I went to Jeff's party last night and picked up on all the latest Dave gossip, learned how to make mulled cider, and showed Jeff how to melt pennies with household materials.

After only a few hours of sleep I got up to go catch the morning show of Lord of the Rings. Having a swank theater across the street is such a perk. Especially when the daytime shows aren't $10. And when they accept credit cards from my still-as-of-yet broke ass.

I was very entertained by LOTR. In particular, I liked how they handled how Frodo sees the world around him while invisible, how the ringwraiths look when he's got the ring on, and most of all, I loved the damn balrog. Hot shit that thing was cool. Having read the book several times, the creature I had developed in my head as what a balrog would look like was wimpy and unimpressive in comparison. I think my mind's eye's balrog was a lot more like the cave troll in the movie. ...weak...

I'm also glad to see that Jackson tossed Tom Bombadill, which I always looked at as a scene tagged on to the book for no apparent reason other than to deliver the fancy knife to Merry for use in Book 3. Not sure how this possible continuity problem will be solved in Movie 3, but not having to deal with Bombadill's sing-songy dumb ass was a welcome surprise.

Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.

Oh, and the Balrog could totally kick Sauron's ass. Sauron only has 2 arms, is a mere 10' tall, his eyes don't glow, and he isn't follwed around by a black fog. Oh and no glowing whip. I hope, come Movie 3, they improve the Look&Feel™ of Sauron when compared to the opening scenes of Movie 1. Otherwise, he's toast. Oops I hope I didn't just spoil it for everyone.

So, anyway, I am still broke. MIT won't recut the check - get this - because Fleet told them that I had cashed it. So when I talk to Fleet, they can find no record of it. But it took MIT about 10 seconds to get them to find some record somewhere of the transaction.

But this doesn't change the fact that the money still isn't there. So Fleet is doing a "deep search" which takes 3-5 business days. I think maybe they should upgrade from the PDP-11 that is currently running this 3-5 day search, and maybe run it on a solar calculator instead for improved efficiency. Meanwhile, MIT is producing a photocopy of the cashed check for me [3-5 business days]. When I get that, I'm going to march it over to Fleet and raise hell. Should be fun. Details to come.

Until then, I'm living off a credit card and getting really tired of eating at LeVerdi's.