Random Thoughts 7/31/13

• The extended version of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, with 13 minutes of extra and extended scenes and gobs of documentaries, will be available on disc November 5th.  Please don't call me that that day; the new running time is 182 minutes of pure awesome.
• Fantasy football is less than a month away.  Wow, the summer went by fast.
• So apparently here in KCK soccer is a big deal.
• Thanks to the public library, we binge-watched the first three seasons of "Downton Abbey."  In a word… wow!  I didn't think I would be that interested in what I assumed was a silly British soap-opera and I kind of avoided it for awhile.  But we finally sat down to watch it and I discovered it was a thoughtful, compelling, riveting show.  Downton has perhaps the best acting and writing on television.  I was also impressed that it was so popular and yet didn't have the vulgar, filthy content that American-made period pieces have, which are usually dripping in four-letter words and partial or full nudity.  I understand that a censored version of "Deadwood" or "Boardwalk Empire" is three minutes long and silent.  If you have any interest in the highest level of drama or WW1-era England, "Downton Abbey" is appointment viewing.
• Update on my truck: I love driving that Nissan Frontier.  It helps that we got it for a song and it's mostly paid off but it's been 20 years since I had a vehicle that I really enjoyed driving.
• This has been a year for reading fiction for me.  In 2012, I didn't read a single novel but this year I've read Ben Hur (1880), His Last Bow (1917), Ender's Game (1985), and Heart of Darkness (1899).  I wish I had time to read more fiction (or read it more quickly), but I'm just too busy.
• Up next?  Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov (1880) and The Idiot (1869), Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), and others.  Suggestions?