Monday, December 29, 2003
The Ant War. The rain of the past few days has sent hundreds of ants into our apartment. I did some short-term defense with the vacuum and a squirt bottle with soapy water while Patrick completely cleaned off the kitchen countertops to ensure they were free of crumbs. Lunch at home with Patrick: grilled cheese sandwiches. Started redoing computer backups after going without for a long time due to the computer problems since October. Dinner at home with Patrick: rigatoni with pig sausage in cream sauce. Patrick is getting over his cold. Saturday was the worst of it, he thinks. Played two DVDs in the problem computer as a test—no problems. Errands in West Portal: Radio Shack, Walgreens, Diamond Video. Placed liquid ant bait. Watched Terminator 3 on DVD which neither of us had seen. It was not completely satisfying because I thought (a) it had essentially the same plot from the previous two films and (b) the amount of destruction in this film was gratuitous. The ending explained some things in a reasonable manner but not all of the larger story lined up properly—confusing. Restarted the backups because I had to cancel them in order to watch the DVD. Maybe it's time to get a standalone DVD player? The problem computer gave me a BSOD, but not until the end of the movie. I guess it's time for brain surgery. I was pleased to find out that Young Sherlock Holmes was released on DVD just a few weeks ago on December 2. It wasn't a perfect movie, but I remember best the Bruce Broughton soundtrack. I had the cassette and the soundtrack was never released on CD—or so I thought. But then I thought to look for it just as I was writing this journal entry, and soundtrackcollector.com says there actually was a CD released in March 2002 ("extremely limited promo")! Amazing! Released in 1985, the film Young Sherlock Holmes was notable for having the first entirely CGI character. From the stained-glass knight to Gollum/Smeagel in Lord of the Rings—you've come a loooong way, computer. And in less than 20 years! If I live to a very old age and people come to me asking what I've seen in my life, this will hopefully be something I remember to tell—that I witnessed the birth and growth of computer-generated characters and effects.