one in the trash can. I think it's good for a couple of days still. Otherwise, Bill's gonna have to start eatin'.

3. I did dishes. We were out of plates. We were also out of drinking glasses. And also silverware, cookware and I used the lid to a tupperware dish to eat my Subway sandwich off of a couple of nights ago. It was time to do dishes.

4. I did laundry. You know how I was out of plates? I was also out of clean underwear.

5. I vacuumed the living room. I've been making a concerted effort to make it look like two civilized people live in this apartment. Bill brought up a new sofa a couple of nights ago. And by virtue of being clean and rip-less it's already nicer than everything else in this apartment, including me and Bill. It made me feel ashamed of how the rest of the apartment looked. It's always fun cleaning the apartment. Look at all the tiny sheets of paper on the floor! How do we get so many pennies on the ground? Isn't it fun that we don't find all the pennies because they're the same color as the carpet and we run over them with the vacuum and it makes a horrible, horrible noise?

6. I went to a movie. Owing to that I've done my bit for king and country to act and look and smell civilized, I went to a movie. I went to see Gods and Generals.

Now a Brief Break to discuss Gods and Generals.

I read Jeff Shaara's book several years ago, and enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a prequel to his father's book The Killer Angels, which is actually one of my favorite books. The younger Shaara did quite a good job, and they made this movie out of what he did.

Just a few comments: It's a cult movie, to be honest. It's designed for enjoyment by a select few. Ted Turner bankrolled this little flick about the War of Northern Aggression, and the filmmakers are lucky because of it. It's very long (4 hours, with intermission). And it concerns itself not so much with people as events. And to somebody who's into that sort of things, that's cool.

I liked the book because of its focus on two people: Josh Chamberlain and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. The movie tries to emulate the book in that respect, but seems to focus on Jackson more than anything. The movie ends with his funeral procession. Sorry to ruin it for you.

I don't know. The parts about people seem so rushed. Like they took two days out of the whole shoot to film all the personal scenes, and did each take once.

It bugged me a little bit the way the participants of the war are idealized so much. But that comes muchly from Shaara' book. All the participants are doing what they do in the warfare for the betterment of all mankind. There are a couple of times characters stop to give soliloguy. Lee says, viewing the battlefield at Bull Run (or possibly Fredericksburg): It is good that war is so horrible....blah blah blah.

Roger Ebert harped on the treatment (and lack there) of the slavery issue. That those involved didn't comment so much on the issue, instead pretending that the whole issue was invisible, blah blah blah, that the southern generals were fighting more for liberty than for slavery, etc.

I see his point, but it wasn't so distracting to me.

Ultimately, I liked the movie. But I think I'm in the select few. And luckily for me, Ted Turner's bankrolling the sunofagun, so I guess we'll see The Last Full Measure before it's all said and done.

Back to what I did today

7. On the way out of the theater (there were 14 othe people watching the movie, by the way), an older couple asked me "How did you like the movie?" The movie ends before Gettysburg. I said "I liked it, but they didn't say who wins the war." The older fellow got my joke. His wife (?) didn't at first. She started to explain it to me, I think. But then she saw me grinning.

8. I ate at Quizno's. I got a Turkey Lite sub. And it was good. Go to Quizno's. Eat there. You'll like it.

And that's pretty much it. Eating Black Jelly Beans and Writing Blog. It's all good.