I like opera for long drives. Tosca, La Boheme, and Carmen will cover a lot of hours.

I had to go. I just... I just can't wait 4 days with that. Not during the summer. Not for $102/day.

OMG seriously.

In a similar vein, I cannot believe the woman who took 1000 (ONE THOUSAND) digital photos on the trip doesn't know how to put them online. So she keeps emailing a few around. Are you serious??

Airline websites should not get shirty with me when I amd booking for very emotional reasons....

Aunt sounded good today (and OMG, her daughter sounds just like her!) and I fly out in a week. And hope that's not too far out.

Happy birthday, Diana Rigg.

And you can't officially change your name in France, so paperwork would be a nightmare.

Wha? Really? You're just stuck with it?

Well, this is the country where, until recently, all given names had to be approved by the mayor's office.

It's actually a rights issue, from Wikipedia:

Since the 1789 Revolution, the law stipulates that "no one may use another name than that given on their birth certificate";[19] furthermore, the 1946 revision to the Constitution guarantees that "women and men have equal rights", including in the use of their birth name. Upon getting married, a woman keeps her maiden name (nom de jeune fille). She may, under her maiden name, for example, open a bank account, sign checks, obtain a passport, etc. However, marriage grants a married person the right to assume his or her spouse's last name. It is still a common practice for a woman to use her husband's name in this way, despite the fact that no official due process formalizes this usage. The majority of married women use their husband's name for all documents, official or not. The article 264 of the French civil code does however stipulate that "upon divorcing both spouses lose the right to use each other's name".

However, if it's not a marriage thing, you're out of luck. From age 10 or so, my aunt was actually raised and adopted by another family (long story) who changed her first name. However, her official papers all still use her original name, which I only learned when I lived with her and saw her mail.

The arguments against Star Trek and Ulysses are equally specious.

Wasn't his argument against Ulysses actually "Well, *I* don't like it, so it's overrated!"?

I mean, he can not like it, but that doesn't automatically make it overrated.

David, you make it sound like the Avengers is no longer available in any format because of the fire at ITV. A quick peek in Amazon tells me nay.

[link]

I believe Hec was engaging in a "what if" flight of fancy.

I believe Hec was engaging in a "what if" flight of fancy.

Correct. There was no ITV fire.

When I was composing the piece, I was mulling over the fact that while Diana Rigg has had a very long, distinguished theater career I only really wanted to write about her iconic status with the Avengers. So I started with opening like, "I hope Dame Rigg will forgive me in bypassing her Tony award winning performance of Medea, but..." and then I just decided to flip it. Act like almost nobody had ever heard of the Avengers.

I spell this out not to kill the joke of it, but just because I think a lot of writing is really a series of problem-solving exercises. My problem wasn't just that I only wanted to talk about her work in the Avengers, but the opening was flat as originally conceived. It was more interesting to toss people into the Alternative Universe where Diana Rigg would be best known for The Worst Witch (which is itself, of course, very obscure).

Ah, Veronica Mars, all seasons, are available on Netflix streaming!! YAY.

I was just wishing they would be THIS MORNING and now they are!

I wish I had a million dollars....