Missing Duncan and Malaysian 3D

R.I.P. John C.

I guess he had been sick for a while but I was really shocked and saddened yesterday when I heard of the passing of Michael Clarke Duncan. I’m a huge fan of Stephen King and loved his book, The Green Mile. When I heard they were making the movie I was extremely concerned about the casting for the John Coffey character. His size was central to the plot and I did not think they could come up with a 6 foot 9 inch tall African American actor who could play the gentle soul Coffey really was. Then I saw Duncan appear on the screen and all my doubts were erased – he was John Coffey and carried the movie in the face of probably the best actor of our generation – Tom Hanks. He just seemed like a nice guy and I thought he was much better in roles where he got to show that, such as Franky Figgs in The Whole Nine Yards, versus playing the tough, bad ass. I didn’t know him outside of his screen roles but the world seems a little diminished by his passing. Last night I started out on another foreign puzzle quest. My son in law, taking a page out of his wife’s playbook, decided to torture me with a sphere shaped puzzle. He picked up the puzzle in Malaysia when his band had a tour date there recently. I had been staring at it for a couple weeks since he gave it to me remembering the hell that was the cursed French puzzle, gifted to me by my daughter, and expecting much worse having to deal with a third dimension. My daughter called when I finally launched on it last night and I could almost hear the glee in her voice as I voiced my concerns. Her glee will have to be short-lived however because her husband is a much better judge of foreign puzzles. After I got the hang of it I was hooked and even had some fun with it. I was so engrossed by the puzzle that I let my wife watch her guilty pleasure - Caso Cerrado (a Spanish language TV show involving Jerry Springer like court cases in front of a middle aged female judge) in the same room while I was working on it. I got far enough along that I’ll probably finish it off tonight. Malaysia is definitely and infinitely more cool when it comes to puzzle making than the cursed French.

Just Before I got Started

Distinctly Non-French Progress