Monday, July 21, 2008
at
7:29 p.m.
|
 Good god, I loved this movie.
Epic at more than 2 1/2 hours, insane due to Heath Ledger's terrifying turn as the clown prince of crime, and brilliant for the angst and inner conflict that Harvey Dent/Two-Face had to go through.
I saw this movie on opening night and I'm still trying to get my bearings. It's rare that a comic book movie is described as being a great film on its own and not just a good comic book film. Yet this work by Christopher Nolan succeeds on so many levels. If it has a flaw, it might be that it was a bit long, but I never felt cheated and everything was wrapped up in a way that I was happy with.
Other directors take note: this is how you do a film with multiple antagonists without alienating or frustrating your audience. And Ledger... wow, does he deserve every bit of praise he's gotten. There were times when I was genuinely afraid of this guy and couldn't predict what he was going to do next.
In short, go see The Dark Knight. If you've already done so, let me know what you think about the movie in the comments section.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
at
11:51 a.m.
|
 If I had a monkey, I would borrow my moms sewing machine and make my monkey a little monkey suit. Then if anyone said "That's not a real monkey, it's just a monkey suit. I can see the zipper," I could say "I bet you fifty dollars it is a real monkey" and when they said "that seems like a reasonable bet, you are on," my monkey would take off the monkey suit and they would have to pay me fifty dollars. I would buy drugs with the fifty dollars. For the monkey. So he wouldn't mind spending his life in a monkey suit.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
at
11:31 a.m.
|
 It's hard to believe that we're already three weeks into summer. It goes far too quickly but at the same time I feel like I've already had a ton of vacation. While many of you who teach understand the need for the time off to recharge, I'm kind of shocked at the number of people I run into who think that the whole gig is nothing but gravy.
Still, I get paid for sitting on my butt so I suppose I can't complain too much.
I bit the bullet and signed up at the local gym. I have far too much extra weight and while I tried to give it away no one seemed interested in taking it from me. This place seems pretty cool though with more than 70 classes a week I can sign up for, a pool, a hottub, a sauna, and even a machine that wrings out your bathing suit for you. I know, sounds crazy doesn't it?
I'm still tinkering with the blog and adding new sidebar photos and the like. I have several ready to go but blogger isn't letting me tweak it properly at the moment.
With summer here, I thought I would have more time to just sit around and play games, but my library course keeps me pretty busy most of the time. Once I finish this post I have a bit of work to do for it, then I might finally get around to playing Mass Effect, a game that I bought two months ago.
I still whole-heartedly suggest that you go out and try the new Transformers: Animated cartoon show. It has a lot of potential and I really liked it. The animation took a bit of getting used to, but the plots are solid, the characters fun, and the amount of shout-outs to Generation 1 era geeks like myself keep it nice and fresh.
Not much else is going on. David returns from China this week for a stay of, well, however long until he leaves again. I don't think he has an exact plan. Catherine will take some of her vacation time then with the two of us going to NYC for a week in the beginning of August. I saw Hellboy 2 yesterday which was a good movie. Lots of fun but I couldn't help but watch it very critically to see how well Del Toro will handle the upcoming Hobbit films. The jury is still out.
I'm doing a lot more reading lately as well. I've been making my way through most of Dan Simmons' body of work (Hyperion, Endymion) and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. I suggest you pick up The Terror if you like his body of work. I'm also really attached to a short story he wrote about teaching (he was an elementary school teacher for 18 years) called 'The Death of the Centaur.' I might look for a copy online and then post segments of it here for you to read. It's quite well done.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
at
7:33 p.m.
|
 Sometimes the best thing to do with the old is to chuck it out. While I did love the old template, it felt like a change was needed. I took a look at a huge selection of available templates and all the best seemed to be taken by Wordpress, so I went the obvious route and chose one based on an interest of mine I may have mentioned.
"If you don't like it, you can shove it. But you don't like it, you love it."
Anyway. Life moves on. I'm going to be updating and changing the pictures on the side and generally sprucing up the old girl over the next couple of days. Why not? I have lots of vacation time and only a stupid library AQ course to take for half the day. I spent too long today working on a presentation that will only last five minutes tomorrow, but it will be the best five minutes that class has seen. Too bad this isn't saying much.
I'm seeing lots of movies as well. Hancock was great until it went way off track towards the end. I still don't know what the hell happened. Wall*E was brilliant. Hands down one of the best movies I've seen this year.
Congratulations go out to Aaron and Christa who are now engaged! They grow up so fast. I told Aaron he wasn't allowed to get married yet, but he seems hell bent on it anyway. What are you going to do?
|
MARVEL and SPIDER-MAN: TM & 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. Motion Picture © 2007 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2007 Sony Pictures Digital Inc. All rights reserved. blogger template by blog forum |
