This was going to be the day I paid back the sleep debt I've been building up since the start of the week. All the rest I got on vacation could only keep me going so far, and today was the first time since I got home that I had a chance to sleep in. So why didn't I?

I woke up a little after seven this morning, and I was out of bed before nine. Yeah, I know there are a couple of hours unaccounted for in between. Maybe that's all the extra rest my body thought it needed. If so, then, why did I collapse on the sofa in the middle of the afternoon?

I'm okay, just puzzled. It used to be no problem to sleep most of a Saturday morning away. I'm not sure why I don't do that any more, especially since I look forward to it for most of the week. More to the point, why can't I bounce out of bed early on weekdays, when I'm supposed to be working? It all seems a little perverse to me. Where's the logic?

So that would have made this a perfect opportunity to get caught up on other things I've neglected. If I don't sleep, maybe I can work. Or pull weeds or clean up the house. Yeah, well, dream on. I watched baseball and movies and stayed almost completely off the computer. My only outing was to the post office. I did everything I would have done if I'd had a vacation with nowhere to go. In other words, nothing.

I'm not a horror movie fan, but I couldn't resist Kymm's love for The Evil Dead, so I stuck it on my Netflix list. Since last night I've watched it three times, once straight through and then with the two commentary tracks. I have to admit that I did my own commentary the first time, and I was in good form. Not quite Tom Servo good, but pretty good for a guy sitting alone in his own living room.

The Sam Raimi-Rob Tapert track (they're the director and producer) was great. When they made the film they were college dropouts who thought a horror movie was the best way to break into the business and find an audience. So they did everything on the cheap and didn't take anything too seriously, and they turned out a classic of its genre. Maybe there should be a little more of that in the theaters, and a little less big-budget, studio-insider stuff, as long as there's someone with a creative vision behind it. I haven't seen Raimi's Spider-Man yet, but I thought his The Gift was stylish and classy.

Then I watched the movie with the commentary by its star, Bruce Campbell, and I laughed out loud throughout. He knows that his character is a doofus who probably isn't smart enough to survive a night in the woods, let alone one where cackling demons spew blood and stuff in his face. Even if you have to watch this gruesome, gory movie first, it's worth it to relive it through Bruce Campbell's eyes.

John Q, on the other hand, doesn't go on my list of favorites. I should have known ahead of time it wouldn't be my kind of movie: child in danger, man against the system, a lot of shouting, people being mean to each other (for money, yet). But Denzel was so good that I watched it twice, just to see the emotions play across his face. I didn't care about HMOs or police snipers, but I really cared about Denzel as the desperate father of a dying child. He's amazing, as always.