So I got an air conditioner.

Well, actually, I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. I probably ought to start with the story of my finding the catches at the top of the lower window, which allowed me to take it out entirely, thus making it possible to fit an air conditioner into the resulting space.

So, the story goes like this: I found these catches at the top of the lower window, which allowed me to take it out entirely, thus making it possible to fit an air conditioner into the resulting space. So I got an air conditioner.

Isn't it better when everything's told in order?

Or maybe I'm just impressed easily.

At any rate, my brother and I went down to Sears on Friday, picked it up, went to my apartment, and installed it (it only fell out the window once -- fortunately, there's only about a two-foot drop to the ground. If I were on the third floor, I wouldn't have an air-conditioner anymore, I suppose). Admittedly, as my brother had to run, the whole installation was done on the "close enough for jazz" theory, and I still need to get a bit more insulation for the gap left at the top... but, well, it is close enough for now.

It seems to be working pretty well, too, so that much is well with the world.

So, perhaps owing to the fact that I virtually never brush my teeth, and practically live on Coca-Cola, I've got tooth decay all around, and no less than ten cavities in ten teeth. Possibly eleven; he found something more when he took the X-rays, but I wasn't clear on whether it was another cavity, or whether it was that one of the ones he'd already counted was worse than he'd thought. I think the latter.

X-ray technology has come a long way in the past five years, incidentally. He doesn't use film anymore; it's all done on computer. Within seconds, a full-screen picture of your teeth shows up on screen. It's pretty cool. And, he said, not only is the display better, but it uses 90% less radiation than the old method!

Getting back to the point, one cavity in particular -- the one I've noticed for the past several months -- turned out to be really bad, coming pretty close to the nerve. The question was whether it had, in fact, Gone Too Far. It was too close to call, although his guess was that it had, and that I'd need a root canal, if not extraction. Lovely.

Anyway, he numbed that part of my mouth, cleaned away the decay on that tooth, put in a temporary filling, gave me the name of a root canal specialist near me, and made an appointment to see me again in two weeks. From here, he said, either the tooth would really hurt over the next couple of days, or not. He figured it probably would, in which case I was to call the root canal guy. If not, and it still felt okay when I saw him again in two weeks, then we'd gotten in just in time, and he'd replace the temporary filling with a permanent filling. Either way, we still have nine other cavities to deal with in upcoming sessions, but those aren't as bad, as I understand it.

So far, so good, as regards that tooth. I'm optimistic that we did get to it in time, especially as it hadn't actually hurt in the past; I'd just noticed that something was wrong with it.

Still, the whole thing could've been avoided if I'd gone to the dentist earlier... or, I suppose, if I'd brushed my teeth. Hmmm.

Well, I missed the first segment of the thing when I saw it on Tuesday night, and it helped that I had some time to kill near the Angelika Film Center on Wednesday afternoon, but mostly I just wanted to see my two favorite bits a second time.

Specifically... it was no surprise that I loved the "Rhapsody in Blue" segment. It's one of my favorite pieces of music. And they based the animation on Al Hirschfeld's style, and I love Al Hirschfeld's drawings. And it was set in New York City, and I love New York City. So it was pretty much perfect all around. I kept trying to guess what they were going to do next, and I kept turning out to be wrong; instead, they did something much more clever than I'd expected almost every time.

And then there was this bit from "Carnival of the Animals," featuring a bunch of flamingos... and a yo-yo. Very short, very silly, and very fun. On second viewing, it was upgraded from my second-favorite bit to first place.

Third place went to the final piece: "Rite of Spring," I think. Although there was one moment when, as flames blazed all around, they zoomed in on this deer -- I think it was a deer; it might have been an elk, I suppose (hey, I'm a city slicker; I can't be expected to know this stuff) -- and I just heard Smokey the Bear saying "Only you can prevent forest fires." I can't quite explain why; it was something about its expression.

The segment with the story of "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" wasn't bad. I did find myself wondering early on just how they were going to pull off killing the protagonist in the end -- that being what happens in the original story -- and then it hit me partway through that this was a Disney film, and suddenly suspense entered into the picture, as the question became one of "Will they Disnify the ending or not?"

Spoiler alert: If you don't want the answer, skip the next paragraph.

(Answer: Duh. Of course they did. Geez, there are kids in the audience! If they were to get anything but the standard Disney ending, why, they might be scarred for life! I don't know how I could possibly have expected anything else...)

The one segment I really and truly didn't get involved a whole lot of whales (or perhaps dolphins or porpoises -- see above "city slicker" explanation) swimming around underwater and through the sky or something. It made no sense whatsoever, and, frankly, it wasn't very interesting. They should've put it in the middle of the film, rather than towards the beginning; it might have served as a useful opportunity to go to the bathroom. As it stands, I recommend closing your eyes and enjoying the music on that bit.

I probably ought to mention somewhere that I haven't seen the original Fantasia yet, so I don't know how this one compares to it. I expect to remedy that soon, though.

Looking through my list of backlogged things to write about... really briefly, I finally registered my first piece of shareware ever a couple of weeks ago. Specifically, Snood. I wanted the additional puzzle levels.

It turns out that making good puzzle levels is harder than one might think, and that most of the additional ones -- made by other players, rather than the game's author -- aren't very good, but there are some exceptions, and I suppose it's nice to finally have a legitimate piece of shareware on my machine for a change.

Of course, feeling a bit guilty, I matched the $10 registration fee with an equal sponsorship for Dana's AIDSRide participation. If I can afford to pay that much for a computer game, then I darn well oughta be able to manage this...