What've I been doing with my time off? A quick recap:
Canaan Christmas Eve service - little 2-year old Sarah came up and helped us perform "Silent Night" and "Rudolph" on the Angklung, shaking a little bell she was wearing around her neck and letting out a jubilant "Yay!" at the end of Rudolph which made the entire congregation melt at her cuteness.
Christmas morning hoops - organized by Alvin. Couldn't get the jumper going, so I concentrated on defense and got a fair number of weak-side blocks, including one back-to-back sequence that was lotsa fun.
Sunday evening hot pot - got together with a few people at Phoebe and Enoch's place, then watched "XXX" afterwards. Short verdict: it's so uintentionally hilarious that it's worth a rental as long as you watch it with other people that you can make wisecracks with.
Monday marathon - see diary below
Tuesday - mailed out two applications, and looked at high-end guitars with Byron
Wednesday - dim sum lunch with old-school AACF guys Drew, George, and Frank, then took advantage of the brief break in the rain to go for a bike ride
Diary of insanity - 12 hrs of Lord of the Rings, 2004-12-27
On Monday, I headed up to 5824 and met up with Cal and Danny to partake in an endeavor some consider cool, others consider a waste of time, and everyone considers insane - watching all three Extended Editions of "The Lord of the Rings" movies in succession, a total running time of 11 hrs and 12 minutes over 3 movies. "The Fellowship of the Ring" kicked things off at 9:16 am, and credits of "The Return of the King" rolled at 9:08 pm. Below is a running diary I kept throughout the 12-hr experience; I tended to focus more on the comments, wisecracks, and questions that we had as opposed to plot points. Warning: there will be spoilers!
9:16 am - Cal and Danny wake up, troop to the living room, and fire up the DVD player. Galadriel begins her narration on the history of the ring. I am still on 880N at this point.
9:41 am - I arrive at 5824, just as Bilbo disappears at his birthday party, and settle in underneath a blanket for a long day.
10:17 am - the Hobbits reach Buckleberry Ferry, and the action begins. Cal remarks, "The boring part is over!"
10:44 am - Frodo wakes up in Rivendell and glimpses Elrond for the first time. We all voice the line we were all thinking when we see Agent Smith for the first time - "Hello, Mr. Anderson." Never gets old.
10:53 am - Sean Bean is probably my favorite actor in The Fellowship of the Ring. He has such a noble screen presence and an ability for menacing nuance that most of the rest of the actors couldn't match. It's really too bad Boromir dies at the end of FOTR since it would have been great to have more of him in the other two movies. On the other hand, none of the other actors could probably have pulled off the character.
11:03 am - Council of Elrond. Elrond names an elf, a dwarf, men, a wizard, and a couple of hobbits to the Fellowship. Cal comments, "Is this like, affirmative action or something?"
11:10 am - We begin a discussion on whether Boromir's struggle with the ring had a similarly negative effect on the team that Nomar Garciaparra had on the Boston Red Sox. Look at the parallels - selfish ambition, double-crosses, all to get that ring.
11:22 am - Frodo just made the call on going through the Mines of Moria. Cal suggests that Gandalf really should have called an audible there and overruled Frodo. Danny pipes in with Gandalf-voice, "Frodo will be the death of me!"
11:50 am - "All these steep staircases and narrow bridges... this is a really poorly designed mine." - Cal
11:54 am - Legolas runs like a girl. This leads to a discussion whether there were any moments behind camera where Peter Jackson said, "Orlando is shooting another scene, and we need this shot. You, blond-haired woman! Stand in for him!'
12:23 pm - We continue the Boromir-as-Nomar discussion. We count Faramir as Orlando Cabrera - the less-talented, but important glue guy who brought the championship Sox together. Cal mentions that Cabrera does a different elaborate handshake with every teammate.
12:32 pm - Legolas just shot 7 consecutive orcs by arrow. That was fun.
12:38 pm - "I would have followed you, my brother... my captain... my king." What an awesome death scene. Gave me chills.
12:45 pm - Frodo: "I'm glad you're with me, Sam." And with that we have completed the first movie. We're ahead of schedule!
12:50 pm - No breaks for us! We're moving on. Now Gandalf is taking on the Balrog while falling through midair.
1:30 pm - I meet Chris, the new 5824 roommate that took Danny's spot, for the first time. We joke that we're going to follow up this LOTR marathon with a Star Wars marathon. Frankly, all other movie marathons will be a piece of cake after this one.
1:43 pm - Getting hungry. Where's that pizza we ordered?
1:57 pm - My note-taking frequency is slowly waning... need... sustenance...
2:03 pm - Mmm, Costco Take-and-Bake combo pizza. Thanks, JLau!
2:19 pm - Eowyn looks better with her hair up. Danny insists that she looks better in person, like during the interviews that they recorded for the extra DVDs.
3:11 pm - When Aragorn reappears on the riverbank after getting dragged by the Warg over the cliff edge, he somehow still has his sword. So somewhere before falling off the cliff, he had the presence of mind to put his weapon back in his scabbard. That's concentration.
3:59 pm - Cal: "Isn't it ironic that Pippin is the one who seems 'Lost'?"
4:10 pm - Treebeard just uttered the line, "Well, that doesn't make sense to me at all. But then, you are very small." This kicks off a discussion on situations where we could use that line. We decide to use it when we have kids. "You are very small."
4:15 pm - Gandalf and Eomer lead the cavalry down the hill to Helm's Deep. That's a chill scene right there.
4:22 pm - Sam is giving his "There's some good in this world and its worth fighting for" speech. We're 2/3 of the way there!
4:30 pm - Time for a break - I feel like I really need some fruit, or a Jamba Juice or something nutritional, since all we've had to eat today = cookies, shrimp chips, chicken, and pizza.
4:43 pm - Cal pops in the Red Sox championship DVD and we go through all of the Cabrera handshakes. These are quite elaborate - they have like 5 parts each. Can you imagine having to try to keep these straight?
4:55 pm - The beginning of the end - the day's feature attraction, The Return of the King Extended Edition.
6:01 pm - Just went through the grandiose sequence of the beaconss being lit across the mountain ranges. Danny comments that beacon duty must suck. Adopting the Hubie Brown voice: You're a soldier of Gondor. You're a highly trained man of war, ready for action. Then you find out that your sole duty is to sit by a pile of wood in the mountains, with no one else around, waiting to see if the other pile a hundred miles away gets lit by someone in the same situation as you. This is not an optimum place to realize your upside.
6:24 pm - Frodo just sent Sam home after being tricked into thinking that he's trying to take the ring from him. Danny says, "Sam, you're fired."
7:00 pm - Cal's neck is stiffening up. One DVD to go!
7:36 pm - I'm stunned. Shocked. In one of the new scenes of the movie, Gandalf has a showdown in Minas Tirith with the Witch King, and the Witch King breaks Gandalf's staff. I can't get over this. Gandalf the White isn't supposed to be vulnerable!
8:28 pm - Chill scene: "I can't carry it for you.. but I can carry you!"
8:33 pm - It's an hour later and I'm still stunned that Gandalf got his staff broken.
8:47 pm - The Ring is destroyed, the war is over, and the members of the Fellowship (sans Boromir) are having a reunion in Frodo's recovery room. Danny jokes that Boromir should appear as a blue ghost a la Return of the Jedi.
9:08 pm - The End
Last comments
After the end of the movie, I felt pretty good. Most of the extended scenes in ROTK were pretty good, although the editing on the Houses of Healing and showing how Faramir and Eowyn hook up was not very smooth. Danny felt that even though we watched all three consecutively, having watched the first two multiple times caused the overall experience to feel a little disjointed since he knew the first two so much better than the third. Cal came out of it with a little bit of neck strain, but some late dinner at Ranch 99 appeared to loosen that up a little bit.
All in all, I'll probably never do this again... but that was a fun day.
Canaan Christmas Eve service - little 2-year old Sarah came up and helped us perform "Silent Night" and "Rudolph" on the Angklung, shaking a little bell she was wearing around her neck and letting out a jubilant "Yay!" at the end of Rudolph which made the entire congregation melt at her cuteness.
Christmas morning hoops - organized by Alvin. Couldn't get the jumper going, so I concentrated on defense and got a fair number of weak-side blocks, including one back-to-back sequence that was lotsa fun.
Sunday evening hot pot - got together with a few people at Phoebe and Enoch's place, then watched "XXX" afterwards. Short verdict: it's so uintentionally hilarious that it's worth a rental as long as you watch it with other people that you can make wisecracks with.
Monday marathon - see diary below
Tuesday - mailed out two applications, and looked at high-end guitars with Byron
Wednesday - dim sum lunch with old-school AACF guys Drew, George, and Frank, then took advantage of the brief break in the rain to go for a bike ride
Diary of insanity - 12 hrs of Lord of the Rings, 2004-12-27
On Monday, I headed up to 5824 and met up with Cal and Danny to partake in an endeavor some consider cool, others consider a waste of time, and everyone considers insane - watching all three Extended Editions of "The Lord of the Rings" movies in succession, a total running time of 11 hrs and 12 minutes over 3 movies. "The Fellowship of the Ring" kicked things off at 9:16 am, and credits of "The Return of the King" rolled at 9:08 pm. Below is a running diary I kept throughout the 12-hr experience; I tended to focus more on the comments, wisecracks, and questions that we had as opposed to plot points. Warning: there will be spoilers!
9:16 am - Cal and Danny wake up, troop to the living room, and fire up the DVD player. Galadriel begins her narration on the history of the ring. I am still on 880N at this point.
9:41 am - I arrive at 5824, just as Bilbo disappears at his birthday party, and settle in underneath a blanket for a long day.
10:17 am - the Hobbits reach Buckleberry Ferry, and the action begins. Cal remarks, "The boring part is over!"
10:44 am - Frodo wakes up in Rivendell and glimpses Elrond for the first time. We all voice the line we were all thinking when we see Agent Smith for the first time - "Hello, Mr. Anderson." Never gets old.
10:53 am - Sean Bean is probably my favorite actor in The Fellowship of the Ring. He has such a noble screen presence and an ability for menacing nuance that most of the rest of the actors couldn't match. It's really too bad Boromir dies at the end of FOTR since it would have been great to have more of him in the other two movies. On the other hand, none of the other actors could probably have pulled off the character.
11:03 am - Council of Elrond. Elrond names an elf, a dwarf, men, a wizard, and a couple of hobbits to the Fellowship. Cal comments, "Is this like, affirmative action or something?"
11:10 am - We begin a discussion on whether Boromir's struggle with the ring had a similarly negative effect on the team that Nomar Garciaparra had on the Boston Red Sox. Look at the parallels - selfish ambition, double-crosses, all to get that ring.
11:22 am - Frodo just made the call on going through the Mines of Moria. Cal suggests that Gandalf really should have called an audible there and overruled Frodo. Danny pipes in with Gandalf-voice, "Frodo will be the death of me!"
11:50 am - "All these steep staircases and narrow bridges... this is a really poorly designed mine." - Cal
11:54 am - Legolas runs like a girl. This leads to a discussion whether there were any moments behind camera where Peter Jackson said, "Orlando is shooting another scene, and we need this shot. You, blond-haired woman! Stand in for him!'
12:23 pm - We continue the Boromir-as-Nomar discussion. We count Faramir as Orlando Cabrera - the less-talented, but important glue guy who brought the championship Sox together. Cal mentions that Cabrera does a different elaborate handshake with every teammate.
12:32 pm - Legolas just shot 7 consecutive orcs by arrow. That was fun.
12:38 pm - "I would have followed you, my brother... my captain... my king." What an awesome death scene. Gave me chills.
12:45 pm - Frodo: "I'm glad you're with me, Sam." And with that we have completed the first movie. We're ahead of schedule!
12:50 pm - No breaks for us! We're moving on. Now Gandalf is taking on the Balrog while falling through midair.
1:30 pm - I meet Chris, the new 5824 roommate that took Danny's spot, for the first time. We joke that we're going to follow up this LOTR marathon with a Star Wars marathon. Frankly, all other movie marathons will be a piece of cake after this one.
1:43 pm - Getting hungry. Where's that pizza we ordered?
1:57 pm - My note-taking frequency is slowly waning... need... sustenance...
2:03 pm - Mmm, Costco Take-and-Bake combo pizza. Thanks, JLau!
2:19 pm - Eowyn looks better with her hair up. Danny insists that she looks better in person, like during the interviews that they recorded for the extra DVDs.
3:11 pm - When Aragorn reappears on the riverbank after getting dragged by the Warg over the cliff edge, he somehow still has his sword. So somewhere before falling off the cliff, he had the presence of mind to put his weapon back in his scabbard. That's concentration.
3:59 pm - Cal: "Isn't it ironic that Pippin is the one who seems 'Lost'?"
4:10 pm - Treebeard just uttered the line, "Well, that doesn't make sense to me at all. But then, you are very small." This kicks off a discussion on situations where we could use that line. We decide to use it when we have kids. "You are very small."
4:15 pm - Gandalf and Eomer lead the cavalry down the hill to Helm's Deep. That's a chill scene right there.
4:22 pm - Sam is giving his "There's some good in this world and its worth fighting for" speech. We're 2/3 of the way there!
4:30 pm - Time for a break - I feel like I really need some fruit, or a Jamba Juice or something nutritional, since all we've had to eat today = cookies, shrimp chips, chicken, and pizza.
4:43 pm - Cal pops in the Red Sox championship DVD and we go through all of the Cabrera handshakes. These are quite elaborate - they have like 5 parts each. Can you imagine having to try to keep these straight?
4:55 pm - The beginning of the end - the day's feature attraction, The Return of the King Extended Edition.
6:01 pm - Just went through the grandiose sequence of the beaconss being lit across the mountain ranges. Danny comments that beacon duty must suck. Adopting the Hubie Brown voice: You're a soldier of Gondor. You're a highly trained man of war, ready for action. Then you find out that your sole duty is to sit by a pile of wood in the mountains, with no one else around, waiting to see if the other pile a hundred miles away gets lit by someone in the same situation as you. This is not an optimum place to realize your upside.
6:24 pm - Frodo just sent Sam home after being tricked into thinking that he's trying to take the ring from him. Danny says, "Sam, you're fired."
7:00 pm - Cal's neck is stiffening up. One DVD to go!
7:36 pm - I'm stunned. Shocked. In one of the new scenes of the movie, Gandalf has a showdown in Minas Tirith with the Witch King, and the Witch King breaks Gandalf's staff. I can't get over this. Gandalf the White isn't supposed to be vulnerable!
8:28 pm - Chill scene: "I can't carry it for you.. but I can carry you!"
8:33 pm - It's an hour later and I'm still stunned that Gandalf got his staff broken.
8:47 pm - The Ring is destroyed, the war is over, and the members of the Fellowship (sans Boromir) are having a reunion in Frodo's recovery room. Danny jokes that Boromir should appear as a blue ghost a la Return of the Jedi.
9:08 pm - The End
Last comments
After the end of the movie, I felt pretty good. Most of the extended scenes in ROTK were pretty good, although the editing on the Houses of Healing and showing how Faramir and Eowyn hook up was not very smooth. Danny felt that even though we watched all three consecutively, having watched the first two multiple times caused the overall experience to feel a little disjointed since he knew the first two so much better than the third. Cal came out of it with a little bit of neck strain, but some late dinner at Ranch 99 appeared to loosen that up a little bit.
All in all, I'll probably never do this again... but that was a fun day.
posted by Bob at
5:56 PM
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