All presents wrapped

Got the last of my Christmas gifts wrapped.  This is crazy.  I've never finished this particular chore this early in the season.  It's not even Thanksgiving yet.

Glad to have it out of the way, though.

A tale of two adaptations

I've seen Dune, and it was good.  I thought it was a very faithful adaptation of the book.

I have not seen any of the Wheel of Time series, nor do I have any plans to watch it.  From what I've read on the internet, it takes way too many liberties with the source material including altering the basic plot of the entire series.  *smh*

One of these things will go down in history as a fine piece of art.  The other, not so much.

The lesson, as always, is to stay faithful to the book.  If a book is adapted for a movie, it's because the book is popular in a big way.  It's the height of hubris for some movie-producer guy to think that he can do better than the author at telling that author's story, especially when the book has already proven its worth in the marketplace by selling millions of copies.

This sort of thing should be the easiest slam-dunk in the history of money-making.  A popular book already has a built-in fan base.  Just give those preexisting fans what they want and rake in the cash.  It's as simple as that.  If you do right by the book fans, then they'll shout your movie's praises from the rooftops, and word of mouth (or internet) will work its magic, and you'll have a box office smash.

103 years

Lest we forget.

 

First present wrapped

I've wrapped the first Christmas gift of the season.  It's insanely early to be doing this, but with half the nation's imports currently languishing on container ships with no off-loading in sight, I felt the need to get this stuff done as quickly as possible.

I suspect many people will wait until the last minute to do their Christmas shopping.  It's an easy thing to procrastinate.  And I suspect many of those folks will be unable to purchase what they want.  Or if they can, then the delivery will be well after December 25th.

I further suspect that there will be more fights at stores than usual.

It promises to be an exciting and interesting holiday season.  :/

Braves win!

Congratulations to the Atlanta Braves, 2021 World Series Champions.

Their last World Series title came in 1995.  In each instance, the Braves won the series four games to two and pitched a shutout in the sixth game.

Way to go, fellas.  :D