I'm a bit squeezed for time today. I'm supposed to go to "Comedy Night" at Valley View Casino after work tonight, and then on Friday, the professor reminded my film class we have a paper due Monday, which I had thought was due Friday. And, of course, my vow that I would finish the paper Saturday came to naught. Though I did take copious notes on the scene I'm writing about (in Aguirre, where the Emperor feasts while the rest of the crew starve, and then he orders the horse overboard), so hopefully I can finish, or at least make decent progress, on the paper at work today (it's a bit too early, and I'm still a bit too asleep to start the paper now, hence this posting--call it a warm-up). And if I don't, and I have to miss Comedy Night, I think I'll live (though I was planning on eating their excellent buffet while I was up there, and was looking forward to that--and the free slot play they were giving me for attending their event).

I haven't been sleeping well. I'm tempted to go see the school shrink so I can get some Ambien--it didn't do too much the last time I tried it, but it did help short-term, and I think that's all I need. My running milage is beginning to build again, and that should help my sleep. But in the mean time, I've felt like crap this week, and had some headaches earlier in the week that kept me home from school Wednesday (though I managed to go to the movies later that day, so it couldn't have been too bad). On Thursday, I had trouble sleeping, then overslept, then hit traffic, so I was about fourty minutes late for work. Then I got yelled at by the operations manager for leaving a door open I shouldn't have, and then was short counting out at the end of the day. And I had almost called in sick, but decided I could make it, since it would reflect badly on me calling in sick twice in about three weeks. But in retrospect, I'm sure I'd have been better off if I weren't there.

Last weekend, I saw some Gilbert and Sullivan operettas (well, actually only one was from their pairing; the other was by Stephenson and Sullivan) up at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido. I enjoyed The Zoo very much, and Trial by Jury was okay, though there wasn't a whole lot to it. It was my first time seeing a performance in their main theatre, and I was impressed, though the stairs were confusing, and I couldn't figure out how to get up or down from the balcony without the elevators. I wouldn't want to be there in a fire.

I saw Sin City this week, as well. I was disappointed. Something about watching a movie that is a recreation of a comic book, that itself draws on noir and pulp fiction conventions, that felt like watching a copy of a copy of a copy. It had it's moments, but for the most part, I was rather bored.

The new MST3K boxed set came out this week, as did season one of The Bob Newhart Show. Very exciting, both of them. Despite my professed lack of time, I managed to watch The Killer Shrews from MST3K vol. 7, along with some bonus shorts (where we learn never to wish for a world with no springs, lest a satanic spring just might make our dream come true), as well as some funny Bob Newhart epsidoes (I especially liked the one where Bob speaks at a third-grade career day, asking the children, "Do you really know yourselves?"). Good stuff. And I finally got Matango, Attack of the Mushroom People, which is almost as good as promised. And the interview with the special effects man on the film reveals the film was instrumental in the invention of styrofoam.

But I've rambled on enough. I should try to get started on my paper, now that my coffee's kicked in.