random noise

The Grudge 2 is an enjoyable flick. There's not much new there (if you've seen the original), but it still does a good job of presenting a creepy story in a disjointed fashion. That's probably the most interesting aspect - trying to figure out what's happening when and to whom. There are a couple pretty good eerie scenes, so all was worthwhile. Plus it had a trailer for The Messengers which looks incredible. Good ol' Pang Brothers.

I finished House of Leaves. Truly interesting book. Some genuine freakout moments and a narrative that is pretty unique. I certainly don't claim to understand all of it. Or probably even most of it. But it was fun to read and that counts for a lot.

Did I mention that I finally finished 1776 as well? Also a good read. It's a wonder we ever won the Revolutionary War...

Anyway, that'll do for some random bits from a life with far too much stress in it at the moment.

Just so you know

Not quite dead, but not posting either. Currently House of Leaves by Danielewski is taking up much of my time. Strange, strange book. But pretty interesting as well. And Clint Eastwood is probably my current favorite actor/director type guy. I've been watching some of his older stuff and it's brilliant. So there.

The Descent

This is just a quick post to say that The Descent is indeed a great, tense horror flick. Even my wife enjoyed this one. It plays out in not quite three acts each focusing on slightly different aspects. You have the initial character setup (with some really nice shock and mood building segments), the initial cave sequence that is quite tense in its own right, and the final everything's gone to hell arc. And for those of us on this side of the pond, YouTube has the original British ending of the film. I'm not certain which I like better, they're both powerful in their own ways.

At any rate, go give it a gander.

Thoughts on podcasts

So, Pseudopod has launched. Relatively decent first story. I've noticed that a lot of the podcasts I listen to tend to be rather focused: a couple short story podcasts, some roundtable type stuff on gaming/tech themes and so on. Which brings me to Geek Fu Action Grip. Geek Fu incorporates some of those things - Mur is currently wrapping up part one of her story Heaven, but it's a much more conversational podcast. It reminds me a bit of some of the tapes my friends and I used to send back and forth while I was in Scotland for a couple years.

It's rather different from the rest of the things I listen to. But in a nice change of pace sort of way. In a lot of ways it reminds me more of an audio blog than a typical podcast. But that's probably splitting hairs...

Picked up Castle Keep the other day. Fun little game. Nice amounts of strategy in a game that can be played fairly quickly. And once you get the basics they include some advanced rules that make sense and there are about 4 or so different game variations (including a solitaire option) that sound pretty good. And it was only $10. Really good value (and the pieces are very nice).

Odds and ends

Ju-on, the original Japanese film The Grudge was based on was fun to watch. Still a creepy story although it was robbed of some of the chills due to knowing the plot. There were a couple twists that didn't make it into the remake that I thought should have.

Insomnia was interesting but rather different from what I expected. It ended about as well as could be expected. Didn't realize that this was also a remake.

Caught the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the other night. I love Clint Eastwood Westerns. High Plains Drifter is probably my favorite, but they're all good...

Snagged Michael Palin's Sahara from the library today on CD. We'll see how that is. I suspect it'll be interesting. I remember thinking Palin has a rather nice narrative voice. He apparently has a whole series of travel related books/shows.

Quick catch up

Seems like there are a few movies that we've seen recently that I should comment on.

Caché was interesting until they decided to run the closing credits without bothering to finish the movie. I suppose I should probably mark this as spoiler-ish, but when you have to watch the interview with the director for the movie to make sense, that's a bad thing. I don't mind movies that make you think. I don't mind movies that are open ended. But Caché simply didn't have an ending. It was a mess. Which is a shame as I really liked aspects of it. This film does an excellent job of ratcheting tension. At almost the exact moment when you start to get frustrated with the way things are going, the movie delivers an absolutely shocking sequence. Truly well done and it gets you right back into the thick of things. Unfortunately it's squandered.

The Greatest Game Ever Played wants to be Searching for Bobby Fischer only for golf. It mostly succeeds. It's a nice movie and you feel good by the end and there are some nice camera shots.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was recommended by a friend and was pretty good. I was lured in by the love fern and that was admittedly my favorite bit. Matthew McConaughey is becoming a favorite actor and Kate Hudson is growing on me quite a bit as well. And boy is she starting to look like her Mom...

Which leaves us with Infernal Affairs. The more I think about this movie the more I like it. Excellent, excellent crime drama. They're remaking it here in the states as The Departed and I'm not sure why. The link takes you to the trailer and it makes me cry a little inside, which is strange. When I first heard Damon and DiCaprio I was pretty skeptical. I like Damon and figured he'd do a good job, but they didn't cast him in the part I thought they would and I still don't see DiCaprio in the undercover cop role. The rest of the cast is pretty amazing (Nicholson is an inspired choice) but it seems Scorsese just couldn't keep from monkeying with a story that worked. Infernal Affairs is a taut, tension building crime drama, also featuring an excellent cast. There are a few mistakes (mostly revolving around the female cast and their underuse or not really needing to be there in the first place) but overall a great show. Scorsese seems to think we need more characters, more plot and more sex... Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I don't suppose I have a problem with remakes in general, but I don't really think they're necessary. The only really positive thing they do is draw attention to something you might otherwise miss. Fortunately it's becoming easier to track down some of the original films. I have a sneaking suspicion that The Departed won't nearly match up to Infernal Affairs.

And finally, I have no idea what to make of this.

I was a . . .

Ok, so here's one of the little quirks of married life. Every so often the dreaming world decides to take a day trip to the waking world and wreak a little havoc. Initially you have odd dreams involving your new spouse and your new relationship and some facet thereof (typically fidelity or lack thereof, or some aspect of personality that was only discovered upon actually living together) and you find yourself waking up mad as all get out at him or her. It happens. At first you might take it out on them for a bit till the whole it was a dream thing kicks in and then you feel silly and have a story for later.

You don't ever completely grow out of this, but sometimes, after you've been together for a while, it gets stranger. Take last night for example. This afternoon my wife informs me that she had the oddest dream about me last night. First a little background: For those not in the know, I've been playing through Resident Evil 4 of late. I do my best to keep it away from the kids, but they occasionally get curious and I occasionally play it before they go to bed. Last night they decided to "play" RE 4 at bedtime. This mostly involved one of them saying something like, "Leon help!" and the other pretending to rescue them. When Miranda tired of the game she came downstairs and informed us that McKenna wouldn't get out of her bed. She then launched into a fairly accurate retelling of the bit of RE 4 that I'd played through that afternoon. In spite of the fact that she and her sister had been warned several times not to come downstairs. I tried to keep from laughing while my wife gave me The Look (admittedly on one of it's weaker settings).

Ok so I suspect that was at least partially responsible for the dream she had. That or watching Clerks but I'm pretty sure it was the first thing. Anyway, in this dream my friend the letter 'r' and I were playing RE 4. And oddly we had a gun controller that we used to do the shooting in the game (which was kept under the bed so as to keep it away from the kids). The letter 'r' made some comment about the fact that I was actually a pretty good shot. I then made a joke about the recent target shooting we'd done at Trout Lodge. Then we both "laughed knowingly". You know, that fake little laughter like we have a secret. At this point my wife decided to head for bed and leave us to our carnage.

Once she arrived upstairs she noticed a gun under the bed. A rifle or "AK-47" or something (she was very specific about this when telling me her dream). But this was confusing, after all weren't we already downstairs playing the game with the controller? Closer inspection revealed that the gun under the bed was a real rifle. This caused a "Confrontation". I believe at this point that the letter 'r' was no longer in the dreamscape. Instead my wife confronted me about the real gun in the house. There was a slap and some tearful exclamations about kids and loaded guns and so on. And then painful understanding. She looked at me and said (with all seriousness), "Why didn't you tell me you were a zombie hitman?!" At this point, my secret out in the open, there was more yelling and tears. "People call you up and you go and kill zombies!", "What do you mean you don't really wear glasses?!", "Your day job is just a cover!" and so on. I tried my best to console her, but she would have none of it.

It was at this moment that something woke my wife, the end of the dream, some random noise, who knows. Fortunately we've been in this territory enough that she managed to calm down before throttling me in bed for living a secret life bringing the undead back to their maker. Although she did almost wake me then to share the joke. I must admit we had a pretty good laugh about it. Of course, I'll now have to kill her in her sleep tonight for knowing too much, but sometimes that's the price you pay...

Random thoughts from a tired mind

There was a really nice rain/thunder storm earlier. Although I'm not entirely convinced that one or two claps of thunder quite qualify it as a thunderstorm. But still rain = good. And a nice break from the heat we've had the past few days. Look at me all talking about the weather. Aren't I all grown up and irrelevant... Don't answer that.

Ran across another couple trailers for movies that seem quite intriguing. I believe the first was called 13 Tzameti while the other was for The Woods (featuring Bruce Campbell in a rare dramatic role!). On a completely unrelated note (except for the Bruce Campbell tie in) Brisco County Jr. and Jack of All Trades both came out on DVD today I believe. Groovy.

I'm about to wrap up the China Mieville short story collection Looking for Jake. It was quite good. Highly recommended. Now if I can just finish 1776...

Weekend Begins

Go. Watch. Become excited. Curse the fact that it's not Fall yet.

Seriously though, The Prestige is looking quite good. I'm also rooting for Danny Boyle's new flick Sunshine. And the new Pang Brothers' movie and... heh heh, well you get the idea.

I'm glad it's Friday. I'm also glad that tonight will involve a BBQ and some bratwurst. Mmmmm bratwurst. I also picked up The Matador for some weekend movie fun. Couple that with some zombie shooting and you have yourselves a Good Time.

The relatively recent Escape Pod (episode 61) was rather amusing. Mostly for incidental reasons that involved a minor plot point of the story (Ranma 1/2). The story is a bit adult in nature, but amusing nonetheless. The episode also referenced a couple other podcasts that I now feel compelled to check out. More on them as necessary.

Well at this point I'm rambling, but I felt the need to get some new text up on the page. Although I still really like that firework shot.

Not With a Bang

Firework
Originally uploaded by dkun.

And we're back. This was the best firework photo I managed to snap while on vacation. There are a few others over at my Flickr site, plus a couple of the lake. It was a good trip. I must admit better than I expected it to be. I got the chance to do some sailing - they had little single person sail boats that you could take out on the lake. I think I managed at least one outing a day while I was there. I've always wanted to learn to sail and this just cemented that desire. There's something great about being out on the water letting the wind push you around. (Well ok, technically you're supposed to be using the wind to go somewhere, but work with me here. Besides, since I had next to no idea what I was doing, the first description is a little more accurate.) I may have to look into getting a boat.

Trout Lodge had quite the range of activities - there was almost always something to do or somewhere to go. We did a little archery, a little .22 target shooting, some lounging around the water, hayrack ride, and so on. And the cabins were pretty nice so that was a plus.

Got to show off the great-grandkids to my grandparents. They got a kick out of that. I'm just glad we got the chance to let them see them. Not sure if we'll get another chance to do that. Plus I got to catch up with my Uncle Paul, it's been far too long since we've gotten together. Here's the Colbert D&D video as a nod to the fact that he introduced me to the game.

At any rate it's now back to the grind... Must find a way to make a living just sailing around.

In and out

Managed to finish Zelda: Wind Waker. Fun game. The girls were suitably impressed. McKenna wanted to know when I was going to play it again. I said not for a while. I now understand why Zelda games are popular. It took me a bit to get into this one, but by the end I was a little sad to see it go. I might have to pick up the new one for the Wii.

Seems like I've seen some movies since I last posted, but I've no idea what they might have been. My wife and I did watch Clash of the Titans the other night. That movie actually holds up pretty well. I remember my Mom walking out of it with the girls, and Dad and I staying when we saw it in the theater.

Have I mentioned that Vivaldi's Four Seasons (especially the Winter section) is a truly amazing piece of music? If not, consider it mentioned. If so, consider it seconded.

I suppose I should put a photo of something cute up to distract you all for a while. But I have no cute photos so do a google image search for "cute" or something. I take absolutely no responsibility for whatever comes up from that.

At any rate, my eyes feel like they've been sanded down with large grit sandpaper so I think I'll be off.

Pulse and other odds and ends

Caught the original Japanese version of Pulse. I suspect this may be one of the few instances where the remake is better. The original was interesting and had a few good horror moments, but the pacing and length killed it. I don't mind slow movies (in fact several of my favorites tend to fall into that category), but the tension that this film tried to build was destroyed by the movie's glacial pace. Which is a shame, because as mentioned, it was actually pretty interesting. The set piece of the film with the plane was definitely worth it though. Amazing shot... Reminded me a bit of The Eye.

Wedding Crashers was also too long. I suspect Hollywood needs to be reminded that there's a time and place for the 1 1/2 hour movie. And the romantic comedy is certainly the place. Vince Vaughn was quite good though, as was Owen Wilson.

So, the bachelor days draw to a close. I suspect I got enough movie watching in...

Heard about The Horror Blog the other day. Haven't really had a chance to check it out, but it looks promising. I suspect I should give up all pretenses and turn this blog into horror movie reviews and game ramblings, but then you'd miss out on the cute kid stories. That and I'd have to convince my wife to start sitting through a lot more horror movies. Hmm...

Actually I've been meaning to post some random thoughts on horror movies again dealing with the current trend towards gore (not a good one in my opinion, in fact I'd classify gore flicks as a separate genre (or at least sub-genre) from horror movies) and the use of classical music in horror movie soundtracks (and why it works so well). But you'll have to wait for that. Maybe you can come up with your own thesis on the above topics and save me the job.

Oh, and I hate my lawn mower. It's out to get me I swear. Stupid gas leak...

<Unintelligible moan>

So the Zombie Weekend O' Fun is over. All I can say is Romero is cool. Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead are actually pretty good films. I'm glad we tracked down the Romero version of Dawn - totally worth it. And of course, Shaun of the Dead is still terribly funny and spooky and all of that. And I managed to catch a couple more jokes this go round as I've seen some of the Romero movies now. "We're coming to get you Barbara!" Hee hee...

Geist is an intriguing little game on the Gamecube. Borrowed it from a coworker and have been enjoying it.

I've snagged Pulse and Wedding Crashers, so we'll see what they're like...

Anyway, I suspect that's enough for this quick burst of blogging goodness.

Weekend o' Zombies

Well, my better half is out of town with the kids for a wedding. So what better way to spend the time than zombie movies and video games? None I say.

Tonight will most likely be Dawn of the Dead (The Romero version) and tomorrow will contain Shaun of the Dead and Land of the Dead.

I caught The Tailor of Panama and Brotherhood of the Wolf over the last couple nights. The former is one of those movies that you hope never happens, but you suspect might, while the latter is an interesting flight of fancy. I really enjoyed the story in Brotherhood.

At any rate, I would apologize for not updating with any sort of regularity, but that would imply that I felt bad about it (well maybe a little) and wouldn't really put you through it again (of course I will). So I won't.

I'm not dead yet

Although I felt pretty close. The stomach flu marched through the family last week and my turn was around Wednesday. And then the house building project down the street cut through the internet cable so we had no internet from about Thursday through today. That was fun.

The girls are getting into The Legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker. I find it rather amusing personally. The game certainly picked up there for a little bit. Although I suspect vast stretches of what do I do next coming up...

Well, you'd think I'd have something to ramble on about but such isn't really the case. Picked up Vivaldi's The Four Seasons on cd the other day as well as some Yo-Yo Ma. I like the cello. And The Four Seasons ranks up there with my favorite pieces of classical music. Especially the Winter section.

Giddiness sets in

So the company party was today. They held it at Wheeler Farm, so the kids got to milk a cow and take a tractor ride and so on. We had a bit of rain at the beginning, but then things settled down. I must admit, the rain didn't seem to bother me too much as I managed to win a 30GB iPod video. squee!

ahem

Ok, I'm better now. But yeah, totally awesome. Mom was having flashbacks to one of the old company parties we had growing up when my Dad worked at Manville. Back then it was a mini arcade cabinet style Pac Man video game. I will admit that there were probably similarities in the grins I had at either occasion...

At any rate, it was a good day.

Incoming transmission

Ok, so it's been a while, but then again, I've been pretty busy. Dad had to leave early, so we're down to just one house guest. Then it's a week off and then the wife and kids take off for a week. Such a busy time of year.

Had a pretty good weekend although my house is not equipped to handle 17 visitors at once. If it weren't a family event I would have found some way to take off from that mass of people yearning to breathe free... Especially considering the fact that it's starting to get hot out here.

Did a few more chores around the house. Got rid of an accordion door in preparation for putting in hard floors next year. Swapped out the old flat cable from the TV antenna to the TV in favor of coax. Other odds and ends.

Anyway, nothing of real import to pass along. Had dinner at Tepanyaki last night. Had the filet mignon and shrimp. It was like meat butter. So tasty. You'd think I'd have some kid stories to pass along or something but that's not really the case.

Of course, I could start venting about Gibbs quitting NCIS last night, but then I'd get all riled up again.

E3

Well, E3 is in full swing again. The big three (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo this go around) have had their press conferences. Sounds like it's a toss up between Nintendo and Microsoft as to who had the best conference. I come down on Nintendo's side as the offerings Microsoft had out really don't interest me much. Don't care about Halo 3 or a new GTA game. I am terribly excited to get my hands on the Wii though. Here's a link to some more video footage of some of the games and people playing them.

In other news, we've managed to get the flower beds cleaned up and blooming. And we now own a rather pretty fuschia plant courtesy of the in-laws. An early Father's Day gift I believe. I may try to pass a picture of it along.

And tomorrow is my Friday. Woo hoo!

The folly humor of youth

You can tell your kids are a little excited to see the grandparents when they get up shortly after 6 AM to accomplish said fact. My wife managed to get them to go back to their room for a bit and told them they couldn't come out until 7. A few minutes later they peeked out of their room and asked, "What time is it in your room?" Apparently while it was still before 7 in theirs, ours must lie on the other side of some time zone that would allow them to escape...

Long days

Well, the arrival of family is imminent. My wife's folks this evening and then mine next week. McKenna had her party today. Took some friends to lunch and then went and saw Hoot. Cute show. Won't win any awards, but it was fun. McKenna liked the owls. One of the girls at the party liked the boy. I'll take her interest in the owls thanks...

It's been a long week. Cinco de Mayo yesterday. I got to spend most of it at work. Some higher-up decided that we needed to do an extra run of the main journals database we produce. And as my compatriot was out of town, that meant I had the joyous task of going in late to QA it. Was a truly wonderful experience let me tell you.

Today was free comic book day. The comic book shop down the road apparently closed down sometime this past year. So no free comic books for us. McKenna was rather sad about that. We picked her up a copy of Pikmin 2 for her birthday. It's a pretty fun game. I remember reading somewhere that the guy that created it was inspired by watching his garden. After playing the game a bit I can see the resemblance. It's a pretty interesting game. Cute on the surface, red in tooth and claw a couple layers down. Good ol' Mother Nature. McKenna has enjoyed ordering the Pikmin around.

Anyway, I'm sure there are other things I should go on about, but I can't think of them. So have a great weekend.