Don't Panic

After four days off to give the left adductor a break, Friday, 7 miles, Longfellow-Charles-Smoots double loop+, average 6:42 pace or so. Sunday, 10 miles, 6:45 average pace, splits: 6:35, 6:44, 6:37, 6:40, 6:42, 6:40, 6:48, 6:57, 7:12 (hill), 6:30. I think the time off was well worth it, adductor seems mostly okay.

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Finished The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, great stuff. And then went out and rented the DVD, released posthumously after Adams' untimely unexistence. This may be blasphony to die hard Adams fans, but I rather liked the movie, my kids did too, in fact I liked it quite a lot. And in some ways more than the book even. I didn't expect it to be this good.

It was fun, and funny, imaginative, delightful, and wonderous, and quite true to the spirit of the book, and adaptive to the medium. Much bad sentiment toward it from Adams fans, judging from Amazon feedback. But it smacked to me of, how do I put this, fan elitism, how so often hard core fans of famous musical artists pan their later stuff, after it becomes popular; the early stuff before it was popular is always the best, e.g. Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Elliot Smith. Maybe some truth, maybe not, but it usually smells of dogma to me.

The kids loved it, some favorite parts were, well, right off that bat, the "So long and thanks for all the fish" opening, they thought that was just a riot, and Marvin, the Paranoid Android (is this the origin of the title for the Radiohead song?), they just took an instant liking to the maniacally depressive robot, and the whale spontaneously incarnated into existence by the Infinite Improbability Drive, contemplating its own brief existence while hurling toward Magrathea - what's happening .. why am I here ... what is my purpose in life ... this is really exciting ... what's this thing suddenly coming toward me very fast ... ground! ... I wonder if it will be friends with me. Thud!

That pretty much sums out our lot, doesn't it. Deep. Reminds me of a scene from the movie 1985 Henry Jaglom film Always where Andre Gregory says something like (I wish I could find an exact quote), life is like a stone which you rub and rub and smooth and polish and mull over, and just about when you think you have the answer, BAM! you die! Hahaha.

Speaking of Radiohead, it seems like the phrase OK Computer was uttered more that once or twice in the book and the movie, is there a connection? Too tired to Google (God, I despise that verb.) Oh, and another possible Radiohead connection, the use of what I think is an obscure word — myxomatosis — in the book, the title of a song on Hail to the Thief.