What I'm Watching: Same old stuff.
V: This series isn't doing much for me, except it's nice to see Nicolas Lea again, and every time I see Elizabeth Mitchell I miss Juliet from Lost. Speaking of...
Lost: 3 Episodes to go. I have some ideas, but it's fun to have no real idea of what will happen.
American Idol: Unless she really hoses it, Crystal Bowersox had this in the bag by the second ep of the final 24. I like her singing. I wish she would quit getting lippy with the judges.
Fringe: We've only watched one episode since it returned, and despite the nifty 1985 logo and theme song the ep was a royal bummer. There's nothing like watching a nice, sick kid die onscreen! It made me feel bad for the mad scientist more than I already do.
24 Since it's the last season, Jack Bauer should really spend these last 4 hours breaking Tony out of jail and the two of them could go on a roarin' rampage of revenge. It could be a combination of Thelma and Louise, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The body count would be staggering. And gratifying, considering all the morons, asshats, and dweebs the two of them have had to put up with the last 8 years.
Also and speaking of: President Taylor? Laura Roslin would have eaten your lunch. AND she would have airlocked ex-president Logan before he got his first conspiracy out of his bag of tricks. Where's Logan's ex-wife when you need her? Somebody needs another stabbing.
This weekend was uneventful even though the weather forecasters were all running around screaming "ZOMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!". I do realize some people were hammered that hard on Saturday but we were just soaked thoroughly. There were no trees uprooted in the park so it was fairly tame weather for us.
Friday evening despite a little rain Brenden had his second Calvinball Tee Ball game and he did well. His attention was diverted the first inning because he had to use the bathroom and let everyone in viewing distance know this fact much to the detriment of his father's blood pressure. I marched him to the bathroom as soon as the inning was over.
Here's some more of our league's Tee Ball rules: An inning consists of everyone on the team batting, no matter the outs. The games run 45 minutes or 2 innings. Hitting the tee-ball stand with the bat is a foul. Runners can be tagged out or forced out. I'm not sure if a force out is impossible if there is no one on the base behind the runner. I also doubt there's an infield fly rule.
Any ways Brenden got a hit both times at bat and did good running to the other bases. He played the pitcher's position the first inning and first base the second. He showed some defensive skills with the last batter from the other team hit - the bases were loaded and since it was the last hitter no matter what the coach had them run the bases. Brenden caught the ball and tagged out the last 3 runners one by one as they ran home.
So Saturday Brenden and I went stir-crazy watching the rain and finally for one hour before sundown the sun came out and we played in the mud in the front yard. Sunday I did yardwork while Brenden got himself muddy again. That was our weekend.
We had a busy weekend - noontime Friday I was groundcrew for a skydiving demonstration into an elementary school. Then I hurried to buy supplies for a camping trip. Photos soon come, I think. We stayed close to home at Smith Lake in Cullman. Friday we froze our butts off because I neglected to pack adequate blankets.
Saturday we went fishing but Brenden decided it was more fun to play in the lake than to fish so we let him splish around until he got tired of it. We got him cleaned up and drove back home because he had his first T-ball game in the afternoon. It was quite amusing - the phrase "cat herding" came into mind quite a few times as I watched the coaches try to get the little kids to do what they were supposed to do.
I felt proud of Brenden - he got the pitcher's position. He doesn't pitch of course, but the kid in that position has to field 85% of the balls hit. He did a good job running up and corralling the ball. He's not really old enough to make good judgement calls about when to try to throw the ball, tag the kid out, or run the ball back to the pitcher's circle (that basically takes the ball out of play). I was proud though that he was so heads up during the entire game and not out there digging in the dirt. Much.
He got two hits and a run - but no matter they don't keep score at that level.
Normally I don't have a problem with competition but in this case I think it's a good idea to not keep score. Otherwise I think the parents might get a little psycho.
We'll soon be going back to my favoritest place on the planet. We'll be going in May for a week. Hooray!
I have been thatching and mowing the lawn the last couple of weeks all with no allergy symptoms. I'm not bragging as much as advertising how well Nasonex + immunization shots have been working for me. Many people here at work this week have been Claratin Zombies.
This last weekend Brenden and I chased a hot air balloon. Well, I chased it in the minivan while Brenden watched Spongebob in the back. I took no photos, like an idiot.
Skydive Alabama celebrated its 10th year anniversary and amongst the festivities were hot air balloon jumps. My job was to chase the balloon, bring jumpers to where it landed, and pick them up again after they jumped. Sunday morning was the easiest chase ever - the balloon went up, the jumpers jumped, the balloon came down. All in the same place.
Other than that, not much is happening. I watched Don't mess with the Zohan, an Adam Sandler movie. It was stupid, and to my shame I laughed. A lot. Wouldn't it be nice though if all of the middle East problems could be solved with hair salons and shoe stores!
This article,, if you read far enough down, talks about vegetarians and about if they slip back into meat eating, it's usually because of bacon.
Mmmmmmmmmmm bacon. The gateway drug meat!
It *must* be springtime in Northern Alabama! Plants are blooming, my allergies are on the rise, the temperature is tolerable, and the tornado siren got its first sounding yesterday afternoon!
Whatever it was it passed south of us and no damage was reported. We got a frog-strangler along with some hail for about 10 minutes then the sun came out.
What I'm Watching:
UP We finally watched Pixar's latest. Yes, it's terrific and deserved it's nomination with the rest of the Best Movie choices (it won best animated feature) but I was boo-hooing 10 minutes into the movie and plenty of other scenes set me off too.
I'd really like to see Pixar do a movie where a woman (or a female character) is the central character. I'm not complaining, really: I'd just like to see one. Yes, Boo, Dora and Elastigirl are awesome, but they weren't the central characters. I can't rank it yet with the other pixar movies because I don't know if I want to subject myself to that again any time soon.
Zombieland I've pretty much given up on zombie movies, but after an enthusiastic recommendation from Helly Jon and I gave this one a shot and we laughed ourselves silly. It's violent, but not grindingly so, and had some surprising warmth to it. That's about all it has in common with Shaun of the Dead, if you were wondering - the writers of the former freely admit they were inspired by the latter. Zombieland is as American as Shaun of the Dead is British and other than funny + zombies they don't resemble each other at all. Of course I loved and enthusiastically agreed with all of Columbus's 31 rules - I insisted on pointing out some of my own (to my husband's annoyance / amusement) one of which turned out to be a major theme: There's Safety in Numbers. Also: pretending to be a zombie as a prank during a zombie apocalypse is not a smart move.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: I've been loading up my Netflix instant queue with a bunch of these shows. For the uninitated, MST3K was an original program that was shown on the Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central) in the late 80's and early 90's. When it was cancelled it was picked up by SciFi and eventually ended in 1999. I was fortunate enough to catch it from the beginning.
The premise involved a janitor who was put aboard a space station by some mad scientists who would subject him to their evil experiments by making him watch a bad movie every week. In order to survive, the guy created some robots to keep him company. He and the robots would watch the movie and offer plenty of snark along the way. So that was the show: we watch a guy and his robots watch a bad movie.
It was a great show and I miss it. I'm glad that slowly but surely they are being released on dvd. Some of the best episodes are missing because of copyright issues and I hope they will be cleared up eventually. Like a lot of MST3K fans I had a lot of eps on tape, and like an idiot I lent them out.
Wow, it's been a while! I think Winter is finally on its last legs, and it's about time. We've managed to burn through a whole cord of wood this season (you yankees - quit laughing!). Jon and I got so good at building large fires we managed to melt our fireplace grate.
So I saw some of the Academy awards. I was tickled Christoph Waltz one best supporting actor - he was the best thing about Inglourious Basterds. I was glad they gave John Hughes such a great tribute - the Academy can occasionally get over it's ART facade and admit that they are a large part of pop culture and Hughes' movies had a large impact on people my age.
I was happy Katheryn Bigelow won best director. As for Hurt Locker winning best picture, I told my brother this: It is better than Avatar and Inglorious Basterds, but District 9 was a better movie (these are the only nominated movies I saw. Yes, I have yet to see the Pixar movie!). Hurt Locker and District 9 both had plenty of exploding humans, but Hurt Locker didn't have any Mecha.
No, really. I thought District 9 was a better movie. Still, I'm glad for Katheryn Bigelow. Hurt Locker is a really good movie, and in it she explores a subject she is very fond of: men. Me too, Katheryn; me too!
So my computer died. I wanted to Blame it on Bill but it turns out the Windows patch was incompatible with some malware lurking on my computer. That's what was causing the perpetual BSoD. Reformatting the hard drive and upgrading to Windows 7 was the best thing to do. My computer caught a virus and turned into a zombie!
I'm watching (and digging) the last season of Lost. I actually understand what is going on even if I don't completely know why it's going on. The dichotomy that is John Locke - the pathetic, gullible loser vs. the island leader badass now makes total sense to me.
Ellen DeGeneres is actually a good replacement for Paula Abdul on American Idol. Paula was always the "nice" judge and Ellen fills that role well without slipping into drug / booze addled rambles. The final 24 have been chosen and do I have any favorites? The chick with the bad teeth is really good.
24 is 24. I'm always happy to see Katee Sackhoff, but her character is a loser with a stupid subplot attached. I kept waiting for her to shove a knife in her ex-boyfriend's belly and laugh about it, like she did so many times when she played Starbuck and was being harrassed by the eternally creepy Leobens on BSG. Speaking of, Keith Callum Rennie was co-starring on 24 for a while as well, playing a creep who got stabbed to death by a pissed-off woman (typecast much?), but without so many lives. Maybe Jamie Bamber or Tricia Helfer will show up and we'll have a BSG trifecta.
WTF - everyone SOUTH of us is getting blanketed with SNOW!
I received a perpetual Blue Screen of Death on my home computer thanks to a Microsoft update - that's their ultimate plan to prevent vulnerabilities - if you can't use your computer, no one can!
Instead of repairing it, I grabbed some things off the hard drive, re-formatted it, and have installed Windows 7 (I was on XP). So far I like it, even though it's a little frustrating because the user interface is quite different.
I forgot to mention that Jon and I watched a fascinating documentary: For All Mankind. Someone went through the vast archive of footage of the Apollo missions and made an audio-visual mosiaic of the moon landings. There's no narration except for some archival commentary from some of the astronauts. The documentary conveys what it must have been like to be stuck in a small rocket-propelled can for days in the eternal vacuum of space just to reach a dead alien satellite. I haven't felt that kind of wonder and awe about what we accomplished (with late 60's tech!) since I was a kid. I can't wait until Brenden is old enough to appreciate the Space and Rocket center here in Huntsville.
After watching this documentary, I totally appreciate how well Ron Howard captured the geeks in the control room in Apollo 13. They truly were a bunch of white nerd-boys who smoked like chimneys. And Ed Harris totally nailed Gene Krantz ("not on my watch!"). I need to watch it again.
Ugh. I've had a migraine for two days now. Blech. Or maybe it was because Jon and I watched the season premiere of Lost last Sunday and I'm still trying to get my brain around it. I guess I'll avoid spoilers, but it was sad to see all those dead people.
Brenden and I play a lot of the Wii Lego Indiana Jones game together. There are some tough puzzles in that one!
Even though Bioshock II came out today, I'm re-playing Fallout 3 yet again. I had to try the Point Lookout add-on, and it was kind of disappointing. Mothership Zeta remains my favorite. I do like having an axe for a melee weapon, though. Whee!
Is Fox trying to kill Fringe? They show a couple of eps here and there then take it off the air for a month or so. Way to kill any momentum.
Caprica needs more exploding robots.
Jon and I finally saw Avatar and we watched it in 3D. Yay! It was good, but not great. I've said before I judge James Cameron harshly because he's better than most directors working in Hollywood today (plus he directed Terminator and Aliens, and I love both of those to smithereens). Someday I'll rank JC's movies but for now I'll place this somewhere between The Abyss and True Lies. It was certainly better than Titanic!
My problems with the movie were with the script. There's nothing groundbreaking here, Humans Are Bastards and they are targeting Noble Savages for their land and a Mighty Whitey is the protagonist). I'm also not certain why Sam Worthington is such a hot item right now. He's very good looking in a generic way but I wasn't impressed with his acting skills. Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana blew him out of the water.
Which is what I did like about the movie: Sigourney Weaver plays a cranky but good-hearted scientist and I loved seeing her again. Zoe Saldana was the main Na'vi character. I never undertood why she fell in love with Worthington's character but at least she had a full range of emotions. Plus she kicked butt and I'll avoid spoilers but I'll say a common outcome with the Final Boss battle was averted here near the end of the movie. Bonus: Michelle Rodriguez, whom I always love seeing. No offense meant to Jenette Goldstein (who played a terrific Vasquez), but I always thought Cameron would have cast Rodriguez as Vasquez in Aliens if she hadn't been like 5 at the time.
Oh, and the main bad guy is a Colonel Badass and much fun to watch. The special effects are amazing and Weta, the New Zealand effects company pwns George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic. The fight scenes are worth the price of admission alone and Cameron knows better than to use Shaky Cam. So my final verdict: Avatar = Pretty!
Wow, I am such a frakking geek. I bought a couple of Bear McCreary's soundtracks from seasons 2 and 3 of Battlestar Galactica. His choices are so eclectic: you have plenty of celtic and arabic influences, plus for quieter moments piano and / or violin, and then there's of course the constant poundy, poundy drums. He likes them more than the Japanese do. That's saying something!
Anyway listening to it makes me miss the show something fierce. Yes, I'll watch Caprica, but there's no Mom, Dad, or the Twins. No Tigh or Caprica 6 or Baltar. Will there be anything on this new show like the time Madame Airlock told the chief mutineer she would use everything at her disposal, including her eye teeth, to end him? Anything as jaw-dropping insane as the mid-season 2 story arc of the Pegasus and crew? Or as nifty-cool as the Galactica jumping into New Caprica's atmosphere to release fighters? If Caprica doesn't break my heart at least once an episode or so it won't measure up.
24 has started again - yeah, I'm a masochist. Enough said about that. Less than a month to go for the next season of Lost! Yay!
Nothing new to report - Brenden told his first joke (that I understood):
Brenden: "This is yummy!" (referring to his strawberry flavored applesauce).
Me: "I'm glad you like it."
Brenden: "No, mama, you say 'you can say that again'! Ok? I say is yummy, you say 'you can say that again'!"
Me: "Um, ok."
Brenden: "This is yummy!"
Me: "You can say that again!"
Brenden: "This is yummy! Hahaha! Isn't that funny, mama? Isn't that funny?"
Of course it was.
Also: Happy 92nd birthday to Major Richard Winters, the only nonagenarian I have ever had a crush on. Watch Band of Brothers if you have no idea who I'm talking about.
What I'm Watching / Reading:
Land of the Lost: No Trope links because this is a will Ferrell movie which has become kind of a trope in itself. So I was wrong about my prejudgement about this movie. It was not worse than G.I. Joe. and that is damning it with faint praise. Some people consider this movie a rape of their childhood, but really: Land of the Lost? Sure, I watched it when I was a kid but even back then I knew it was a lame show. Most of the funny moments involve scenes with Matt Lauer.
9: Animated post-apocalyptic tale. Fascinating to look at, but it had some plotting problems.
Extract: I love Mike Judge and here he does what he always does - he shows us idiots being idiotic. The protagonist is a chemist and owns his own business so you think he'd be a little less stupid than the idiots who work for him, but he accidentally takes a horse tranquilizer and ends up getting talked into hiring a gigolo to have sex with his wife. See, this way he can cheat on her, guilt-free. This movie had its moments but on the whole I'd rather see Idiocracy again.
Under the Dome: This Stephen King book is about a thousand pages long and I read it in about 3 days. It's a page turner (kindle clicker?) about a small town that gets trapped underneath an impregnable force-field. I won't go into more to avoid spoilers except near the end of the book I was shaking so bad I didn't want to finish it. I'm glad I did though. I think it's some of his best writing ever. Your mileage may vary, of course.
American Idol is back, and it's Simon Cowell's last season. How the hell can AI go on? The whole reason to watch the show is to see Simon cut off some clueless contestant at the knees then dash a cup full of piss-tinged reality into said contestant's face. All with that dry british drawl. Also Paula Abdul is gone. No more incoherent drug-fueled rambling. How boring! I didn't last long last season, anyway. I doubt I'll make it past Hollywood week for this one either.
January: Visit to Ed and Jen's place in Massachusetts. Snow! Yay!
February: Disney Cruise to the Caribbean! Yar!
March: Battlestar Galactica ended. Whaa!
April: I got a Kindle (II). Yay!
May: Life (the TV show) got canned. Boo! But, I also got to see a great movie in the theater (Star Trek). Yay!
June: Much remodeling work done around our house. Ouch!
July: I earned a trip to the emergency room due to a bulging disc. Ouchouchouchouchouch. Also new kitties. Meow.
August: Jon and I have our 10 year anniversary. Muah!
September: Great Tampa visit w/ dad and Ilu so Brenden can go to the beach. Whee!
October: We go camping and Brenden catches a catfish. Yum!
November: Thanksgiving in Oklahoma. Yum!
December: Long nothing-doing vacation at home during Christmas. Ahhhhhhhhhh.........!
So there you have my year in review. Heh.
I had a whole week off for Christmas, plus New Years. We didn't go anywhere and just stayed home. Jon did some work on the house but spent a chunk of time at the drop zone. He bought me Dragon Age: Origins for Christmas and I spent most of my free time playing it.
Like Bioshock is distantly related to System Shock II this game is the indirect descendant of Baldur's Gate. BG is an FRPG based on Dungeons and Dragons. DAO isn't D&D but it will be quite familiar to any experienced RPG gamers. At first I thought the story line was too limiting - I think I'm spoiled by the open worlds of Bethesda Softwork's Elder Scroll series, not to mention my favoritest Fallout 3. DAO's characters and story line sucked me in, however.
I won't go into details - there's a blight upon the land and your character is called upon to stop it. You meet people along the way who can join you for your quest and you can get kind of attached to some of them.
Anyone who remembers the somewhat stilted dialog from portions of Baldur's Gate take heart: the people who wrote Dragon Age apparently watch Joss Whedon shows and the conversation is more entertaining than usual. The first NPC who can join your party, Alastair, is a cross between Xander from Buffy and Mal from Firefly. That's according to the people who designed him and it's a fairly accurate assessment.
Brenden got loads of toys besides the way-cool brain-sucking space aliens. He received a Wii game that he's addicted to: Ubi-Soft's Rabbids go home (it is spelled "rabbid" and for good reason). He was entertained for almost an hour when he discovered a portion of the game where one of the rabbids gets stuck in your controller. You shake the controller and the rabbid makes lots of noises while on screen you see a little cartoon rabbid careening of the interior of a Wii remote. The rabbid is pretty happy about it. Anyway Brenden squees and laughs his little buttocks off when he plays.
Which is great, because it gives me more time to fight blood mages, darkspawn, and the occasional archdemon.
Merry Christmas, everybody! By happy accident, Brenden received the best toy I have ever seen. On my recommendation his abuela and grandpa sent him the Imaginext Space Station. It included these horrible looking octopoid aliens as you can see above. Well as you can see in the picture below, they sit nciely on the play figures' heads. Brain-sucking space aliens for your preschooler! Fischer-Price FTW!
What I'm Watching:
Because of the enormous amount of time I've spent perusing Tv Tropes I'm afraid my reviews will never be the same. That site has become an enormous time waster resource for me. For instance, when I rambled about Kirk/Spock and Hector/Achilles I really, really wanted to do some quick Google searches to confirm my suspicions but didn't want to lose my remaining eye. Tv Tropes, thankfully, provided me with information about Rule 34 of the Internet without going into too many gory details. Their linktastic pages lead me to Ho Yay (which I find amusing and entertaining - I just don't want to read 40 pages of pr0n about it) and No Yay, which I will not link to because while the image on that page is SFW, I found it deeply, deeply disturbing. If you go to TV Tropes and search on that term, you will not be happy. You have been warned. Don't do it!
So anyways. I watched District 9 (the link contains spoilers!) last night, and while I don't particularly like Humans are Bastards stories, this one tells its story in a palatable manner (for me. I want to see Avatar sometime next week and I just know Cameron is going to beat me about the head and shoulders with the same Trope, which is why I didn't try to see it on opening night). It was palatable because the bastardry was mostly believable and because there's a scene when someone does their very best when things are at their very worst (That's a trope exemplified in John Carpenter's forgotten Starman - Big Damn Heroes might be the closest trope I found.) Collectively yeah we suck but we're not condemned to suckage at an individual level.
I just realized I haven't given a plot synopsis. An alien space ship hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. The inhabitants come across as stupid, ugly insectoid aliens who quickly get sent to a JoBurg ghetto and cause problems. Finally after 20 years the aliens are to be rounded up and moved away from the city and most of the action takes place when a private company (an evil one, natch) sets out to herd them up and move them out. The protagonist, Wikus Van Der Merwe (Sharlto Copley, and I am on the give-him-an-Oscar bandwagon though it will never happen because this is SCIENCE FICTION), has been put in charge of this operation and this bland little Afrikaans twit has himself an interesting time. See the movie it's awesome. F-Bombs and splattage ahoy, though. Oh! and an awesome Macross Missile Massacre! SRSLY!
If you have seen it, here's a great review / examination from a South African's perspective.
Random bits:
Fringe had numerous Re-Animator references last episode. Considering the bad guy was someone whose head was re-attached they were hilariously appropriate.
I have read over 50 books since I got my Kindle in March. When I was in high school and college those numbers would have indicated a slow year. I think that's the most I've read in the last 5 years put together, and yes, I'm sad about that. I've totally fallen in love with reading again. The Kindle has 3 features I love: 1) Instant downloads, 2) book samples, and 3) large font sizes. Yes, my eyesight is going to crap again.
Brenden really loves cooking. We made cookies from scratch last weekend and I'm always looking for recipes he can help me with. I envision many holiday treats this coming holiday break.
While Christmas shopping I found the 1st season of Veronica Mars for $20 so I snagged it. I'm actually going to start re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer this weekend though. The reason is this website: TV Tropes. It contains many BtVS references (which made me want to start a rewatch) and is a huge timekiller. Don't say I didn't warn you though.
We watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night. I thought it was a pretty good adaptation of the movie despite all the missing scenes. Mrs. Damian Lewis, Helen McCrory, has a small part in it playing Narcissa Malfoy. There was no sign of Jason Isaacs or Ralph Fiennes, though. Pity.
Jon wanted to rent a movie and here were our choices:
Transformers II
G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra
Terminator: Salvation
Year 1
Land of the Lost
I voted for G.I. Joe. Even after watching it I still feel I made the wisest choice. The plot involved Chris Eccleston sporting a scottish accent that would make Mike Myers blush and he's a weapons dealer who is evil. And then there's Team America: World Police who trash Paris. Or was that a different movie? Paris does get trashed but the Joe team is multinational. I think - all the main characters were American. I was distracted by all the explosions. Pretty!
I cleaned the house Saturday and sunday to prep it for Christmas decorating. When I pulled the white christmas tree from the attic Brenden and both evil kittens were ecstatic. My blood pressure went through the roof trying to keep a small child and two large cats from climbing the tree. So far 11 or 12 ornaments have been broken and when I go replace them I'm going to buy plastic ones.
To top it off Brenden broke the screen on my Kindle Sunday. Fortunately it's still under warranty and the cheerful helpdesk guy at Amazon is sending me a new one and they're even paying the postage for when I return my old one. So Amazon's customer service gets a big "Hooray!" from me.
While watching the new Star Trek, the good chemistry between Chris Pine (Kirk) and Zachary Quinto(Spock) got me thinking, and scared, and I really don't want to go a-googling, but I'm betting that movie launched a billion slash fanfics. If you don't know what slash is, congradulate yourself and go look at some funny kittys. If you do know, and you read it (or even write it), hey - it's your thing and that's fine by me. I on the other hand accidentally read the beginning of one and an eye popped out of my face kind of like that scene in Friday the 13th 3D. I'm totally fascinated by the idea that people feel the need to write out and share certain scenarios but I have no desire to read them. Just - EWW!
That doesn't mean I don't understand the urge to write fan fiction. I don't write but I've read some (I've learned to look for sites that vet the material first). I understand the urge to change something or add something to a story because I understand the desire to make the story better (or at least less sucky - ask me someday for my very short version of Alien 3). For instance I've been reading all the Trojan War permutations I can find. I have disliked the fate of Troy ever since I read the Iliad, so the Aeneid at least makes up for their fate a little. I've been bothered by the death of Hector's son, Astyanax, so I was glad he gets to live in a movie variation, Troy. Hector still gets killed by Achilles though.
That leads me to David Gemmell's almost uniformly excellent Troy trilogy. It's biggest flaw is the hero, Helakion, A.K.A. Aeneas. He is nowhere near as interesting as Odysseus, Andromache, and an assortment of nifty made-up characters that populate the story. I was kind of put off by Andromache falling in love with this shmoe for unexplained reasons (other than he was hot). And, as if sensing his hero wasn't that great, Gemmell made Hektor an almost nonentity who people talk about but we rarely 'see' in action. But the narrative and the rest of the characters make up for the books. Hektor and Achilles' battle is pretty nifty with a twist I liked, and I could tell the legend of the trojan horse bothered Gemmell enough that he just had to change it. (SRSLY - any town stupid enough to let a hollow horse into their city walls after 10 years of battle pretty much deserves to be destroyed).
Then there's Dan Simmons' Ilium and Olympos which has to be read to be believed. I'll spoil just a little - Hector gets to live! Finally!! And Achilles' fate is well deserved and I'm still giggling about it.
So going back around to slash fanfic - are there any slash pieces about Hector and Achilles floating about? I would place money on it especially after Eric Bana and Brad Pitt got to play the characters in the movie but I'd rather cut out my remaining good eye with a dull spoon than go find out.
Hope everyone ate too much. We went to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving (photos soon come) where Brenden rode around with mom, dad and Ilu)on the 4-wheelers, and even got to wheel around in his own ride (I told you, photos soon come).
Ed and Jen were there too, and I seem to recall much beer and wine drinking the entire time we were there. Dad is doing fine and cooked a fantastic turkey. Ilu spoiled Brenden, of course. Dad took Brenden to the store once for a quick trip and Jon and I were nervous - for my dad. He survived. B seems to behave better for other people which is a good thing.
We also visited Jon's niece, Tiffany, whom Jon hasn't seen since she was a baby. She's 17, now. Those visits actually went well and included a trip to the Dallas zoo (photos soon. I promise!).
What I'm Watching: Jen had us watch Hamlet II which is quite funny and does nothing to refute my bigoted attitude towards drama students and teachers. I also had a very long laugh because a couple of weeks before I saw this movie I honestly spent some time wondering about what had ever happened to Elizabeth Shue.
We tried to watch Planet 54 in the theater but Brenden acted up and we left before it was over. I don't think I missed anything. It sucked.
I bought Star Trek on Blu Ray and it's a shiny movie. This time around I still enjoyed the heck out of it but I'm thinking that if the cast and their interaction hadn't been spot-on terrific the plot would have sunk it. Which actually, now that I think of it, is the problem with every decent to good Star Trek movie so never mind!
I am currently reading David Gemmell's Troy trilogy; and it's something like the 4th re-telling of the Trojan war that I've watched / read (including Homer's take). It's not as much fun as Dan Simmons' totally loopy Iliad and Olympos, but it's as compelling. Of all people, Hektor's wife, Andromache, is my favorite character so far. I hope her fate is better than it was in Homer's version but I have a bad feeling.
Speaking of Dan Simmons, I ripped through his 3 trashy Joe Kurtz detective novels and I can't recommend them enough.
Massive Dynamic is the best name ever for a shady mega-corporation. I'm just saying.
Jon and I have decided to go to St. John again next year for vacation.
Well me, mostly. Jon just looked at my vacation research, which I love to do like a hobby but he hates to do with a passion, and pointed to the villa he liked the most from my shortlist.
The winner is Sea Cay, (pronounced 'sea key', sometimes I have problems remembering how to pronounce cay). It's right next door to a villa we stayed at in 2002 so I know the view is fantastic. I've also heard from people who have stayed there recently that it's in excellent shape.
Brenden will be a few hairs short of 5 on this trip. It's going to be a long six months or so, but it's nice to have something to look forward to!
Since Brenden has discovered Noggin Nick, Jr. I have had to watch much of that channel's programming. So this is pretty much a What I'm Watching post.
Blue's Clues: I don't know if this show is in production any more, but it's about a guy and his dog Blue. Blue leaves riddles around the house (heh) and the guy collects the riddles and tries to figure out what Blue is trying to say. Cute. Also bonus points for trying to teach kids about deductive reasoning.
Dora the Explorer: Dora and Boots explore and speak Spanish. I like this show. I hope no kid thinks he can keep a crime from being committed if he yells "SWIPER NO SWIPING!!!" long enough.
Go Diego Go!: I think he's Dora's cousin or something. He goes around rescuing animals. Cool for teaching kids about exotic wildlife, kinda boring otherwise.
Ni Hao, Kai-Lan: Kind of like Dora except Kai-Lan is Chinese. And she and her animal friends learn how to cope with emotions and social situations. Dora is more into solving problems. So I like Dora better. Brenden says "xie xie" a lot. I think that means "thank you".
Max and Ruby: Brenden LOVES this show. I hate it. It's about Ruby and her younger brother Max and they are boring bunnies. But Brenden loves it. It could use a retarded starfish or two.
The Wonder-Pets: My second most-hated show. A guinea pig, a turtle, and a duckling go out and rescue animals and sing about it. This program pushes cooperation. I keep hoping one of the carnivorous animals they rescue will treat them like a buffet.
Yo Gabba Gabba: This trippy show is hosted by a guy who desperately needs to eat a sammich or two. Other than that I like it; heck, Mark Mothersbaugh is a regular so how could it be bad? Fun songs sung by people in monster suits that Brenden likes to sing.
Wow Wow Wubsy: I miss Spongebob!
I'm still here, just nothing to write about.
One big note, Jon and I went back into debt to buy his business partner out. No offense to the partner; he and Jon didn't see eye to eye and it just goes to prove business partnerships suck bad. Don't ever do it.
Brenden went as a clone trooper for Halloween. He didn't have a meltdown this year when I closed the door when we ran out of candy.
Mal and Jayne, unlike Big Fat Kitty, are not afraid of people so they stayed at the screen door the whole night watching people come and go. Both of them like to sit up on their haunches for extended periods of time. Little kids would come to the door, the cats would pop up on their haunches to look at them, and the little kids would scream "I WANT KITTY!"
I had a flesh-eating zombie dream the other night. I got so bored I woke myself up. Seriously. I think my zombie affection is over.
Stacey took her 2 kids to see Where the Wild Things Are so we went too. I don't think the movie was too scary for Brenden, but the themes were over his head for the most part. I asked him afterwards if he thought the monsters were scary, and he said "No, they his friend!" He also understood that when the boy gets back in the boat, he's going home to his mom. Jon hated the movie and I liked it a bunch.
As the mother of a wild thing I felt empathy for the relationship between the troubled kid and his mom, and I loved that the kid behaved like an 8-year old - he wasn't brilliant or wise nor did he ever act like a little adult. He loved his monster friends but in the end he couldn't fix their problems. I think many people hated how down it was. I didn't think it was down - just truthful. Being a family is hard and sometimes all you can do is let them know you love them.
Speaking of hard: So yesterday I took Brenden to get his flu shot. He was having none of that. His new doctor, whom I like, had to hold him down and he screamed like his leg was being amputated. I think the 6 shots he got for his 4-year checkup pushed him over the edge.
Afterwards I bought him a bag of Skittles and some kool-ade (and me some beer for later) and we drove to see my doctor. I had to get my shots from the allergist. I wanted him to see that if you stay calm and don't look it doesn't hurt. He was fascinated watching the nurse shoot me, but he seemed skeptical about the whole staying calm business. He may be too young for me to appeal to his sense of logic.
One other fun child note: when Jon and I picked him up from his sitter on Tuesday, he suddenly turned around and tapped me on the belly and said "WHORE!"
Before I could belt him into Mississippi, he ran up to his dad (who had as big a "WTF" look on his face as I did) and tapped him on the belly and said "HIM!"
Yeah, he was trying to say "her" - getting the gender specifics of certain pronouns has been difficult for him. So I didn't belt him. We did work with him on his pronunciation.
I forgot one movie: we watched Monsters Vs. Aliens, and it was good. The movie ads were very careful not to mention that the main character is a woman, because we all know that girls have cooties and little boys will suffer from estrogen poisoning if they see or play with anything girl-related.
But: the main character, on her wedding day, is hit by a gigantic meteorite that is imbued with some glowy substance that turns her into a 40-foot giant. She's captured by the military and imprisoned with a bunch of other monsters including a man-cockroach mad scientist, a missing-link fish-ape, and an idiot blob of goo.
Aliens invade, looking for the glowy contents of the meteorite, and the military makes a deal with its monsters that if they stop the aliens, they will be freed.
Besides the thousands upon thousands of in-jokes that b-movie fans will enjoy, I enjoyed that the heroine grows from a shallow bride to a real human being, so to speak, and learns to appreciate her freakishness (and her monster friends).
Dreamworks has dropped the animation ball many times since Shrek II, but in this case: More like this, please.
Slooooooooooow news month.
Brenden invited Jayne to share the bathtub with him. Jayne didn't like it; not one bit. Brenden is lucky Jayne has been declawed.
I haven't written much lately because I haven't much to say.
I've been watching Fringe, Dollhouse, and C.S.I., the last of which had a tribute to Office Space with TPS reports and bosses named Lundberg in the last episode.
I forgot to mention Fringe acknowledged its pedigree the first ep back this season when a senator who was questioning the funding for the Fringe division bitched about similar non-results from the old 'X division'. Earlier on in the ep a soon to be dead guy was watching tv where Fox Mulder was getting abducted by aliens. Nifty!
Dollhouse's first ep back was only interesting in that Jamie Bamber guest-starred and he used his true English accent. I bet a lot of people didn't even know he's English.
I saw Race to Witch Mountain, based on that old Disney movie. It was ok. It's a child-safe Dwayne Johnson movie. I think he's fun to look at so YMMV.
Also saw Chocolate, a movie with a non-sequitur title. I finally figured out it was a Thai movie which means many people were kicked. It's about an autistic girl who instead of being able to recognize prime numbers or recite pi to the millionth digit watches too many martial arts movies and imitates what she sees. The plot is stupid, but the stunt people totally earned their money.
Well, I have given up giving up caffeine. I'm kind of in a damned if I do damned if I don't conundrum.
First off, I have been drinking coffee since I was a kid and have been hardcore about it forever. I'm talking about a pot a day at least. I never deliberately tried to stop drinking it or to reduce my caffeine consumption in any way except when I was pregnant.
So there I was trying to keep my caffeine consumption to zero and I started experiencing aggravated athsma again. The last time I experienced bad athsma: when I was pregnant.
Check this out, or don't - here's the important excerpt:
Main results: Caffeine, even at a low dose, compared to placebo was found to significantly improve lung function, measured in terms of FEV1, FEF25-75 and specific airway conductance for up to 2 hrs post ingestion. This effect was sustained for FEF25-75 for over 4 hrs. Improvement was also seen in FEV1 up to this time, however this effect did not reach statistical significance. No data were available for specific airway conductance after 2hrs.
Or translated: I'm a caffeine maniac because it wards off athsma.
Bring on the java!
We just got back from a weekend of camping and fishing at Lake Guntersville. Brenden was very excited when he caught this fish. It was at least 3 pounds, and over a foot in length.
It was Saturday night, when we were all wore out from the day. He did not complain when we let his fish go.
No, I didn't eat one. Interesting concept, though.
By the way, what evil Safety Nazi made the movie theaters switch from coconut oil to vegetable oil to pop their popcorn? I bought some coconut oil and made some popcorn and the taste is 10 X improved! If I'm going to go to a movie in the theater and buy a $6 bag of popcorn, it better be tasty. Nowadays it tastes like styrofoam. If I owned some theaters, I would pop all popcorn in coconut oil and advertise the hell out of it.
We're going camping soon now that the monsoon season seems to be over. Brenden is totally psyched. We are borrowing a friend's boat so we can fish in Lake Guntersville. Brenden is doubly psyched about that. He told me we are going to "catch a fish, cut him up, cook him, and eat him. Yum!" (exact quote there).
The Evil Twins are home and losing their harbls and front claws hasn't slowed them down any. Yeah I feel a little bad about their claws (we didn't do that to Big Fat Kitty but he doesn't use his claws).
Fringe has returned, and I'm a little miffed that the first episode in the writers offed Olivia's partner, Charlie. In exchange the writers seem to be giving Agent Farnsworth more to do even though she's still Exposition Girl. Still I'm happy the mad scientist is back.
Dollhouse has returned as well and is in the ratings cellar (attic?) so here we go again.
The family went to the Cullman County Fair last night, and much fun was had especially by the little one. Photos soon come, but I interrupt the scheduled blather for a heaping dollop of RANT. It is not politically motivated, so don't hit your backbutton yet.
In the winter of 1990 - 91 I was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. Fortunately for me Manhattan - a college town - was nearby, so I was able to find a well-stocked book store without difficulty (these were the ancient days before Amazon). One day while browsing for titles I bought a book simply because I liked the cover: On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers. The cover featured a skeletal pirate, complete with pegleg and parrot. How could such a book be bad?
It wasn't. It was damn good, and right up my alley. There were indeed pirates, as well as undead pirates, ghosts, voodoo, swordfights, Blackbeard - all kinds of fun. I know, it kind of sounds like a Pirates of the Carribean movie, doesn't it? I'm getting to that, but first I always thought the book would have made a terrific movie (there's a swordfight in the hull of a ship during a horrible storm and Powers's writing is so vivid I can still see that fight in my head). I had a faint hope that with the success of the POTC movies someone might be motivated to film this book. Be careful what you wish for.
The 4th POTC's full title, I discovered yesterday, is Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I thought I was going to have a brain aneurism right there, but it got worse. I Googled a bit and sure enough, found a press release saying this 4th installment would be "loosely based on the book". In other words, my beloved pirate book, a book I read at least once every couple of years, is going to make it to the big screen, with that idiot captain Jack SPARROW CROWBARRED INTO THE STORY.
The sad thing is I can see what character he can replace fairly easy. It's even sadder I can see where the screenwriter(s) could keep the main story faithful to the book even with the addition of Sparrow and Barbossa (Geoffry Rush's character) and the idiot crew of the Black Pearl. But what makes me saddest is that the screenwriters won't see what I see and John Chandagnac's journey from shallow euroweenie to Jack Shandy the brave and clever pirate will be shoved aside for Johnny Depp's Keith Richards impersonation. I bet money now that Jack Shandy won't even be in the movie at all.
I'm not happy about this development. Nope, not one bit.
Now that my bulging disc is no longer bulging and am no longer taking pain meds / muscle relaxants, I was able to kick caffeine again. I haven't had any in 8 days.
Speaking of coffee, since I discovered that my headaches are migraines I have been paying attention to triggers. I had strongly suspected that low pressure systems are a trigger as I get migraines when it rains. I have pretty much confirmed it, and that low pressure system that sat and spun around the Southeast for a week or so just about tore me up. All hail Trexamet!
Brenden had a fever this past weekend, and now he has an ear infection. Poor little guy!
Jon B and I watched Monsters, inc a few nights back and Brenden, for once in his life, watched the whole movie beginning to end. The power of Pixar compels you.
Brenden has stopped watching Spongebob and now watches Noggin. I'm glad in one way because Noggin doesn't air commercials, but I'm sad because he wants to play 'Max and Ruby' with me (a boring show about bunnies) and it's not as fun as being Mr. Krabs to Brenden's Spongebob.
Jon, Brenden and I watched Coraline, which should have done better at the box office. I spent the movie wondering if it was CGI or stop-motion or a combination (according to iMDB it is predominantly stop-motion. WOW!). Either way the animation was wonderful. I also love just about any story of a girl where the plot doesn't involve her finding the figurative or literal Prince Charming. Brenden stayed for bits and pieces but was riveted near the end when the cat became an important part of the story.
Speaking of Brenden and cats, have I mentioned that if Brenden would have ever manhandled (that's a sexist term, now that I think of it) my cat Vasquez like he treats Mal and Jayne I would have screeched and punished him severely. As it is I look at them when they play together and think "Meh, they deserve one another".
TNT aired Doom, The Chronicles of Riddick, and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy a few Saturdays ago - all these movies have Karl Urban in them. It wasn't billed as "Karl Urban Night" but still, thanks, TNT! You forgot The Bourne Supremacy, however.
The first two movies I mentioned are not good movies, viewable only because of some eye candy. I have hope that Mr. Urban will be offered better roles because he received attention for playing Dr. McCoy in Star Trek, but his latest role will be as an (ugh) vampire. Fortunately it will be an Evil Bad Guy vampire, and I can hope he will be more like Severen from Near Dark as opposed to Edward, Lestat, or the innumerable other neurotic poofter undead that infest popular entertainment.
Today is the 8th anniversary of the day we learned we're vulnerable. Today Iraq is looking more stable, but in Afghanistan embedded reporter Micheal Yon says 'the West is losing this war'. I try to avoid the political, but nothing makes my skin crawl more than reading about women subjugated to radical Islamic laws. I snarked yesterday about the Hmong and the Montagnards and what happened to them when we gave up in Vietnam, but a few of them, at least, are safe here in the U.S. I worry about the women of Afghanistan - I doubt any will be able to offer them freedom and safety if we leave.
I like Micheal Yon's website because he writes about the soldiers overseas. He has written compelling stories about American and Allied soldiers and they always make me think about my brief experiences in the military. I know I have written about basic training and a little about active duty in my blog - I don't think I wrote much about the soldiers I knew.
Some people seem to totally idolize our soldiers as heroic icons of virtue and sacrifice, and some seem to view them as homicidal sociopaths. While you will find people (soldiers and civilians alike) who fall into these two extremes, the truth is of course soldiers are human beings, and you get all kinds. I met many men and women whom I liked, some whom I regarded as assholes, a few who frightened me, and a few whom I felt honored to have met. Sometime soon I should write about a few from the more interesting categories I have listed.
In the meantime, we haven't had another attack in the United States, and I'm grateful especially to the soldiers who have worked, many at great cost, on stopping those who would harm us, and I hope we do not give up on Afghanistan for the sake of the Afghani people, especially the women and the ones who have been helping us.
Now back to my irregularly scheduled drivel. Ooh look! Cat pictures!
What I'm watching:
Gran Torino: Clint Eastwood tells a bunch of pesky Hmong kids to get off his lawn. It's nice to see a movie that acknowledges what happened to the Hmong when we left Vietnam. Maybe someday we'll see something about the Montagnards.
I didn't watch this movie before because a reviewer I trusted hated it. She said it was about a racist who changes too fast and too conveniently. After watching it I'd have to disagree about Eastwood's character's racism. He is a misanthrope, and prejudiced, but I don't think the character ever came across as an out and out racist. He uses a lot of interesting words (for a Polack person of polish ancestry) but ultimately his character never judges anyone by anything but their actions. He might have been annoyed by his Hmong neighbors not taking care of their houses, but when he gets to know them a little, he understands then that they don't have the skills or the money. It's a better movie than I expected.
Hot Fuzz: I was talking with Ed this morning and I said that the idiots that make those horrible spoof movies, like Epic Movie and Not Another Teen Movie need to sit down and watch this terrific satire / hommage of bad action movies about a thousand times before they are allowed anywhere near cameras again.
It was made by the same group of folks that made Shaun of the Dead and it's about a London supercop (Simon Pegg) who gets promoted to Sargeant and is transferred to a country village because he's making the rest of the force, I mean service, look bad. It touches every single bad action movie trope you can think of: the by-the-book cop / slob cop mismatched buddy team, the budding bromance that borders on gay (there's a reason Point Break is referenced several times), over-the-top gun battles, gratuitous gore, four or five fakeout endings, and of course the completely rediculous plot. And best of all, this movie is a love-letter to action movies like Shaun of the Dead loves zombie movies.
I may need to buy me a copy of Hot Fuzz. Just talking about it makes me want to see it again.
Today is 'No Cats on the Internet' day, so I bring you a re-run of a picture of the demonic cats from the 9th circle of Hell our sweet kitties.
I hope everyone had a great Labor Day holiday and didn't do anything too laborious.
We flew from Birmingham to Tampa on Southwest Friday morning. All hail direct flights! Dad and Ilu picked us up, we had lunch together, and then dad dropped us all off at Tradewinds Resort for the night. It wasn't full, which was great, and Brenden got an afternoon on the beach, which is what he's been begging for all summer ('Tomorrow we go to the beach, ok?' every single damn day). He had a blast chasing seagulls, collecting shells, and digging in the sand. He swam some, but he got saltwater in his eyes and he didn't like the stinging. We showered off and jumped into one of the resort's pools later on.
Saturday morning Ilu and I let Jon sleep in and we took Brenden to the beach for more swimming / digging. I had him sit right where the waves were washing up and I showed him all the little clams that got uncovered and dug their way back into the sand. He was endlessly fascinated by those little guys.
Dad picked us up around 2, and it turns out he had a nefarious motive for not going with us to the resort: he bought a new puppy! He has a cute little boy shih-tzu and they were still deciding on a name when we left.
Sunday Jon, B and I went to Adventure Island, a water park that's part of Busch Gardens. I must admit I have never been to a water park before. I didn't swim much after I was 12 because I was so nearsighted. But I had lasik in 2000 and that was the best money I ever spent. Soon after I took scuba lessons and I was delighted that I could see clearly to the end of the pool! Not to mention 3 feet in front of my face.
Anyways Brenden went nuts jumping into fountains, climbing, swimming, sliding, etc. We had fun in the lazy river, and we all took turns going down a series of very long and twisty slides. once I figured out that you needed to lay down to gain any speed, I thought the slides were terrific, too. Brenden was fearless, dropping down 30-foot tubes that opened up 8 feet up from a pool and dropping into 10 feet of water. He would swim to the ladder and repeat about 20 times. One of us always accompanied him to the top and one of us would wait at the bottom but he never needed help. Every time I would get a little overheated I would jump in, too. After a little hesitation he also jumped off a 10 foot 'cliff'. Some adults were turning away from those jumps after a lost gut-check.
About 3pm Brenden all of a sudden realized he was dead tired and started crying when we tried to get back into the lazy river. A little rest and some candy later we went back to dad's house and relaxed for the rest of the time we were there. Yes, that included some pool time. Brenden is probably growing gills.
While we were walking to our car once we got out of the Birmingham airport on Monday, Brenden asked me "Tomorrow we go to the beach, ok?" He was really upset when I told him we wouldn't be going back for a while.
Jon, Brenden and I are getting over colds. Colds suck, but better this week than next.
I had the niftiest dream last night! I was out on a beach somewhere collecting shells, clams, pottery shards, glass, etc. - All kinds of debris that had washed up on the beach. Then I forget the transition, but I ended up in a small kitchen somewhere that was jammed with all kinds of jars, bottles, books, etc. It was cluttered, but not unkempt. And Damian Lewis was cooking lunch for me! Then I woke up. Wish I remembered what we were talking about. Wish I could remember what he cooked for me.
What I'm Reading: I flew through Richard K. Morgan's science fiction series about Takeshi Kovaks, a somewhat messed-up ex-soldier. The first novel had a Raymond Chandler feel to it as Kovaks solves a murder mystery. The thing that I really liked about his character is he is in no way misogynistic unlike most gumshoes. It's a nice change. There's a lot of sex and violence in his books. That's not a warning, that's a recommendation.
I also read After Sunset, a recent Stephen King collection of short stories. I enjoyed them all. If there's a theme running through the book the stories don't just deal with horror and dying (common to just about everything King writes) but death and what happens afterwards. One of his short stories is about a man who played hooky from work on September 11, 2001 so he got to live. His survivor's guilt externalizes in the forms of items that his co-workers possessed, from glasses to desktop knick-knacks. That story made me cry.
I remember reading Carrie when I was maybe 14 or 15. That would mean only The Shining, The Stand, and Salem's Lot had also been published at that time. I think that makes Stephen King books one of my constants.
In totally unrelated news, HBO has given a greenlight to a pilot based on George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, books that piss me off sometimes but I still hold interest in. Now I wonder if we're going to have to get HBO again, because Lena Headey (Sarah Connor in the late SCC series) has been cast as Cersei Lannister. I was scared she would be cast as Catelyn Stark, whom I do not like. I hate Cersei, too, but it's more fun hating her because she's evil. Catelyn is just an unlikable character. Sean Bean is cast as Eddard Stark, and why does that not surprise me?
