Longer afternoon post

Movie I: Saturday night we watched Chocolat, which Otis had seen already and liked and which I thought was okay. I mean, it was good and all, but it just didn't grab me as much as I thought it would, given all that everyone had said about it.

Movie I(a): I also watched a documentary on women and comics, and talked about it at length on my comics blog.

The Urban Hike:



As you can see by the graphic, the hike was truncated. The walkers turned out to be Johnbai, O, and I; although Eryk, Sylvio, Dingo, and Sachet showed up for O's yummy blueberry and pecan French toast, they had obligations that kept them from walking. It wasn't just the great food and company that got us off to a late start, either; we had to spend time up at Sachet's, helping her lighten her load for the move to Montreal by helping ourselves to the stuff that was leftover after she packed. I filled a whole box with goodies and staked a claim on more.

The walking itself was lovely; the day was warm, but not too warm, and the conversation kept a spring in our steps (except when Bummerman came out at the Sculpture Garden). We even picked (and ate) blackberries along the way. I think we covered about seven miles, so we'll call that good.

Otis didn't join the party because she was at home creating trying to create art. She broke her artistic frustration cycle by driving over and joining the three trekkers in Interbay for some Strongbow cider and pub grub.

Additional note: O's theory (related on the hike) of my being a Connector of sorts is weakened by my score of only 13 on the Gladwell quiz (see below); that's in the bottom decile of the results that Gladwell reports. I think that Ned raised some valid criticisms of the quiz's being Manhattan-centric, though: not only is it a Manhattan phone book that he used for his list of names, the test subjects to determine his baselines were students at City College in New York, academics in Princeton, New Jersey, and professionals of his acquaintance (who, I suspect, are also on the east coast). Nonetheless, give it a try.

Movie II: Last night we watched Stripped to Kill, the Roger Corman-produced Kay Lenz-Greg Evigan vehicle about a cop who goes undercover as a stripper to solve a murder. A fun eighties cheesefest; think Flashdance with corpses. Norman Fell is in it, too. I love Netflix.