Same time next week…

Man! I’m so glad I’m keeping up with this daily posting.

Let’s see. The story so far…

Finished the book Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Which is ironic because I finished another Gibson book, Neuromancer, almost a year ago exactly. I guess I can update my reading pace from glacier to snail. I want to expand more on Pattern Recognition in a later post, but for now I can say it was a good read. Slightly science fiction, slightly not.

Watched Fools Gold(2008). It was not quite as bad as the rating it got. It’s just sort of your typical romantic/adventure movie and Matthew McConaughey gets hit in the head a lot.

Watched Charlotte Gray (2001). A very interesting tale of a lady who volunteers to be a courier behind enemy lines in occupied France during World War II, in hopes to find her lover who was shot down. It is not a sappy romantic drama, though I do find it hard to believe she would take this risk for someone she recently met. I suppose the story is a little hard to grasp, because so many awful things happen and yet has a fairytale ending, but that’s crazy, liberal Hollywood for you.

Finally watched Alien Vs. Predator Requiem (2007). Which was just awful, but that’s okay because I expected it to be, so shame on me. So if you like implausible storyline, even on the Predator or Alien homeworld, I would recommend watching it. Though I would not recommend watching this, if you have a tendency to scream at the tv screen. Your vocal cords will walk out on you.

So Much Love…

Gosh. Where do I begin. Well I’ve done a whole lot of pills that have given me all kind of thrills since my last post, so let’s jump right into it shall we.

First a recap of movies I’ve seen…

Watched Heaven (2002). It’s a drama about a lady (Cate Blanchett) who is out for revenge against the man who sold her husband drugs, which he overdosed on, by blowing up his office. Oh yeah he happens to be the president of a major telecom company in Italy. Before it detonates, the bomb is emptied into the trash by the cleaning lady and manages to kill four innocent people. I guess they can’t be that innocent. I mean they were in the building of a drug dealer. In no time flat, the woman is arrested and is interrogated, and here’s the kicker, she’s English and demands to be interrogated in English rather than Italian. This is where Giovanni Ribisi comes in. Not only is he the stenographer for the interogation, but he speaks English also. Joy! He grows infatuated with the woman and devises a scheme to bust her out of prison. Anyway it turns into a rip roaring road trip movie that you have to see. It’s not really that bad of a movie, though it is part of a trilogy and the other parts haven’t been made yet It would sort of be like what those Red, White and Blue movies (which surprisingly enough are French movies. Statue of Liberty anyone? Or as I like to refer to her as Freedom Lady.) would be like without the complete set.

Watched North To Alaska (1960), or as I like to refer to it as John Wayne’s Fabulous Adventurerama. It’s a typical John Wayne affair, which interstingly enough I found out in a short documentary before the movie that this was the type of movie he made when he wanted to take a vacation and was actually a vehicle for his agent’s girlfriend, the stunningly beautiful, for a hooker in an Alaskan mining town, Capucine.(Also French, can anybody see a theme?) It’s got all of action and plot points which you expect. I have to say I slept through 75% of this movie, so my review may not be completely accurate.

Watched Gettysburg (1993), or should I say watched half of it which is all I could take before gnawing my paw off like a rabbit in a steel trap and escaping. Not much to say about this one. It is a pretty good account of the happenings during that battle, plus an added bonus C. Thomas Howell has this awesome moustache.

Watched Hancock (2008 ). Synopsis: Crap sandwhich with a side of crap fries, extra dirty.

Finally watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007). It is a beautifully portrayed biography about the editor for Elle, who suffered a stroke and developed Locked-in syndrome. The director does an excellent job of expressing what it would be like if one was afflected with this disorder. You feel the agony of understanding everything going on around you and being unable to respond. It is an inspirational story, demonstrating how he was able to learn to speak by blinking while the alphabet was read to him, eventually writing his memoirs. A true story about the value of determination and persistence and it’s French, so Boo-yah.

YMMV

Watched Raising Jeffrey Dahmer(2006), I use the word “watched” loosely. I actually watched 15 minutes before going into the other room to write this blog post. I left my wife behind to finish it, which is my usual punishment, as cruel as that may seem, when she picks an awful movie. She snagged this whopper from Redbox, located outside a McDonalds ironically, with a free code that they text to me every Monday. So all in all it wasn’t a big loss. Interestingly enough this movie garnered a 4.9 out of 10 rating with 38 votes on IMDB which makes me think the director has some really goodhearted friends.

In other news, I found the perfect car on Craigslist, that I’ll never get, and I looked at a bunch of motorcycles and determined if I buy one it’ll probably be a Honda Shadow Spirit because there seems to be a bunch for sale, they are not too expensive and they are not so powerful that I might kill myself pulling out of the driveway.

Updates and Stuff

Well folks I did it, I watched WALL-E (2008) last night and I have to say that I really liked it. For the record I don’t really like animated movies, however this one is an exception.

It is about a little robot friend who was left on earth to clean it up, however all he does it make little scrap metal cubes and stacks them into giant skyscrapers of junk. He is the last working robot left on earth, which is never explained in the story. I believe WALL-E slaughtered the other robots in some sort of last robot standing death match, because he does scavenge parts from the disabled robots. Maybe those robots could not provide the companionship that WALL-E needed. A probe from the ship the earthlings live on in space arives and WALL-E soon finds the companion that he blindly chases after throughout the movie. And there you have it. There are some blogs saying that it is an diatribe on Rebuplicans and fat people, however I think its message is for all people, plus kids will like the numerous gags and slapstick.

The movie is fast paced and I never dozed off like I usually do in other Pixar movies. It’s definitly one of those movies parents can get for their kids and not be lobotomized by having to watch it two million times.

Notes from the Underbelly

The Bucket List (2007)

Watched The Bucket List last night. Unfortunately that wasn’t on my bucket list, so now I am severely behind. I guess I’ll have to take synchronized hippo swimming and buck naked frog gigging off my list. I’m not sure what the value of a movie like this is. I know what’s going to happen. There are no surprises. I guess I am more inspired by real life events and those around me so the “Chicken Soup” movies are a waste on me. 50ft dragons fighting with undead zombie knights is more my speed.

Speaking of inspiration, I am not very inspired by my public transportation options. I have this strong desire to take the train somewhere. Every trip my wife and I have planned this summer, I have looked at how we could get there by train, and I am very discouraged by the time it takes to travel. For instance a trip to my wife’s parents, which normally takes 8 or 9 hours would take 20 hours by train, which is fine if I was independently wealthy, but I’m not and I have work off those Big Macs I bought on credit. I have even looked at taking the bus to visit relatives who live 4 hours away and that takes 10 hours. Oh well maybe one day I will become immune to my hughe urge to cram as much as possible into every single minute.

And now for your regular news broadcast

Finished Angel-A last night. It is a modern remake of It’s a Wonderful Life, except French and Clarence is replaced by a 6 foot blonde woman. The movie was good, which was a surprise to me because lately I have rented movies, thinking they were going to be good and they weren’t.

In other news, I learned that Sheldon Brown, website here, had died earlier in the year. He had a website about all things bicycle and I would frequent it whenever something broke on my bike. He also had a penchant for keeping a daily log of his life, which has inspired me to post more regularly to my blog.

I am going to try to post more regularly, nothing major, probably just a few paragraphs, about the daily goings on in my life.

Oh in other, other news, I’ve rediscovered UT2004 and the many mods that are made for it. Gentoo has very good support for the game making it easy to install new mods.