The Countdown Begins

Folks, we are at T-minus 83 hours and counting until the official release of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the final installment in the trilogy directed by Peter Jackson and already considered by many to be the finest epic ever filmed. In honor of such an achievement, I am planning on sacrificing an entire day off at work on the 17th so that I can get in early and see it on the first day of release. Yes, I am willing to eat up a personal day (which I would otherwise lose in exactly two weeks from that date anyway) just for the ability to get in ahead of 95% of the general public -- and also to avoid the crowds of children that may be at the later shows. So far as I know, school is still in on the 17th.

If any of my fellow Twin Cities bloggers have a similar idea and don't mind going to a 10 am showing, drop me an e-mail in the next couple of days, or a comment on this post. You're all invited. I won't even make you pick up the tab, unlike a certain guy over at one of the group blogs. Besides, on his scoring system, I think I'd wind up around -314.

To launch this countdown properly, here's an article on the results of the BBC's Big Read program, which collected votes for the best books in British literature. Over 750,000 votes were cast, and the Lord of the Rings took over a quarter of those. (And Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy wound up in the top 5, which in my mind absolutely validates the entire exercise.) The best part of the article was the effect the contest had on readership.

If I can come up with anything interesting, I'll try to post each day until I see the movie, and on Wednesday I'll post my review.

Now that you have read this post, read the most recent entries at the new Captain's Quarters at http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/!