I personally love tragic stories, especially star crossed lovers. The sadder the better..lol. Beautiful happy stories are nice but we always remember the sad ones the most. It is perhaps in many ways cathartic. I have been working on a series of paintings that depict tragic couples in world history eg Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Deidre and Naoise etc. They are still in the initial stages. Having said that, I actually didn't realize that Jude is a man. I always thought it would be a woman for some reason. I will try to read this book in the future. Overall, I think it is proper to have roses named after people or characters. For me it adds a certain depth to the rose. Thanks True blue, I will remember their stories when I do get a chance to paint them one day.

I'm biting the bullet and looking for a new receiver with at least six HDMI 'ports'. I don't think we will be 'streaming' anything unless the offerings improve for our 'demographic'. LOL Today AT&T emailed me, touting their "U-Verse" -- which sounds like it would replace the DirecTV HD-DVR they already provide us, bundled with landline and internet. The promo seems aimed at people who need 24/7 'connectivity' via hand helds...or music. I doubt they have any wider selection movies on offer than what I saw on Amazon and Netflix. Any DVD's we get from the library that are longer than a movie have two-week check-outs. We're in town a couple times a week anyway, so detouring a block to the library is easy. We still sometimes check out 'real' books, too. LOL

He who holds the remote is just now discovering the options we have. LOL We have the same model Sony BluRay at home and and on Maui. We have never investigated the various options until we tried the Netflix option yesterday. (Bomb.) We haven't cared because our library at home usually has whatever we are looking for (free) as soon as it's available anywhere. That's not the case here on Maui, and we are staying longer on Maui now. Here we can rent "Shane", "I Was A Male War Bride", etc. We got "Black Swan" from our branch of the Maui library -- one of the few 'recent' movies. We are also able to use our cable HD-DVR and watch recorded PBS programs at teatime. Our BluRay boxes date from about 2012. This one talks about "2010" options, but I assume that since they still show up on the menu, they are all still currently available. The Sony channel is offering "Truth" -- current movie we just rented from Redbox for $1.50/day. Looked like it was $6 to stream. Please walk me through the Amazon Prime membership as regards streaming movies. I see Amazon has at least one TV series we have been waiting to see: Season Three of "The Americans". It looks like it is $6 per episode. (Our library at home has this now, but we're not there, we're here!) We usually split a movie over two days of teatime. If we chose "The Americans" Episode One of Season Three, and had an Amazon Prime membership, how long would we have access to that episode? Could we *stop* and *resume*? (With Redbox, we just pay for two days, as time stops at midnight of the day you rent.) What's the cost to have Prime? (I very seldom buy anything online, so never looked into this -- certainly not for Hawaii, where shipping is a week, not days.) Thanks for helping guide two Seniors into the 21st Century.

It seems to me that Hollywood only makes three movies these days: The movie about running real fast and engaging in physically impossible acrobatics while things blow up all around. The fart joke movie. The dysfunctional relationships movie, which has two variants: pseudo-inspirational and frankly depressing. Of course, these can be combined, as for instance, in the upcoming remake of Murder on the Orient Express which seems to combine Hercule Poirot, superhero, with the most dreary-looking trainload of miserable people you ever saw. So I just don't go. The suggestion to go to an art house is clearly made by people who live in very major metro areas. I live just north of a major metro area, but still about 90% of the movies I might possibly wish to see do not play within 150 miles of where I live. I see about one movie a year in the theater. Unfortunately, I do keep up with what's current when visiting my brother who has every known streaming service. I'm astounded at how fatiguing it is to try to be entertained.