Alaskan Time

Did you know that Alaska is 4 hours behind EST? It is. Last night, bed time was 5am this morning. I am wide awake now. I am so tired! I did take some cough syrup - which I need for the allergy sore throat (what? that CAN happen!) - and not even that is penetrating my sleeplessness. So, here I am forced to write!

I read five books on this trip:

The aforementioned Into the Wild by John Ksomething. About the 24 year old who tried to exist in the Alaskan bush on nothing but brains, an outdated map, and 10lbs of rice. Definitely worth the read.

Patricia Cornwell's Trace and Predator. I enjoyed Trace - typical Kay Scarpetta novel, but Predator has me a little fatutzed! It was a throw back to the deeply deranged psychological serial killer head case. Typically, her characters have some Oedipus thing going on but this one was different, somewhat, and over the top in terms of craziness. Great!

Christopher Paolino's Eragorn - I finally finished it! I already reviewed it at some point herein and the original review stands. If you like scifi and fantasy and do not get annoyed at an author bogarting things from Tolkein, Stephen King, Harry Potter, etc., then read the book. Plus the kid was 15 when he wrote it. I will pick up the second installment, Eldest, unless someone wants to float it my way for a week or so.

Gerri Hill's One Summer Night - lesbian novel. Pretty good. I like this author as she mixes amusing story line with some good sex without using all the bizare euphemisms. This one was sex with a hot third baseman softball player. It is not about me though. ;)

There were three movies:
Pink Panther - HORRIBLE. NOt even the slapstick was that funny. I fell asleep. Beyonce cannot act - which we should have known as the only thing I remember about her stint in Austin Powers was the afro, hot body, and her shouting SHAZAM and shaking that fro!

Fire Wall - Harrison Ford, as a banker whose family is taken hostage in the hope of getting Harrison to hack into the bank's wire transfer system and transferring 90million dollars. I stopped paying attention to the movie, the fiftieth time Harrison gave that dopey, oh my god they have my family, how do I help them, deer in the headlights quivering lip thing. So, 14 and one half minutes later I picked up my book. I did continue listening and clearly the movie could have been ok had the screenplay been different, he was believable as a techie, and he didn't do the wimpy but strong thing. Plus the action scenes were HORRIBLE! It was like a 70s horror flick, forgetting the technology we have today.

8 Below - this is the sled dog movie, which was on the flight down and completely relevant to the trip. This movie was great. Disney flick - so of course I CRIED my eyes out. Dogs trapped for 170 days in the arctic. Death. Love. Companioniship. Survival. Of course I cried!!

I think that is it. My cough is making it hard to type.
Night.