Christmas Jewels

I saw "Batman Begins" and I would recommend it to anyone - it's entertaining and surprisingly good (director Christopher Nolan also made "Memento" and the Al Pacino version of "Insomnia"). It's 141 minutes long and seems very epic. I even liked the new monster-size Batmobile.

Cillian Murphy played my favorite character, the psychiatrist who is also The Scarecrow. To overpower folk he puts a burlap mask over his face and sprays his victim with panic-attack gas to reduce them to submissive wrecks before the horror of The Scarecrow. I kept asking myself, "Who is Cillian Murphy reminding me of? Christopher Walken?" and then I realized that he was full-on James Spader.

Jeff's beloved wife Jessica burnt me a copy of her Christmas CD and I wish everyone could have one. It has Elvis, Gene Autry, the Ronettes and a host of favorites (at least I think it does, she didn't include a list of the song titles, let alone the artists. Not that I'm complaining.). Thanks Jessica!

This morning on the radio I heard that a noteworthy Christmas gift in Russia this year is a $19, 000 cell phone. "Those Russians," I said "I wonder what kind of new technology they've developed that costs that kind of money?" Ha, it's a regular cell phone but it's covered in jewels. Of course!