Christmas! Is FRIDAY.
And while I'm sitting here going WHAT HOW, my boss brings me a gift: three little dancing wind-up robots for my desk. Two boys, one girl, to represent our department. Yes, they know me here.
After one bizarre day of heat, we're back to chilly mornings and chillier evenings - I approve. There's been lots of hot spiced cider going around at our place, and Vince Guaraldi Trio setting the mood. Yay! I've been wrapping presents as they arrive, and they look so pretty sitting under our tree. They'll be slowly given away this week as various company arrives, and that is a sad thing. Oh, Christmas. Why can't you last longer? :|
This weekend, we saw Avatar in glorious IMAX 3D. If you plan to see this, let me echo what everyone else is saying: please, please do not see it in anything other than 3D. (And if you have an IMAX theater near you, TAKE ADVANTAGE.) I felt like I was in the room with Sigourney Weaver and Sam Worthington sitting right next to me - and then when the Pandora scenes came on, I felt like I could reach out and push away the ferns in my face, or leap off into thin air; it was that believably immersive. And thanks to the IMAX, I got crazy vertigo during the flying scenes. (A couple of guys behind us were high and/or drunk, and kept going "whaaat siiiiick" during the whole thing, lulz.)
It was obvious from the first frame that this is a James Cameron movie, and that was a nice feeling. I've missed his brand of blockbuster. The amount of effort, ambition, and attention to detail required to pull off each scene was obviously immense, because at times I feel like this is a movie that works in places it shouldn't. A lot of people have talked about the cliched story and relatively flat characters, but in the end, I cared about what was happening: I loved Jake, Neytiri, even Dr. Grace. And that's always the deciding factor for me. I would love to see what Cameron does with a sequel, especially considering that this screenplay was first drafted 14 years ago; I think a fresh take on the concept could upend it in valuable ways.
We've also been slowly chipping away at Supernatural, nearing the end of S1. Must. Watch. Faster! Again, I blame a lot of my early affinity for this show on XF nostalgia. It crops up everywhere: from the flashlights used in every other scene, to investigating some creepy town out in the middle of nowhere where the people are scarier than the monsters. But I think what connects the two shows most strongly for me is the family tragedy at the center of each. For Mulder, it was the loss of his sister. For Dean and Sam, it's the loss of their mother. (And additionally, for Dean it's the potential loss of the rest of his family - Dad to their quest, Sam to college and a "normal life".) The family dynamics are surprisingly compelling so far - it's my hook for sure. I like how Dean regresses to a child when his father is around, or even mentioned. And how Sam is sort of disconnected from it all because of how young he was - Jessica is his prime motivation instead. Even though the storyarc is simple and relatively thin right now, I'm really enjoying it. And I'll reiterate that this is a great show to watch with other people. spectralbovine, I look forward to you joining our merry viewing party!
It's just too bad the show doesn't have a Scully.
Anyway, still reading tons of awesome Dead Authors and still trying to formulate a legitimate post about that. Mostly, I am rediscovering the brilliance and hilarity of G.K. Chesterton, and am determined to try out his fiction for the first time. Still obsessively researching Charles Williams and his strange, strange mind (his works are hard to find, but not anymore thanks to my new best friend biblio.com!). And Thomas Merton is kind of the most badass monk ever. So yeah, I'm on a bit of a kick here, if you couldn't tell. But I'm balancing that out with Donald Miller's latest memoir A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and a bit of Meredith Ann Pierce. These people all make me LOVE LIFE. I want to give each of them a high five.
After one bizarre day of heat, we're back to chilly mornings and chillier evenings - I approve. There's been lots of hot spiced cider going around at our place, and Vince Guaraldi Trio setting the mood. Yay! I've been wrapping presents as they arrive, and they look so pretty sitting under our tree. They'll be slowly given away this week as various company arrives, and that is a sad thing. Oh, Christmas. Why can't you last longer? :|
This weekend, we saw Avatar in glorious IMAX 3D. If you plan to see this, let me echo what everyone else is saying: please, please do not see it in anything other than 3D. (And if you have an IMAX theater near you, TAKE ADVANTAGE.) I felt like I was in the room with Sigourney Weaver and Sam Worthington sitting right next to me - and then when the Pandora scenes came on, I felt like I could reach out and push away the ferns in my face, or leap off into thin air; it was that believably immersive. And thanks to the IMAX, I got crazy vertigo during the flying scenes. (A couple of guys behind us were high and/or drunk, and kept going "whaaat siiiiick" during the whole thing, lulz.)
It was obvious from the first frame that this is a James Cameron movie, and that was a nice feeling. I've missed his brand of blockbuster. The amount of effort, ambition, and attention to detail required to pull off each scene was obviously immense, because at times I feel like this is a movie that works in places it shouldn't. A lot of people have talked about the cliched story and relatively flat characters, but in the end, I cared about what was happening: I loved Jake, Neytiri, even Dr. Grace. And that's always the deciding factor for me. I would love to see what Cameron does with a sequel, especially considering that this screenplay was first drafted 14 years ago; I think a fresh take on the concept could upend it in valuable ways.
We've also been slowly chipping away at Supernatural, nearing the end of S1. Must. Watch. Faster! Again, I blame a lot of my early affinity for this show on XF nostalgia. It crops up everywhere: from the flashlights used in every other scene, to investigating some creepy town out in the middle of nowhere where the people are scarier than the monsters. But I think what connects the two shows most strongly for me is the family tragedy at the center of each. For Mulder, it was the loss of his sister. For Dean and Sam, it's the loss of their mother. (And additionally, for Dean it's the potential loss of the rest of his family - Dad to their quest, Sam to college and a "normal life".) The family dynamics are surprisingly compelling so far - it's my hook for sure. I like how Dean regresses to a child when his father is around, or even mentioned. And how Sam is sort of disconnected from it all because of how young he was - Jessica is his prime motivation instead. Even though the storyarc is simple and relatively thin right now, I'm really enjoying it. And I'll reiterate that this is a great show to watch with other people. spectralbovine, I look forward to you joining our merry viewing party!
It's just too bad the show doesn't have a Scully.
Anyway, still reading tons of awesome Dead Authors and still trying to formulate a legitimate post about that. Mostly, I am rediscovering the brilliance and hilarity of G.K. Chesterton, and am determined to try out his fiction for the first time. Still obsessively researching Charles Williams and his strange, strange mind (his works are hard to find, but not anymore thanks to my new best friend biblio.com!). And Thomas Merton is kind of the most badass monk ever. So yeah, I'm on a bit of a kick here, if you couldn't tell. But I'm balancing that out with Donald Miller's latest memoir A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and a bit of Meredith Ann Pierce. These people all make me LOVE LIFE. I want to give each of them a high five.