One more pic i forgot to post yesterday in my tribute to our dear departed doggie.

I also forgot to mention several interesting cameos in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The first was a turn by The Vicar of Dibley Dawn French as the fat lady in the painting guarding the entrance to the Gryffindor common rooms. The second, and far more unexpected, was former Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown as a patron of the Leaky Cauldron, sitting in the foreground reading a newspaper and nonchalantly stirring his drink by magically twirling a spoon. I had to do a web search when i got home to make sure i wasn't losing my mind. No doubt, it's him. Apparently he may have a speaking role in the next Harry Potter flick. Bizarre.

I also didn't mention that i recently saw what may be the worst film i've ever had the displeasure to witness: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. It's no secret that i didn't care for the first episode, but this one plumbed new depths of the cinematic cesspool.

I took Caltrain to work this morning, since V came down to Palo Alto yesterday to do some afterwork shopping and we ended up leaving my car at Stanford. As desperate as i was to get my own car and start driving to work after leaving Boston, there is something to be said for the half hour or so of me time you get in the morning and the evening while taking public transit. Caltrain is particularly nice: the trains are clean, there's plenty of seats, and you can sit on the upper level of the train and catch a nice view. However, I found out today that you don't walk down the stairs while the train is decelerating. I did manage to finish the posthumous Douglas Adams collection The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time while travelling this morning. It's a compilation of interviews, essays, scraps of writing, and about half of the unfinished next Dirk Gently novel. As expected, it has its ups and downs, but on the whole it was nice to learn a bit more about a great humorist, scientist, and sociologist who tragically died before his time. Next on the reading list: another Tom Robbins, this time Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas.

And finally, as part of our shopping stint yesterday V took me to Best Buy so i could pick up my next video diversion, Ninja Gaiden. Haven't had a chance to pop it in the Xbox yet, but all the reviews i've seen say it's spectacular, both in terms of graphics and gameplay. Although i've heard inklings that the difficulty level can be daunting. I'm still debating the exact pronunciation of the title, as i've heard people refer to it both as "Ninja Gay'-den" and "Ninja Guy-dan'". I used the latter around Veronica, now she thinks the game is about some ninja guy named Dan.