Stranger than reality

Saturday was “catch up on house/yardwork” day. I didn’t go near a computer until the afternoon. I’d made a list of chores on Friday and took great pleasure in checking them off as I accomplished them. They ranged from trimming the overgrown hibiscus in the back yard to planting the poinsettia that’s been sitting on a table on the back deck to unclogging a slow-running drain.

When I did get to the computer, I prepared two stories to go out this week. One is an older story submitted to a new market, but I had to do a print manuscript, cover letter, etc. The other is the new story, which I revised a few times and got its envelope and cover letter ready, too. I’m not quite ready to send it off yet, but have to get them both in the mail by Wednesday.

We watched Stranger than Fiction on Friday evening. I had rented it a few weeks earlier but the DVD was defective, so this time we used On Demand. Will Farrell is far from my favorite actor, but he comports himself fairly well in this movie, and Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman rescue him. Maggie Gyllenhaal is very good, too, but I think Queen Latifah was grossly underutilized in a mostly unforgettable role. Still, the film wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped it would be, though I don’t regret watching it.

Reality update. Jeff Strand took me to task for not writing about last week’s Survivor, which I didn’t get to watch until the weekend. I posted in response to his comment, but I’ll rewrite it here: Can you say schadenfruede? It was absolutely delightful to see one alliance get blindsided. They were backslapping each other, so delighted by their nefariousness, and had no idea how brilliantly they were outplayed by the other faction. I’d say the scenes of those stunned faces rank among the best Survivor moments ever. I was intrigued to learn that the idol will go back into play as they are hiding it again. I didn’t see that coming. I wasn’t so thrilled by the previews for next week, when it appears like they do some snooping as part of their retaliation. I hope Yao-man survives this. No one else deserves to win as much as he does, though the winner is seldom the person who deserves to win, I guess.

Getting down to the wire on The Amazing Race, too. I’m still rooting for Dustin and Candace (though I don’t know which is which), but I think I could survive if Oswald and Danny won, too. The other two teams, not so much. Eric and Danielle especially don’t strike me as a team—their interactions are mostly strident and impersonal. Last night’s episode was a nice lesson in karma, though Oswald and Danny really were in a bind financially.