Subtitled for your reading enjoyment

It's been Foreign Film Week in casa del 'd'. (This means subtitles oh favorite niece. You gots to read those movies. Because they're awesome. And not in English. You could turn the subtitles off, but unless you speak Cantonese or Swedish it's just a whole lot of pictures at 40 frames a second. Or whatever that film speed is.)

We started off with Hard Boiled. Mostly for historical and completist sorts of reasons. It was interesting mostly for those same reasons. Although anything involving babies, cotton balls, or fire extinguishing was awesome. And hilarious. I think this film is best described as a reverse classic. It's easy to see now how other films have built on or ripped off this one. Sometimes to better effect (Infernal Affairs comes to mind), sometimes not. So it is a genre building/influencing sort of film, but mostly it's interesting to see where things went. John Woo wasn't quite the master of choreographed bullet play yet and there were no doves to be seen! Shocking.

Next up was Let the Right One In the good vampire film from last year. That happened to be from Sweden. It was an interesting coming of age sort of tale that left you not really wanting to be a vampire. At least not one stuck in a twelve year old's body. Although she was quite adept at dropping from trees and killing people. Lots of practice I suspect. There were some good creepy moments and some nice nods to vampire lore and there was NO SPARKLING. That's always a sign of a good vampire movie. In fact sunlight managed to do exactly what it was supposed to do in a rather nice scene featuring a rather distraught character.

Cutthroat Caverns needs to be played by probably at least 4 people and several of them need to not be me. I actually really like the game (despite what you may hear from those in attendance at the game last night). Yes, yes, take things too seriously, get stuck on things too easily. These are not new comments in regards to my gaming personality. The point is, it's fun. It's mean on occasion, but still fun. Now if we can just get McK to realize how some of the cards work and that hoarding doesn't do any good.

G has managed to make a gamer out of my wife. He's been wanting to play through Zelda: Twilight Princess which means my wife gets to play through it for him. She's actually quite close to the end. Truly amazing. A feat not even the letter 'r' has managed to accomplish yet. I am quite proud of both of them for rising to this occasion. Brings a tear to my eye it does. Good on ya G.

From Hell is a dark book. And I don't mean in just subject matter (that was a given). The artwork (on purpose I suspect) can be pretty difficult to discern. This made reading it a chore. I've technically still got the annotations to go through. We'll see. Mostly it made me want to poke around other things dealing with ol' Jack.

I'm not prepared to deal with Spring and a lawn that wants constant attention again. I think we need to turn the back yard into one big gardening experiment... Wife disagrees. Must look into means of remedying that. Hmm...

And on a final note I do not recommend falling down the stairs. It's not pleasant. Nor is it fun. And now I have to get back in the habit of exercising in the morning as well. Stupid stairs.

Quiet moments

Another strangely quiet week on the entertainment front. There are a couple graphic novels I'm plugging my way through - Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper piece, From Hell (which is getting all sorts of tangled up in my head with the Patricia Cornwell book from a couple years ago, the movie version [from longer than that] and Drood the novel about Charles Dickens that I'm also currently reading - all I can say is London must have been one horrible place to live for a while there) and The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way I believe (who is also, apparently, the lead singer for My Chemical Romance). So yeah, some books. Some with pictures, some without.

I can't think of any movies recently seen. I've been a little more interested in board games again. We finally got Drakon which is a nice little tile-laying dungeon themed game. It has some lovely little figures that I want to paint. A dragon and 6 adventurers. They are very small, which does not bode well for a really nice final product, but I really want to try. At any rate, you're trying to steal the dragon's gold while preventing the others in the dungeon from doing the same. My wife is apparently an idiot savant at this game. She has yet to lose. I almost wrested victory from her twice. Undone once by an unbelievably unlucky coin draw and another time by an evil daughter. Oh she knew what she was doing alright. Rotating my poor chamber so I couldn't get the last coin I needed to win, thus sealing yet another victory for evil spouse Ransacks-a-lot. It's a fun little game that seems to allow a pretty wide age range.

Tonight I believe we'll be trying Cutthroat Caverns - a game where you need to keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. You're once again in a Dungeon trying to fight your way out past 9 encounters. The trick is you want to be the one to land the killing blow so that you get the points. You do your best to undermine and/or kill (depending on how late in the game it is) everyone else while not completely alienating them. After all, if you get stuck in this place by yourself, no one makes it out alive. Sounds terribly fun. And quite possibly mean. Will have to see how well we handle that (and by we I mean I). I picked up one of the expansions that goes with it that supposedly makes it almost like a D&D campaign - a little more story tying events together. Again, should be fun. Will let you know.

Read the 2nd half of the new Neil Gaiman Batman comic. I think I liked the first half better - the payoff wasn't quite what I expected, but the story itself was very good. And it incorporated an odd Goodnight Moon reference. So points for that. I guess. If you run across it, it's recommended.

Oh, I meant to link to the news that the third Twilight movie has a new director. They're using the guy that did 30 Days of Night. I... I don't know whether to laugh maniacally, or in shame. This guy certainly gets vampires. Too bad Meyer doesn't. Maybe the sparkling will cause temporary blindness and then there will be lots of carnage as they decimate the small town before taking over the world. One can only hope.

Trip the light fantastic

I've gone through a few more fantasy themed tomes as I've finished off a few more books in the Dungeon series by Joann Sfar. They've been pretty fun little reads. I think the main Zenith arc is my favorite, but Parade and Twilight each have their moments. I like the idea that they've set up distinct time periods for the dungeon that they can write about. Nice little idea. Although the Twilight series certainly takes a turn for the odd.

Speaking of the series that shall not be named, I'm sad that this exists. Having wreaked havoc upon the book and film industries must junk food really be next? At least we can all agree that this is junk food.

These are decent. Some are funnier than others. I think it mostly depends on how much they rely on the work itself to provide the humor.

And that's about all you're gonna get. I'm far too tired to entertain you lot. Oh and there is no photographic proof that the girls were ever in some sort of play this year. You can blame lovely wife. Something about a DVD that may or may not get made. So there.

Spinning my wheels

Well, I'm not sure I could tell you what's gone on in the past week. I have vague memories of watching Mummy 3. Not really worth your time. They mostly forgot what made the first one fun, instead choosing to almost parody that style. Which was in some ways already a parody. Oh well. There were some funny bits at least. And the effects weren't bad.

I'm pretty sure I've read a lot of graphic novels lately. I remember Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill (of Heart Shaped Box - so good). It was appropriately spooky and certainly reminded me that he's Stephen King's son. I think I saw a lot more of his Dad's influence on this one than in some of his other work.

Dungeon is a French fantasy story that's rather amusing, if cartoon-ily bloody. Follow Herbert the Duck as he tries to become a barbarian. Or at least able to pull his sword from the scabbard. His friend Marvin (the vegetarian dragon) tries his best to keep him alive. It's all good fun.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser is old fantasy at it's finest. Mike Mignola (Hellboy) illustrates Howard Chaykin's telling of the old Fritz Leiber stories. Fun romp through classic fantasy.

Our front yard is currently in a state of disrepair as we wait for the city to come inspect our sprinkler hookup. It's a good thing we have neighbors that understand this stuff. Although my back is certainly not thrilled that we decided to take the city up on irrigation water...

McK and M have both been in plays the last couple days at school. Lovely wife reports that all went well. I have no idea if photographic proof of this exists or not.

Favorite niece and younger Sis are celebrating birthdays soon. We wish them well. And that's a pretty good note to end on. Happy birthday!

Trudging towards the future

Didn't really participate in any April's Fool pranks yesterday. This was my favorite Thinkgeek April Fool's product. And it's good to see that in the tradition of the 8 bit tie, they are going to try and make them. Needs me one of them yo.

We had a fun little roundtable at the Library yesterday focused on books we didn't like. There were quite a few (and we did discuss Twilight and Stephanie Meyer a touch). My favorite Meyer related bit was that the Library keeps two recommendation lists - people that like vampire stories and people that like Stephanie Meyer stories. There you go, further proof that THEY'RE NOT VAMPIRES. This cannot be stated enough. I wonder if the blink tag still works... NOT VAMPIRES Oh it does. This is good.

The story I sort of got around to voicing as one I didn't care for was Blindness I suspect you can track down my thoughts on it in the archives. That's right, it's all about the laziness on these here intarwebs.

What was interesting about the conversation were some of the reasons behind why people didn't like various stories. Things like bad endings, to not wrapping up the plot to just plain poor writing (*cough*Twilight*cough* ^_^). My own dislike for Blindness stemmed from an odd writing style that was sort of helpful and sort of not and a lot of reader manipulation. The author had a story to tell, realistic characters be damned. It was also interesting to see at what point people would just stop reading and move on. Or if they'd finish. I'd say I've finally moved into the move on camp. I have far too many things I want to read to suffer through something that isn't that interesting/good. Even for mocking purposes.

In an unrelated moment, this is funny. Because it's true. Hee hee.

Apparently I need to brush up on my sci-fi reading. I was a bit hard pressed to name some good starting points yesterday. I used to read quite a bit, but I guess it has been a while. Strange. I fell back on the always reliable William Gibson, but I need a few more guns in the arsenal. I may have to check out my Goodreads list again and see what's in there. Or what should be. I may also have to mess around with the shelving there. Maybe create some custom shelves... Cause I have lots of time to do that. Really.

I am still in search of a good fantasy themed board game. You lot are not helping. Apparently this is a difficult topic. While not as hotly contested as some wargames, it looks like fantasy games are a battle zone. This does not bode well for my indecisive nature.

Favorite new recipe: Tangy Shredded Chicken Sandwich Thing. They're great. Warm or cold. Fresh or as leftovers. Pure Yumminess. On a bun.

Must get thoughts sorted on square foot garden. Will need to get that going soon. Also really need to get this sprinkler hookup thing taken care of. And we're contemplating refinancing the house due to the lovely economic disaster. Too many things to tackle.

We're about to finish off Season 3 of Case Closed. Kids are really enjoying it. I am constantly amused as I watch the girls develop their reading/viewing tastes. McK certainly has a thing for mysteries. M isn't too far behind. Although I suspect she likes fantasy a touch more. G just goes along for the ride. Unless there are dinosaurs. That's just a given. We'll probably suffer through watch Mummy 3 this weekend. Hmm and High School Musical 3 come to think of it. Apparently it's a 3 sort of weekend.

Well, I will close this off with props to lovely wife's cousin for the curry packets. We had a rather nice Chicken Korma for dinner. Mmmm curry....

The one with the movies in

I have seen a lot of movies recently. Some good, some not. Here's a quick rundown:

Quarantine is a decent little horror film that suffers from the current shaky-cam trend. Another found footage tale, this follows a TV reporter as she follows the local firefighters. They get trapped in a building and Bad Things Happen. Some decent tension/scares. The actors gave decent performances and the story wasn't as cut and dried as the trailer led you to believe. So that was nice. Not too much worse than a trailer that gives everything away. This is a remake of a Spanish film called [rec] (I think it's Spanish anyway...). So you can't really laud Hollywood for something a little different, but at least they had good taste.

Sukiyaki Western Django (yes that's really the name favorite niece) is basically Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars. If A Fistful of Dollars was a western remake of Yojimbo, then Sukiyaki is a Japanese remake of a Western remake of a Japanese movie. Or something. That analogy made a lot more sense in my head. See the movie, it'll make more sense in yours too. Look. What this really boils down to is a familiar story with Japanese style and Takashi Miike action. So it's a little bloodier than the previous incarnations and a whole lot prettier. And weirder. But, you know, in a good way. Just go see it already.

Ghost in the Shell 2 is still very pretty. And very slow. And very pretty (especially on a big screen).

Eagle Eye is crap. What could have been an excellent, riveting action movie about the Patriot Act and how the government is watching us far too often instead devolves down into standard sci-fi story number 20 - the berserk computer. And they didn't even do that well. And to top it off, the only redeeming aspect of the movie (an action movie where the two wildly disparate leads don't fall in love?! About time!) goes down in flames with the LAST SCENE OF THIS HORRIBLY STUPID MOVIE! AAAAA! Make it stop! (The original ending was actually even more stupid, so some restraint was shown, but not nearly enough.) I've decided this movie should actually be considered dangerous. These are real issues. Candy coating them with a ridiculous story about an AWOL AI trivializes them and doesn't encourage the average American to think about them at all. Hey look! That there compooter sure went crazy. That Michelle Monaghan sure is purty. Zowee! Cars are crashin' and jets are 'splodin! Had me a dadgum good time. Wait? The government actually collects this sort of data about us all the time if it wants? Well shucks. <much eye rolling>

My Name is Bruce is the latest Bruce Campbell comedy/horror flick and it was great. If you like Bruce Campbell movies, this one will take you back a bit to the Army of Darkness days. Bruce plays "himself" (the B movie actor, jerk version - wait, is that acting?) getting sucked into trying to save a small town from a real demon. (Bean curd Bruce! Bean curd!) Mostly this movie made me think that it must be weird to be Bruce Campbell. I met him once when he was touring for Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, his second book and it was a rather odd experience. But yes, movie good. (Guan you, guan me, Guan Di!)

I will briefly mention that Blue Moon continues to grow on me. Got a couple games in with the letter 'r' and it was fun. Monty Python Fluxx is odd. Mostly because Fluxx is odd. (Although I'm sure there are others that would argue the other side.) Hot Fudge shakes are yummy. Pork Loin is also yummy. We will soon have a report on some curry spices lovely wife's cousin sent out. Mmmm curry. Shooting zombies is fun. Free Starz weekends are mostly fun.

Yeah, I'm reaching now.

Oh, almost forgot, Gene Wolfe's An Evil Guest. I liked it up until the end. Then it fell apart for me as, honestly, I've not got a clue what happened. Or what was supposed to be happening. So, umm, yeah. Mostly ok book I guess?

I'm also looking for a decent fantasy themed board game. Welcoming all suggestions. (And donations! Ha!)

Trains, tomes, half breeds

Yeah, that title really doesn't have anything to do with anything. Mostly.

So littlest sis was in town and fun was had. Got to introduce her to the joys that are Jungle Speed and Coloretto. We rode the Heber Creeper and G got to pretend to be the Conductor - got the hat and watch and everything. A picture might be forthcoming. It was a very nice day for the train ride. And that train is warm, left the window open pretty much the whole time. It's also very squeaky.

The Library has recently acquired a few books in what I assume is a new-ish series for the young adult/juvenile crowd. It's called Vampirates. I can only hope their enemies are Ninjombies (Zombinjas?). It's my current new favorite thing. I doubt I'll read them, but the fact that there are Vampirates out there at all is heartwarming.

I am contemplating netbooks. I doubt I'll go so far as to purchase one, but they currently fascinate me.

This weekend will be spent in the time honored tradition of male bonding. Zombies will be shot, movies will be watched (thus far a horror flick and a kung fu western) and food will be consumed (pork loin mmmmmm). I predict a good weekend.

We will now have a moment of silence for poor wife who will have to endure girl time with the daughters. And yet somehow entertain the male child.






I think that's enough.

I've also been thinking about acquiring a portable hard disk type device. Really need to start backing up some of the files on our computer. There's a deal on now for a terabyte drive for $100 shipped. I will probably let this particular one go, but may look into something similar soon.

Short stories in the Cthulhu universe still continue to entertain. As does Gene Wolfe's newest. I think the next thing on the horizon is Drood.

We caught the most recent episode of Reaper. It was amusing. I actually still like that show. Who knew? It's a free Starz weekend, so I shall have to tape some movies. I'm not convinced anything super great is on, but we shall see.

And I think that's enough poking around my random psyche for now. Away with the lot of you.

Short stories and shorter thoughts

I've no idea what I've read since that last post. And it's not been that long. I do know that I started The Cthulhu Cycle a collection of 13 short stories playing around with the Cthulhu mythos in some form or another. Count Magnus by M R James was quite good (and is in the collection as an inspiration - not a straight Cthulhu tale). Apparently he's well known for his ghost stories. I shall have to track down some more of his stories.

Short stories are still probably my favorite sort of story. The author is forced to pare things down in such a way that it's pure distilled story goodness. I suspect that's also why I like essays so much when it comes to non-fiction. It's a little funny, I find the internet and modern media really has done a number on my reading attention span. I really prefer things in short bursts any more. tl;dr indeed... I still enjoy novels and find time to read them, but if it's something that's presented as an article type format, it better be pretty straight to the point. Not got the patience for too much wandering in that sort of thing any more.

I've also started Gene Wolfe's An Evil Guest. I'm finding it rather readable.

Sister-in-law and family welcomed their new baby into the world the other day. A little girl that looks remarkably like her Dad. Poor soul.

Daylight Savings Time is still an evil scourge that must be stopped at all possible costs. I'm far too tired to battle it properly which is how I suspect it maintains its existence. We're all too tired to do anything about it. Curse you Benjamin Franklin.

Oh and littlest sis is apparently in town now. I'm sure games will be played and siblings/relatives will be mocked lovingly cherished. (This is in no way directed at favorite niece. We never tell stories about her. Ever.)

Too much information

Finished mostly read More Information than You Require by John Hodgman (a minor TV personality don'chaknow). I listened to The Areas of My Expertise after he gave it away for free on iTunes. And enjoyed it immensely. I suspect this one might also be better to listen to. The book is a little all over the place when it comes to layout. Who knew that Only Revolutions would be good training for future endeavors? The humor is pretty consistent and the "facts" are, well, I guess "helpful". Overall it was definitely worth perusing and would make a seriously good coffee table/bathroom book. Best read in small doses.

Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale (and others) was also amusing. I got a little tired of the spot the fairy tale mechanic, but the story was fun and the art is nice. It's a twist on, wait for it, Rapunzel that gives a few nods here and there to various versions of the traditional story while still telling something new. Best if you're familiar with fairy tales before reading.

The first book in the 39 Clues series by Rick Riordan (man I've read a lot lately...) is also fun. I don't suspect I'll get into the ARG they've got set up for it, but I do plan on reading the following books. Probably. There's a lot I want to read. And not enough time to read it all in. Anyway, this follows your typical brother/sister team as they try to follow clues that lead to treasure/world changing such and such, yadda yadda yadda. It's well told and quick to read and is fun. And that's really what matters in a series like this. And there are puzzles to solve if you want.

The "Commentary: the Musical" track on Dr Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog is funny. I don't really have anything else to say about it. Oh, the Evil League of Evil Applications were also good. So, yeah, there's stuff worth checking out on the DVD. Aside from the show, which is still awesome.

The Geek World is waiting with baited breath to see if the film version of Watchmen will vindicate them in some fashion or be chalked up as yet another notch in the "You guys are so weird" column. I'm voting the latter. I kind of hope the movie is good (the book is great natch) but I'm really not holding my breath.

Oddly, the kids really got into that first season of Psych. The girls really seem to like mysteries. I think they've read a little Nancy Drew, but probably not as much as one would expect.

And Girl Scout cookies have indeed invaded the house. Evil things that they are.

Some random catching up

Scott Pilgrim 5 is good. And frustrating. But mostly good. The penultimate volume sets things for the final stage and certainly leaves you wishing you had book 6 right now. It's nice to see Scott growing up some. Looks like it's Ramona's turn. Or possibly not.

We finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger did indeed do an amazing job as the Joker. The movie's good as well. Too long, but that seems to be the trend these days. They had a great cast and the plot was fun. I can certainly see the inspiration they took from The Killing Joke. On a Batman related note, the Neil Gaiman Batman story is out and it's awesome so far. Alfred's story is truly a thing of beauty. I liked Selena's as well, but Alfred's was brilliant.

We're winding up Psych season 1 as season 3 just came to a close. Still a great show. Most of the TV we're watching is winding down. Leverage just wrapped up season 1, Burn Notice should be pretty close, I think House is either over or just about over as well. We'll still give Dollhouse a try (in spite of missing episode 2, stupid Fox affiliate) and I think Eureka is about due back as well.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet. Girl Scout cookies are about to take over the house in anticipation of being delivered. And I managed to snag a couple advance reader copies of random things. Sorry littlest sis, still no sign of Hale.

Greater Somalia

Greater Somalia,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Really, I'm not a meme freak. But the ones that let me be creative or sarcastic. Well, ok, I'm a sucker for them. So, dude, we're getting the band back together.

Go start your own band:

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit "random" or click this. The first random Wikipedia article that comes up is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations" or click that. The last four or five words of the very LAST quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on "explore the last seven days" or click here. The third picture in the top row, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use PhotoShop or whatever to put it all together.

So yeah, photo from some person over at flickr. And so on. This was (I think) the second album I threw together, but whatever. It was fun and I'll do it again. Mwa ha ha ha.

As you were.

Recently consumed

Been a bit and we've managed to go through a few new things. So on with that show.

Peeps was great. It's a fun twist on the vampire mythology that bothers to pay its dues (there is no sparkling here people) while offering something new. Every other chapter gives you a lovely look at the parasites that make our world so interesting. Little sis would probably find the discussion of Crohn's interesting. Although I think we talked about it already. At any rate, if you've liked any of Westerfeld's other books, you'll like this one. So far he's batting 1000 for me. I've liked everything of his I've read. He's got a really easy-going style that tends to drag me in.

The Fall is a rather pretty movie that hides a pretty serious story through some really nice visuals. It's the story of a story told by one of the first stuntmen to a little girl. I won't go into more detail than that. But if you run across it, give it a go. You could certainly do worse.

Coloretto is the card game that Zooloretto was loosely based on. Ran across a reasonably priced copy and picked it up. And am very glad I did. We passed a pretty fun weekend playing this and Jungle Speed (which I'll talk about next). It's basically a collection game in which you want to collect more cards of certain colors. There are 7 colors in the game (normally, depending on number of players) and you will get to add points to your score for collecting 3 of them. But you have to deduct points for cards collected in any of the other colors. On your turn you'll either draw a card and place it in a row, or take one of the rows of cards on the table (it's this draw/place or take mechanic that was used in Zooloretto). You get to mess with the other players by placing colors they won't want in rows that they will. Pretty fun. Given the choice between the two Coloretto might come out a little ahead as it's simpler and certainly easier to set up. They're both good though.

The aforementioned Jungle Speed is much like spoons. You place a little wooden idol in the middle of the table, divvy up the cards and then take turns turning them over one by one. When a match is turned over or a special action card shows up you're most likely going to be grabbing for the idol. The trick is the symbols on the cards are very similar in a lot of instances and if you grab at the wrong time you'll be collecting lots of cards. This is bad. You don't want cards. Cards no good. No cards good. This is a great game for a group of friends that will most likely end in bloodshed and tears. And possibly lumps from the wooden idol that you're either throwing at someone or hitting yourself in the head with as you realize you've once again picked it up at the wrong time. Highly recommended. Supposedly there will be an expansion with all new symbols in case you get too good at recognizing the deck it comes with.

Samba de Amigo for the Wii is a port of the old Dreamcast game. You use the remotes as maracas and shake your way through some 40 latin tinged tunes. Shake shake shake... Also highly recommended. This game is great. And will be forever referred to as the "shake shake" game as it is dubbed by G.

And honestly I'm probably forgetting some things. We had a pretty good holiday weekend. Went and visited our friends up in Garland for our annual trip. Much gaming and visiting was had. And the kids managed to get along. I think there were only a few air hockey inspired arguments/accidents. We played some Rock Band along with the other games. As well as some Mario Kart Wii I may need to pick that game up if I can find it cheap. It's growing on me.

In other news, little sis will be having a girl (as mentioned on her blog linked over yonder). She was sorely disappointed, but now she can name her Krystal Pepsi and seek an endorsement. I'm sure Pepsi will go for it.

And, yeah, I think that's about enough for now.

Chrono Leaping

Watched The Girl Who Leapt through Time last night. Aside from having one of the best DVD menus around, the film itself is also quite good. It's an animated film (from Japan, anime yadda yadda) but don't let that get in the way. It's a pretty fun look at that time in your life when you realize that the friend you hang out with might be dating material. And what do you do about it? Do they like me too?! Wait, maybe I don't like them that way! Aaaaaa! That and some great uses of time travel. Including pudding. That's right! Time travel for pudding - there is no greater cause. Admittedly the end is a little lacking in closure, but don't let that spoil it. PUDDING! I cannot stress this enough people.

I'm very close to finishing Peeps. It is great. That is all. For now.

G has acquired a white toy alligator. Or crocodile. I forget which. But it is apparently his new obsession. I guess as long as it's a reptile, it's worth being interested in.

Eagles, Pandas, Race Car Drivers

Took the kids to see the eagles at Farmington Bay (the birds, not the band). Apparently around this time every year the carp die off and the eagles come to feed. Got to see quite a few of them hanging out. Also saw some kestrels hunting. That was pretty neat. They do this hovering thing right before they dive or move to a slightly different spot. It was pretty impressive. Kids had fun and the weather actually co-operated.

Watched Kung Fu Panda and Speed Racer. Both were excellent. Kung Fu Panda was fairly typical, but pretty funny nonetheless. Good cast, nice animation. Definitely worth watching. Speed Racer had some pretty distinct visuals. The first half was up and down, but the last half was pretty great. A little busy, but certainly fun. Much like Tokyo Drift the quality is directly proportional to the amount of time spent in a car. And the ninja fight was great.

Long weekend coming up. That's nice. Long weekends are good.

Ran through The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya again. Love that show.

Been reading some Lovecraft. Makes me want to play Arkham Horror or maybe Call of Cthulhu. I'd really like to try some of those Lovevraft inspired RPG's.

Helped favorite niece come up with a limerick. Used to write those pretty frequently. They're still fun. She had to write far too many poems though. And this from someone that likes poetry. I should really get back into haiku...

25 Flights of Fancy

So there's another dreaded meme running around, spawned from the lower depths of Facebook. A place I refuse to tread. It's one of those "Hey, tell us 25 random facts about yourself" type memes. Boring. As if the internet cares about 25 random facts about you. It's probably far too easy to find that many just using Google. (All apologies to little sis who bothered to succumb to said meme. ^_^)

Anyway, John Scalzi of Whatever and book type fame altered the meme over at his AMC column so that it covered 25 Sci Fi movie facts. This is a good idea. Although I probably can't come up with 25 just using Sci Fi as a medium, so I will probably include some Fantasy, some Horror, eh whatever strikes my fancy.

1. I can't recall the first Sci Fi movie I ever saw. Brain cells don't track that stuff. Same goes for books. And the other mentioned genres.
2. The first Horror movie I ever saw (well the first one that was rated R and was viewed without any sort of parental consent) was most likely My Bloody Valentine. The original. Gave me nightmares.
3. I was afraid to walk to the bathroom at the end of the hall after seeing that movie. I had to go past the stairs. And it was dark. And there were, you know, homicidal maniacs out there ready to get me. And I was maybe 10.
4. There is no number 4. Which is a real answer. I've said too much.
5. Star Wars A New Hope (epsiode 4 if you must) isn't really that good. Loved it when I was a kid. Grew out of it. It's hard to watch now. Sorry my generation.
6. I am secretly afraid to watch The Empire Strikes Back for fear that it isn't as good as I remember either. It was my favorite. It's got to still be good...
7. I suspect I like Alien 3 more than Aliens. I'm not sure where to rank Alien. They're all such different movies.
8. Alien is probably technically better, Aliens is a little more fun to watch. Alien 3 still better than that.
9. Which is very similar to my feelings about 2001 and 2010. The first is an absolutely brilliant piece of film. That's not great to watch. The second is more fun to watch, but not nearly as brilliant.
10. I like The Hobbit far more than The Lord of the Rings.
11. I'm not really alone in that opinion.
12. Dark Star is secretly awesome.
13. The Fantasy Lit class I took in college taught me to love Legend.
14. And mushrooms.
15. I'm becoming not so slowly convinced that Americans have forgotten how to make a good horror film.
16. Zombies > Werewolves > Vampires
17. I'm not convinced CGI has made Sci Fi movies better. Prettier certainly, but not necessarily better.
18. I'm waiting for American animation to realize that we're not all kids any more. Pixar is a good start. Still miles behind Japan though.
19. I'm ... pretty indifferent on the book vs. movie thing. They both have their place. It will probably boil down to how much time I have and which I encountered first. Probably.
20. Eh, who am I kidding, the book is always better.
21. Except when it's not.
22. I spent a weekend at a D&D convention when I was a teenager. I'm not really sure what my parents were thinking. I'm glad they let me go though, it was fun. Throw the Gnome in.
23. Where is my car that drives itself?!
24. I'm pretty good at ignoring plot holes and gaps in scientific reasoning and just enjoying the ride. My suspension of disbelief goes up to 11 baby.
25. Except for Terminator 2. How the hell did the T1000 travel back in time? Should not have happened.

So, yeah, there you go, a walk through my genre memories. Where is Scott Pilgrim 5?!

Fairy Tales

I just finished reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling, her little collection of fairy tales that play a role in Deathly Hollows. It started off a little slow and pedestrian, but by the end there were some fun pieces. I think she tried a little too hard with a couple of the stories to hit the notes that traditional fairy tales hit and point out how fairy tales morph over time and according to audience (through Dumbledore's running commentary), but there were a few that were pretty fun and might have been right at home with the Brothers Grimm.

Fairy tales are interesting little creatures. Mostly because they did morph and change over time. Back when I was in college one of the group papers I had to write dealt with the variations of Cinderella and how it changed. If you've never tracked down the original versions of some of the fairy tales you think you know, you really should. Sex and violence aren't new to prime time TV. It's often interesting to see what Disney did to those old tales (among other storytellers).

I believe there's a new annotated version of The Brothers Grimm running around that's supposed to be pretty good and it tracks some of those changes. Also worth a look.

Mythologies Monsters and possibly other things that start with "M"

I've read the next couple books in the Fall of Cthulhu series recently. Either they're not quite as trippy as the first one was or I've managed to complete the descent into madness required to be comfortable with good ol' Lovecraft's playground. I'll not comment on which scenario is more likely. At any rate, I enjoyed both The Gathering and The Gray Man. It's fun to see people playing in the sandbox Lovecraft started all those years ago. The Cthulhu Mythos is probably one of my favorites second only to some of the Norse myths. I really need to track down a good collection of Lovecraft Cthulhu stories. At any rate, I don't know that I'd recommend this series as a place to start with The Elder Gods and their dealings with us mere mortals, but if you've walked the Dreamlands before, you'll probably get a kick out of another trip.

We've been watching the second season of Psych on DVD over the last couple weeks. I really like that show. And season three is just as fun. I caught one episode of The Mentalist the other week but tend to forget it's on. Fortunately it's not really just a serious version of Psych so it has it's own little charm. And hey, Burn Notice is back as well. All our old friends are back telling new tales.

I've run across a couple websites that deal with world building lately. I suspect that would be a fun, if difficult, pastime. Some of them are D&D based and offer wiki type services and some of them are just guidelines and suggestions. I think it would be interesting to start small with a little town and then look at the world it's a part of. I'm not sure if it's easier to start on the macro or micro level.

G is completely obsessed with Super Smash Brothers Brawl on the Wii. We recently unlocked the Wind Waker version of link and he insists on fighting as little Link. Against me, not against bad guys, because he can't be little Link when we fight bad guys. (He refers to the adventure mode as fighting bad guys) It's amusing if constant.

We have recently gotten a few different items from the local bakery. They are all far too delicious and far too bad for us. But tasty, very tasty. Mousse like icing and cream cheese frosting and, well, you get the idea.

Yeah, I think that about sums it up.

Lost my mind (at Sea)

I forgot to mention I also read Lost at Sea by Bryan Lee O'Malley (of Scott Pilgrim fame). It too is a coming of age story dealing with that transition from High School to the world beyond and the strange creatures we are at the time. It's also an interesting read. Blankets probably comes out ahead, but Lost at Sea isn't really that far behind. This one focuses on a quiet girl whose soul was stolen by a cat and the road trip she suddenly finds herself a part of. So, you know, it's exactly like real life.

So, yeah, reading list lately has dealt with growing up and the horrors joys that that entails. Maybe I should pass some of this along to varying relatives and see if it helps... Unlikely.

And the Merry Go Round Goes Round

I first heard about Blankets by Craig Thompson a few years back. I didn't know too much about it other than it was a graphic novel and dealt with love and issues of faith. Snagged a copy from the Library last night and finally got around to reading it. I can see why it's held in high regard. The art is wonderful and the story is compelling. Your first love is certainly something that leaves its mark on you and Thompson has managed to capture just about everything that goes into that experience. All while dealing with issues about family and growing up and faith and their places in life as you struggle to come to grips with who you are. This is a pretty powerful story that isn't always easy to read. If you wander across a copy give it a go.

Get Smart is a nice little spy comedy that isn't really a Get Smart movie. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway are perfectly cast and could have made that movie, but the writers didn't quite latch on to what made the old TV show so much fun. Again, there's humor here and it's a fun little story, it's just not Maxwell Smart and Agent 99. Although they got it right once or twice. I'd say missed it by that much, but well, would you believe it was a little more than that? And I really like Dwayne Johnson for some reason (The Rock for those of you so inclined).

Rock Band 2 is fun. That is all.

I did re-read Scott Pilgrim 1-4 in anticipation of 5 and I'm a little giddy about the movie they're making. They certainly have a pretty decent cast lined up and the director seems to get it. So that's nice.

Well, that's a nice little catch up in the world of random books and movies. I've managed to actually get some exercise for the last couple weeks, so that's a plus. Wii Fit is growing on me some, although it's still a pretty mild workout. I've thrown some DDR in for variety. We'll see how long I can keep it up.

Brief Elegy

Mom and M,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Siblings have already posted their thoughts. I'm not sure I have a lot to add other than Mom is missed. I can credit her for my love of reading, my hatred of losing and lots of other little things. Few days go by where I don't think of her in some respect.

So here she is playing in the pool with Miranda. They were spinning around when this was taken and Miranda loved every minute of it. Even if the kids didn't like the water, it seemed like they had a good time when Mom was around to help them splash and play. From the little fish toy that swam around the pool to the noodles and just being piggy backed around.

Love you Mom. Go talk to Ricardo Montalban and learn some history from those that were there.

Quick follow up

I meant to include a pithy joke about Shakespeare and roses and sea kittens in yesterday's post. Feel free to make up your own joke and attribute it to me. Thank you.

Save the sea kittens

People for the Eating of Tasty Animals PETA wants to rename fish. I am constantly amazed by the things people come up with in their spare time. Too bad PETA is bonkers. With that imagination they could probably contribute to society somehow. But no, you get sea kittens.

I'm too tired to link you to Twilight School Musical. And it wasn't really that good anyway. Google is your friend internet. This is mostly inspired by the news that Vanessa Hudgens tried out for Twilight 2: Twi Harder, umm Jacob's Full Moon err, New Moon.

The Music Store officially opened for Rock Band 2 on the Wii. So I downloaded a bunch of the free songs and bought one by Muse. I now know why people curse the space situation on the Wii. Fridge is definitely full. Fortunately RB2 lets you store songs on an SD card and will even play them right off the card. This is a Good Thing™. And you ought to check out World of Goo for it is awesome.

That's pretty much it.

Tiny bit of catching up

Dan in Real Life,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Had to make a card for recent favorite comedy. I'll mention again that this is an excellent film. If your heart does not sing with joy by the end, chances are you are destined to become our cruel robot overlord. Which I for one welcome.

Picture came from here.

Who can it be?

The Strangers,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Recently watched The Strangers. Also recently read a forum thread where brief movie summaries were captured in Trading Card form. I am stealing this concept because it is awesome. Quite possibly most of my movie reviews will now take this form. So, as for my thoughts on the movie, see accompanying card. (Hint: it was great in that horror movie way) Oh and the picture came from here. Just to keep the internet honest.

You may have heard tale of a tome of eldritch knowledge. A tome thought to cause madness in those incapable of deciphering its strange texts and references to dice made of angles normal mortals cannot comprehend. The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange is this tome book. I was never as into D&D as the author was, but I could certainly relate to several of the situations he found himself in. As I believe I mentioned before, if you want a look into 80s nerd culture, this is a pretty good start. Chances are you either knew this person or were this person. Liberal doses of humor and good storytelling make this a memoir worth reading. And if you fail to make your save vs reminiscing you may well find yourself picking up a copy of 4th Edition. It really is pretty good...

I can't really be bothered to recap 2008. I'd rather just purge it from system memory and start over. There were certainly some high points (the current job comes to mind) but overall it was a real downer of a year. So we'll simply look forward to 2009 and hope the current weather isn't a forecast for the rest of the year.

Just a quick one

skating,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Favorite G photo at the moment. Just sayin'.

Late to the party - Christmas Edition

Christmas 2008,
originally uploaded by dkun.

So the siblings have pretty much recounted the Christmas happenings. They got the good bits version of the holiday. We got stuck with the travel. I will not speak of it, for doing so will only summon the vile beast that is Airline Travel itself. Suffice it to say I will most likely never fly again, and shall never fly American Airlines again specifically.

As for the good bits version, there was some bowling, some games played (Qwirkle is quite good as is the Catan Dice game), far too much food consumed, and much ribbing of the favorite niece. (That means giving a hard time oh favored relative. See? It continues.)

Santa managed to find the wee bairns (whose photographically stolen souls are displayed for the world to see here) a touch early delivering gifts on Christmas Eve. They were a bit too worn out to fully enjoy such providence, but that's ok, they still had a good time.

At any rate, a good time was had by all. I especially enjoyed the nifty photo book sister "J" put together for us featuring pictures of Mom. That and she makes a good cup of cocoa! Home made whip cream. Yum.

Books have been consumed, notably the fourth Percy Jackson story Battle of the Labyrinth and Uglies. Both were quite good. (And still in the YA vein, hmm...) Also read through The Fall of Cthulhu Book One: The Fugue. That's one trippy story. Even by Cthulhu standards.

Lovely wife almost escaped having to suffer through Twilight, but cruel siblings forced it on her the night before we left. Poor soul.

Thanks to Dad and family for a nice time. Hopefully it will be a touch longer next time. And not bookended by the eye gouge inspiring torment known as air travel.

Both Sides the Tweed

I'm not a big fan of memes. This one piqued my curiosity though. So you have to suffer through it. Mwa ha ha ha. Oh and in the interests of full disclosure, I did skip one track as it was an untitled Japanese track from Serial Experiments Lain. Sorry about that internet.

Da Rules:
1. Put your iPod (or MP3 player, or iTunes) on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag others, if so desired.

Da Meme:
IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles
Magic 8 ball confused, ask again later. Alternately, this is very zen, go listen to the sound of one hand clapping and contemplate the futility of knowing if something is indeed, "OKAY"

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Sprite - Melonball Bounce, Raymond Scott
Apparently dropped on my head a touch too much...

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
See the Sun, Dido
Well. Really. This is not that sort of blog. Normally.

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Washington, D.C., The Magnetic Fields
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ahem. Sorry 'bout that.

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
I'll Find My Way Home, Vangelis
Strangely, I'll take this one. I'm pretty sure it was in my last fortune cookie.

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Into a Dream III, His and Her Circumstances - Act 1.0
Oh letter 'd', you're so dreamy. You're straight out of Twilight.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Dirt Bike, TMBG
Curse you iTunes for illuminating my secret passions! it's so true... I think I'd like to be alone for a moment. Leave the dirt bike.

WHAT IS 2+2?
Love is, Kenny Loggins
Apparently iTunes thinks I'm a swinger now.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Starting Up, Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack
I... I don't know what to make of this. Although he does change places of employment quite often.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Sympathy for the Devil, the Rolling Stones
I always knew the Devil was a woman. And from the D.C. area...

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Alien Mind Bender, Pliant
I'm not sure anyone would argue with this. Least of all me.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Katamaritaino, Hideki Tobeta, Yui Asaka
Sou desu ne.

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
State of Independence, Vangelis
Hee hee. <snicker> Bwa ha ha ha ha. This is spot on. (Sorry slacker siblings)

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Armogohma (First Storm), Zelda Reorchestrated (Twilight Princess)
And now is the time when we dance the ceremonial, ah heck forget it.

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones
Oh I'll be satisfied. Actually, this is strangely appropriate as well.

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Cut Flowers, Smithereens
Oh iTunes, must you continue to shine light on my secrets? Oh ikebana how I adore you.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Dialogue 2-8, Cowboy Bebop CD Box Set
That's what she said.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Cherry Blossom Color Season, Yu Miyake, Katamari Company Jr.
So pretty. So lively. So what the heck is going on here?

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Jenova Returns (J-E-N-O-V-A ~ Jenova Complete), Steffan Andrews
This is true. This is the worst possible thing that could happen. Damn you Jenova!

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
End Credits, John Murphy (28 Days Later Soundtrack)
Couldn't have said it better myself. And I knew it would be zombies.

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Runners High, The Pillows
Also strangely true. Exercise, my deepest regret...

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Caribbean Blue, Enya
When they installed that Genius feature in iTunes they weren't kidding around were they?

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Re: Your Brains, Jonathan Coulton
Hee hee hee. Oh and zombies again.

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
99 Red Balloons, Goldfinger
Apparently when I'm the last man on earth. Go Apocalypse. Sorry honey.

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Kansas City / Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!, The Beatles
iTunes has been to Kansas. So true.

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Papa Was a Rodeo, The Magnetic Fields
I... I have nothing to say here. Move along.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Treasure Every Meeting, His and Her Circumstances - Act 1.0
Apparently I was my own Grandfather. This explains a lot.

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Hyrule Castle Soundscape, Zelda Reorchestrated: Soundscapes Vol. 1
... Your Princess is in another castle Mario. And another game for that matter.

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Both Sides The Tweed, Mary Black
Done and Done.

Before I Forget

This is probably as much Twilight as I can take.

And they totally fired Jacob. And the director. And the new director is the guy that helped direct American Pie. And The Golden Compass. You guys are screwed. Bwa ha ha ha ha.

Melancholy is Fun

I've been looking forward to seeing The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya for quite some time. I requested it at the Library and it showed up last week. So we spent part of the weekend watching the series. It was brilliant. If you have any tolerance for/interest in anime this is one worth checking out. It follows Kyon (see Sis there's a K name - that you shouldn't use) a normal High School student whose life gets turned upside down by one Haruhi Suzumiya. She's on the lookout for aliens, time travelers and espers (psychics for you non Japanese folks). And poor Kyon gets dragged along for the ride. What follows is a tongue in cheek look at anime cliches served with lots of humor and some seriously snarky inner dialogue. I could watch this over and over. And I just might. It's a little FLCL a little Excel Saga and a lot awesome. And the opening and ending themes are great. Hit youtube and check out some of the dance numbers put together for Hare Hare Yukai.

In other news Hikaru no Go volume 13 was fun to flip through.

And the weekend draws nigh. As does Christmas and the end of the year. Where has this year gone? Although in a lot of ways I'm pretty glad to see it go.

Partially for my Uncle

First, I finished Death from the Skies and it was great. It seems to me that boys go through some distinct phases growing up. First there are Dinosaurs (G says Raaarrr!) and then there's Astronomy. This book rekindled quite a bit of my old love for Astronomy. Never mind that the book focuses on the destruction of the Earth a dozen or so times. Death by Asteroid! Death by solar flare! Death by black hole! They're all great. Well, ok, horrific, but you get the idea. The science is always at a manageable level and if you like sci fi apocalyptic tales, it's nice to see what might really happen. So give Death a chance.

Oddly, speaking of growing up male, that brings me to my current book: The Elfish Gene (another one with a subtitle I can't be bothered to type up). If you played D&D or knew someone that played D&D I suspect this book will bring back memories, fond or otherwise. It might also help you understand that poor creature that was the nerd in the 80s. I'm not very far in, but I can already tell this will be a great book.

My own sordid past with D&D all starts with my Uncle Paul. I still have fond memories of the old red box and the hours of fun it led to. I also remember pestering him to let me fight a Dragon with my brand new magic user. The death my poor character received at the hands of the foul beast was one I still treasure. My Uncle probably still rolls his eyes at the thought of some young kid with magic missile and an obvious death wish.

And if that last paragraph made any sense to you at all, you really need to read The Elfish Gene.

In (mocking) Twilight news, they fired the director of the film as they gear up for the sequel. And it also sounds like they fired the actor that plays Jacob. The werewolf. That's not a werewolf. Because in a movie about vampires that are not vampires, you better have werewolves that are not werewolves. Has the last decade of bad fantasy cinema taught you nothing? At least you can rest assured there will be no leather clad heroine in the Twilight sequel. That would just lead to impure thoughts and we know nobody in that series has those...

Christmas fast approaches. Which means I will have to brave airline travel. I don't think I'm ready for that. Trip to see the family notwithstanding. I hate airports.

If you're not watching Leverage on TNT on Tuesday nights you should be. And the Librarian movies were pretty good too. I only caught most of the second and the third, but (go figure) our Library carries them so we'll be watching the first two on DVD. They're a little National Treasure, a little Indiana Jones, a lot The Mummy, but it works. Although Noah Wyle is no Brendan Fraser. It was funny seeing Gabrielle Anwar in the second one. Glad to see she's still working (Burn Notice!) I liked her quite a bit in 80s/90s. Whenever that silly Invasion of the Body Snatchers re-telling came out. That and If Looks Could Kill with that Grieco kid. I think she was in that.

Well, that's quite the bit of rambling. I should point out at this point that Blue Moon does look to be rather fun, especially once you're familiar with the cards. It does look like there's a learning curve there, but I think it will be worth it. Also, I managed to collect all 120 stars as Luigi in Super Mario Galaxy. I won't comment on what kind of a geek/nerd that makes me. Did you not read the beginning of this post?

For my sisters (in insincerity)

Here you go. It's like a car wreck, actually, more to the point, it's like a bad relationship. I can't help but mock my poor sisters' love for Tryharderlight (and feed that addiction so I can then mock it some more). If I were feeling really abusive, I'd link to all the articles decrying the series as a step back for women's rights by something on the order of 50 years or so. But I won't, I'm not that mean. At the moment.

Mostly I'm just glad it's the weekend. And I can sleep. All weekend. Hopefully after the next 48 hours this stupid head cold will be gone. And I can return to the land of the living.

Head full of cheese

While the normal human head may weigh about 8 lbs or so, I'm pretty sure mine is clocking in at about 15. I really dislike sinus infections. From the way everything acts like a slow-mo action shot to that slight sore throat to the aforementioned hefty head full of snot, they're not fun. And don't get my wife started on the snoring. Ear plugs indeed...

In other news, G has caught the Star Wars bug. He's been playing through Lego Star Wars (or Star Wars the Clone Wars as he insists on calling it as everything SW related must be named after the show on Cartoon Network) with either my wife or I (depending on who he can con into it at the moment) and having a grand old time. Apparently he finished the game (a feat I myself have not yet managed) and decided that the movies had to be consumed next. I told lovely wife that he could only watch the first one without me. For Star Wars movies are an ancient male bonding ritual and he's not allowed to watch them the first time without me. Or there will be hell to pay. (Apparently the viewing of Ep 4 this afternoon was accompanied by much light saber wielding, toy x wing flying and "hey that was in the game! I remember that!" commentary.) Now to find a way to get that really cool Lego Millennium Falcon... Hmm....

Picked up Blue Moon courtesy of Father-in-Law for my birthday. Will report back on how it is. Looking forward to it as we really enjoy Blue Moon City.

The Graveyard Book and Death from the Skies are still being consumed. I'm going to run out of patience to read long before things to read... Although they may take a backseat to Zombies: A Field Guide to the Living Dead which is lurking on the hold shelf for me. That plus some Rolling Stones, gotta catch up on my classic rock yo.

It needs to snow. That is all.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go use my head for a paperweight.

Insert Post Title #42

Been a while. Kept meaning to jot some things down closer to Thanksgiving and just ended up ... not. Thanksgiving itself went fine. Food was good. Company was fine. Gratitude was expressed.

It was the first year in quite a few that I didn't have the whole week off. It will probably be another couple before I can attempt to do it again. Silly new job and resetting my vacation time... Oh well. Friday was pretty quiet, so that was nice.

Listened to a couple 5 Browns CDs to see what all the fuss over at sisters' blogs was about. Nice piano music. They're probably more fun to see live. It's ok to listen to, but mostly it's just nice piano music.

Read through the Old Boy graphic novels. Mostly as I'd heard Spielberg was going to do the movie based more on them as opposed to the extremely trippy and US unfriendly Korean film. The graphic novels were decent and certainly less disturbing than the film, so that's something I guess.

Snagged a couple DS games for my birthday (thanks Dad). They've been pretty fun so far. Avoided Black Friday due to working and real lack of anything worth fighting for. Although a couple of the HDTV's sounded nice. Sounds like Dad and Jen had a decent showing.

Other than that, not too much earth shattering stuff to comment on. Star Wars themed Robot Chicken episodes were hilarious.

Steampunk and other odds and ends

Finished up Starcross and it's genre-riffic subtitle the other day. It's the second in a series (Larklight was the first and I believe Mothstorm just came out) of Steampunk novels in which our heroes have adventures and save the world. All while extolling the virtues of the good ol' Victorian era. Huzzah! Not sure why I've been on such a YA reading kick lately. But there you go. It was a fun read and is another one that won't take much time to read through. Lots of twists and turns and yarn.

I must take a moment to point out that the book I'm currently reading (Death from the Skies: These are the Ways the World Will End) is truly awesome. It's written by an astronomer and details what would really happen if all of those sci-fi, astronomical, world-ending scenarios came to be. Truly brilliant. And funny. Go give it a look. There's plenty of humor and the science is aimed firmly at the lay audience, so there's very little pesky math to be muddled through.

Fall is coming to an end and I suppose and that's a good thing. Tired of leaves on the ground. Ready for some snow and some cold weather. It's been cold enough in the mornings, but strangely warm in the afternoons. Or at least it seems that way.

Sock animals have taken over the house. Pigs, cats, totoro. (Totorii?) I am amused by that. Most of them fall in the disturbingly cute camp, but you'll find a mutant here or there.

Speaking of mutants, the world can finally shut up about Twilight after this weekend. It will have its one big box office weekend and then we can all go about ignoring it and living our lives again. It will be nice, he thought giddily, while typing furiously and glittering in the afternoon sunlight. See I've read the book... Well, ok enough to know that Meyer should be brought up on abuse of adverbs. Early reviews are coming in and they're mostly positive (if you ignore the "vampire" content and see it for what it really is - tween romance chick flick) while knocking Edward. And really after seeing that trailer, who thought he was a good idea?

Guess I'll need a new passtime.

Books and sock animals

piggy,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Finished The Magic Thief the other day. Great book. Young adult story about, wait for it, a thief who learns to be a magician. Clever eh? It's a fun little story that I look forward to seeing followed up. Easily read in a day or so. Give it a try if you like YA adventure stories.

One of the other books we got from the Library was on sock animals. You can see McK's pig here. Lovely wife is currently working on a Totoro for moi. (Note to favorite niece, that means "me" in French. That's the language of France. It's a place where French people live. Also, French can be a salad dressing. (Although not a very good one.) At any rate. Relatives may discover sock animals under the tree at Christmas. For they are cute.

Snagged Mega Man III on the Virtual console the other day. And Secret of Mana. Mega Man III is an exercise in old school platform torture. Oddly enough I'm finding that strangely compelling. And G thinks it's great. Weird. Secret of Mana is a 1-3 player RPG from Yore (the time period, not a company. Squaresoft made the game). Should be good. Look forward to torturing lovely wife and kids with it. (Strangely Super Mario Galaxy has come back into vogue as well. I've actually gotten quite a few stars with Luigi. It's a pretty great game.)

Spaced is an humorous British comedy. Lots of geeky pop culture references. And Simon Pegg.

Ladron Que Roba a Ladron was a fun Spanish heist comedy. Also recommended if you run across it. I enjoy a good caper flick and this one didn't disappoint. Favorite niece should watch it. In Spanish. With subtitles. And then send me a report on the effects of Infommercials on Immigrants and other subsistence communities.

Well. I think that's enough of a catch up for now. Go watch the new Harry Potter trailer. It's far more interesting.

Cinema Paradiso

Have watched several movies in the last few days and several more in the wings.

Constantine is good. I can't really explain why, but I enjoy it thoroughly. Nice little action/horror type movie. Catch it on FX they show it a lot.

21 was really good for the first 2/3rds or so and then devolved into horribly predictable boring-ness. Which is a shame. I wonder if the book is any better? Or the actual story it's based on. It would be interesting to see if the guy's life actually followed tired Hollywood plotline #31.

Dan in Real Life, however, was amazing. Truly great movie. It made lovely wife cry for somewhat unrelated reasons, but I can understand where she's coming from. Steve Carrel did a great job and I suspect he's in some ways similar to Jim Carrey in that he's a better actor when the comedy is understated and the role is more serious. The best part of this movie is that the characters were all real people, they captured the family dynamic perfectly. I spent the first 10 minutes wondering if I'd actually be able to watch the show as the conflict between the father and his daughters was a little too close to home. I think I'll take a nice 10 year vacation while the girls go through their teenage years. Yikes... See this movie.

Twilight mocking is still in full force here. My favorite piece of news is that the books are badly written versions of whatever Bella happens to be reading in High School that year. Seriously? How some people get published boggles the mind. I don't mind retellings, I'm reading one right now - The Graveyard Book is Neil Gaiman's take on The Jungle Book, but it has good writing and an original twist on the source material. Twilight offers, well, sparkles I guess. Although if you're going to have a vampire story, you might want to actually have some vampires in it... Just sayin'. Oh and this and that. I'd link to the Twilight drinking game, but you can only shoot so many fish in the barrel...

So on to more random movie viewings. A Spanish heist/caper film, another horror movie, British sitcom featuring Simon Pegg. Typical goodness.

Jumbled thoughts

Finished reading Ring by Koji Suzuki (note to sister, translated from the Japanese), the book the movie was based on. I think the book came first. Heck even with the vast power of the internet a click away I don't care that much. Anyway, good book. It's interesting to see the slight differences. The movie follows the book pretty well and I don't think they made any significant changes. Well, ok I suppose there's one big change (no creepy Japanese ghost girl climbing out of TV sets in the book, shocking I know!) but other than that things were pretty close. Couple gender switches, some age changes, that sort of thing.

Honestly this is probably one instance where it is a slightly more effective movie than book. The visual images of the videotape are better actually, you know, viewed as opposed to read about. Although there was a nice little twist with the nature of the tape that was only sort of touched on in the movie. So if you liked the movie, I'd say give the book a shot. I'm going to have to track down the sequels now. I saw one of them just the other day on one of the trucks.

Watched 3:10 to Yuma again. Still enjoy that movie. Although the beginning was a little slower than I remembered. Ending is still pretty good though.

Election happened. That's really about all I have to say about that. There were no surprises at the outcome, and no really joy/dismay. Yay, we elected a politician. I really can't muster much enthusiasm about that.

Seems like there have been other happenings going on, but I really can't recall. We had some snow that made the commute a living nightmare. Driving downtown in stop and go traffic is an exercise in sheer physical pain. At least I have my iPod and an automatic now. Otherwise I'd be reaching for a slightly different automatic...

I want some more Chocolate Monkey Bread...

And some fries. And maybe a steak... Oddly, yes there is an article about the best steaks in Vegas nearby... Mmm steak.

RIP Michael Crichton

Huh, that was unexpected. While not as big a fan of his most recent stuff, his earlier stuff was brilliant. He will be missed.

November

October has been vanquished in a series of trick or treaters and sugar highs. Kids had fun dressing up and now we move on.

G had a pretty good birthday. Lots of dinosaurs, some fish, popup castles, and a couple Mariokart R/C cars. That finally work. And are admittedly pretty fun, if not the best construction.

Made some Chocolate Monkey Bread for breakfast. It was very yummy. I highly recommend it. It's worth the effort to make. Mmmm monkey bread...

So. There are (for the purposes of this post) 2 kinds of Westerns. The action-y kind (think classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti) and the sprawling, slow paced kind. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (and a title that's too long) is the second kind. It's a beautiful piece of work, no doubt. But exciting gun-slinging Western it is not. Which is fine. There's room for both, but if you want the first, look elsewhere. I'd really like to know how much of this story was true. It's apparently based on a book. It is an interesting show in some ways, and the cinematography really is gorgeous.

Currently devouring the second Library Edition Hellboy volume. It's wonderful.

The Host was on G4 last night. Taped it. If you've not seen it, it's a decent Giant Monster movie. Still have a few more Horror movies to make our way through. Silly patrons checking out the movies I want to see.

OMG1!11!!! Teh Sexxxy Vamp1res!!!111!

So. I watched the Twilight trailer. Not only am I not the demographic for this movie, I'm sad there is a demographic for this movie. If that dialogue were any more stilted they'd need circus performers for actors. The Pain! Make it go away. And who cast these people? And then attempted to do hair and makeup? I'd think it was the aforementioned circus troop, except they'd probably do a better job. Just wow...

Finished reading Blindness. Didn't really care for it. There were some interesting ideas that were pretty much invalidated by some bizarre who are these people choices. I don't think real people would react in those ways and it really derailed a lot of the story. Which is too bad as it was a pretty interesting idea. The writing style was mostly ok, although it did make things a little hard to follow. So yeah, move along, nothing to see. Heh.

Flipping through a book on Coin Tricks at the moment. Think I'll try and learn some. I miss magic. It's fun to have a couple tricks to show off on occasion. I still remember a card trick or two from when I was younger. They come in handy once in a while.

Also going to try and tackle Ring by Koji Suzuki. Book they based the movies on. I liked the movies. Both versions actually. They work a little differently, but are both effective. Halloween is far too soon...

Defending Food

Finished reading In Defense of Food the other day. It's the sequel to Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Another worthwhile read, and in some ways a slightly better one. This time round he focuses on what we should eat and in some cases how. The most useful section is probably the last third, but the entire book is fascinating.

Here are a couple eating rules to live by:

Don't eat anything with more than five ingredients.
Don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce.
Don't eat anything with an ingredient you don't recognize.
Shop around the periphery of the supermarket.
Don't eat anything that doesn't spoil (i.e. Twinkies).

Like I said, it's an interesting book.

The horror movie viewing has been continuing. We took in The Last Winter the other day. Probably the first Eco horror movie I've seen. The planet is angry. This one was fun in that it's another case where they build up the psychological tension as opposed to going for the gore or the cheap thrill. Those really are the best kinds of horror movies. The plot is a little all over the place and the ending is rather abrupt, but it was an interesting movie.

Honestly it's hard to tell what we've seen and done recently. The one drawback to working at the Library is that they have a pretty impressive collection. And I've had a lot of things show up that I'd put on hold lately. So we're a little swamped. A couple Westerns, some Horror, a WWII flick, I can't even remember what else. And that doesn't take into account the TV show, or actual broadcast TV. (Just a note, I really prefer TV on DVD. No commercials and your own viewing schedule FTW.)

Wil Wheaton's blog has been pretty interesting of late.

Hmm, what else. Birthday alley is in full swing. A couple of in-law birthdays over the course of this week and a couple weeks out. G's birthday is soon. Christmas. Ah the expensive time of year.

Well, this has been a decent catch up post. Maybe I'll do this over the weekend... And maybe next time I can find something interesting to talk about... Probably not.

Trying to gather my thoughts

And failing miserably.

First, The Orphanage is great. It's a nice horror film that uses atmosphere and characterization to really great effect. If you're looking for a good scary movie for Halloween, don't let the subtitles scare you. Watch this one.

Second, this makes me hungry.

Third, this is an interesting political diversion. See which candidate matches your priorities. Needs more questions, but it's interesting to play with.

We've managed to catch up some on horror movie viewing. Season 2 of Dexter is fun so far.

I'm still reading Blindness. It's a rather disturbing little civilization falls apart story.

Again with the one sentence paragraphs. Oh well, my brain really isn't capable of stringing together complex thoughts at the moment.

I ended up giving the Girl Scouts the Library tour this morning. There was a mixup in the Children's Department and I guess they had them scheduled earlier. Since I had stopped by to say hi to the girls, I ended up giving them the tour. McK and M seemed to enjoy themselves.

Sounds like we might be getting a piano from lovely wife's Mom. She can't use it any more and she's wanting to make some space in her apartment, so we may snag it. That will be nice. I like pianos. Although I've completely forgotten how to play...

Celebrated lovely wife's birthday this past week. Party went fine. Games were played, brownies were eaten, Republicans were mocked. All in all a success I'd say.

So yeah. That's about all I've got.

Around the net

Stealing a title from G4 and a concept from every other blog on the planet. Have some links:

For my sisters: Shannon Hale's blog. Recently she's been talking about an author's responsibility for the moral a reader gets from their work. I disagree with a couple of her points, possibly on technicalities, but qualifies as interesting.

Engineer humor. This one's for you Dad. Heh. I need me one of them.

Sci-fi. Death scenes. Countdown list. You know you want to click.

Fake Twitter feeds anyone? I'ma gonna check out Bad Horse for sure.

100 skills you should know. If you're a guy. Or something. I dunno, I stopped reading.

Need to put the kids to bed. Clean up when you're done with the internet. It's a mess. Links everywhere. Kids these days...

Some thoughts on writing and other fish in the sea

I've started reading Blindness by José Saramago (it's currently a film starring Julianne Moore and some other people). This has caused me to think a little bit about writing styles, partially as the book has been translated from Portuguese (I believe) and partially as there are some interesting stylistic choices. The book is, in a lot of ways, mostly dialogue but it uses its own method to convey the conversations. There are no quotation marks, no paragraphs breaks, no he said/she saids. Changes in speaker/thought are separated by commas within the same sentence.

This produces, for me, a strange - almost noisy - quick-paced rhythm in my reading. It's very different. Coupled with either an artifact of the translation process or a strange word style, reading Blindness is a cross between an interesting experience and a somewhat painful one. It's like there's a hum in the background due to the way the words flow and the effort required to keep track of what's going on.

Writers have been playing with style forever. Joyce and stream of consciousness narrative, ee cummings and the birth of texting, Danielewski and games with narrators and footnotes. Things that either make English teachers jump for joy or cry bitter, bitter tears. Personally I find it interesting if occasionally eye-rolling worthy. Not every experiment is a grand success. It will be interesting to see if I stick with Blindness. I certainly find the story interesting, it's just a question of whether the style gets in the way of that or really does help. And ultimately, again for me, that's what makes any of these experiments successes or failures. Does the style choice help the story or get in the way of it. Terribly conclusive I know.

Have caught a couple horror movies to usher in October. Part of something truly awful (and thus great) called Madman. A nice 80's slasher called The Burning (featuring a young Jason Alexander of all things). I think we may have to throw April Fool's Day into the mix for nostalgia's sake. And I might just have to venture forth into The Shining territory again. Here be dragons.

Paprika proves that Satoshi Kon is an Artist. (And yes, please to note the capital A) I liked the film for a few reasons, but boy is it out there. Apparently it's based on a novel. See previous commentary on writing styles. It was like a cross between Dreamscape and an artsy foreign flick. Oh wait. It was a cross between Dreamscape and an artsy foreign flick. Convenient.

Saw a bit of Drunken Master as well. It was funny. I miss good Jackie Chan movies.

Oh and here's the Geek Alphabet. Just sayin'.

October

I'm strangely drawn to this site. Mostly as I can build a playlist of just about anything. The Pillows! Jonathan Coulton! Weird Al! Go nuts internet. And seriously, listen to The Pillows. Don't let the Japanese scare you. Serious rock.

Speaking of serious rock, AC/DC track pack coming up for Rock Band 2. Thunderstruck. The only real problem is that nobody sounds like the lead singer of AC/DC. But the drums and guitar...

Fringe is slowly growing on me. It does scratch that X Files itch.

Run Fatboy Run was Simon Pegg goodness. And sweet. And funny. I should really say something else so my paragraphs are longer than a sentence. Simon Pegg is my Hollywood best friend. We would hang out if we knew each other. Totally. And much hilarity would ensue.

I may have to go watch The Graveyard Book as my copy is probably sitting in a box at the Library. I wants it.

Oh right, October. While not my favorite month this does mark the beginning of my favorite time of year. September just pretends. October typically delivers. Plus I can force my horror movie tastes on poor wife as, hey, October. And scary games and scary books and scary candy. Really. Have you seen how much HFCS is in that stuff? And you want to know what they say about it you stupid corn industry commercials? How about you can't eat it in moderation because it's in EVERYTHING?! How about it's so evil it convinces your body that you're not full. It's totally ok to eat more. How about there's no way it's a "natural" substance considering the amount of technical wizardry needed to produce it (which I'm pretty sure you don't allow anyone to see...) Sorry. Soapbox put away.

But yes, October is nice. Cooler temperatures start to be the norm and there's a nice shift to fall sensibility.

Mmmm burger

Tonight's How I Met Your Mother was pure distilled truth. And funny. Alas, I don't know that I can claim to have such a burger place in my memory banks, but burgers are serious business and there is nothing more vital than the best burger. One day, it will be my cheeseburger. One day.

RIP Paul Newman

Wow. I have nothing to say. Sad news. Hope Mom gets to meet him.

Killing time

The lovely wife is trying to kill a few brain cells watching Smallville. I suspect she'll kill more than a few. So in my own attempt to kill a few brain cells I've turn to the intarwebs and you lot. I'm pretty sure the wife will lose more brain cells, but it will be close.

Alas, the series of tubes isn't really humming today. I suppose there are a few distractions. I'm listening the ambient music mix from Magnatune and I poked around over at Whatever. Both of moderate interest.

Grilled up some brats for dinner. Have recently run across a few different interesting recipes. One of my coworkers pointed me to a deep chocolate pound cake recipe in the latest issue of Bon Appetit (I think). It sounds delightful. I'm not sure why I've run across a couple different chocolate cake recipes lately, but yum. And then there was the Hellfire Steak recipe in some grilling book or other. I forget the title. How to Grill or something like that.

Caught the last 10 minutes of The Wedding Singer. Billy Idol makes that movie. I want to listen to the soundtracks now...

Sounds like favorite niece is recovering from Appendicide. Have I mentioned lately that I love favorite niece? I'm pretty sure that the AMA will soon adopt the term Appendicide. And if they don't they should. (And on a slightly related note, apparently you have to have your head shaved for Appendicide. At least according to slightly evil little sister to aforementioned niece. Heh.)

Well, that's all I've got for now. Oh so thrilling. I shall go poke around the wilds of the internets and maybe something will strike my interest.

Inspired by true events

Ran across this on the internets today and thought that it was only so so. So I feel compelled to try and come up with my own list of geek wife trials. I am sure this will fail horribly.

1. Realizing that there are too many days celebrated in Geek Culture. (Talk like a Pirate Day? Pi day? Who makes these things up?)

2. That sinking feeling that comes from the knowledge that the tech gadget he just came home with will be replaced by a shinier version we just have to have exactly 2 seconds after he left the store with the now horribly out of date item.

3. Comic book movies. Except for Spiderman. He can wrap me in his web any day.

4. Why are there dice with more than 6 sides? And why do we have so many of them? And why do I know that there are 4 Editions of Dungeons and Dragons?

5. Why am I sacrificing valuable closet space to board games? I could have shoes. Or storage space.

6. Children that wander around clamoring for Braaaains. Ok, that's pretty funny. But the fact that my 4 year old knows more about zombies than your average human being is stretching things a little bit.

7. Plastic instruments. I don't care if the game is fun and I have a good time playing it. I want my house back and I'm not running a plastic garage band. And don't get me started on the bongos.

8. Why does my favorite t-shirt have a robot dressed as a green dog on it? And why do I suddenly crave tacos? Or cheese?

9. What do Tina Fey and Felicia Day have that I don't? And why do I know what the Evil League of Evil is?

10. Why are the kids reading books that did not originate in this country? And watching TV shows also not from this country? Any future therapy bills are so coming out of his toy budget. And I don't want to talk about the toy budget.

Eh. Needs a little work. And some wasabi. But it's a start. Celebrated the letter r's birthday a little early the other day and gave him Yestisburg. You know, Gettysburg with Yetis. In a card game. It was fun. And the instruction booklet was hilarious. I may also have to try my hand at letters sent from Yetisburg.

And how about that Eureka season finale? That was a bit of a downer for a cliffhanger. I'm a little on the glad side that Psych, Burn Notice and Eureka are taking breaks, but I am certainly interested in picking them back up again. I kind of like this short season twice thing. And I like the PI on House (and Felicia Day was on as well...).

Couple of books

Finished Soon I will be Invincible and it was great. Fun superhero story that hits all the right notes. It touches on most of the clichés found in superhero stories and tweaks them just enough that it's a fresh read. Plus it leaves you wanting to know what happens next time. It is a little frustrating in that it's so much easier to make compelling villains. You always find yourself rooting for the bad guy that never wins. There are a couple decent good guys in the story, but it also touches on just how boring they can be or how they're really not that different from the bad guys. That's actually one of the more fascinating aspects to superhero stories - how the heroes and villains are really two sides of the same coin and all it really takes is a shift in lighting to make them switch sides.

Also finished Only Revolutions (Only Revolutions? Only Revolutions? Maybe Only Revolutions? Ok enough Danielewski nods for now.) The fact that I finished it about a week or so ago and haven't said anything is its own sort of commentary. Whether it's about my blogging or the story I leave to you. It was certainly interesting. And it grew on me, but it was no House of Leaves. I did find it a truly mindbending piece of fiction. Danielewski is either brilliant or someone with far too much time on their hands. Quite possibly both. Rest assured you don't really need to check this one out.

I'm looking forward to Neil Gaiman's new one, The Graveyard Book. Soon...

Well, must go, kids are clamoring to go play Rock Band at the neighbors. I will not comment on where I fit in that spectrum.

Notes about nothing

I've been meaning to jot some random stuff down for a couple days now, but not really had time. So go play with Wordle. It will probably be more interesting.

We've been watching the HBO series John Adams that was based on the book by McCullough. It's been pretty interesting. The Revolutionary War has been somewhat fascinating to me of late. I read 1776 a while back and this has been another interesting look at that time period. It's definitely pretty amazing that this country ever got started when you look at how things were. The Civil War is also pretty interesting. I may have to watch Gettysburg. I read the book that one was based on and remember finding it compelling as well.

We watched most of the first season of Case Closed, but ran out of time to finish the last handful of episodes. Need to check it out again. Fun little anime series involving mysteries. It makes me want to read more of the Kindaichi Case Files. Fortunately the Library has a bunch of those as well, so once I finish Death Note that's probably next. Speaking of which, I'm almost through that series. It's definitely been interesting. Strange little series that it is.

Played some Lost Cities (it'll pop up on the right there at some point) with McK the other day. She still needs some work as a gamer. We'll get her whipped into shape. Hone those tactical skills.

Just as a note, G's favorite color is T Rex.

And apparently M is going to be a writer. They were evaluating reading skills the other day and she felt compelled to tell her teacher what should happen in the sequel to the book they were using for the test. Her teacher apparently has never had that happen before.

Caught the new trailer for Quantum of Solace, the new Bond flick. Daniel Craig is still the man. Looks really good. I really like the reboot of that series. It's better a little more grounded in reality. The characters are a little grittier, not quite so cartoonish. Good stuff.

We get a lot of cooking magazines at the Library. I have snagged a few recipes of late. Will let you know if there are any good ones. There's a really yummy sounding chili recipe. And a curry recipe and one for asparagus and another for mushroom soup and... mmm recipes. Oh and Bake or Break has a delightful looking chocolate cake recipe up at the moment.