28 January 2002

Monday again. Ugh.

Had a good weekend, though. We (that is - Matt and Colleen and Carl and Richard and I) went to see The Count of Monte Cristo and enjoyed it quite a bit. No super-fancy special effects; just a good story, and a whole handful of lines which are destined to be repeated for years.

"Why not just kill them? I go up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam - I'm back before the week ends! How is this a bad plan?"

"He's the best knife fighter I've ever seen." "Maybe you should get out more."

"What if I don't want to be a smuggler?" "Then we slit your throat and are a little shorthanded." "The life of a smuggler is the one for me!"

(Actually, the "life of a smuggler" quote isn't finished, but the rest of the quote wouldn't make any sense unless you've seen the movie.)

And I'm going to see it again this Wednesday - K.T. and Kevin invited me to go to dinner and a movie with them, and that's the movie they wanted to see. I'm not objecting - parts of the movie were fast-paced enough (and heavily-accented enough) that I'm sure I missed things the first time around.

Also, the Count? Yeow. Drop-dead sexy. (Not so much before he becomes the "Count" - and not so much at the end of the movie, when he shaves off his beard. But especially when he's stalking around, hell-bent on the ultimate revenge - when he's extracting revenge... His eyes just smouldered.

And the funny thing is, as the movie was shaping up and I figured out which of the two main characters of the opening was going to be the hero, I thought, "That one? But... but... but the other one's cuter!"

I'm trying to decide whether I want to read the book. I've read Dumas before - I slogged all the way through The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After and I have to say the writing style doesn't do a lot for me. But The Count of Monte Cristo is a somewhat less sophisticated plot, and not nearly as political in scope.

So I might pick it up and give it a whirl. I'm curious to know how true the movie was to the book. (My guess: Not very.)

But it was a fantastic movie. Lots of swash and buckle. Every gamer should see it - the costuming was gorgeous. And it should be in every 7th Sea gamer's library, definitely. I'm going to add it to my wishlist as soon as it comes out in DVD.

After the movie, we went to dinner, and then Matt and Colleen and I went over to K.T.'s. The original idea had been to game, but K.T. hadn't prepared much, and Matt and Colleen and I weren't really in a Vampire mood after that movie, so we just sat around and talked until nearly two in the morning.

Well, that's not quite true - we didn't just talk. There was quite a bit of silliness and tickling, too.

Then we went home, and I got online and stayed up Halling until (mumble)-thirty in the morning.

We spent Sunday mostly being very lazy, though we did manage to get the laundry done. I went to bed pretty early, since I'd only gotten about five hours of sleep the night (er, morning) before.

But I'm actually not terribly tired today, and I have hopes that I might be able to get some work done.

Not very high hopes, mind you... But hopes.

--Liz