Jim's Home Page

Not much has been happening, as evidenced by the complete lack of updates on the web site here. Yesterday, Russ and I went to Visconti's for lunch. A nice family owned Italian restaurant. The owner comes around and welcomes you and so forth. It reminds me a lot of Jerry's in Manly.

When we walked out, we were looking at a little bar and grill that was two doors up. We had noticed it before but sort of paid no attention. Looking at its menu, we decided to come back and give it a go. And today we did.

And oh boy, how did we miss this one for so long?

The restaurant in question is Bailies, and it's pretty darn good. I had their soup of the day, which was chicken and leek, followed by the hand cut pasta. The pancetta and smoked chicken, cream, and hand made pasta was just superb. Russ had the small butter lettuce salad (which I have to admit, I was sorely tempted by, butter lettuce being my favourite lettuce on the planet). His serving of Asian skirt steak looked pretty tasty too.

We both agreed that Bailies will make it onto the rotation of restaurants that we eat at. And one night, I'm going back and doing a gluttony special...

I was required by the INS (or whatever they are calling themselves in these terrorist days) to go and get my fingerprints taken again. Apparently, they expire every 14 months. And here was I thinking I had them for life.

Oh well, a trip downtown and waiting around for an hour didn't kill me, but it did lose me a day of work.

OK, I finally got to see "Return of the King". I walked about five miles in either direction to get to the theatre, there being no bus service up to Folsom. I'm a little disappointed with the movie. I don't know how it could have been better, but I have the sinking feeling it won't win the best picture or the best director Oscars. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Some of the CG was just wonderful. Minas Tirith was great and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was fantastic... up until the ghosts came and won the fight. What happened to the story there? After one hell of a cavalry charge, our heroes were upstaged by a green blob that rolled over the field and wiped out anything in its path.

Also, I can understand why Christopher Lee was pissed off. I can see Peter Jackson selling Lee on the role of Sauraman from the voice perspective, and then cutting his biggest scene. I mean, the book has an entire chapter devoted to it. I really hope that the scene was shot and Jackson includes it in the director's cut.

Anyway, enough of the negativity. Overall it was a magnificent movie, and as usual, I can't wait to see the director's cut. Next, New Line should back Jackson to do "The Hobbit". Absolutely.

A few years ago, I got odds of 33 to 1 on the Indianapolis Colts making the playoffs. I lost that bet by one single game, and ever since then I've been watching the Colts and Peyton Manning. This year they made it to the championship game, and I hate to say, it almost looked as though Manning was paid to lose the game.

The New England Patriot's defense was superb however, absolutely winning it for them. With the Colts losing, I'll only be watching the Superbowl for the ads.

In other news, after a week of sending my e-bay seller e-mails and voice mails with no response (which was causing me to get extremely nervous), I finally talked to him on Thursday arvo. Then, after another two days of dead silence I finally got a tracking number for the guitar today. It should turn up on Friday.

At last.

I'm going to go and see "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" this weekend if it kills me. I have to see it on the big screen.

But first I have to install the new fans in my PC. So excuse me while I shut it down for a while...

I woke up this morning to find my primary PC with no power at all. Although there was power going to the machine, pressing the power button didn't do a thing. After a bit of fiddling (completely disconnecting the power and letting the mobo's capacitors discharge), it decided to come back to life.

It was then that I noticed that the power supply fan wasn't running, which quickly lead me to conclude that it had overheated and caused the computer to shut down. Also, the CPU fan was really noisy starting up, although it got better after about five minutes or so.

A quick flip with a screwdriver through the grill got the power supply fan going, but it's off to get a replacement so I can fix it on the weekend. While I'm at it, I'll replace the CPU fan too.

Another $50 sacrificed to the PeeCee gods.