You can't choose your family ... dammit
Almost have the old place cleaned out ...
I'm paying a guy (and his son) to come out tomorrow and take everything that isn't nailed down to the local dump. This doesn't include the furniture I'm planning to put in the consignment shop. My sister and I spent today putting all the stuff neither of us want into garbage bags and boxes, so the guy can just toss things into his truck and haul it away.
I'm going to try to sell the pegged maple dining room table. Turns out we did have all the chairs -- except my sister and nephew have evidently been using them as goals for football games, because all but three of them are totally trashed. Two of them were actually outside *headdesk* I'm going to send them with the table because they're original, they're pegged maple (that means no nails anywhere), and the may be salvagible.
Also on the docket will be the Henry Miller upright piano (and stool), and Dad's massive old office desk. It's one of those black wood things that weighs a ton, and looks as if it should be worth something. I also found a little typing table that used to hold a typewriter, and an old metal school desk. Oh, and we discovered my sister had totally forgotten about the closet underneath the stairway -- amidst all the crap in there, was her old tuba from high school. I'm trying to sell that too.
Of course, being a reading family, there are a ton of books, too. Most of them are paperbacks, so I can toss them into the old used book store. The hardbacks I'm not sure of -- I can't think of any local shop that deals with really old books, but I'm not sure if I want to go to the trouble of selling them myself on E-Bay or something. It's going to take time to see what they're worth, too ... *sigh*
And pipmudturtle and I went to see X-Men: First Class.
We liked it, in spite of several deviations from the original comic story. In this version, Xavier is paralyzed when a bullet aimed at Magneto is deflected by his magnetic powers; Magneto, still friends with Xavier, does not realize Xavier is behind him when he deflects the bullets. The Hellfire club also makes an appearance way earlier than in the comics, and Sebastian Shaw is killed in the movie.
The basic point in the movie is that the CIA is behind the initial formation of the X-Men. The first group consists of Angel, Darwin, Banshee, Havok, Mystique, Xavier, and Magneto. The Hellfire club, of course, is trying to take over the world by starting a nuclear war -- they mount an attack on the X-Men's barracks, and Darwin is killed by Shaw, spurring the young heroes to begin serious training.
The Hellfire Club consists of Shaw, Emma Frost, Azazel (Nightcrawler's father), and Riptide -- they consistently perform better as a team than the X-Men, IMHO, but maybe that's because the latter are just kids. Towards the end of the movie, the X-Men begin to get a glimmer of how to work as a team -- Banshee carries Havok away from trouble and Mystique fools Azazel long enough for him to be captured. Mostly, though, they are a bunch of individuals who happen to be fighting at the same time.
The part showing the kids training is good -- Xavier spurring each of them on, finding their strengths and helping them overcome their weaknesses, just like in the comics. James McAvoy is Xavier; Michael Fassbender is his alter-ego, Erik Lehnsherr (aka Magneto). The two are good together, acting as foils for one another. Xavier is a pacifist, convinced that mutant and human can learn to live together; Magneto is an assassin, taught that humans will betray him if given the chance. They are the core of the group. The youngsters follow this duo -- in the end, they follow them as they split apart, some going with Magneto and others staying with Xavier.
All in all, it's a good movie, worth seeing. The special effects are nice, and are used to enhance the film rather than being the reason for the scenes. I especially liked watching Azazel fight, with his Nightcrawler-like teleportation powers. My only complaint, as a person in the medical field, was that the "fatal wound" inflicted on Sebastian Shaw by Magneto was not one that would have been fatal even back then. People can survive being shot in the head or having objects shoved through their skull -- a coin shot on edge through his head would have put him down, but he could have survived.
Working on the next bit of Outlaw Security ... Heyes and Curry come up with another plan to improve the business, and Heyes meets an old friend. Also working on some smallfandomfest stories due by the end of June: Thunderheart and The Dark is Rising. This week's Summer Pornathon prompt is "Sex Toys" -- and no, Merlin cannot change himself into a dildo (someone already asked).
I'm paying a guy (and his son) to come out tomorrow and take everything that isn't nailed down to the local dump. This doesn't include the furniture I'm planning to put in the consignment shop. My sister and I spent today putting all the stuff neither of us want into garbage bags and boxes, so the guy can just toss things into his truck and haul it away.
I'm going to try to sell the pegged maple dining room table. Turns out we did have all the chairs -- except my sister and nephew have evidently been using them as goals for football games, because all but three of them are totally trashed. Two of them were actually outside *headdesk* I'm going to send them with the table because they're original, they're pegged maple (that means no nails anywhere), and the may be salvagible.
Also on the docket will be the Henry Miller upright piano (and stool), and Dad's massive old office desk. It's one of those black wood things that weighs a ton, and looks as if it should be worth something. I also found a little typing table that used to hold a typewriter, and an old metal school desk. Oh, and we discovered my sister had totally forgotten about the closet underneath the stairway -- amidst all the crap in there, was her old tuba from high school. I'm trying to sell that too.
Of course, being a reading family, there are a ton of books, too. Most of them are paperbacks, so I can toss them into the old used book store. The hardbacks I'm not sure of -- I can't think of any local shop that deals with really old books, but I'm not sure if I want to go to the trouble of selling them myself on E-Bay or something. It's going to take time to see what they're worth, too ... *sigh*
And pipmudturtle and I went to see X-Men: First Class.
We liked it, in spite of several deviations from the original comic story. In this version, Xavier is paralyzed when a bullet aimed at Magneto is deflected by his magnetic powers; Magneto, still friends with Xavier, does not realize Xavier is behind him when he deflects the bullets. The Hellfire club also makes an appearance way earlier than in the comics, and Sebastian Shaw is killed in the movie.
The basic point in the movie is that the CIA is behind the initial formation of the X-Men. The first group consists of Angel, Darwin, Banshee, Havok, Mystique, Xavier, and Magneto. The Hellfire club, of course, is trying to take over the world by starting a nuclear war -- they mount an attack on the X-Men's barracks, and Darwin is killed by Shaw, spurring the young heroes to begin serious training.
The Hellfire Club consists of Shaw, Emma Frost, Azazel (Nightcrawler's father), and Riptide -- they consistently perform better as a team than the X-Men, IMHO, but maybe that's because the latter are just kids. Towards the end of the movie, the X-Men begin to get a glimmer of how to work as a team -- Banshee carries Havok away from trouble and Mystique fools Azazel long enough for him to be captured. Mostly, though, they are a bunch of individuals who happen to be fighting at the same time.
The part showing the kids training is good -- Xavier spurring each of them on, finding their strengths and helping them overcome their weaknesses, just like in the comics. James McAvoy is Xavier; Michael Fassbender is his alter-ego, Erik Lehnsherr (aka Magneto). The two are good together, acting as foils for one another. Xavier is a pacifist, convinced that mutant and human can learn to live together; Magneto is an assassin, taught that humans will betray him if given the chance. They are the core of the group. The youngsters follow this duo -- in the end, they follow them as they split apart, some going with Magneto and others staying with Xavier.
All in all, it's a good movie, worth seeing. The special effects are nice, and are used to enhance the film rather than being the reason for the scenes. I especially liked watching Azazel fight, with his Nightcrawler-like teleportation powers. My only complaint, as a person in the medical field, was that the "fatal wound" inflicted on Sebastian Shaw by Magneto was not one that would have been fatal even back then. People can survive being shot in the head or having objects shoved through their skull -- a coin shot on edge through his head would have put him down, but he could have survived.
Working on the next bit of Outlaw Security ... Heyes and Curry come up with another plan to improve the business, and Heyes meets an old friend. Also working on some smallfandomfest stories due by the end of June: Thunderheart and The Dark is Rising. This week's Summer Pornathon prompt is "Sex Toys" -- and no, Merlin cannot change himself into a dildo (someone already asked).