waider: (Default)
waider ([personal profile] waider) wrote2003-04-27 07:41 pm
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late b'day gifts

I was going to make a list of the various things I got for my birthday, but neglected to do so, and now I can't be bothered. I will mention the late but welcome arrival of stuff from my Amazon wishlist courtesy of Donal and Shar; the two videos of The Singing Detective, and a DVD copy of Seven Samurai. Being nothing if not a slacker, I've watched the lot already. The Singing Detective had an entire subplot I'd forgotten about when I was watching it as a mini-series, and I don't quite understand the ending, but that's cos I'm THICK. Seven Samurai, well, it's long - 190 minutes - it's gritty, and it's surprisingly funny. Toshiro Mifune spends a lot of time with his ass quite literally hanging out, scratching himself and being the clown character who inevitably does something heroic before the end of the movie. The grittiness lends an extraordinary realism to the movie that no amount of special effects could have provided - you really get the sense that this was filmed not in the 1950s but in mediæval Japan.

[identity profile] zadcat.livejournal.com 2003-04-27 02:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Ha. Yes, that's what led me there. Ben lent me a cd with mp3s of the original Hitchhiker radio show, and I remembered there was something about the poet and so googled for the name when it came up. Found a site that said it had been the name of one of Adams' flatmates. Maybe he wasn't so amused by the joke.
ext_181967: (Default)

[identity profile] waider.livejournal.com 2003-04-27 05:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Neil Gaiman wrote a book called Don't Panic, which is sort of the fanboy's guide to Douglas Adams; it's mainly about Hitchhikers', but also covers the Dirk Gently stuff. It was recently rereleased with updates and additions and what not. It mentions the whole Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings, but neglects to also mention that the Islington phone number mentioned in, hmm, Life, The Universe and Everything? was a real phone number, so I've no idea where I got the latter fact from. And I couldn't tell you anything useful about the former except that it's mentioned; despite enjoying the book I can't remember precisely where the PNMJ bit is mentioned.

Dammit.