Hear ye, hear ye. My Amazon Dot Com Wishlist has been expanded and edited. That will be all.
What, you wanted a real journal entry? Believe me, there’s been nothing worth writing about today. And the PPF won’t be available until midnight…
Author: Karel Kerezman
-
Neverending Workday
I’ve had a dark, unhappy day at the office, and it’s not over yet. Left for the evening are the tasks of upgrading RAM in the traffic department’s workstations and upgrading Tapscan (sales software for radio). Both tasks have to wait until the respective departments are fully done for the day, so… for the moment I have time to write.
I won’t bore you with the details of the day. Suffice to say that I had more excitement with Corporate about the new server we need, there were lots of weird little fires of which about half were manageable, and I have at least one full workstation rebuild in my immediate future. And how lucky am I that one of the dead PCs is a KNRK studio workstation? Yep, I’m just that lucky.
Oh, did I mention that because of this evening’s oh-so-necessary jobs, I have to miss the planned Wednesday-night viewing of Cowboy Bebop and blow off my family, who were planning to see a baseball game tonight? I could only do one or the other, but now I can’t do either.
If you need me, I’ll be in my office.
-
I’ve never said that!
Thank you, Unix Gal, for posting a list of Astrological After-Sex Comments.
I found Wendi’s eerily appropriate, and mine just plain wrong. I’m not that kind of boy!
(She’s a Cancer, I’m a Pisces. There, happy?)
-
Flowers at the office, caught on film
Getting into the habit of actually using my camera, I went into the “back yard” of our office to snap pictures of these:
I noticed them while waiting for my lunch to heat up in the microwave. At that time it was sunny outside and the flowers were much more radiant. Lesson learned? Strike while the moment is right, don’t wait for later when the clouds may come!
There’s a fortune cookie moment in there, somewhere…
“Natural Beauty” Gallery -
Movie! Work! Movie! Friends! What a weekend!
It all started Friday evening, as most weekends do. My grandfather and his wife took the kids to a concert, so Wendi and I took advantage of the opportunity for a quick dinner date. Have I mentioned that I love NoHo’s teriyaki chicken? I have? Good.
We hurried through dinner, hurried back to the house… and waited until 10:30 for the kids to be returned. See, they decided to visit the conveniently-located Burgerville for a bite. Oh well. This just meant that the kids would be really tired once we got home from…
X2: X-Men United. We dragged the kids to an 11:00pm showing on Friday night. The short review? I liked it. The longer review looks something like this.
Saturday dawned far too early for our sleepy bodies. Wendi had to work, and before work she had to run around doing errands. Luckily for her she had a trainee along to help lug things, and doubly lucky for her the gig ended early. Afterward came some unpleasantness between her and I, but it was all sorted out by morning to the betterment of all involved.
Let’s just say that communication, caring and honesty are incredibly vital things in any loving relationship.
Sunday was Bebop Movie Day for my friends and I. First, however, I had to do my usual email maintenance and AS/400 tape backup routine. I won’t go into the problems with corporate email, since it’ll only ruin a perfectly cheerful mood. Suffice to say that eventually I got the hell out of there and out to the theater, where I met…
Mari, with Angst and Anxiety (Lilith’s “demonspawn”) in tow. We bought our tickets and headed for the front of the balcony, where I’ve sat for nearly every movie I’ve seen at Cinema 21. (Let me tell you, back in the day I saw movies there all the damned time, too.) Eventually Mari was able to find and retrieve Lilith and Geoffrey, but couldn’t spot Celina and Wade. Oh well.
Short version of my Bebop review: Eh, it was okay. The details are available if you want the full discourse.
I’d like to break for a rant, here. What is it with anime moviemakers? Is there some cultural thing that decrees, “thou shalt include random philosophical mumbo-jumbo in all action/adventure fare”? Escaflowne has it, the X movie was drowning in it, and even the Bebop movie couldn’t escape the curse. (Don’t get me started on Gundam Wing, an entire TV series built around the concept of “philosophical discourse during battle.”) The movie is chirping along just fine, and WHAM, we get two or three solid minutes of pointless rambling about fate or the nature of the universe or reality versus fantasy or some-such. I don’t mind a bit of deeper meaning, but I don’t want to be preached at. Repeatedly. Is anyone listening? Anyone? Bueller?
Okay then. The movie (that Mari slept partly through) ended, and surprise! We found Celina and Wade, who’d gotten to the theater just a bit too late to meet up with Mari. Ah well. This was the first time Mari or I had met Celina, though we’d chatted with her on and off for quite a while from back in the old #KNRK days. (She was Mononoke.) Celina’s a cutie, and Wade’s a helluva lucky guy.
We all went out for chinese food, had a pretty good time, and went more-or-less on our seperate ways. There are worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than taking in a movie and then dinner with friends. Far, far worse.
The remainder of my evening was spent killing time over at Lil’ and Geoffrey’s place. We made fun of Red Planet, we made fun of the demonspawn, we made fun of Sometimes They Come Back, we made fun of each other. In short, we all had fun.
I’m sure that everything I forgot or left out will appear elsewhere, eventually. In the meantime, suffice to say that I had a fulfilling and happy weekend, all told. I’ve never had so many good friends at one time before, and it’s a great feeling.
Thank you, my friends, for making my weekend fabulous.
My X2 Review
My Bebop Review -
X2: X-Men United
There isn’t much I can say about this movie that hasn’t already been better said elsewhere, really. I’ll just touch on the key points:
- For a two-hour-plus movie, very little time is wasted. Not often did I have pause to wonder about the time.
- I’ll join my voice to the chorus of those who state that even out of an otherwise quite-good action adventure flick, the opening sequence is one of the coolest damned action bits ever filmed. Through the whole thing I was thinking, “Yes, yes, that is how he’d do it, that’s how that talent could be used.” Efficient, no, but if you wanted to make a powerful impression and that was your skillset… hell yes.
- A surprising amount of the movie was devoted to… building up for the next movie. We get foreshadowing in practically the second scene. They did it well, mind you, but every time the subject came up I was thinking, “Boy, they’re banking heavily on that next set of contracts, aren’t they?” I’m not saying they didn’t handle that plot thread well, but it was glaringly obvious.
- Related to that is the sad loss of impact of what should have been the climactic sequence of the film. We all know it was a soap-opera ending. Even folks who have no real background on popular X-Men comicbook storylines can tell that it was a gyp. It’s the script’s one glaring failure, dramatically.
- Does Wolverine once again own the movie? Yes. Does anyone mind for a second? Hell no. And that’s all that needs saying about that.
- Cameos, cameos, cameos. Spot Dr. Hank McCoy in a televised interview! See Colossus go metallic! See Shadowcat fleeing through walls! And so on, and so on. You know, in the third movie we’d better get to actually see Kitty’s face…
- I adored the way they used mutant powers in low-key, comedy-beat, every-day fashion. Among the coolest (pun intended) is the quiet moment where Logan hands Bobby his bottle of product placement for a quick chill treatment. Nicely done.
- You both like and loathe Magneto more in this movie, and that’s as it should be. Charming, clever, ruthless, manipulative, and always playing the game as deep as he can, he’s far more in this movie than just the megalomaniac from the first one.
And yes, I think that about covers it. Unless you’re allergic to effects-laden action movies with decent characterization and a touch of wry humor, you should see this film.
X2 movie website - For a two-hour-plus movie, very little time is wasted. Not often did I have pause to wonder about the time.