Happy New Year
I do not hold with New Year's resolutions. If a resolution is worth making, it is worth making now, whenever now might be. Don't wait for an arbitrary date. Just initiate it and follow through, as they say in the sport of my ancestors. I started my resolution in October and gave up cigarettes. It was not easy--I shan't pretend it was. I never intended to start smoking cigarettes in the first place. I have been a pipe and cigar smoker since the age of twenty-one and had nothing but contempt for cigarettes, until I became a tobacconist at a shop that had a wide selection of imported cigarettes. A desire to be more knowledgeable in my profession combined with the high level of stress in the world of retail and my predilection for collecting Zippo lighters led to the inevitable addiction that has taken me eight years to break. I wish I could honestly say I had quit through sheer force of will--that I had used reason and willpower to free myself. The fact is, I could not find the strength to quit until I could no longer tolerate the chest pains I had started to experience and which were becoming more common. Even then I had to find a temporary substitute to help quell my urges, which were strongest when my level of stress or anger was highest. The substitute was Tootsie Roll Pops. Whenever the desire to smoke seized me, I seized a Tootsie Roll Pop. For a few days, there was scarcely a waking moment when I didn't have one in my mouth. The hazard, I soon learned, was that too many Tootsie Roll Pops leads to quite a wretched situation in the stomach. When that pain became unendurable, I quit Tootsie Roll Pops, too. To my surprise and relief, the agonizing desire to smoke had lost its hold on me and the chest pains had ceased. The first two and a half to three weeks were very difficult, and I was certainly not the most pleasant company during that time, but the other side of that gauntlet was a release from the slavery of habitual self-destruction. I still consider myself a pipe and cigar smoker, but as such I have always been more moderate in my smoking than I was as a cigarette smoker. As the latter, I tended to smoke one to two packs a day. Now that my days as a cigarette smoker are over, I haven't even bothered to smoke a pipe or cigar. Once again it is an occasional indulgence, like single malt scotch. I'll light a pipe again someday, but I am in no hurry. I infinitely prefer life as a connoisseur to existence as an addict. Cigarettes be damned. Make your resolutions whenever you like, as long as it is now, and don't worry about the date. Just follow through.
And now I would like to announce the fourth year of what is unmistakably and undeniably a tradition at the Cuparium, and that is the annual posting of the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne just in time for you to learn them before you must sing them in public.
Peace, health, and prosperity to you all in the New Year.
Succinct Notes
Added links and two new categories to the links page.
Site-Seeing
I give you two new categories of links: SPACE and EARTH. More to come. Explore!
From the Bookshelf
I'll take this opportunity to remind everyone who has not yet done so to read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Go on. Read!
At the Cinema
On Sunday the 29th I saw The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. 'Twas excellent for the most part. I only hope that when the extended DVD is released in late 2003 that it will have additional footage of Merry and Pippin's encounter with the Ents. I am particularly fond of Ents.
On the Telly
The old animated television features of Tolkien's works are quite remarkable, and it is telling that they were director Peter Jackson's first exposure to Middle Earth and led him to read the books. They are especially notable for their amazing casts. Rankin and Bass' adaptation of The Hobbit included such actors as John Huston, Otto Preminger, Richard Boone, Orson Bean, and Brother Theodore (who was mentioned in last week's Site-Seeing installment.) I own the DVD and saw it a few days ago. I haven't seen it with as nice a picture since it was originally broadcast. DVDs are wonderful things.
Quotations, Possibly?
What Gordon heard: "Captain Underpants."
What Daniel said: "Complimentary salad."
I'll keep posting if you keep reading. Be seeing you... :-?
