The New Hobbit Hole

[Overtaxed]

Wow! Someone who can afford to go shopping!

[htur_75]

That must be nice. I've forgotten what it's like. I have a $25 gift certificate to JC Pennys I need to use, but I will need to buy things I need like underwear and socks, rather than something I want.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Hi everyone... hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday!

I'm not... but that's to be expected after spending 3 hours waiting at the shop while they put a new water pump in my car. Oh well... tomorrow we're going to go and see Road to Perdition, really looking forward to it!

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Did you buy all 17 versions of the soundtrack?

I don't even do that with comic books, and I actually do collect comic books!

I may be a completist, but I'm not a sucker. ;)

[Sam Cree]

Hi Hair, All

How do you like ATT as a provider? I'm with earthlink, but after the last couple of days have decided that Corin is right (they are a nightmare), so am keeping my eyes out for a replacement.

Ordered DSL for my office, spent 4 hours on the phone with earthlink techs trying to make it work, eventually they gave up, telling me my system was not compatible with their system.

They were, however charging me $100, even though they couldn't connect me, no returns on the stuff they sent to get me on DSL.

My 19 yr. old daughter came in this morning, though, and got the system up and running by herself within exactly 2 minutes. She's not a techie, just has a little common sense. More than me, I guess :-)

Don't know if I can help myself from getting both versions of LOTR. But that could get expensive after all 3 movies.

[maquiladora]

Road to Perdition

Oh, I've heard that movie is amazing. Already tipped to sweep the boards at the Oscars next year.

From what I've seen, visually, it looks beautiful. And it's so different from the normal Hollywood-trash thats clogged the screens thesedays.

I must get round to seeing it soon.

[maquiladora]

Hi Hair!

Happy Saturday! :-)

[Overtaxed]

I'm not... but that's to be expected after spending 3 hours waiting at the shop while they put a new water pump in my car.

Tell me about it! I needed a new ignition control module thingy this week. Grumble grumble grumble

[maquiladora]

Hey, I just found this pretty funny spoof article from a UK satire website:

LORD OF THE RINGS - WHERE DID THE BUDGET GO?

The Fellowship of the Ring - part one of Peter Jackson's long-awaited $270m Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, has just received its world premiere in London's Leicester Square, but fans, critics and casual cinema-goers alike are stunned at the cheap tacky nature of the effects and the perfunctory storyline which collapses Tolkein's 300 page book into a mere 24 minutes of screen time. What studio bosses and Tolkein aficionados want to know now is "Where did the money go?"

Less than 30 minutes after the lights went down, a desultory audience trooped back outside the famous Empire cinema, bewildered and disappointed. Life-long Tolkein fan Markus Boser wiped away a manly tear and told us what he'd seen. "I had heard all about the director's amazing vision for the film, so when I saw the titles, looking for all the world like they'd been written on the backs of cereal packets in black marker-pen, I assumed that Jackson was just making a stylistic choice, but when the Hobbits appeared for the first time, I knew something was terribly wrong."

It seems that reports of tricky forced-perspective shots and complex CGI being used to create the illusion of four foot hobbits is not correct, as in the finished film, the director's "vision" relies almost exclusively on sock puppets to portray Tolkein's stumpy heroes.

Worse was to come as the Dark Riders were shown as cardboard cut-outs, waved in front of the screen by very obvious rods, and the vicious Orcs looked more like alsation dogs than the brutish humanoid footsoldiers of the evil Sauron. Ian McKellen's performance was praised by many, although most fans were deeply upset to see him wearing a wizard's hat which seemed to be made of a rolled-up newspaper and carrying a wand made of a bent coat-hanger with a tinfoil star at the end of it.

For many fans, the final straw was seeing a "plasticine Balrog that looked alarmingly like the character 'Morph' in Take Hart, and the fiery battle of Helm's Deep seemed to instead involve a number of small indoor fireworks going phut."

Studio bosses New Line were putting a brave face on the finished movie today, explaining that they believe that "Every penny of the $90m is up there on the screen," and promising "The next two instalments will be even bigger and better. We have a director with vision." But an undercover Brains Trust reporter has learned that no-one at New Line knows where director Jackson is, nor have proper accounts from the movie been returned to the studio.

After some careful bribery, we learned that, contrary to accepted practice, the entire $270m budget for all three films had been transferred to Peter Jackson's private bank account, instead of the director purchasing the resources he needed through the studio. When we asked for an explanation, a trembling studio accountant explained that Jackson's "vision" had been "overwhelming" and the cheque had been written on the spot. "He's half Swiss, on his mother's side," we were told, "so he wanted it in a Swiss bank account for sentimental reasons."

Jackson was last heard of heading for his "personal edit suite" in the Seychelles some months ago.

[maquiladora]

Some more Tolkien-humor, just to pass the time.... ;-)

Why the Chicken Crossed the Road - by Lord of the Rings Characters

Frodo: The chicken shall cross the road, though it does not know the way

Boromir: I would have followed you my brother... my captain... my Chick

Gandalf: O chicken, do not meddle in the affairs of roads, for you are tasty and good with barbecue sauce.

Frodo:I wish the chicken hadn't crossed the road, I wish none of this had happened

Gandalf:So do all who live to see such roads, but that is not for them to decide...all the chick can decide is how to cross the road that is given him

Aragorn: I would have crossed with it into the very fires of the other side

Galadriel: it passed the test, go to the other side and dimish and remain chicken

Gandalf:fly you chick

Tom Bombadil: oh chick chickelo chickchickelillo

Gollum: it crosssssssed, yesssss, my preciousss, we ought to have squeezes it, why hasss it crossssssed not a fair question... it cheated firsssst, yesss my precioussss it did

Frodo to chicken: "Get off the road!!"

Legolas: Something is crossing the road. I can feel it

Gaffer Gamgee: well it's the chicken that never starts to cross the road that takes longest to get to the other side

Gandalf: Go back to the other side you chicken! You cannot pass!

Boromir: The chicken of the enemy is a gift. Let us use it against him.

Butterbur: "A chicken crossing the road? Now what does that remind me of....?"

Farmer Maggott: "I don't care, as long as it stayed away from my mushroom!"

Nazgul: Road...Chicken...

Gandalf: "There are many magic chickens in the world, Bilbo, and none of them should be eaten lightly."

Boromir: "Gondor has no chickens. Gondor needs no chickens."

Gimli: "Nobody tosses a chicken!"

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Yeah, it's kind of blown our budget for the month, but I think it'll work out ok.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Oh, I've heard that movie is amazing.

Same here. Of course, I was interested enough in seeing it from the previews I'd seen... but then I learned it was ultimately based on one of my favorite comic books. After that, there was no doubt we'd be going to see it. :)

[Overtaxed]

Yeah, it's kind of blown our budget for the month, but I think it'll work out ok.

I think I might have to buy a car before the end of the year. :)

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

I think I might have to buy a car before the end of the year.

Ah, you have my sympathies. Our car isn't that bad off... although it's getting very tiring driving to two jobs in a single car.

[Overtaxed]

Well I've had this car for a while but when the repairs start piling up, I think the money is better spent on a new one. That's behind all the "financially challenged" comments lately.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

when the repairs start piling up, I think the money is better spent on a new one.

I'll agree with you there. We bought our current one after my last one was diagnosed with needing $800+ in brake repairs... figured it just made more sense to put that money into a down payment.

Then both my wife and I were layed off a month later... but that's another story.

[Overtaxed]

Now I have to go....shopping! Ewwww!

[Rocko]

Gandalf: Fool of a chicken!

Pippin: But we haven't had second chicken yet, or chicken tea, or chicken brunch, or chicken dinner....

[JenB]

OT, I don't really have money - I have no interest in brand names and awareness of sales. My pants cost under $15; the book I bought was two bucks, out of print, and part of a series I love. I did splurge after work and buy a bottle of hair dye, but I need to feel pretty and I made some really good tip money tonight. (I made almost $50 in tips tonight! People are nice!)

Tomorrow is the best day of the week! I get to go to church and get taught some really amazingly good stuff, and sing ancient hymns and stuff. It's the high point of my week right now.

Oh, and the car I drive just passed that 100,000 mile milestone today. So I expect the engine to fall out any day now.

[Overtaxed]

Good Morning!

You'd be surprised at what I can talk myself out of buying...why do you think I don't have a DVD player yet? :)