shopping frenzy

I don't know what it is, but shopping malls suck the life out of me. It's not just that I'm a post-bourgeois hipster who finds them declasse, they make me yawn and stumble and gaze into space.

But we got good last-minute shopping done. Even though -- beware -- the Lechter's in the Mroville Mall seems to have disappeared. We got Dee a cellphone, and we got Dee a PS2 memory card, so now she is snowboarding for posterity.

Oh, the whumwhumwhum noise in my car has been confirmed to be a flat spot on a tire, and fixed. It's good to know there's nothing apparently wrong with your car before driving up and down the eastern seaboard for the holidays. Moral: rotate your tires more often than, uh, every thirty thousand miles.

LOTR movie

Spoiler-free version:

W00t! No Bombadil! I am so living in fear of the point when Deanna reads up to Bombadil and starts hey-nonny-nonnying.

The movie was excellent overall. They could have done so, so much worse. It was visually spectacular, the acting was almost all good or better, and the world was solid. That's what I was most afraid of, that it would feel flimsy.

The Shire was very well done. I was afraid it would be all Quainte and false, but it looked lived-in. Bilbo's hole was lovely and I want one, but I will have to slo-mo the DVD to check if they explain how best to mount bookshelves on curved walls.

Gandalf's hat is perfect.

( Spoilerous fanboy griping )