Terra Incognita

in honor of the globes
I saw a bunch of movies in about a two-week timespan during break. Some were in theaters, some were new releases, some were classics I finally got around to seeing and some were old favorites. The list:

Shanghai Knights
Mona Lisa Smile
Secretary
Murder by Death
Pink Panther
Trainspotting
Tootsie
Steel Magnolias
The Pianist
Seabiscuit
Bruce Almighty
Roman Holiday
An American in Paris
Old School
Pirates of the Carribean
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Big Fish
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Big Brawl
Bowling for Columbine

After watching the Golden Globes tonight, I was reminded how many movies I still need to see...and those are just the movies of 2003. Thank heavens for digital television and 24-hour movie chanels.

full disclosure
I'm not actually reading A Walk in the Woods. I've become an old woman; I'm listening to the book on tape. I've become a book-on-tape junkie. It started out this summer with a library card from the Daniel Boone Regional Library. The connection between my portable discman and my car's tape player went on the fritz and I was left with two options to keep me awake for the four-hour drive home: listen to the radio (if you thought radio stations in mid-Mo were sparse, try Kansas), or pop in a tape deck (my sparse collection -- if it could be found under some pile of dust in the basement back home -- includes MC Hammer; New Kids on the Block; Ice, Ice, Baby the single and the Lion King Soundtrack, and only then if they hadn't been sold in a grage sale eight years ago). I opted to pop in a tape deck, but to expand my mind while doing so. I've "read" a lot in the past eight months, from Molly Ivans, to Bob Woodward, to Lance Armstrong, to The Brothers Karamasov. Not to mention Bill Bryson. Lots of Bill Bryson.

I planned to continue my mind expansion this semester. I figured I'd listen to a tape on the way to campus in my car, then pop the deck into my old school Walkman (It has to be from 1994 at least) for the trek from parking lot to Lee Hills Hall. That had two drawbacks. One, I'm listening to Bill Bryson, a funny man who makes me laugh. It's one thing to laugh in the car by yourself. It's a completely different thing to laugh at seemingly nothing as you're on a solitaire stroll through the busy campus. Two, my Walkman seems to have stopped working. Maybe it's just the cold freezing the gears -- it's not the batteries, the radio works just fine. So for now, Bill will remain in the car, and I can laugh as loudly as I want.

One side effect of listening to A Walk in the Woods is that it's making me want to hike and pretend I'm hiking the Appalachain Trail just like Bill. MKT, here I come. Or maybe I'll just stick with the part of the Katy Trail that runs near campus.