Ugh, I've been sick. Sick enough to feel miserable, but not sick enough to miss work. Actually, I'd love to call in sick except I used all my sick days to go to Belarus this summer and I need the vacation time I have left to go to Europe this Christmas. Yeah, I bet you feel really sorry for me now. Anyways, I got it from Mexico cuz everyone I shared the car with has been sick too. We think it was the popsicles we got at the border on the way home. Note to self: Never get the popsicles! I was 20 minutes from leaving the country and avoided getting sick even after eating at a taco stand twice. The popsicles did me in. I guess they don't use Evian for the ice...go figure.

Well since I'm sick, I haven't been to the gym which freed up my evenings to watch more of the Lord of the Rings extended DVD. I watched the second disc. I really like the extended version of this film. There were alot of Merry and Pippin scenes that were cut that I really enjoyed. It also makes more sense why Faramir acts the way he does and why Gollum felt so betrayed by his master. I also watched some of the 6 hour documentary on the film. Out of all the documentaries that are made for DVD, these extended version documentaries are the best I have ever seen. I actually enjoy watching them. Even the boring stuff about designing the costumes and sets. I like hearing all the stories of trouble that they came across and how they solved their problems and how they lucked out other times. They talked a bit about C.S. Lewis in this documentary because he was a friend of Tolkien's. What I didn't like is the shoddy work they did telling us about C.S. Lewis. They said he was an atheist. WAS is the key word here. They completely ignored that he became a Christian yet still acknowledged that he wrote the Chronicles of Narnia which is a biblical allegory. Shoddy work peoples! They did it to emphasize that Tolkien and Lewis were good friends yet they were opposites because Tolkien was a devout Catholic while Lewis WAS an atheist. I also liked the comparisons made to Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's experience in WWI. The comparison to Saruman speaking to his army to Hitler doing the same was also quite interesting. Another thing I liked about the documentary is they explain why they took artistic license in changing the story for the film. It seemed to stupid when I saw the movie, but since I don't remember the book that well (I read it in junior high), it made alot of sense when they explained why they chose to do it that way.