Dueling Marios

Last night, bethje and I watched Spellbound and Deliverance. The former was about some kids who were in the National Spelling Bee. It showed some of the training they go through, some of them even going so far as to just study right from the dictionary. There were also some comments from Alex Cameron, the guy who announces the words. We've seen this guy on ESPN a few times, and he's very recognizable. He even said that people would come up to him in restaurants and such, and say they knew him from somewhere. According to his profile, he actually died three years ago, which I did not know.

I'm sure everybody knows about Deliverance, and how it's yet another entry in the category of urban or suburban people going out into the country and being attacked by psycho hicks. I've seen quite a few such movies as of late. I guess it's sort of a primal fear for vacationing urbanites. I was a little surprised that Deliverance dealt more with the aftermath than with the actual encounter with the hicks. Oh, and the banjo music was pretty cool. I wish I could play the banjo. Really, though, I wish I could play just about ANY musical instrument.

I wonder if I'd like Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time. I mean, I don't think I'd want to get it until after finishing Superstar Saga, but I do like the Mario RPG genre. The thing is, I really don't like Baby Mario and Luigi. They were annoying enough in Yoshi's Island, and now they're starring characters? Actually, speaking of Mario RPG's, I still have Paper Mario to play. Unfortunately, I don't get the chance to use Beth's Nintendo 64 all that much, and that's the only thing I have to play it on.

Now that I've finished re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia, I think I'll finish with my re-read of Terry Pratchett's Small Gods. Then I'll move on to James Loewen's Lies Across America, Al Franken's The Truth, and then get back to the Discworld series with Lords and Ladies. That's my current plan, anyway. It's certainly possible that it'll change.

Today, I took Beth to school for her first day of the new semester. There are always students trying to cross in the middle of the street there. It's very dangerous, and since there are a few different traffic lights with long-lasting walk signals, I have to wonder why anyone does that. I guess they're living on the edge, or something. After dropping Beth off, I got a bagel sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts, and bought my first stamps of the new year. I'd been holding off on buying stamps, since I didn't want to end up with a bunch of practically useless 37-cent ones. No longer, though! {g}