the twelve hour fight for middle earth

saturday, markus and i went to antoine's parent's house in geneva, where antoine has converted the garage into a finished living space with an amazing home theatre setup. he had originally invited lots of people, but it ended up just being the three of us. i didn't mind; i still had a great time. anyway, the purpose of the whole event was to screen all three of the lord of the rings movies, in sequence (extended versions, of course). it was really cool. we took breaks between each of the six discs, and had a nice dinner in there somewhere, but when it comes down to counting, it's still nearly twelve hours worth of film. wow. i think we started around noon, and finished by about 3am.

the original plan was that we would then go skiing in france on sunday, but of course they overslept (well, i didn't wake them up either, so i suppose it's as much my fault as any), so that didn't end up happenning. with the weather we've been having, i'm not sure the snow would have been any good anyway. god, the weather was so gorgeous. we spent most of the day just out playing in the yard, or laying in the sun on the grass and talking.

oh, and i almost forgot the most important part---also in this converted garage, they are storing (for his mom's cousin?) a fabulous (and huge) steinway. i guess she doesn't have room for it, so they put it there, and she brings her students there to teach lessons. i played on it basically every spare moment i had saturday and sunday. now, don't get me wrong, i love my baby here at the apartment (a korg triton pro-x), and i bought it because it has an amazing feel as far as electric controlers go, but it's really impossible to beat the real thing... god, i want one of those. it was so beautiful...

actually, on the way there saturday morning, we took mototaka to the ikea, and he hopped the train back. we also went in to help him, and look at a couple things. it was kinda crazy. that poor doesn't get out anywheres near enough. we try, but he always comes up with some excuse. anyway, as cliche as it sounds, watching him in there really was kinda like seeing "a kid at disneyland." and he was having almost as much trouble with decision making as steve does. (haha. sorry dude, i know that was a pot-shot; i'm sure you'll get me back for it later. [grin]) i tried to find a cupboard suitable for my disaster of a kitchen (by this point, i've acquired pretty much all the tools i need, the problem is now i don't have places to put it all! [rolls eyes]). and of course, i failed. or, rather, they didn't have anything that met my specifications. eh, even if they did, i'm sure it would have been too expensive anyway. markus and i did end up buying some more plants for our offices though.

today we had the last of the "demo marathon" at work. it was the big inauguration ceremony for the new building, and they had the minister of education (pascal couchpin) coming to visit, so we had to put on a good show. i still haven't gotten the new demo to work reliably (which really ticks me off), so vlad and i had to just use the old one, again. but alcherio seems happy, and i'm certainly glad that it's all over, so "all's well that ends well," or so we like to think, right? now i'm back to the "oh-my-god i have to write a paper for the damn SIS conference by april 22" mode. sheesh. it never stops.

hey, but twin peaks starts on wednesday! (i've invited lots of people, and i'm going to try to make it an every wednesday thing to see a couple of episodes. we'll see what kind of turn out i get.)