Purgatory, Paradise and the Australian Open...
Nothing particularly exciting happening here. It is dark and gloomy with rain on the horizon. All the snow has melted thanks to the recent warm spell that overwhelmed our city. The few remnants of the massive snowfall consist of piles of black dirt which look rather appalling. I don't have much to do here at work - just the Finance notes which I have successfully procrastinated from completing for over a month now. *sigh* I have prepared some notes on Dante's Paradiso as I intend to finish up Purgatorio this weekend and commence the former. I must say, I wish I had read the Longfellow version of Inferno as I am reading a bit of it online and it is so much more fluid than the version I had read. I also wish I had read The Last Cato in conjunction with Purgatorio in order to match up the corresponding Terraces of Purgatorio with the tasks being completed by the trio in The Last Cato. Oh well. I am, however, glad that I finished Inferno prior to reading The Dante Club - it is a lot of fun matching up the murders in The Dante Club with the various crimes and punishments from the Inferno's various circles of Hell. Although The Dante Club had been progressing rather slowly, now that I have finished well over a quarter of the novel (and if the print wasn't sooo damned tiny I'd be much further on - it hurts my eyes to read it for too long) it is becoming alarmingly addictive. I've really grown to love James Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes and feel it is only fair I should now read some of their works (as well as Longfellow's) in conjunction with my reading of The Dante Club.
AO men's draw is pretty damned good by all accounts. Rafa's side is much less painful than Roger's. Rafa's potential QF is either Moya or Roddick, both of which he should be able to beat. His potential SF is either Gasquet, Murray, Youzhny or Davydenko (or Lopez, of course, *LOL*). Of those four, I'm most worried by Youzhny - but ask me again if Rafa actually makes it that far. Of the top seeds, Djokovic has the worst draw by far. He has to get past Hewitt, Safin, Baggie, Nalbandian, Ferrer and Ferrero just to win his QF. And THEN he'd face (likely) Federer in the SF. Rogelio's quarter is not that troublesome - just Blake, Ljubicic and Gonzalez - and I doubt any of them really pose a serious threat. So Roger will undoubtedly make it to the SF against the winner of the Djokovic quarter - hopefully someone who can actually prove to be a worthy opponent or else we'll have to deal with yet another shower of praise heaped upon the Almighty Federer. On the women's side, poor Shahar - a bad draw. She is in the same quarter as Henin and Sharapova. Basically she'll be lucky to make it to the 3rd round. DANG. And BTW, some guy keeps calling my work '888' line, speaking Spanish and asking for 'Carlos' (seriously, he's called 3x now). Geez, RAFA, how many times do I have to tell you?? Please don't call me at work, it is way too distracting.
Fortunately I will be leaving work a bit early today - the staff are going to Harvey's for lunch. YUMS. I'm very much looking forward to that, as well as the new episode of Moonlight which is airing later this evening.
And just to keep track, the last two Final Jeopardy rounds were successfully answered by me and went as follows:
Wednesday, January 9th:
Category: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Clue: First mentioned in a letter by Clement IV in 1265, this item worn by the pope features an image of St. Peter in a boat.
Correct Response: The [fisherman] ring.
Thursday, January 10th:
Category: "C"INEMA
Clue: 2 movies whose 1-word titles are cities; they won the Oscar for Best Picture, 59 years apart
Correct Response: Casablanca and Chicago (none of the contestants got it right and two of the three contestants only wrote down the name of one city instead of the required two)
Have a great weekend everyone!!!
AO men's draw is pretty damned good by all accounts. Rafa's side is much less painful than Roger's. Rafa's potential QF is either Moya or Roddick, both of which he should be able to beat. His potential SF is either Gasquet, Murray, Youzhny or Davydenko (or Lopez, of course, *LOL*). Of those four, I'm most worried by Youzhny - but ask me again if Rafa actually makes it that far. Of the top seeds, Djokovic has the worst draw by far. He has to get past Hewitt, Safin, Baggie, Nalbandian, Ferrer and Ferrero just to win his QF. And THEN he'd face (likely) Federer in the SF. Rogelio's quarter is not that troublesome - just Blake, Ljubicic and Gonzalez - and I doubt any of them really pose a serious threat. So Roger will undoubtedly make it to the SF against the winner of the Djokovic quarter - hopefully someone who can actually prove to be a worthy opponent or else we'll have to deal with yet another shower of praise heaped upon the Almighty Federer. On the women's side, poor Shahar - a bad draw. She is in the same quarter as Henin and Sharapova. Basically she'll be lucky to make it to the 3rd round. DANG. And BTW, some guy keeps calling my work '888' line, speaking Spanish and asking for 'Carlos' (seriously, he's called 3x now). Geez, RAFA, how many times do I have to tell you?? Please don't call me at work, it is way too distracting.
Fortunately I will be leaving work a bit early today - the staff are going to Harvey's for lunch. YUMS. I'm very much looking forward to that, as well as the new episode of Moonlight which is airing later this evening.
And just to keep track, the last two Final Jeopardy rounds were successfully answered by me and went as follows:
Wednesday, January 9th:
Category: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Clue: First mentioned in a letter by Clement IV in 1265, this item worn by the pope features an image of St. Peter in a boat.
Correct Response: The [fisherman] ring.
Thursday, January 10th:
Category: "C"INEMA
Clue: 2 movies whose 1-word titles are cities; they won the Oscar for Best Picture, 59 years apart
Correct Response: Casablanca and Chicago (none of the contestants got it right and two of the three contestants only wrote down the name of one city instead of the required two)
Have a great weekend everyone!!!