Serenity

New Serenity trailer up! New Serenity trailer up! ^_^

Block party was fun. Chocolate fountains are interesting and evil devices.

Sky High was terribly enjoyable. I would go into more about it, but I think I'll save that for a later time.

I can't seem to write a paragraph that involves more than a sentence or two...

Alas

For you anyway. Courtesy of the new link over on the right there, I managed to catch the trailer for the remake of The Fog. But it doesn't seem to be up anymore, so I can't send you on. Looks good. Although the fog itself is a little strange. Too thick I think. At any rate, The Movie Blog is a nice addition to the link stable.

And I made an interesting discovery last night. More news on that should be forthcoming in the next few days. I hope.

Summer woes

Survived my first Scout outing. Of course, it was just an activity night over at the Boondocks Fun Center. Bumper Boats (got soaked), Go Karts, a few games (the DDR machine was busted!). We'll see how things go the next few weeks once the actual badge activities start.

There's a block party scheduled for the end of the week. I vaguely remember those from my youth. I don't remember having them all that often, but once or twice. We'll see how this one goes.

I'm ready for summer to be over. Mowing the lawn, the heat, the kids out of school, the heat, the usual. This is my least favorite season and I welcome its end. I've heard rumors that they want to extend Daylight Savings Time from March to November. That would be a crime against all things good.

And we're being invaded by ants. Yet another reason summer needs to go bye bye...

Tuesday bits

So it's Tuesday. New movie day. I forget what's out this week. Probably nothing spectacular. Kung Fu Hustle comes out on August 9th. I expect you all to buy a copy. Or two. Roswell Season 3 comes out then as well. I'll pick it up for my wife and hold on to it until her birthday. She's already aware of this fact, so don't think I'm spoiling something for her here. I don't understand why she likes that show, but it's good for her to have some random TV show to enjoy. Currently it's Smallville. Again, no accounting for taste.

Every other Tuesday I get to listen to Punk's movie review as I drive to work. He reviews the sorts of movies my friends and I watched in High School. The really bad kind. Today he did Barbarian. It sounded delightfully rotten. I may have to track it down.

Whales and Desperados

Watched Desperado. It's pretty much El Mariachi with a budget. There were some pretty good fight scenes and Antonio did a fine job, but honestly Mariachi was better. We may get around to seeing Once Upon a Time in Mexico, but there's no rush.

Whale Rider, on the other hand, is a wonderfully moving little piece about the Maori culture. I enjoyed it thoroughly and recommend it whole-heartedly. While it follows the typical formula for a movie about the underdog hero (heroine in this case) it doesn't detract any from its impact or its worth. And the actress that plays Pai is a real gem.

Be Cool and Book 30

If you've seen Get Shorty, you've seen Be Cool. If you haven't seen the former, you'll probably get a kick out of the latter. If you have, well, you'll enjoy it, but you'll experience a lot of déja vu. Oddly, I enjoyed Get Shorty the movie over Be Cool, but Be Cool the book over Get Shorty.

Be Cool brings everybody's favorite shylock, Chili, back, only this time he's taking on the music industry. They opted to compress/cut down several of the characters in the book, but they kept a lot of the twists and turns. So if you've read the book, you'll have a better chance of knowing what's going on, but you'll occasionally be surprised at who's doing it. If you haven't read the book, things are a bit muddy. But it's still got some of the Elmore Leonard humor. I've heard that the reason Get Shorty was as good as it was had to do with the fact that they used a lot more of Leonard's dialogue. I suspect this is true. Be Cool isn't quite as true and that's where it suffers. But The Rock does a great job. So, it's an enjoyable time remembering how much you liked Get Shorty (except for the bit where you're remembering how much you liked Pulp Fiction).

Rebel Without a Crew documents Robert Rodriguez's experiences making El Mariachi (and yes, before you ask, reading this book was indeed a bit of a push to finally watching the movie - I've wanted to for years, but now I had no excuse...) Between this book and Bruce Campbell's If Chins Could Kill you've got an excellent look at all sides of making a film. If you have any interest in film making, you need this book. If you like reading interesting stories about the crazy things people do and the crazier things that happen to them, you need this book. It's a thoroughly enjoyable read and one that just might push you into film making if you have any leanings that way. Great book...

Observations and cats

Today's random thing that must go: jewelry store ads on radio. I don't think there's a jeweler yet that can put together a good ad. There's not really anything that will make me switch stations faster than an ad for some of the jewelers around here. Well ok, a couple things, but that's definitely in the top three.

Today's random observation: for some reason I tend to like songs that feature a place in the title. Recently mentioned Dakota for example. Also Amsterdam by unintelligible mumbling. What? Just because the net is terribly useful doesn't mean I'm going to run right out an find out who did that song... Where's the IMDB for music?

Apparently the cat person/dog person favoritism is genetic. And the girls have just discovered that they're cat people. (Not to be confused with Cat People the wacky/sexy shape shifters from bad cinema.) There are a couple cats owned by some neighbours that have the run of the block. The girls have spent the past few days playing with them whenever they get the chance. Mwa ha ha ha! I knew they were smart. You just can't trust a dog person. Sorry dear... ^_^

*Cough* *Cough*

Trying out a new look. Ignore the dust...

There's no budget like low budget

Watched Horror Express last night. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Great low budget horror flick. Had some wonderful lines and something resembling a plot. Kit, Eric, James - track this one down and give it a go. I picked it up for a buck at Walmart. Watch it some Friday night and raise a glass for me. (Root beer of course ^_^)

Tonight we watched El Mariachi. Rodriguez's first flick. Made for $7,000. It's quite good. As a bonus the disc also contains his short film Bedhead (muy bueno) and Desperado. We'll check it out on Friday night. For a first effort it's pretty amazing. Especially considering the fact that Rodriguez did just about everything himself.

Summer

Ok, the heat can quietly go away now. Summer is my least favorite season. And one of the problems of living in a desert is that it tends to take summer seriously. We've had hundred degree temperatures for about a week. I believe this week has been in the 90s. It's a good thing we have central air...

They made some really bad design calls with that Prince of Persia sequel. Save points are a little too far apart. When you die (not if, when) they start you back (more often than not) where you last saved. This makes for lots and lots and lots (and lots) of repetition of areas. And boy is it glitchy. It's a real shame too. There's a decent game lurking around in there, but you really have to want to find it.

Started up Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. Looks good. Although I hear some of the later parts lag. Guess we'll see.

Dakota by the Stereophonics is a nice little tune.

Paper Mario and random generators

I finished off Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door. I can now whole-heartedly recommend this game. Despite the amount of time it took, it was enjoyable just about the entire time. And were this several years ago, I would have finished it much sooner. At any rate, the artwork (as has been previously mentioned) is spectacular (and tied quite nicely into the gameplay) and the story is a joy. Full of humor and touching moments it ends on just the right note. If you have a Gamecube, this game should be in your collection. And I'm coming to realize that Nintendo really makes you earn that ending. I think Nintendo's games feature the hardest boss battles of any of the games I've played.

And courtesy of the letter 'r', here is a list of random thing generators. Go check it out. Maybe I'll use the random blog post generator from this point out. I'm not certain you would notice.

Book 29

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is probably my favorite of the six currently available. And she better get book seven out soon... This one certainly begins to tie things together and the stage is set for the endgame. That's not to say there aren't a few little stumbles. Harry is awfully composed after the loss of Sirius. But I guess one book of whiny/angry Harry is really enough. This book continues the darker tone of the latter half of the series but it also contains some of the humor that graced the earlier books as well. If you follow the series, I suspect you'll enjoy it greatly and if you've been undecided this book could make you a fan. I can see re-reading this one more than some of the others in the series quite easily. Great book...

iFlea

This is brilliant.

Quiet

And family has once again left and the house returns to the dull roar of normality. Well as normal as you can get with three kids and a dog. Temperatures have been in the hundred degree range but that doesn't seem to affect the kids much. They still run around and get up to mischief.

Hit Burger King in a vain attempt to get one of those Amazon cash cards that might be worth something. It was worth a buck. Pretty typical. Brother-in-law wins a PSP and we win a buck. ^_^ I have absolutely no luck when it comes to drawings and contests like that. My wife won $100 in those gold Sacagawea dollars from Cheerios once. And I managed to snag a gift certificate to a restaraunt at work. But that's about it.

At any rate Harry Potter shows up in a couple days, so maybe somebody famous will deliver it...

Be afraid

So. I saw a brief teaser on TV the other day for Hail to the Chief. (I believe was the title) And Hollywood's quest to elect Hillary Clinton has begun. <sigh> She's the absolute last thing this country needs. And unfortunately this next election is probably her best chance to win. Here's to hoping that doesn't come to pass.

Had a half day at work today so I could get in to the dentist. Good thing I grew up with flouridated water. Too bad they don't do that here. Now if I can just sort out what's behind the strange noise the Saturn is making...

Go wander over here for a diversion.

Family

Sister and her family in town today and tomorrow. Her husband just won a PSP and brought it along. Lucky git. It's actually the first PSP I've seen close up. The screen is indeed very nice. It's a nice looking little device. Still want a DS though. There's not a lot of software out for the PSP at the moment and other than Lumines, none of the games scream "Own me!" Plus the whole multimedia thing just kind of irks me. Why buy one device that does everything sort of well when you can buy several that do each really well? ^_^

At any rate, off to go be sociable or something.

Names

The letter 'r' sent along this interesting little site that lets you know how common/rare your name is. Works for both given and family names. Those who know me will be little surprised that my last name was oddly rare. So surprising that...

At any rate the week is off to a, well, a start I suppose. I can't really claim more than that. The lawn has been mowed, the mower is still acting a mite strange, and the girls continue to drive my wife crazy. Nothing new there.

We've let McKenna try her hand at guitar lessons. It's been an interesting experience to say the least. I'm pretty musical. My wife is not. McKenna falls somewhere in between. I'd say she has my love of music and my wife's talent, but that might be true mean. Actually my wife enjoys music as well. She's just rhythmically challenged. And McKenna inherited that. Which makes it difficult to play the guitar when you have problems locating the beat... So yeah, lessons (and practices) are interesting.

Bruce!

Bruce
Originally uploaded by dkun.

So today was the day - went to the book signing/film showing. We opted not to go to the show. Bruce was fun to meet. He complimented me on my shirt and then asked what I did. In my defense, I hate answering this question. So I said, "Just work."

"Isn't that what I asked? What do you do?"

"Oh..." and then I mumbled some form response thing about medical journals and so on. And he said that was great.

So I can say I've been both complimented and mocked by Bruce Campbell. Groovy. ^_^

And please ignore the bizarre facial hair. I was bored...

Book 28

Just finished The Tesseract by Alex Garland. It was an odd read. It was easy to read, and yet a struggle at the same time. Oddly interesting and not at the same time. About as much of a puzzle as the subject matter of the book itself. I suppose I'd say it's my least favorite of the three books he's written that I've read. I still believe The Coma to be the best of the three, but you can see the seeds of that book lying dormant in this one. So, it exists in some uneasy space that's both good and bad. A tesseract on its own...

At any rate, it's easy to say that Garland is a talented writer and one I've enjoyed reading. If you run across a book of his, I'd say it's worth picking up. You'll probably find something of value inside. And really, not much more than that needs to be said.

And another thing (or two)

This = Cool Art.

And this (from Boing Boing) is just plain cool.

Plans

Have been made. The letter 'r', myself and another compatriot shall venture forth tomorrow and procure autographed copies of Bruce's new book. Mwa ha ha! I doubt we'll stick around for the screening of his movie, but a signed book is compensation enough.

After school cartoons

Jackie Chan Adventures and Xiao Lin Showdown are still pretty good... I've fallen out of the habit of watching things on Saturday mornings. But the girls have picked up the habit, so I occasionally hear about the silliness that passes for marketing entertainment these days. I miss good Saturday morning cartoons...

Apparently Bruce Campbell will be in town this weekend doing a book signing and showing off his new movie. I'd like to get over there, but not sure I'll make it.

And that's about all I've got.

Random

The Descent looks like it should be pretty good. Wonder when it'll wind its way over here...

Oddly, short weeks never really feel all that short. Sometimes they're not so bad, but then you have the kind that just drag on and on. And being tired certainly has an effect on that.

So. I've been roped into the scouting program. Webelos Den Leader. Well, really assistant Den Leader. I'll pause for some laughter. There is a cruel humor to the universe on occasion. At least there's no camping. That would have nixed any possibility of this happening. Maybe there should have been some camping...

At any rate, I picked up F Zero GX and Warrior Within yesterday. Both are a little more difficult than they should be. At least with F Zero it's a difficulty that should lessen with some practice. Warrior Within is just a bizarre anomaly.

Happy 4th

To my friends. A big thanks to the letter 'r' for the barbecue. It was quite nice. Next time we'll duct tape the girls so they don't cause quite as much havoc. Hope everyone had a nice day.

Watched a bit of the original Thomas Crown Affair the other night. Didn't come away terribly impressed. Mostly they tried too hard. The chess game sequence is a perfect example. There were some nice sensuous bits, but there were also a lot of over the top "Come hither" moments. Overall I'd stick with the remake.

And managed to snag a couple cheap games today due to silly 4th of July sales. So here's to the occasional bout of rampant commercialism.

Morning sky

sky
Originally uploaded by dkun.

I took this the other morning around 6:45 or so. I happened to glance out into the back yard and realized the sky was quite lovely with lots of little fluffy clouds. They had moved around a bit before I managed to get the camera, but here you go. My first attempt at nature photography.

Still laughing

BEST. MOVIE CRITICS. EVER.