Gardens And Files

I've been playing a great deal of Nethack.

I've started reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, his account of the tragedy on Mt. Everest last year. It's horrible, because you know what happens, you know who's going to die. He does a good job of explaining why mountain climbing is such a thrill, although it's not one that interests me.

I've started to look for a gardener. Our backyard has started becoming an overgrown wilderness. I went next door and talked to one of our neighbors, who seems to have a nice yard. He enjoys gardening and showed me around. It got me interested in finding out about gardening. Yes, moi.

The neighbor showed me his vegetable garden. He says the tomato plants are so fecund (his word) that he's always giving tomatoes away. I said Darin would be happy to hear about that. I started having visions of fresh tomato sauce for spaghetti.

Darin's ideal Hollywood career: to work in Casting, so he could start linking faces of second-tier actors that we see in every movie to names. JT Walsh has gone mainstream; it's not enough to know him on sight any more.

And now for Darin's succinct analysis of The X-Files: the only good episodes are the ones with a sense of humor. The Chris Carter episodes are boring and pretentious. And yes, it was tonight's season ender that prompted that comment.