Last night's dinner did not go well.

Moving right along...

I'm really missing Elvis Mitchell. I do every Friday, almost. Here're some excerpts from A.O. Scott's review of the new Garfield movie today, my comments interspersed:

"If this is the only newspaper you read, then a bit of explanation might be in order."

[NL: i.e., he has to explain what that strange thing called "comics" is. Can you get any more condescending/snooty?]

"You've spent 50 cents, and you still have the Jumble and the box scores to see you through your morning coffee."

[NL: First, in New York, Garfield appears in the Post, which is 25 cents. Second, Scott is such an intellectual snob that he doesn't even realize that Seinfeld has already exposed the fact that snobs use the Jumble as a way of denigrating the lower classes. Throw in the sheer snobbery of talking about the box scores and he's got three or more strikes. You're out, Scott. Good riddance.]

"Jon (Breckin Meyer), the hapless, dateless owner, now has a love interest, a kindly veterinarian named Liz..."

[Of course, he does in the comics too.]

Grrr. Scott even tries to argue that the behavior of Garfield in the movie (learning a lesson, which he does on the TV shows) is not true to actual cat behavior. Uh, A.O.? He's a cartoon. Ah well. Look, I'm not saying it's a good movie- who knows? But this is stupid and mean.

There's also an op-ed piece by some liberal who, as has been happening recently, tries to repaint Reagan in his image. He tries to show how Reagan beat the "neoconservatives," misusing that word, as those of his ilk do, as a synonym for "ultraconservative," or, better, "conservative I really don't like." His main point? We didn't "beat" the Soviet Union (as the "neocons" supposedly wanted), but, rather, Reagan and Gorbachev worked together to bring peace.

This claim is being made a lot now. It has one basic, and huge, flaw, though: The Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore, and Gorbachev lost his job as soon as it ceased to exist. So somebody won, and somebody lost. And Reagan was quite happy with what happened.

The funeral removed this from my mind. It was quite good- I heard it on Rush's show, with video by Yahoo. The ceremony, the speeches, everything. I should point out that I now know why Jews aren't supposed to attend these things- I would've felt really uncomfortable at the end. But Thatcher put the nonsense above to rest once and for all, the Bushes and Mulroney spoke very well, and it was very dignified, meaningful, and appropriate.

Rest in peace, President Reagan, and God bless you.

I'll have a bit more on other topics later, I hope.