crazy fun continues

so by now you've all heard, i'm sure, that charles and camilla are getting hitched.  i want to make it perfectly clear that my give-a-shit on this subject is awfully close to nil -- it's not my country, so i purposely refrain from having an opinion on the royal family +/- right to exist qua royalty.

because there will be people around me who are invested in this, however, going past newsagents and being in pubs for the next few days (weeks?) ought to be fun.  [braces self]

[sings]

happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday, dear jgesteve
happy birthday to you!


... okay, a little slap-happy over here.

here's a story.  i walked into the kitchen yesterday and said to my flatmate, "all my joints are popping."  (when i stood up from my desk, both knees and one hip went -pop!- without any prompting from me.)

she said, "you know why that is?"  i looked at her expectantly, thinking she was going to say something about needing more calcium, or not going to the gym, or the cold weather.  and then she said, "it's because you're old."

the beauty of it was that normally, she telegraphs her laugh lines so much that she can't surprise you no matter how hard she tries.  this was fantastic!  the timing, the unexpectedness, it was perfect!

i don't know why i'm thinking of this today.

There's a moment in Episode 1 (that'd be Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, for any sub-rock-dwelling laymen who may have wandered in this afternoon) where the two Jedi are following Jar-Jar Binks into this lake to get to the Gungan city underneath.  Just as they're wading into the water, before he puts his goggles (or whatever they made the breath-y device prop from) into his mouth, Liam Neeson glances back over his shoulder, with a look that I've never really thought belonged to Qui-Gon Jinn.  Instead of anything relevant to the plot, I've always thought that look says "Goddammit, I made Schindler's List.  I was nominated for an Academy Award."

Possibly Mr. Neeson is looking over his shoulder at the ghost of Sir Alec Guinness, who was no doubt replying, "Please.  I was nominated four times.  I even won the damn thing.  They even gave me an honorary Oscar for advancing the art of screen acting through a host of distinguished performances.  Do you know when?  Two years after I fecking made the first Star Wars movie.  Have a nice swim."

[eta:  (Of course, now that I think about it, during the actual filming of Episode 1, the ghost of Sir Alec would probably have been wondering what the hell it was doing there, since Sir Alec himself was still alive at the time.  And now, damn it all, I'll have to get rid of the mental sound-bite of Alec Guinness saying "I'm not dead yet!  I'm feeling a lot better!  I think I'll go for a walk!")]