orichalcum

So, we were away for the weekend gaming with folks in New Hampshire, which was wonderful, except for the fact that USAirways lost our luggage, caused us to wait for five hours on Friday in Logan airport for it to _not_ arrive, and then, in fact, failed to deliver it until late Monday morning, causing us to be delayed in _leaving_ New Hampshire. I'd rant more at length, but I don't have the energy. I will, however, say that the main thing that took the situation from "this is irritating" to "I'm really glad I'm playing a big tough fighter who does oodles of damage right now, because otherwise I might start destroying actual property" was that the Logan USAirways office dealt with the fact that they lose a lot of people's luggage by refusing to answer the phone. No, they don't have an answering machine or an email address either; they just let it ring and ring, or, sometimes, picked it up and hung up on me. While the national office would quite happily talk to me, they could not get through to their _own_ local luggage office because they wouldn't answer phone calls from their managers. I called 21 times over the course of three days, and not once did I ever talk to someone at Logan successfully. They ignored the frantic message on the computer from their supervisors saying "don't send the luggage out; she's finished her trip and will be back at Logan today."

But seeing folks and gaming with them was awesome, and it was a lovely setting and good food.

Today, in recovery, we went to see

I liked this movie quite a lot. It was sweet, more than anything. Not saccharine, but gently romantic, like a cross between the Princess Bride and the Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

It was a gentleman's movie, and nearly as much a Julian movie as the book was a Julian book, though less poetical. In some ways, that made some of the very adult bits all the more odd; there was a fair amount of sex-related jokes and random fantasy violence.

I liked all the heroic characters and enjoyed all the villains. In my new trend of spotting Questies in movies, I will say that
if someone ever makes a movie about duskydawn, they should cast Kate Magowan.

Many of the official reviews complained that the plot was too complex and that some characters were miscast. I would vehemently disagree with the first point; if anything, the plot felt too simplified, and you could spot twists and plot points an hour away. As far as the second point, they worked for me, although I feel old seeing Michelle Pfeiffer cast in the "mature woman" role, even if she is 49.

So yeah. It's not great art, I think, but it may well be the movie that has made me happiest all year, and that's no small thing.