LOTR | 7:25 p.m.

Haven't had a chance to watch the "Return of the King" trailer. Maybe tomorrow.

At lunch, we got on the subject of the ROTK trailer and I asked what could we look forward to after ROTK since "...it's not like any of us are going to be counting down to the next Star Wars movie." What can we look forward to? Spiderman 2? The next Batman movie(s)? Troy and the dueling Alexander the Great projects?

Dr. Who returns, RIP's | 6:18 p.m.

According to the BBC, Dr. Who will return in 2005. Russell T. Davies (who wrote the fantastic UK Queer As Folk) will write the scripts.

Other than watching Vince from QAF-UK obsess over Dr. Who, my only experience with the show is from catching it once on BBCAmerica at about 5:30am. I couldn't figure out what the big deal was (Red Dwarf is my low-budget UK sci-fi of choice). But I'll give anything of RTD's a shot.

Another trio of Hollywood deaths:

• Gordon Jump, Mr. Carlson from WKRP. As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
• Donald O'Connor. Singing in the Rain is and always will be one of my favorite movies, and his "Make 'Em Laugh" song/dance number is one of the reasons.
• Elia Kazan. Not one of my favorite directors of that time period. I like Streetcar (screenplay changes aside), but that's about it. As far as his giving names to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, Dalton Trumbo said there were no heroes or villains during the blacklist era--only victims. But assuming that (and excluding McCarthy and HUAC), Kazan certainly saw himself as heroic, the Terry Malloy character in "On the Waterfront." If PBS re-runs their documentary on the friendship between Kazan and Arthur Miller--before, during and after HUAC--it's worth watching.

Can't hear me now? Good. | 9:35 p.m.

From today's Guardian:

Last July, the US-run coalition provisional authority invited bids from phone companies for up to three licences, covering northern, central and southern Iraq. Licences, it said, would be issued on the basis of "best value".

The process [by which the CPA will select the company] heavily favors US companies, to the detriment of the Iraqis who will actually use the phone network.

Mobile phone networks in the US use the CDMA system, which is also used in South Korea and China but has only about 12% of the world market. The standard system in the Middle East, on the other hand, is GSM, which has about 70% of the world market.

What counts in the long run is the way these processes are perceived by Iraqis. Apart from the issue of prolonged military occupation, the CPA's role as a latter-day version of a 19th-century colonial governor is also causing more than a little irritation: arrogant, disdainful and presumptuous are just a few of the milder adjectives used these days to describe it.

In related news, the Open Society Institute has created the Iraq Revenue Watch to keep an eye on the CPA and how they're managing/mismanaging Iraq.

Previously, on "My Life" | 9:09 p.m.

In the last year:

• My sister Lisa got married in an cermony that proves that "tasteful" and "Las Vegas" aren't mutually exclusive.
• My father, with whom I hadn't spoken since 1996 when he decided he wanted to go off and find himself, died. Heart attack in Israel.
• Lisa began to reconnect with our father's family, who hadn't spoken with him in years. Do you sense a trend in our family for non-speaking?
• I finally got to spend quality time with my uncle Rick (Mom's younger brother), and I discovered that I inherited my political sensibilities from him. Lisa rebellious teen years can be traced back to him as well.
• I have become even more cynical about the government and this administration, if that's even possible.
• The Bush Administration managed to take the remaining goodwill that other nations felt toward us post-9/11, ripped it into shreds, stomped it into the ground, set it on fire, and then pissed on it.
• I became heavily involved in the world of committees that is academic librarianship.
• I co-moderated my first roundtable at a library conference, and did my first poster session.
• I co-wrote my first articles. The first will be published at the end of the year, and the second one has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal and we're hoping it will get accepted.
• I have come fandom full-circle, and after first discovering Highlander back in early 1998 I'm now back. I've also gotten back into writing in my HL/Chicago universe--dialogue, not just summaries.

CTRL-ALT-DEL | 9:08 p.m.

Yes, I'm back.