Galvanizing

1. On the Branagh/Thompson Much Ado about Nothing:

Spouse: This music is just completely wrong for this opening sequence. It's too bombastic.

Castiron: Imagine what it'd do to the tone if they'd used the Benny Hill theme instead.

(We have been watching that DVD a lot in the past few days; I was looking for something for adults that could still be watched with a preschooler in the room and settled on this, and preschooler is fascinated by the idea that all these people are voluntarily taking baths in the beginning. He also appreciates Branagh's pratfall with the chair, and I usually stop the movie soon after that because naked people bathing are one thing; Claudio throwing Hero around is another.)

2. Castiron: With all the remakes Hollywood does, why has no one ever remade any of the Marx Brothers movies?

Spouse: Because it'd be impossible. The plots are nearly non-existent, and no one'd sit through it.

Castiron: True, especially if they kept the musical segments.

Spouse (thinks): Now, if they were remade by Bollywood....

(An Indian remake of Duck Soup or Night at the Opera is now the movie I second most want to see come out of Bollywood. Number one is still a Mansfield Park retelling.)

3. I checked out Iron Man from the library and watched it for the first time. There's a scene in the early part of the movie, where a bunch of bad guys are waiting outside a cave and Tony Stark's about to emerge, nice and dramatic....and I paused the DVD because I noticed one of the guys was wearing a really interesting hat, and I wanted to figure out the technique -- knit? crocheted? something else? And then another pause, because another guy was wearing a hat with filet crochet flowers! Cool!

Yes, I paused at a dramatic moment to look at the needlework. Yes, I'm a knitter/crocheter. Besides, the upcoming minute of film is predictable; the regional headgear is pretty flipping cool.

1. How fricking long does it take for me to write this blasted chapter 9 on the stupid Fic of Doom? Way too damn long. Argh!

2. This week's topic of discussion in the Castiron household: What if International Rescue were staffed by the Teletubbies rather than by the Tracy family?

3. Certain episodes of certain television shows really do not hold up well to being watched in 5-10 minute segments over several weeks. The acting still works, and the emotional tension if anything is increased in spite of my being spoiled, but the dubious parts of the plot are, well, dubious.
( cut for vague spoilers 3a and 3b )
3c. While I think the writers will be able to pull off the smaller fix-it believably, previous episodes have caused me to lose faith in their ability to pull off the bigger picture fix-it. (That said, if they decided "you know, we've set up a problem that really *isn't* fixable -- let's run with it as broken and see what that does to the stories"? That would be *awesome*.)

4. After 30+ years of turning yarn into sweaters and socks and other useful objects, I'm not particularly impressed by my ability to do so. But turning fluff into yarn? That's still *cool.* (I'm also very glad that technology has made it something I can do occasionally for fun rather than something I have to do to clothe my family.)

( cut for photo of yarn and detailed specs )