Watching, waiting

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Eh, it’s okay. Then again, I read most of the latter half of the book while sitting in airplanes and waiting at airports this past week, so my weary mid-travel state of mind may have tinted the experience. To wit, I watched Serving Sara on the way back from San Francisco, and actually thought it was pretty good. Well, as good as any movie about serving legal papers can be. (And really, with five hours of flight time ahead of you, anything is entertaining.) Matthew Perry, I support your movie career, but honey, this movie was a step backward. Or at least a lazy shuffle to the side. Speaking of movies, I hate to give in to the upcoming Spielberg / DiCaprio / Hanks juggernaut Catch Me If You Can–I’m as averse to Hollywood “blockbusters” as the next guy, if not more–but the preview looks good. True, that’s probably more a compliment to the preview editor than anything else. We’ll see. It opens Christmas Day.

Godzilla retailing. I swear: I hadn’t thought it was this pervasive, but Amazon.com really does swallow up everything in its path. (You might be next!) Earlier today I’m browsing through music on Amazon, and decide to check out CDnow, which I haven’t visited in a while, only to find that it has “teamed up” with the Amazon behemoth. I suppose it’s a good deal for both parties, but gee, anyone remember ye olden days, i.e, the mid-1990s, when Amazon.com consisted of just a few, mostly text pages on a gray background?

Whatever happened to my lunchbox? On to a more benign, but just as pervasive presence: eBay. I recently searched there for a lunchbox like the one I had in elementary school. I didn’t really think I would find one, but ah, how could I have doubted the vast, internet flea-market? It’s a metal lunch box with a thermos, that had Peanuts cartoons all over it. Good times.

The Amazing Race: I love this show. I’ve been watching it all season, and it’s just as riveting as any drama. Okay, maybe not as compelling overall my other favorite, Alias, but just as many twists and turns. I may tout my affinity for foreign languages, facility with maps, almost tragically insatiable wanderlust, and (perhaps most important for a race like this) a go-with-the-flow, roll-with-the-punches attitude, but I acknowledge some reasons I wouldn’t be an ideal contestant on The Amazing Race (at least in this season): I can’t swim, ride a bike (much less build one, as in tonight’s episode), or drive a stick. Details, details. Sure I can rough it, but these days, as Rajani once aptly intimated, I’m not so much National Geographic as Condé Nast. Hah, true. “What, no complimentary espresso?”

“Let it snow, let it snow!” It’s supposed to start snowing around midnight. It better. I want to wake up to a freakin’ Winter Wonderland, dammit!