Worst Adaptation Ever

So, the Sci-Fi Channel production of Dune is pretty bad so far. William Hurt was not annoying, which has been the only pleasant surprise.

The guy playing Paul is being too dumb and arrogant to make the reversal he'll need to make to be Maud'dib. The sets are cool, but the costuming is just dreadful. The woman who plays Jessica is a good actress, but is too old and not pretty enough.[1] They haven't explained *shit* about why the spice is important. They haven't dealt with the Bene Gesserit at all, in particular what a Reverend Mother is and how they become one. Similarly, there has been no explanation of what a Mentat is (they've put Piter and Thufir in special dumb-ass costumes, but there's been no explanation of that) and no mention of Sappho juice. It is not clear that Guild Navigators live in a cloud of Spice and the cinematography of the space-folding segment was lifted directly from the Lynch movie. Basically, any mention of Melange as a drug has been expunged. There have been no mentions of the following words or concepts: Kwizatz Haderach, CHOAM and The Lansraad (the two latter were glossed over in the intro but not mentioned)

The fact is that it *is* a drug. What else could inspire such need and violence? Nothing has been said about it's life extension qualities which are *key* to so many things. Really, the only actor I like is the guy playing Liet-Keynes. The actor playing the Baron isn't bad, but again, there's not enough violence in the Harkonnen keep to explain why they are so feared and yet their loathsomeness tolerated.

Oh, and it looks like Irulan is a lot more involved than she ever was in the book.

Lessee...what else is up? I got my deer hides and they are gorgeous. I made and fitted the muslin sloper[2] for the thing-which-will-be-made[3] from said hides. I organized *all* my sewing stuff and invested in two new teflon feet (required for working with leather). I didn't know that G Street was having a sale, but I was quite pleased to get 25% off since they were marked $37 and $27 each. I needed a foot I could zig zag with as well as a zipper foot. I simply can't use the regular metal-bottomed feet on leather.

We bought more bookshelves. Even people who don't like IKEA admit that it's the best shelving for the money. Now we can shelve all the books, or, we can again sort and make the decision about what to shelve and what to what to leave in boxes. As it stands now, I still can't find anything, so I demanded more shelving. It's all going to Front Royal, of course.

Talked to Dad today for the first time in a long time. He lives in Florida, so he's watching the antics down there from a closer distance. He voted for Bush, but he held his nose to do it. He *really* hates Al Gore. I think he was close to voting for Browne, but he didn't seem to have a clear understanding of his position on certain important matters and he knew that Florida was fence-sitting. He is totally fascinated by what's going on now and thinks the wide-spread election fraud is both obvious and embarrassing. He says that DC already has Florida's 25 elector names on the list so the legislature will NOT be picking them.