Never did get around to posting about anything this week. To start with, it was the first week of school. First day was a tad unpleasant. I have class MWF at 11:00 and 12:00, with a Monday class in the evenings. Since I wouldn't have time to run that evening, and since Sunday indicated it would be a hot day, I got up a bit early to run before school. Unfortunately, by the time I got to Lake Murray around 9, it was already a scorcher (it got to be about 100 that afternoon). I was going to run a half-hour, but after about ten minutes I was feeling like crap. I ended up running about fifteen minutes, walking five, and then running the last five minutes or so back to my car. I took a shower, and found I didn't have time to grab lunch somewhere like I'd planned, so I went straight to school, and bought a smoothie on my way to class. I made it to where I thought my class was right on time, but the room I was looking for, U413, was not, as I assumed, next to U412. I started searching for U413, making concentric circles around U412, but found nothing. Finally, I overheard someone else getting directions to the room, so I headed in the general direction indicated, passing the 400s, the 500s, 600s and 700s. I assumed the directions were bunk and made a detour, then decided to just keep going in the direction indicated come hell or high water. Finally, I find the room, sitting on a corner all alone, with no possible logical explanation why this is numbered 413. I was about 15 minutes late, but so were a lot of people, so I didn't feel too bad. Class on late Victorian literature, Stevenson, Conan Doyle, Kipling and the like. The reading seems light, and the lectures, a bit dull, but straightforward. Then I hiked to my Tolstoy class, where the reading load seems a bit heavier (though not as bad as I feared, we have three weeks to read Anna Karinnina, and we aren't reading War and Peace), but a more enriching experience. I went home, my knees hurting quite a bit, and then came back for my evening class. A film professor who doesn't know how to use a DVD player is a tad pathetic. We stared at the menu screen for Nosferatu while the professor waited for it to start, then the professor hit the fast-forward button, so that we could watch the menu animation in double-time. Finally, someone helped him start the film, but since he apparently is unaware of the chapter feature, we only watched some expository opening scenes, and barely saw the meat of the film. It seems like a frightfully dull class to spend three hours in every Monday.

Thursday I spent the day in Los Angeles, where I saw "Let's Eat: Feasting on the Firesign Theater." I went up early and explored the neighborhood, so I wouldn't have to worry about traffic. Went to Griffith Park, until the rain forced me to my car. Did some shopping, bought a book and a magazine at Book Soup, and some touristy crap at Farmer's Market, where I had dinner. Also bought Tanner some gourmet dog treats from the bakery there.

Then it was on to Royce Hall at UCLA, for the Firesign Theater tribute. I'd been looking forward to this for some time, and about five minutes into it, I had to wonder, why? I mean, should it have really been a surprise that the evening was, for the most part, terrible? The skits of the Firesign Theater, performed by people other than Firesign Theater, hastily assembled, with little if any rehersal time, why is this necessary? It wasn't that their wasn't a lot of talent on-stage, or that the acting was horrendous, it was just a matter of the timing always being a little off, just enough to make it truly painful to watch, probably more painful then if it truly had been spectacularly bad. Howard Hessman was okay, but most of the people on-stage just didn't quite have the Firesign Theater style, which isn't a put-down, just a fact. One exception was Bob Odenkirk, who limited his involvement to a few brief appearances as Ralph Spoilsport, a character very much in spirit with the fake ads on Mr. Show (i.e. Cock Ring Warehouse). But once he'd done his bit, he had the sense to get off the stage. Todd Rundgren and Stan Ridgeway (the latter being a saving grace of Hal Wilner's last such show, the Randy Newman tribute) both proved themselves adept at comedy, outshining the established comedians like John Goodman. I stuck it out through intermission, and the second half was better, probably because it was more plot-driven material, like "High School Madness," where the off timing wasn't as damaging. But I left early, in order to get home at a decent hour (about 1:30). So if they did "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger," probably my favorite routine, I missed it. All in all, it made for a disappointing evening. Though it served as an excuse to sleep in 'til noon and miss both my classes Friday (we were just watching a documentary on Tolstoy in one, so I can make that up on my own).

Rear Window was on TCM yesterday, so I watched that for the two-hundredth time. The Trouble With Harry was on after that, but I figured I should do some reading for school, so I passed on that. Read some Tolstoy, and played some video games; Target had a good sale on video games, so I bought several, and got a Target credit card, so I got an extra 10% off my purchases that day. Bought Super Mario Bros. 3 (using the original nomenclencure), Yoshi's Island, and Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (I believe called Paper Mario in the original release). Nintendo has a real racket going re-releasing old games, but at least it's win-win. I remember badly wanting Super Mario Bros. 3 as a kid, but not getting it, for whatever reason. Now I can fill that void that has haunted me my whole life. Thank you, Nintendo, thank you.