Antonio Banderas did a fine job, I'm just going to be perpetually cranky that movie!Armand is not the same as book!Armand. I wanted petulant, disdainful, perpetually-teenaged Armand.

Right! I think maybe I thought they should've saved Banderas for Marius. Leo might have been about right for Armand at the time. It's been so long since I've visited the books or the movie my memory is fuzzy.

ita,

that hidden camera shit is just too fucking much. I would still be fucking screaming after that. and I wouldn't be able to sleep right for MONTHS.

Actually, I think Banderas played Armand like someone who had actually read the damn books -- he had the insane stillness/otherworldliness down.

I just got carded buying Draino. What's up with that?

I could only check in occasionally while on the road -- relatives are SO not understanding about my need to stay online instead of spending time with them, plus bizarre cable modem problems, plus spending major time out on the island where there is No Electricity PLUS my phone has Gone Dead. Oy gevalt.

Consuela, I think this first week is going to be the hardest. Was reflecting this long weekend on even though we had quite the projects to work on, somebody had it way way worse.

My thought is that get as much out of the old apartment as to make it unlivable -- turn off the gas if you can, remove all the beds. My mom's place is now sans a lot of furniture and essentials like shampoo, but all the kitchen implements are still there... which I suppose I should be glad for, because it made staying there a little easier when there's no chance of day trips.

That hidden camera thing was going around fb last night. I would kill the people responsible, or possibly attack the little girl.

Elon Musk Wants to Build 80,000-Person Mars Colony

Elon Musk doesn’t just want to send a person to Mars — he wants to send 80,000. According to Space.com, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX spilled details about his hopes for a future Mars colony during a talk at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Nov. 16.

Earlier this year, SpaceX became the first private U.S. company to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. Musk has never been shy about his ambitions to take human colonists to another planet, mentioning in the past that he wants to provide flights to Mars for about $500,000 a person. But now he’s talking about building a small-city-sized settlement on the Red Planet, starting with a 10-person crew in the coming decades to begin establishing and building infrastructure.

That first flight would be expensive and risky but “once there are regular Mars flights, you can get the cost down to half a million dollars for someone to move to Mars,” Musk told Space.com. ”Then I think there are enough people who would buy that to have it be a reasonable business case.” Musk added that he sees the future 80,000-person colony as a public-private enterprise costing roughly $36 billion.

So you pay $500,000 to be one of 80,000 people who will move to Mars. But it would be far more expensive to bring someone back from Mars, so I'm thinking most of the 80,000 settlers on Mars would stay there the rest of their lives. I wonder if that many people could both pay the half mil. and would want to stay on Mars the rest of their lives.

One bad thing: very long lag times (10 or 20 minutes each way?) for the internet. If some Buffistas were on Mars there would be much x-posting

MARS NEEDS BUFFISTAS

Does $700/day for a vacation sound like a lot? That includes airfare, hotel, and food.

How much would the hotel & airfare cost on their own?

It does to me, but I am cheap. And assuming that is per person, double occupancy?

Oh good lord - less than a month after the DG got canned for a massive clusterfuck surrounding news reports about pedophiles, now two of our presenters have admitted to having an affair with each other and are banned from appearing onscreen together.

I am working for a goddamn soap opera.