Welcome back to Monday

I woke up to a dusting of snow this morning, the first of the season. I threw on a coat and ran down to the mailbox. On my way back to the house I found myself smiling (not a habit of mine in the morning). The sun was shining, the wind was gusting and the snow shone bright and white. The first snow always makes me feel good. Is that because it's pretty? Maybe. Or is it because snow is for some reason closely associated with my childhood, evoking warm, fond memories? I don't know. Whatever the reason, though, I do know that I could never live full-time in a place where it didn't snow. (within reason, of course)

Since we last spoke I managed to watch the extended version of Fellowship not once, but twice! If you asked me earlier this year if I thought the movie could be made better, I would have replied no. But they did make a better movie. A more complete film, with more fully-realized characters. If you haven't read the books I would strongly recommend seeing the extended version of the film - rent it if you like. Of the added scenes, I especially liked the Aragorn/Elrond conversation at Aragorn's mother's grave; Gandalf and Frodo's brief conversation prior to entering Moria; and all of the additions to the Lothlorien sequence, especially Galadriel's gift-giving (a scene that I think should have been left in the theatrical version since those gifts become important in the later stories). I've also watched almost all of the documentaries. Now you know where I've been keeping myself! Next up will be the actors' commentary, I think.

I've been very pleased lately with the state of my 4 (currently) favorite television shows - The Sopranos, Buffy, 24 and The West Wing. The last couple of weeks of all of these shows have given us episodes that blow everything else on TV away (of course, I don't watch anything else so I may be on rocky footing here). Will Carmela and Furio finally reveal their true feelings for each other? And why did it take them so long to lose Carmela's bad wig? Will Tony beat the ever-lovin' shit out of Paulie when he sees himself in a Revolutionary War uniform in the painting on Paulie's wall? Was Dawn really speaking to her mother's ghost? Was that some scary shit or what? And how can Spike be feeding on people, what with his newly-acquired soul and the old chip in his head? And how could they kill Jonathan?! Who survived the blast at CTU? How far is Jack willing to go, especially now that his wife is dead? Chopping off someone's head is pretty far, I suppose. How bad will President Bartlet's MS get and how quickly will it start affecting his job? Is Sam leaving for good? Is Amy less shrill this season or is it my imagination? Even so, I was thinking that we could have a be-heading trifecta if Amy were to, say, run into a bus's rearview mirror while riding her bike through town?