WeatherGirl’s Station

Wonderful. An endearing movie that tells the story of J. M. Barrie’s relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family and how they inspired his writing of Peter Pan. Johnny Depp turns in another fine performance and demonstrates he’s one of the leading film actors of his generation. Kate Winslet is his match and Julie Christie deftly plays the role of kill joy who has the family’s best interests at heart.

I enjoyed the blending of real and imagined scenes and the connections drawn between Barrie’s observations and parts of the play. Bring your hankie as things get quite emotional before all is done.

Current temperature -15F/-26C (windchill -27F/-33C)

So there are two adults living in our house. One is a US citizen with all the rights and responsibilities that acrew from that condition. The other is a US resident and British citizen. Guess who is the one who keeps getting invitations to serve on a jury in both state and federal courts. (Hint - it’s not the US citizen.)

Hey, I’d love to be on a jury. I think I could do a good job. But the first question on the form is Are you a citizen of the United States? Unfortunately there is no ‘go to the end of this document if you answer no’ and I have to fill in the rest of the form knowing they’ll pitch it as soon as they receive it. (According to the notes on the form all questions must be answered, though I’m not sure what the penalty is if I don’t. )

The latest form has made me think about what I list as my occupation. Having almost finished The Price of Motherhood I’d like to be able to respond both intelligently and politically and make the buggers count my entirely unpaid, full time job as a ‘real’ occupation.

Current temperature 0F/-18C (windchill -10F/-24C)

Very disappointing. I was expecting better. Enjoyed the first movie and was looking forward to a repeat performance. With Brad Pitt and George Clooney what’s not to like? Quite a lot actually. You need more than eye candy to make a film worth watching. Apparently the cast had a great time making this movie, shame there was no one around thinking about the audience.

Current temperature -9F/-23C (Windchill -37F/-38C)

Yesterday was very busy, lots of errands to run and snow to shovel, consequently no time to muse. I had 3-4 inches of snow to shift which took a while. The snow was quite wet (at least for here) which made it heavy. Enough of this and I’ll build up some upper arm strength. Not that I want lots of snow to shift. The temperature dropped significantly overnight. With the wind doing its thing last night some of the paths have been filled in so I’ve more shoveling - time to wrap up with serious winter clothing. Thank goodness for hot chocolate!

Current temperature -9F/-23C (Windchill -37F/-38C)

To dot or not to dot that is the question.

A reader pointed out to me that I had used a full stop in Truman’s name in attributing a quote to him and that it wasn’t an abbreviation but the letter itself and thus did not need the dot.

Using the fabulous google I did a little research and found this reference on snopes.com

Yes it is just the letter S but Truman did use a full stop. From this I’m assuming either is fine and I’ll leave my attribution as it is.

Current temperature 12F/-11C

I made an interesting discovery when using WordPress in both Camino and Safari. The quicktag buttons, used when writing an article, work more appropriately in Camino than Safari. For example, when using Safari, the ‘em’ and ‘/em’ tags are inserted at the end of the text rather than the position I want them or if I press Dict. it doesn’t automatically pick up the word highlighted and look it up. Odd!

Yes, I do use two browsers. Camino makes me happiest in its visual appearence and feels ‘right’, and works best for me with WordPress, whereas Safari handles the BBC Radio Player with greater aplomb. Even on our 5 year old tangerine iBook running these two bowsers at the same time is not a problem.

Phi, on the other hand, uses Firefox and recommends it.

If you’re using IE please consider finding yourself a better browser. IE has serious security problems and there are numerous alternatives freely available. You don’t have to use it just because it was bundled with Windows (Firefox works very nicely with Windows.)

Current temperature 1F/-17C

I’m about a third of the way through The Price of Motherhood and it is very interesting reading. It should be on the must read list of every economics professor, student and researcher. It challenges the received wisdom of the field but also speaks to the essential problem of achieving gender equality. That is, as a society, we still expect women to bear the full load of raising the next generation, to take on that job based on a perceived nature and to do it all for no renumeration, whether that be minimal financial support, access to decent health care or support in retirement.

We had a little dusting of snow yesterday which perked up the snow cover and made it look pretty again. Thus I will be out this afternoon with my trusty shovel, mostly to clear the driveway after the snowploughs have filled it in.

This will be the first shoveling I do of the winter season. Makes you wonder what’s going on with the weather when the snow doesn’t turn up when it should. Back home there’s more flooding again. (Global warming in action?) Why Carlisle? BBC NEWS | UK | Carlisle reels from flood chaos

Pick of the Week on the Beeb’s Radio 4. (Sundays 12.15pm CST) It’s essentially a clip show but since it is sampling of the Beeb’s output for the last week it is well worth listening to. If any of the clips spark your interest it’s worth checking the various Listen Again pages to listen to the complete show. You’ll find the Beeb’s radio output here. There’s much to enjoy and the news reporting is top notch!

Current temperature 18F/-8C

I’ve been playing with my settings this morning, adding new categories etc. just to make this place a little more comfortable.

We finally finished the LotR movie marathon at 11pm last night. Wow, that was an experience. I’ll have to see the Return of the King a few more times before I comment more on it. There was so much in it it was a little overwhelming. I still think The Two Towers is the best film of the three. It also seems to be the one that sits most easily on its own where as the other two need to be seen in context with the others. (FotR clearly introduces the themes and sets the stage and RotK concludes all the story lines and leaves us with hope for the future.)

Current temperature 19F/-7C