The Day Scotty Stood Still

We'll start by me saying that the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still isn't as good as the original, but that's pretty obvious. I still enjoyed seeing Gort, but there was too much blah-ness that overrided anything good. The original came out in 1951, the same year that brought us such notable films as An American in Paris (probably my second-favorite opening scene, behind Patton), A Place in the Sun (reviewed by me here), and A Streetcar Named Desire (not to be confused with "A Streetcar Named Marge". On to more pleasant things:

People here in Natchitoches keep telling me that it must be such a big change going from the big city to back home. I suppose it is, but honestly I don't feel any sort of culture shock at all. I did live here the first 22 years of my life, and came back a few times a year for visits or other purposes. So it's not like I didn't know what to expect. The two biggest differences are driving and Saturday night.

I can't shake the feeling that I'm not as good a driver as I used to be. After not even having a car when I lived in VA, I'm used to just being carried along, rather than bearing any responsibility for the caring. I find myself staring a little too long at things on the side of the road that grab my attention, or being a little lackadaisical about certain things, expecting that they're just going to happen instead of making them happen.

As for Saturday night, there is of course no Sign of the Whale here. And if there were, it wouldn't be THE Sign of the Whale. I need to find a place where I can just sit and relax. Wish me luck.

I am very happy to report, however, that Natchitoches recently got a Dairy Queen (specifically a Dairy Queen Grill and Chill). For decades I wondered why we didn't have one. It seemed like Texas had a state law mandating that all towns of at least 500 people had to have one. Why couldn't we? Well, now we do, and the Snickers Blizzard is marvelous.

LSU's football season did not go the way most hoped or expected. There were weaknesses at the beginning of the season (secondary, LB, QB) that remained weaknesses all season long and didn't get any better. That's a bit of a surprise, but a much bigger surprise was the play of LSU's lines. I would have said (and probably did) at the start of the year that LSU had as good a matched set of lines as you would find in the country. I feel like both the offensive and defensive lines dramatically underperformed this season. The epic failure of the co-defensive coordinators didn't help things, either.

I am very happy to say that I got to go to two LSU home games this season. I hadn't been to Tiger Stadium in probably over 20 years, and I saw them play Tulane and Alabama in consecutive weeks. The Tulane week was a bit blah, but the tailgating for the Alabama game was something I shall not soon forget. I took a very long walk around campus, and I never ran into an area that was not partied upon. It was really something.

Now that my first semester of Heritage Resources grad school is over, I'm looking forward to visiting D.C. for New Year's. I miss some people and places and can't wait to see them again. The American History Museum has reopened, the Pentagon 9/11 memorial is up, It's really nice that I have free places to stay. I love you people.

This is my first post in a while, and it's a bit haphazard. I'll do better next time.