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Before Peter Jackson and Co. decided to delight us all with a film version of “The Lord of the Rings,” I had — like so many others — read Tolkien’s books. In fact, for over 20 years I’ve read both “The Hobbit” and the trilogy almost every season.

But since the films premiered I’ve stayed away from the books so they didn’t influence my evaluation of Jackson’s films, for good or ill. To be honest, I didn’t want to be unnecessarily harsh with Jackson’s interpretation. Last week I decided to pick up the books again, starting with only “The Hobbit” to maintain a little of that distance since “The Return of the King” is not out yet on DVD.

And then I heard voices in my head.

I’m certain this has happened to others and it was probably predicted by many, but it was a bit odd nonetheless. As I read the book I could distinctly hear Ian Mckellen’s voice as Gandalf and Ian Holm’s as Bilbo. Even Hugo Weaving as Elrond. It was a bit uncanny — not that it happened at all but that it sounded so appropriate.

Is it simply because I’ve also seen the films so many times? (I’m watching “The Two Towers” as I write this.) Or is it just perfect casting? I think perhaps the latter. At least I hope it is since I wouldn’t want my own imagination to be corrupted so easily. Which means I’ll let my vanity praise those choices.

That was an incredible episode of Angel tonight. Lindsay must be rescued and Gunn takes his place in Hell to atone for what he did to Fred. Plus, Mercedes McNab becomes an official regular player. I agree with Herc’s assessment, five stars and “there ain’t nothing not great in this honey” — bad English but accurate. Sadly there are only five of these gems left before the light goes out of the Buffyverse. I think I’ve made my views on this clear already.

In a day that saw two aces on the 16th maybe it’s no surprise that Phil Mickelson — despite a valiant effort by Ernie Els — finally got the never-won-a-major monkey off his back today at Augusta, winning the green jacket with a rare birdie on the 72nd hole. Which also proves the The Masters is still one of the best shows in sports — drama and history. I never miss it.

My new guitar arrived Monday so I’ve been a bit distracted … and depressed. Let me explain.

After I bought my son a Stratocaster back in September, I picked up his new guitar one evening and was stricken by the feel of the instrument. Smitten, really. That Strat just belonged in my hands. Suddenly I was compelled to play it myself. So I started sneaking around late at night “borrowing” my son’s amp along with his guitar. But after the first week of this he really got annoyed and yelled, “Just buy your own guitar, dad!”

So I did, getting an identical black Mexican Stratocaster with a rosewood fingerboard, plus the same little Fender practice amp. I had to get the same setup or my son would have wanted to “trade” for the better guitar.

Anyway, I started playing “my” guitar. Every day for an hour, sometimes more. I sucked but I was slowly improving. I even employed my son’s guitar teacher to school me as well. And it was working. I got so into the experience I forgot about blogging. And then I wanted a better guitar. Not just a budget Fender but an instrument worthy of my new passion.

Thus began the search for the perfect guitar. It took several months. I played many different Fenders, Gibsons, and other models at guitar stores all over the place. But it was during an episode of the flu in January that I stumbled across the Reverend Musical Instruments company on the web. And in a fit of over-the-counter drug-induced foolishness, I bought one of their Slingshot Custom guitars online without ever playing or even touching a single fret.

Unfortunately I would have to wait for delivery. But before my new guitar would arrive, the tendons between my left and wrist began to throb. And not in anticipation. I had given myself tendinitis from so much practicing. In fact, I had to essentially stop practicing several weeks ago. Just fretting a few bar chords is very painful after five or ten minutes.

It sucks. The pain sucks and not being able practice sucks. And now the Reverend arrived this week and I can’t even play it. Ugh. So I’m letting my son practice on it. It’s only fair, I guess.

My brother-in-law sent me a link today as he often does when something catches his eye on the web. He’s a racing fanatic so I suspected car geek humor when I saw this “Ghost Town” page with the tag line, “a story about a town that one can ride through with no stoplights, no police and no danger of hitting any living thing.”

But it’s not humor. It’s about driving through Chernobyl. Here’s the author’s rationale:

In places where roads have not been travelled by trucks or army vehicles, they are in the same condition they were 20 years ago — except for an occasional blade of grass that discovered a crack to spring through. Time does not ruin roads, so they may stay this way until they can be opened to normal traffic again … a few centuries from now.

It’s an erie journey just reading this. I recommend it highly.

Much like I waved bye-bye to Movable Type, I’ve sent blogrolling.com packing already. I didn’t even wait for the weekend. Now my blogroll is handled by WordPress and the links are located in the same database as the rest of the site. So you’ll never notice if it ever goes offline because that means you won’t see the front page anyway. Simplicity and at least a little more reliability. Not to mention performance.

It’s been over 24 hours and the new WordPress installation is working well other than a brief hiccup when access to my blog database went offline. But you can’t really blame WordPress for that. It seems DreamHost, my ISP, is still having a few connectivity issues.

However, I do miss MT-Blacklist from my previous Movable Type installation since the first comment I received with the new system was spam. Hopefully this isn’t a trend.

Thankfully Adriaan posted a real comment: his helpful offer about ecto. But since this was posted flawlessly via ecto I can’t take him up on the offer.

As happened before and many times since, blogrolling.com went offline and so did my “Scattered Around” links on the right side of the page. Sometime this weekend blogrolling.com will permanently go offline for me when I leverage the “Manage Links” feature of WordPress.