Today’s been a day of deciding not to do things. It hasn’t been a very exciting day. But I didn’t want to break my string of daily entries, so you get to read a very mundane posting — unless you choose to stop now.

This morning, I decided not to go to a week-long meeting in Somers, New York, next week. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit that yesterday’s events entered into my calculations — it wasn’t fear, though, it was not wanting to deal with the additional hassles at security. But that wasn’t the real reason I cancelled my trip — it was learning that several of the people who were originally going to be there all week were only going to be in for the first day of the meeting. I still gave it a lot of thought, but finally came to the conclusion that I could participate adequately by phone — and that way I won’t lose my Sunday to travel. Of course, I also won’t get to go to Ralph’s Italian Ice, but I’ll cope.

I also decided that we probably don’t have to do anything about our cooktop, either. When I tried to clean it, there was a mark which wouldn’t come off — I thought it might have been a crack. I called KitchenAid to see if there was anything that could be done short of replacing the glass, and there wasn’t. A not-so-quick search eventually yielded the model number, at which point I discovered that a glass replacement was $300+; a new cooktop would be even more. So I went back to look very carefully, and, as far as I can tell, all we have is a deep scratch.

Tomorrow, I visit the hazmat disposal site and the dentist. I hope neither of them leads to exciting writing either.

Yesterday, I mentioned one of the truly awful films of all time, King Dinosaur, in passing. Naturally, that reference got more comments than anything I’ve written in weeks.

So let me be perfectly clear:

There is no Criterion Collection edition of King Dinosaur. It is available on commercial DVD, but not by itself; you can get it as a double feature with Ed Wood’s The Bride and The Beast or you can get it as part of the “Sci-Fi Classics 50 Moviepack 12 DVD Set”, but even I have standards about how to spend money.

On the other hand, I must admit that the source I dubbed from wasn’t all that pristine; it was a Saturday Morning Movie Classic on KFCB, Channel 42, Concord (now KTNC) and the engineer on duty didn’t treat the material with the care it deserved. It wasn’t quite aligned on the flying spot scanner, so that the left edge of the image shows the edge of the film. But I suspect that would vanish in the overscan if I were to play the DVD on the TV instead of the computer, so I’ll live.

I should also mention that I had to replace other classics on VHS, including Little Shop of Horrors and The Blob. And to my delight (or horror), there is a Criterion Collection edition of the latter — and now I own it. Some day, I’ll get around to unleashing it….