Because "Plastic Balls Filled with Gas" Wouldn't Sell As Many Tickets

Jon, Casey, Jim (a friend and my chiropractor) and I went to see Balls of Fury this last weekend. Two words:

1. High
2. Larious

I'm a sucker for Christopher Walken. I can watch anything with him in it. Well, almost anything. I still refuse to watch Kangaroo Jack. Walken could have sold the movie to me on his merit alone, but the other scenes in the trailers looked funny too.

They were. And then some.

I was laughing through nearly the entire movie. Walken does not disappoint. First, we get Robert DeNiro playing a gay sky pirate in Stardust (GO SEE IT!) and now Walken playing a gay warlord with a passion for the Orient and as the Chinese say, Ping Pong. Directed by Ben Garant, of The State, Viva Variety, and Reno 911 fame, there were plenty of familiar faces in the cast, such as Thomas Lennon, playing the ball-busting Olympic champion from Germany, and Kerry Kenney, playing a Reno showgirl looking unsurprisingly like Wiegel under cover as a Reno showgirl.

For my money, no one curses in Chinese better than James Hong. I leaned over to Jon during his first scene and made the comment that losing Hong would be the end of a Hollywood institution. Who else is going to play the old Chinese dude? Speaking of Chinese (okay, it's a stretch, she's part-Vietnamese, but she plays Chinese in the movie!) Maggie Q looked stunning throughout the movie and had her share of funny scenes.

Our main man, Dan Fogler, is new to me, but man can he take a nutshot, repeatedly, much to my amusement. Way to take a few for the team, Fogler! His handler, however, made me sad. I believe George Lopez has real comedy potential, if he would just stop letting them pigeon-hole him into the tired stereotype. As a Latino actor in a comedy, he had literally two choices for a line once he starts firing a machine gun. I bet you can guess them before you read them:

1. Say hello to my lil' fren'!
2. You wanna play rough? Le's play rough!
   

Ohhh, which one did he pick? The suspense is all suspenseful! Who cares! C'mon! The Scarface references were old in the 80's, can we just let them rest now?

The cast was full of other notables, such as Jason Scott Lee, Aisha Tyler, Terry Crews, Robert Patrick, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, David Koechner, Patton Oswalt, and Masi Oka. Go ahead, click on 'em. You won't know half of them without seeing a picture, but then you'll be all, "Ohhh, that guy!"

So I admit, I went in to the movie expecting to be mildly entertained by Walken's antics and came out saying, "That could very well be the best movie about Ping Pong I've ever seen." Of course, Jim countered by saying, "It could also be the worst." Touche. It was extremely funny, though. Funny in a stupid way, but I'm delightfully low-brow, so it works for me. I'll definitely pick this up on DVD for repeated viewings as well.

I give Balls of Fury five out of five painful nut shots on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything. Hah! You thought I was going for the obvious five balls out of five balls, didn't you! You can't predict me, I'm all-um-unpredictable.

And thus, I bid you toodles.

P.S. Diedrich Bader as a male sex slave? Brilliant!

Because I Said So

The more perceptive of you may notice that I've added a new blog link to the right. "Because I Said So" is written by a 29 year old mother of 6 with a real talent for humorous writing. Those of you with kids will be thankful you don't have six crazy kids like her. Those of you with senses of humor like her will laugh. Those of you with both will be thankful you don't have six crazy kids like her while you laugh. Those of you with six or more crazy kids will nod your head and laugh. Those of you that are her would surprise me by reading this.

Happy Birthday Carla Gugino!

Happy birthday to my friend's and fellow blogger, Jon's blog, Threshold. For those few of you that come here from somewhere besides his blog, you should check it out. It's usually much more entertaining than here. Before you say anything, yes, I know that's not saying much.

Get with the Times, Old Media

It continues to boggle my mind at how reticent Old Media is to embrace the Internet. I can just picture the corporate heads in their stuffy suits in dark board rooms saying things like, "Ah, this interwebs thing is just a fad, we don't have to change anything," and, "I'm sure people will start buying magazines and papers again any day now."

I'm only saying this because I want something for free, naturally.

Well, not for free per se, just as an added service to something I already pay for. Namely, magazine subscriptions. The ability to scan and format a magazine into an easily portable file (such as pdf) has been around for years. Heck, up until I got my new job, I read most of my comics that way. Why not offer that format with your subscriptions, Old Media? Some magazine publishers already offer pdf as an alternative to ordering back issues. If a customer already has a subscription, then that customer could have access to the back issues that fall into the subscription period. I wouldn't mind paying a few extra dollars for this service either. Who wants to keep around a bunch of magazines when they can easily access them on a computer. Even better, such files can be transferred to PDAs and smart phones, making the content even more ubiquitous.

Instead, I have 12 issues of a magazine that I am patiently slicing up and scanning to prepare for my next Dungeons and Dragons campaign. It's a good thing I'm not worried about the condition of the magazines afterward. Get with the times, Old Media, and do my bidding!

Ramzina is Dead, Long Live Ramzina

For the past few years, I have been hosting the devil's own game. That's right, Dungeons and Dragons. Surely my soul will burn in hell. Actually, I'm more likely to get teased for being a major nerd than anything, but I've long since grown a tough exterior shell to protect me from such barrages. That's why, at night, I am known as...

ARMADILLO MAN!

Wait, no, that's not right. No, I'm just a nerd.

Our core group of gamers consists of myself, Stacy, and friends of ours, a married couple, Jamie and Casey. Another married couple, Paul and Karen, joined us recently. The particular campaign we'd been playing in has been going since Spring 2003. We've had various players join and leave the campaign and each player has had multiple characters. One good friend went from being a lecherous cleric (divine priest, for those not versed in the unholy terminology of the evil game) to a death-prone monk (think Shao-lin more than Friar Tuck).

Stacy, however, has played her character Ramzina from day one. She had a great track record with Ramzina, as a matter of fact. Hers was the only character that avoided death on a routine basis. Now, that is not because I was taking it easy on her because she's married to the DM, as could be evidenced by her repeated threats to have me sleep on the couch when her character faced the inevitable death.

Thankfully, death is not as insurmountable in my game as it is in Jack T. Chick's Dark Dungeons. All the players that have had characters die did not go on to commit grisly suicide because they couldn't get over the guilt. I have also avoided the couch so far.

While Stacy was in Utah, we continued playing with one of the other players subbing for her character. This would be fine except for recent developments. The entire group managed to get themselves slaughtered. As a RBDMiT (Rat Bastard Dungeon Master in Training) I get to be amused by the TPK (Total Party Kill), as the husband of one of the players, I must be
apologetic for my actions. Stacy's absence made it considerably easier to cackle evilly and play the RBDM card.

We finally got together again to play last night. In this session, I gave the choice to Stacy of either coming back to finish the campaign or retire her character (and thus everyone else's) for good. To my surprise, even with all of the juicy hooks I put in her path, she decided to retire Ramzina.

I have to admit, I was sad to see her go.

So, this marks the end of an era in our personal life, as a facet of Stacy is put to rest forever.

Don't worry, though. She rolled up a half-orc fighter for the next game that same night.

Three Week Old Travel Stories

Because you didn't demand it! Because it's the story that didn't have to be told! Because I don't not have better things to do!

That's right! It's the travelogue!

So, what's to say about a trip I took three weeks ago? I can tell you one thing, United Airlines sucks ass. I bought a bargain basement flight from Dulles to Denver to Salt Lake City with United since I had a credit from the big SNAFU last Christmas. The first bargain basement flight they tried to sell me would have cost exactly $1000.00 after the Christmas credit. I said to the United rep on the phone, I said, "You've got to be kidding me." You know what he said? Nothing. So I says to him, I says, "Are you serious?" I think he sensed an attitude change on my end of the line, he responded apologetically that it was the lowest rate he could get on the days I had. I finagled the days and times a little bit and brought my bill down to $350.00 after the credit. Things had not started auspiciously.

When checking into my flight at the kiosk at the airport, I was offered the option to "upgrade" to economy plus for an additional $45. I figured that there was no way it was worth an extra $45 just to add the word "plus" onto the end of my assignment. As it was, I didn't get a seat, just a message telling me to check in at the gate. Turned out I got an economy plus seat for free since they had sold out of their economy seats. Meh, I figured it couldn't be that big of a deal.

On the flight I noticed that I did have considerably more leg room than was usual in economy. It was nice, but I didn't figure it was worth $45. I was sooooo wrong. My flight out of Denver was delayed by three hours, but I had plenty to do at the airport. I was reading Neil Gaiman's Stardust, both at Jon's recommendation and to prepare for the movie. They also have a huge Crocs booth at the airport, presumably since Crocs are based out of Colorado. When I finally boarded my flight, I made my way to the baaaaaack row. Very back, right in front of the lavatory. I didn't care, it was just for a couple of hours. I didn't care, that is, until I sat down. Turns out that the extra leg room in economy plus wasn't taken from first class (yeah, right) nope, it was taken from economy. I couldn't even lower my tray table after my seat was in the reclined position.

United has found another way to squeeze blood from a stone. It was so uncomfortable that on the trip back, I footed the bill for the economy plus seats and did not regret it. Well, that's not entirely true. I regretted flying United and having to pay extra for what I should have with the base price of a ticket. Stacy and I have resolved to avoid United in all but the most dire circumstances. If Jet Blue or Frontier flies to where we're going from Dulles or Reagan, we're going with them. United sucks ass.

As for the actual visit, that went swimmingly. The first night out, Stacy and I spent the night at a themed bed and breakfast called the Anniversary Inn. We've spent quite a few anniversaries there, but this was the first time we stayed in the Egyptian-themed Mysteries of Egypt room. It was pretty damn sweet.

Who doesn't like ram/sphinx guardians where they sleep?

The face staring at us as we watched The Aviator was kinda creepy

Yes, that's a friggin' spitting cobra as a shower head over the two-person whirlpool tub. Stacy had a little bit of a problem with the giant snake, so she faced out, I thought it was pretty wicked.

Probably the least-used room, the little study was still cool to look at.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves with a night out on the town and an evening in the highly stylized interior of a pyramid. If you ever find yourself with a romantic partner in Utah, I highly recommend a visit to The Anniversary Inn.

The next day Stacy and her dad had a joint birthday party so I got to see all of her side of the family. That was fun, even though I'm still not very comfortable with 90% of them. I still feel very much an outsider with her dad's extended family. Good thing I get along great with Stacy's grandparents and siblings.

We hosted a barbecue/pool party/Wii session at my in-law's residential club house for my side of the family the next day. It was a blast seeing all of them there. I didn't get enough time to visit with everyone one-on-one, but my time there was short. Only my dad and his son could make it up from Southern Utah from his family, but it was nice meeting with them.

The rest of the time was spent either at Stacy's dad's place or my brother's house, the de facto hang out for my side of the family. We even got to help out with my youngest niece's sixth birthday party there. She was born shortly after Vicki.

It was a good time, well worth the traveling hassle. Most importantly, I got to see my wife and children for the first time in three weeks. I had to make the visit last for another three weeks as well. Thankfully, the long six weeks are ending tomorrow. I will be picking up my beautiful Stacy and wonderful girls at Reagan National Airport and filling my house back up. It's been entirely too quiet with just Blue and I around.

Still to come (maybe) My Exciting Experience With The Incredibly Expensive Coaster or, My Hard Drive, My Destiny. AND! Some thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows or, The Most Timely Post Since Three Week Old Travel Stories! AND! My Narrow Escape From Death Hurtling Twenty Stories After Being Set On Fire By An Angry Grizzly Bear or, This Never Actually Happened, Sorry To Get Your Hopes Up!

Killer Wasps Attack!

I was mowing the lawn today and noticed a large amount of dirt mounds scattered around the yard, many of them clustered around the doors to my shed. I like to keep the shed free of vegetation so the doors swing open easily, apparently that is what attracted the creators of the dirt mounds. This is actually the second year we've had them. I am not fond of insects at all. They make my skin crawl. Probably one too many bad sci-fi movie about mutant bugs back when I was a kid (ever see Bug from 1975? Cheesy as hell, but it still gives me occasional nachtmares, so does Arachnaphobia.) So I could just imagine what monstrous horrors lurked in the gaping holes of the many burrows I was tromping over during my chore. It wasn't long before I discovered what they looked like as one of these suckers came flying right at me.

Spla-DOW!

I had turned my weed eater over to fix the spline when the thing buzzed my head. Not cool. I panicked for a second, dropped the weed whacker, and retreated. The gigantor wasp, two inches if it was an 1/8th, backed off for a second too. I took the opportunity to rethread the weed eater and brandished it Texas Chainsaw Massacre style at the mammoth bug. I spun the spline at it a couple of times, hoping more to scare it away than do any real damage, though I wouldn't have been averse to seeing some dismemberment as well. No bug gets the best of me in my yard! The huge wasp zipped out of the yard after a couple of close calls with the weed eater. In retrospect, I was lucky that it was the particular breed it was, considering yellow jackets and hornets are aggressive and probably would have stung my ass a few times extra for good measure.

I wrapped up my weed killing before the B2 of wasps made its way back so I headed inside to do some research. Turns out my adorable little friend is none other than the Sphecius speciosus, or the Eastern Cicada Killer. This little feller is solitary as opposed to social, which means that it will not attack a human unless handled roughly, even to defend its burrow. Further more, the only ones to actively investigate people are males, ensuring that we're not other males encroaching on territory or a female ready to mate, I assure you, I was neither. However, even then, males can't sting, they can just poke with their sharpened tails.

The females create the burrows, paralyze cicadas and other insects, plant them in a chamber in the burrow, and then deposit an egg with the victim. The egg hatches over the summer and the larva overwinters in a cocoon after feeding off the cicada. Matter of fact, that image up nort' there is of a female cicada killer bringing a victim back to her burrow. Interestingly enough, it's not alive, but posed that way by one Professor Chuck Holliday (with a name like that, what's he doing outside of a recording studio?) from whom I got most of my cicada killer knowledge. Sure, there's a Wikipedia article, but I found his information, not to mention extensive picture and movie collection of the monster wasps much more enlightening.

They're fascinating bugs, but I'd rather not have them buzzing me when I'm out in the yard. You never know what batch of radioactive nuclear waste it was floating in earlier.

Just an example of a burrow, nothing to scale, but that hole is big enough to toss a dwarf down.

Here's a smaller wasp hitching a ride on Professor Chuck's hand after an exhausting cicada killing.

Thanks to Professor Chuck HOLLIDAY (what a frickin' sweet name) for all the cicada killer lore. Check out his excellent site on the subject if you're curious at http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/cicadakillerhome.html

Debris from a Fiery Ball of Gas Otherwise Known as...

Stardust.

Was Stardust a good movie? Let's get that out of the way right off the bat. Hell yeah. I'll admit readily that I am a bit biased, loving both the author's entire body of work so far experienced and the actual book in question. However, my bias plays only a small portion of my instant fondness for the movie. As with all movie adaptations of books, whether they're full text, comic panels, or a mix of both, things change when moved from pages to screen. In most cases, if I've read a book before I see the movie, these changes serve as minor annoyances. Sometimes the changes make sense, sometimes they don't, they're almost always unwelcome.

I don't know if it was Neil Gaiman's extensive involvement in the production of the movie that helped or the creators' obvious love for the source material, but the changes between the two mediums did not bother me in the slightest here. Some of the differences were drastic, too, such as the entire climax. They felt as if they fit into the story, though. As if I had attended two different tellings of the same story by equally masterful storytellers, both of whom know how to weave the myriad pieces together to form a pleasing whole, no matter that the ingredients differ slightly.

The casting was well done. Everyone from the guardian of the wall (David Kelly) to the shady Ferdy the Fence (Ricky Gervais,) both of which are new characters to readers of the book. Original characters fared equally well with the protagonists Claire Daines playing Yvaine and Charlie Cox as Tristan (one odd change, removing the "r" from his name.) I am not a big fan of Daines, there's usually something about her eyes that bugs me. However, she and Cox did very well. The casting of the seven brothers of Stormhold was fitting as well, but you really have to see the movie or have read the book to understand where they come from. I loved seeing Peter O'Toole as the King of Stormhold. I could have used with more realistic arm throwing action, but I suppose when you get as old as O'Toole, you can spend your scenes reclining luxuriously in a magnificently appointed bed as well. Michelle Pfeiffer, no stranger to the role of villain, plays a delightful witch who you can't help but sympathize with every once and a while. That is, when she isn't busy transforming hapless goats into inn keepers (Hilario Dawson!) Perhaps the most notable bit of casting comes in the form of a very talented supporting actor, one Robert DeNiro. His Capt. Shakespeare is a considerable departure from the book, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Those of you that have seen the movie know why. He definitely stole the scenes in which he was featured and showed us a new layer of the DeNiro talent. Oh, and snagging Ian McKellen as the narrator is just badass.

Now that I'm done name-dropping, I can tell you that this is definitely a movie to add to your list of must-sees. It has high-fantasy, excellent action, magic, intrigue, quests, and a fair bit of romance. Whether you like fantasy movies, action movies, romantic comedy movies, or any combination of the above, this is one that will satisfy. My regards to the original creators, Messrs. Gaiman and Vess as well as those behind the movie, Vaughn and Goldman. I hope this one does well enough so we can see more of Neil's work make it to the big screen.

I give this movie seven out of seven slaughtered princes on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Attack of the On Call Rotation

I'm pretty tired today. I was tired yesterday around 7:30 and decided to make it an extra-early night. On my way to bed, the page came through. Of course.

After dealing with one issue for two hours, the next one came up. That one took four hours before I tried to wash my hands of the issue and go to bed. half an hour later, just past that point of wakefulness when you slide dreamily into the abyss of sleep, the next page came. This time, I had to sit on a conference call for another hour, contributing nothing but a groggy presence since the problem was far removed from my team's processes.

By 2:30 am I had enough. I told the call that I was out, hung up, and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

On Call is fun!

Moblo to Show...Yo?

I had intended to post a short entry showing what an awesome and sweet wife I have. However, Comcast is working in my area, installing fiber (YES!) and so I have no cable and thus no Internet access. I only plan on dialing in if I get paged tonight.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I'm on call for the first time this week. I've already had a couple of calls. I'm hoping the rest of my rotation is quiet.

Anyways, now I'm moblo-in' and I can't upload the pic of the cool Cookies by Design basket that Stacy sent me. It's full of cookies in the shape of pagers, computers, PDAs, and cell phones. "One for every day until we fly back," Stacy tells me. It was a nice way to start out the morning. She's awesome.

Update de la Excellente:

It appears that the pic I attached to my email was posted along with the entry. That's pretty dang cool.

Update de la Poopoo:

No such luck on the paging front. I was paged just as I pulled out of my neighborhood on the way to see a movie with a bunch of the guys I know from church. It figures. Luckily, it was for something my group doesn't support, so I got out of the call quick. It made me only a few minutes late for The Simpsons Movie. I think I'll get over it, somehow.

The Identity of the Supreme Bourne Ultimatum

Casey and I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum opening weekend. We decided to check it out the latest and last installment in the Bourne series during a matinee to avoid evening crowds. We went to the new Fox Theatres about midway between our two towns. The new theater is huge and very nicely appointed. The seats are comfy and have a fair amount of recline. The stadium seating gives you plenty of viewing space above the head of the person in front. The aisles could be a bit wider, but with the reclining seats, something had to give. Owing to the opening weekend, school break, and weekend timeframe, the theater drew a big crowd, but it wasn't as bad as primetime.

I came into this movie with the knowledge that there would be little to no relation to its inspiration, the book of the same title by Robert Ludlum. The departure of the first movie from the printed work made that possibility moot anyway. There was no way they could tie them together. However, for those of you that enjoy the movies, I highly recommend the books. Same action, better plots and cohesion. Plus, Marie doesn't get ganked in the second book like she did in the second movie.

The movie had plenty of action with Matt Damon performing most of his stunts. I heard him mention in a recent interview that he's getting too old for this @#$%. Wait, that was Murtaugh, sorry. He did say that at 36, he was finding it harder to recover after a day of filming fight scenes and rooftop chases. Personally, I'd be glad to be able to do half the stuff he does in this movie and still be able to wake up in the morning.

Opposite Damon is a cast of decent actors that make a good backdrop to the intrigue and action that is this movie's staple. Julia Stiles reprises her role from the first two movies. There was a romance between Jason and Stile's character Nikki threatening like a thunderhead looming on the horizon for a moment. Thankfully, the weather cleared and that bit of unnecessary fluff didn't make it on the screen. Bourne is pitted against Pamela Landy, played by Joan Allen from the previous movie as well as a whole stable of spooks led by David Straithairn, who is just dreamy according to Michelle at www.bestweekever.tv. Albert Finney, who has been around forever but only really managed to claw his way into my memory after his role on 2003's Big Fish, makes an appearance as well. I see from his imdb entry that Finney portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1970 film Scrooge, which may or may not be the version that makes its way to the airwaves every year. I can't be bothered to remember. Either way, those named did an excellent job providing a murky conspiratorial atmosphere. I was less than impressed by Scott Glenn's scenes, but they were graciously few.

The Bourne Ultimatum gets high marks for some intense, personal action scenes (no cars versus helicopters or Bourne versus jets in this one) and good old fashioned spook conspiracies. I did not like the shaky camera style, however. I found I had a headache after about a half hour of the jittery camera work. The kid kicking the back of my chair throughout the entire damn film didn't help that much. I still found myself enjoying the movie though, so it gets points for that as well.

I give The Bourne Ultimatum four out of five amnesiacs kicking government agency ass on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

The Simpsons Hit the Big Screen

Not a timely headline, obviously, but since this post isn't timely either, it is fitting.

I caught a showing of The Simpson's silver screen debut solo last week on a slow day. I thought of calling Jon and inviting him, but he'd already seen it a few times while in Michigan and I didn't think he'd want to schlep all the way to Manassas to see it again in the rundown theater down the street.

The movie is funny. It's got a lot of the elements that make the television series amusing, including celebrity cameos, appearances from Springfield's non-Simpson residents, quirky gags, physical humor, etc. In fact, the list of things that The Simpsons Movie had that the weekly television show does not is surprisingly short. Jon and I discussed our surprise that the creators did not take advantage of the format more than they did. For example, one (not so shocking) difference was the inclusion of nudity. I'm not going to give away the variety of nudity for those of you that haven't seen it, but I will say that it's not salacious or shocking in the least. This may reveal me as a horrible parent, but I wouldn't care if my daughters saw it, it's that harmless. Other additions were the widescreen format and the extended time. That's about it.

So yes, to see The Simpsons Movie is to pay money for something you can get free, which is pointed out by Homer himself within the first few minutes of the movie. It's still fun to see America's favorite yellow family up on the big screen, popcorn and soda in hand. If you're a fan of the Simpsons, check it out. Otherwise, you could easily wait for the DVD and subsequent television release.

Perhaps my only real complaints about the movie was the lack of more scenes with the non-Simpsons. The television show is entertaining not just for the Simpsons' antics, but for the townspeople's reactions (or lack thereof). While we got to see quite a few of the other players, I felt there could have been more.

I give The Simpsons Movie three out of five naked unnamed Simpsons characters performing unspecified antics on the silver screen on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Yeah, I'm Still Here, So What? You Wanna Fight About It?

It's been weeks since my last post. If asked, I don't think I could come up with a satisfactory answer to the question why. Perhaps it's because my trip to see my wife and girls in Utah was harder on me than I thought it would be. It did signal the half-way point in my quasi-bachelorhood, but coming home also meant it would still be another 3 weeks before I saw my family again. Since then, I've had plenty of time to blog, but no inclination. I expect I will get a couple of entries in some time this week. I've been to see The Simpsons and Bourne Supremacy so I'll have a couple of entries about those. I've had some major computer problems, so I've got a bit to write about that. Then there's the trip to Utah itself. I'll see what I can get up here on all of that within the next few days.

Harry Potter and the Order of Staying Up Way Too Late and Still Getting Up for Work the Next Morning

A few thoughts came to mind as I sat in the theater waiting for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to start last week. First and foremost was,

“What, am I crazy? There is no frickin’ way I’m going to want to get up for work three hours after the movie!”

And second, of only slightly less impact,

“How weird is it to hear the opening strains of the Harry Potter music and not have Stacy’s fingernails digging into my leg?”

For you see, Stacy has this adorable habit of clutching my leg whenever she hears the Harry Potter music on TV or in the theater. The pressure exerted is proportional to how close the release of a new Potter movie is. I may just get a slight clutch at the first teaser trailers months in advance. By the time it is a week before the opening of the movie, I may have five small permanent indentations right above my knee. You can imagine what kind of pain opening night brings. Despite all that, my third thought was,

“I kinda miss it.”

Stacy and I had decided to wait until I got to Utah to go see Harry Potter together. I have no problem with that. Although I have enjoyed the Potter movies, I could stand to wait. However, Wednesday after I got home from work, a couple friends called and told me I was going to a movie with them. “Why not?” I thought, until they told me which movie and what time. A midnight showing would get me home around three or three thirty in the morning on a work night. I wasn’t thrilled about that, but further, the movie was reserved for Stacy and I this week and I told them so.

Of the two of them, only one was married. He just groaned in recognition of the marital edict. The other one, a perpetual bachelor, objected, “Oh, I guess we know who wears the pants in your family!” and other such clichés. My married friend voiced his sympathies and understanding. Sometimes marriage is about understanding and respect. In this case, I understood Stacy’s manic love of the Harry Potter series and respected the amount of damage I would bring upon myself if I violated it.

Undeterred, the two friends rallied with the offer to convince Stacy to allow me to go. I laughed and told them to have at it. Rather than get off the phone, my married friend got his wife to call Stacy. Both of them are good friends of ours. I only caught snippets of the conversation in the background, but from the sounds of it, I was in trouble just for suggesting the idea. Stacy had already given up tickets to the midnight show and she was going to watch her nephews and niece while their parents went. I was told that Stacy would be calling me directly. My married friend expressed his condolences and I hung up, awaiting the call to death row.

What I didn’t mention during all of this is how understanding and sweet my wife is. I knew that if I had asked, she would let me go, maybe make me pay for it elsewhere, but let me go at the time. She called in a couple of minutes and told me to go out and have a good time, which isn’t nearly as entertaining to you my reader as me getting my head chewed off, but much less painful for me.

Still, I can’t help but think that I will be paying for this in no small way by the time I get out to Utah Thursday.

What about the movie, you ask? No, you don’t ask? Well why not? What do you expect from me? I can’t not review a movie I’ve gone and seen! You knew what this was when you came here. You knew what this was!

The fifth in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix found me with relatively low expectations. For some reason, I have not been as excited to see the movies ever since Sir Richard Harris passed away and the role of Dumbledore was given to Michael Gambon. For some reason I cannot separate Gambon from his role in the Robin Williams vehicle, Toys.
Despite this personal issue, the movie turned out to be very enjoyable, if compressed. I have read all the books, but it had been a while since Order of the Phoenix. I knew I was missing a bunch of scenes, but since I didn’t remember what I was missing, I was free to enjoy what was there.

As enjoyable as that was, this was still, as two friends of mine put it later that week, “just another Harry Potter movie.” That really sums it up. No one person’s performance was sub par, no technical issues marred the production, the scenes were lavishly produced with an obvious love of the subject matter, yet there was nothing remarkable about the movie. It was just another in a series. Perhaps I was hoping for more character development, or something above and beyond the story the books already told. I don’t know, but I just wasn’t “wowed”.

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson all played their parts respectably well, as did the supporting cast. I love to see Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman in anything. Severus Snape is a very complex character that Rickman pulls off with aplomb. Oldman’s Sirius is a tragic figure that he is well-suited to play. I wished for more Hagrid scenes, I think Robbie Coltrane steals every one he’s in. While Voldemort, played admirably by Ralph Fiennes, who I want to call Ralph no matter how often I hear his name pronounced “Rafe” (there’s a damn “L” in there, “Rafe”, say it right!) is ostensibly the villain of the movie, I think that role was filled by another character. From the first moment she was on the screen, I could not stand Dolores Umbridge, played by Imelda Staunton, who couldn’t have done a better job under threat of death (actually, she probably would have done a much worse job under those conditions, who needs that kind of pressure?) She earned my loathing much quicker than did Snape in the early movies. I was amazed at how evil she could act while believing for all the world she was in the right. Kudos to Staunton.

My final thought is that if you like Harry Potter, go see the movie. If you are a fan of fantasy, but not particularly attached to the Potter series, wait for Stardust to come out. That one is going to be good.

I give Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix two out of four busybody know-it-alls on a scale I just made up that means nothing.

Tertiary Thoughts on Transformers

That’s right, I saw Transformers a third time. Last Monday, as a matter of fact. That made three viewings in a week and a day. It’s a damn good movie.

Nothing new really came to me from this last viewing. I enjoyed it just as thoroughly as the first two times, but I didn’t want to bore my few readers with more pontificating on the awesomeness that is giant transforming robots on the silver screen. Instead, I present to you a handy comparison guide to the transformers in the movie and their original counterparts. You'll see that there are quite a few interesting differences.

Decepticons



Megatron



Barricade


Starscream



Blackout


Frenzy


Bonecrusher


Devastator



Scorponok


Autobots



Optimus Prime


Bumblebee


Jazz



Ironhide


Ratchet

Quasi-Bachelorhood Strikes Again!

I just realized that I did not mention in the past few days that Stacy and the girls are on vacation. I put them on the plane back on July 3rd, just before my first viewing of Transformers and a day before my visit to Jamie and Casey's for a barbeque and Wii playing to celebrate the 4th. The girls are visiting our families out in Utah for the next six weeks. I'll be playing quasi-bachelor again here at home until mid-July when I fly out for a few days to visit and come back to work.

I miss my family, but it is important to Stacy and I to reconnect with extended family at least yearly. This way our kids know who their uncles, aunts, cousins, and most importantly, grandparents, are.

I'll be filling my time with a mixture of work, school, video games, and probably more than a few movies. Also, my blog will more than likely be a bit more active as I have much more free time on my hands without the girls at home. Enjoy my prolificity (it is so a word, spell checker!) while you can, suckers!

Secondary Thoughts on Transformers

It’s Friday night and I have just finished watching The Transformers for the second time in three days. The way things are shaping up, I will probably see it a third time within the next week.

And I am perfectly fine with that.

The movie is quickly moving up on my list of favorites. It has action, it has humor, it has a struggle between good and evil, it even has a romance. Perhaps most important of all, it didn’t rape my childhood memories.

Hollywood has been getting it wrong for so many years, that we moviegoers are trained to expect adaptations of our favorite things growing up to be crappy. In recent years, a few brave directors have stood up to the onslaught of sewage that Tinseltown spews upon us and are struggling to close the sluice gates. Peter Jackson was one with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Sam Raimi has done it with the Spider-Man trilogy, Bryan Singer did it with the first two X-Men movies before losing his way and crapping out the polished turd of Superman Returns, and Christopher Nolan delivered a shining example in Batman Begins.

I’m not going to spend time on all of the horrible television, movie, toy, and comic book adaptations that have moistened the silver screen with their waste (too much with the sewage references?)

Now, we have Michael Bay. He already proved himself in the action arena with Armageddon and The Rock (the movie, not the Dwayne “Look at my eyebrow!” Johnson,) among others. He has now proved himself high among the ranks of creators that have lovingly cradled childhood nostalgia, polished it carefully, cut off the detritus, and delivered it to the masses.

Bay didn’t play with no Go-Bots.

So, a couple of things that stood out to me this time. I noticed that Bumblebee seemed very feline in his transformations. He almost took on the appearance of a yellow panther crouching to spring before becoming the Camaro. I noticed a few more subtle placements of the autobot and decepticon symbols on the respective robots. Not as many on the decepticons, but they were still there. Frenzy actually talks. At first listen, he seems to just chitter, but if you know what he’s talking about, you can make out words, (such as “Witwicky, Witwicky,” or, “Megatron, Megatron, Megatron!”) As I watched Starscream transform in midair, I thought to myself,

Self?

Yeah?

It’s totally time for someone to make a Robotech live action movie.

Totally.

I’m glad we’re in agreement.

Yeah, now quit talking to me, people are going to think I’m crazy.

Oh, and the soundtrack and score for the movie were perfect as well. While the following was not in the movie, perhaps because it’s on the cheesy side, it is still kinda cool. Don’t know who did the song, but the footage seems to be a mix of scenes from the trailers. Trust me on this, as cool as some of these scenes are, the coolest were saved for the movie itself. Do yourself a favor and check this one out while it’s in the theaters. For my part, I’m eagerly waiting the sequel.

Transformers Kicked @$$

Jon and I caught a screening of Transformers yesterday. The question about this movie is not whether it is awesome or not. No, we need only a determination of how awesome it is.

Pretty damn awesome.

So little was wrong in this movie and so much was right. The LaBeouf's comic timing was perfect, much as I've come to expect from the boy-man. My concern with him is that he is rapidly approaching Colin Ferel levels of movie role saturation. Ah well, I don't blame him for riding that gravy train until it hits the last stop. He was a perfect choice for the lead role in this movie.

Did I say lead role? Perhaps only in the human sense. This is a movie about frickin' transforming robots, right? They were excellent. The animation was so seamless as to make you forget they weren't real. I just realized that as I look back on the movie. I had no problem believing that these giant robots were rampaging in the deserts of Iraq and the streets of New York. Michael Bay did such an artful job of integrating them into the scenes that I did not for one second come up out of that level of disbelief to say, “Now hang on a minute!” Bay also played to the fans of the old-school cartoon. Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime among many others on the cartoon, voiced, you got it, Optimus Prime. How awesome is that? For my money, it doesn't get any better than Prime blurting out, “Oops, my bad.” after inadvertently crushing a lawn ornament.

The rest of the Autobots and Decepticons were excellent. The good guys were rounded out with Jazz (Darius McCrary,) Ironhide (Jess Harnell,) Ratchett (Robert Foxworth,) and of course, Bumblebee (Mark Ryan.) While Bumblebee makes the jump from perky little VW Bug in the old cartoon to beefy muscle car in this one, his spirit remained. The decepticons were led by Megatron (Jon called it, voiced by Hugo Weaving) of course, and included Barricade (dual role for Jess Harnell, but few lines here,) Bonecrusher (Jimmie Wood,) Blackout, Devastator, Scorponok, Starscream (voice by Charlie Adler and not nearly whiny enough), and Frenzy (Reno Wilson.) The creators seemed to have the most fun with Frenzy, a small vaguely humanoid robot that had echoes of Johnny 5. He was entertaining to watch.

Speaking of humor, the movie hit on the funny bone early and often. Something I did not expect. The LaBeouf was not the only one raking in the laughs. Everyone from the computer geek to the Autobots and even Frenzy brought a lot of laughs. Heck, The LaBeouf's parents had one of the funniest/cringeworthiest scenes in the movie! We even got a hilarious cameo by Bernie Mac as a used car salesman.

Speaking of the human characters, Anthony Anderson, one of my recent favorites, makes an appearance as the computer geek way out of his depth. John Turturro also plays a character a little out of his depth in his own quirky way. Josh Duhamel plays a tough sergeant with a soft side. Jon Voight played a predictable and a little clichéd defense secretary. Not a big complaint there, just not a great choice. The definitely hot (and according to Jon, not quite right,) Megan Fox (more than just a clever name) played The LaBeouf's romantic interest, which was a little too interesting to the Autobots at the end of the movie, if you ask me. Oops, I let something slip. Yes, the Autobots are alive at the end and the boy gets the girl. Dammit, I screwed it up for everyone.

There is so much to say about this movie, but I don't have the time or inclination to list everything that rocks about it. If you have any fondness for the Transformers from your youth, or you like Action movies with a capital A, or if you enjoy a bit of humor thrown in with your explosions, or if you just want to see a good movie, go see Transformers. I'll personally take responsibility if you come out of that theater disappointed (that and $3.50 will get you a snack at the concession stand.)

I give Transformers five out of five little autobot heads that transform into decepticon heads as we go to commercial on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

It Sounds Like Rat and Patooty, That's not Appetizing!

I took my two older girls to see Ratatouille this Friday. I'm afraid that I have become accustomed to a sort of mindless quality that has overcome the computer-generated kids flick genre in the last three or four years. Even Shrek the 3^rd was unable to overcome it. However, I failed to realize that Pixar is exempt from this pitfall. Pixar has consistently delivered entertaining and heart warming tales that can amuse everyone in the family. That is a claim that is promised by many but fulfilled by few. Ratatouille is one such film.

The voice acting was superb. However, it caused me some trouble. All through the movie I wracked my brain to place the voice of the main character, Remy. It was so familiar, yet so hard to associate. I finally had my answer during the credits, Patton Oswalt. Patton Oswalt!? I was going through name after name of young Hollywood up-and-comers as that seems to be the preference for leading roles in CGI movies lately. Nah, not at Pixar. These are the people that cast Coach Hayden Fox as Mr. Incredible and Albert Brooks as Marlin, they won't bow to the trend (let's just ignore that blip on the radar with Mr. dicknose in Cars.) I don't know why I couldn't place Oswalt's voice. It's very distinctive. He did a marvelous job.

His costars were a mix of established actors and some unknowns. For example, his opposite, Linguini, was played by Lou Romano. A quick scan of his IMDB profile doesn't lead to any standout performances. However, Linguini's romantic interest was played by dame comedienne Janeane Garofalo. She's another one I didn't associate until after the movie. The ev-il food critic was played by none other than Peter O'Toole (he hasn't been knighted yet?) having been almost animated into the part as well as offering his voice to the role. The true villain of the story, however, was Skinner, played by Sir Ian Holm. Will Arnet, Brian Dennehy, James Remar, and Brad Garret (of Raymond fame) fleshed out the rest of the notable cast, though I'm sad to say none of them really made an impression on me. I was pleased to see that the old Pixar standby, John Ratzenberger made it into this one as well.

The movie hinges on the unlikely plot device of Remy the rat controlling Linguini the human's actions by pulling on various locks of hair. I readily overlooked this aspect as I had already suspended my disbelief of a rat that could not only read, but cook as well as a finely-trained French chef. It takes some surprising turns towards the predictable end, which is refreshing for a Disney movie. I have found that most of their recent offerings can be sussed out by the first fifteen minutes. I'm not going to offer any spoilers, however. Those of you that are interested will probably go see the movie, those of you that aren't don't care, so here we are.

As far as Summer CGI entries go, I predict that this will be the top of the heap, including Shrek the 3^rd. Thankfully, The Simpsons Movie does not fall into that bucket, or I may have some words to eat. Next up, Transformers!

I give Ratatouille four out of four half-eaten pieces of stinky cheese on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Die Harder Than You’ve Ever Died Before

Stacy and I caught an early showing of the new Bruce Willis movie, Live Free or Die Hard yesterday. For those of you woefully uninformed, this fourth installment of the Die Hard franchise, like the other three, features wisecracking New York Detective John McClane fighting terrorists. John McClane is one of those sorts that is always in the wrong place at the right time; since he always manages to be in a position to foil the terrorists in one way or another before anyone else can or will. John is not in any sort of anti-terrorist or quick response unit. He’s just this normal guy that can’t get a break. I think that is one of the appeals of the Die Hard movies. Willis has got the everyman character down to a science. We want to believe that we would do what John McClane does if given the opportunity.

Enough about the franchise, how was the movie? Let me get what I don’t like about the movie out of the way first. Semi-spoilerish details follow.

The Bad:

• The terrorists use computers to take control of all traffic signaling in major US cities, all from one central location. There is no such thing. No central location controls every traffic signal in New York, DC, Chicago, LA, etc. Taking over such systems simultaneously would take much more manpower than the terrorist had and much more coordination.
• The terrorists trigger “Anthrax alarms” in every government building in DC at the same time. While this may be more plausible than the traffic control, it is not very likely.
• The terrorists take control of every broadcast, cable, and satellite television channel as well as EVERY networked computer to broadcast their videos to the public. WTF? Why does Hollywood always get this stuff wrong? Let’s assume that it was possible to control the television signals from three disparate sources as if there is a central location to control those. I know, not bloody likely, but let’s assume that for a moment. Where would they get the power and capability to broadcast their video to every networked computer, full screen? Computers just don’t work that way. The terrorists would have to pipe their signal to every computer, which is crazy to think of considering the varying types of networks out there and all the different safety and security components they would have to bypass on myriad systems. They would then have to trigger an automatic upload that simultaneously started every video player on every computer at the same time and played their synchronized message. Nuh uh. It could be conceivable if they used a virus to gain access, but the time it would take to propagate to every machine would allow it to be found by countless people that are paid to watch for such activity. Nope, it’s too much.
• In addition to all of this crazy-ass control the terrorist wield, they also have access to military secrets such as Air Force “go codes” and the ability to hijack a military jet to do their bidding. I’m ignoring how badass it was to watch John McClane versus a Harrier Jet for now and calling BS on the terrorists.
• The Mac (more on him later) constantly complains that, “the satellites must be down” when his cell phone won’t get signal. Who at this point has not heard of a cell phone tower? Cell phones don’t use satellites, they use towers to connect. Satellite phones use satellites, and they did not have those. If the power is completely out in a given area, it’s a good bet that the cell phone tower is out as well, which is a much more likely reason you are not getting cell signal. The Mac, being a consummate hacker, even able to do so with said cell phone, would be intimately familiar with how one works. I’m willing to bet the majority of the audience at least knows about cell towers. Why insult our intelligence?
• The terrorists perform all of their acts from a single, albeit mobile, location and no one figures out how to track them. We must accept that the anti-terrorism cyber unit or whatever they’re called in Homeland Security are completely unable to track these signals controlling so many disparate centralized systems to a single location? Come on!

Okay, as much as those little points irked me, they were all secondary to getting John McClane from point A to point yippee-ki-ay, mother trucker. That’s what Die Hard is all about, after all. So, even though the plot devices sucked to high heaven, the rest of the movie was cool as hell.

The Good:

• Bruce Willis naturally hits McClane out of the park. Ever since Moonlighting, Willis has proved that he knows how to play the wisecracking detective occasionally out of his depth.
• The hacker geek sidekick, played by The Mac was actually pretty entertaining. Not too surprising considering the other things I’ve seen him in.
• Timothy Olyphant, who I didn’t recognize even though I have seen him in a project or two, plays the villain. He actually does a pretty decent job.
• His hot second-in-command was played by Maggie Q of recent Mission: Impossible 3 fame. There’s nothing like a little hot ninja kickass action.
• Kevin Smith played the enigmatic Warlock. Okay, he’s not enigmatic, you just think that until you see him, then he’s just the shlub that’s portraying the stereotypical hacker nerd, but he does a good job there!
• Surprisingly, I enjoyed Cliff Curtis as the hardass in charge of figuring out what the hell is going on. Not surprising because I don’t like Curtis or anything. Honestly, he wasn’t familiar at all. Surprising because I usually don’t care about such secondary roles, but he performed well and his character’s decisions made sense. It’s just too bad his entire operation was inept.
• Mary Elizabeth Winstead played McClane’s estranged daughter Lucy. She channeled her inner Willis and was as tough as John. I really enjoyed her scenes in the movie.
• The action, holy crap was the action good. I don’t think I have ever seen that many car chases, explosions, gun fights, fist fights, helicopter versus car fights, jet versus man fights, apocalyptic end-of-the-world action in one place.
• Locations. While this movie doesn’t have any exotic locations like the Bond series, but it didn’t stay in one place for too long. I enjoyed watching Willis and The Mac playing catch up with the bad guys at various locations until the culminating scenes towards the end. And when all hope seems lost, yippee-ki-ay, mother-

If you dig action movies, then this is your first stop this summer.

I give Live Free, Die Hard four out of five explosions on a scale I just made up that doesn’t mean anything.

Oh, and in case you haven't caught it yet, here's a kickass tribute to John McClane by a group called Guyz Night. Language definitely NSFW!

More Will Ferrelly Goodness

That darn Pearl is back. This time she's out for Ferrell's blood! Check out the latest, and sadly last, of Pearl's appearances in Ferrell's funnyordie.com "Good Cop, Baby Cop". Thanks for the drop, BWE.tv!

Happy Father's Day! That's This Week, Right?

I feel a little guilty for not posting this last week right after Father’s Day, but here we are. I had a wonderful Father’s Day, complete with a stirring rendition of “Daddy’s Homecoming” by my daughter and the rest of the young children at church. Stacy and the girls gave me what could possibly be the sweetest and most cherished gift ever (forgive the sentimentality, I have a weakness for it when my kids are concerned) in the form of a custom photo album designed to sit on a desk and rotate through pictures (Creative Memories Picfolio Minutes, standby for shameless plug leading to Stacy's Web site.) There are three pages in the album each drawn or written by one of the girls along with some poems calculated to bring a tear to my eye and some great candids of the girls. It has a place of honor on my desk, right near my workstation. I have already proudly showed it off to a few of my interested cubicle visitors.

They also picked out a Wii game for me, Super Paper Mario. It’s a good one, full of the unique humor that made Super Mario RPG so fun on the Super Nintendo. It uses the Wii’s particular controller mechanism only peripherally, but that doesn’t detract from the fun of the game. It poses itself as a 2D sidescroller, but has the highly enjoyable feature to turn the screen sideways so you can look at the game field in all its flat glory from the side. Many hints, secrets, and required items can be found hidden in this third dimension that is so strange and unusual to the two dimensional inhabitants of that world. If you have a Wii and enjoy Mario games, I highly recommend the game.

MetaBlog Update Department:
This is my 100th post. Woo hoo!

More Than Meets the Eye, Potatoes Have Eyes, It’s a Joke, Get It? Ah, Forget It.

As you already know if you read Jon’s Threshold, I received another awesome gift for my new cubicle yesterday. Jamie gave me an Optimash Prime which may be the sweetest Mr. Potato Head ever. I would have to rate this over Darth Tater at least because Optimash is a good guy. Hmm, maybe I need to get a Darth Tater and pit the two in a duel to the julienne. Anyways, Optimash has taken up a benevolent watch over Power Girl in my upper cabinet. Someone must protect her virtue as she poses heroically, after all. That is assuming she doesn’t flatten any threats to her virtue with her two huge – muscles. You thought I was going to say boobs, didn’t you? Get your mind out of the gutter, perv. Not everything is about sex with me, okay? Speaking of which, this particular photo sparked quite a nerd conversation between Jon and I. Go check out his blog for the particulars. Here are the two heroes chillin’ in my cabinet with Optimash’s bitchin’ miniature Optimus truck sidekick. Thanks, Jamie!

Ain't nobody messin' with this cabinet!

Somebody Looks Fantaaaastic!

Jon, Jamie, Casey, and I went to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on Monday. Judging by their previous effort, I could have gone into the movie expecting it to fall somewhere between Fantastic Four and Daredevil in the realm of crappy comic adaptations. However, the trailers made it look much better than that and may have skewed my expectations more towards X-Men levels.

Happily, I was not disappointed. This one was far better than the first in almost every respect. Unfortunately, three of the things that sucked from the first one made their way into this one. Namely, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, and Julian McMahon. Grifod just doesn’t do a convincing Reed Richards. He tries his darndest, I’ll give him that, but he doesn’t make it. Jessica Alba, though one of the holy three Jessicas, has just about zero acting ability. Naturally, she makes up for it by showing off her boobs. Being the 21^st Century Cro Magnon Man I am, I don’t mind that much. Still, she is no Susan Storm.

The biggest stinker of the bunch is without a doubt McMahon. The man has no presence. He’s about as threatening as Mort Goldman from Family Guy. How can he even hope to pull of someone of Dr. Victor Von Doom’s imposing personality? It is as if the Casting Powers That Be decided that there was no way they could impart Doom’s over-the-top megalomania in a realistic manner, so they went 180 degrees and cast a milquetoast instead. There may be some truth to that sentiment, but that is no reason not to try, dammit!

Mort Doom, pleased to meet you.

Oh gosh, I hope that didn't come off as too pushy!

That said, Dr. Doom in his armor was definitely a sight to behold. They got that part right. Too bad it didn’t happen until the end. Doug Jones as the Surfer was outstanding. Laying Laurence Fishburne’s voice over the top made the Shining One fun to watch. He did some kee-razy things with his board that made for some splendid visual effects. Chris Evans gave his encore performance of Johnny Storm the same treatment as his first. He may not be born for the role like Michael Chiklis is for The Thing, but that doesn’t hurt him any. Chiklis was great. They roughed up his rock a little bit and lengthened his brow. I can see them slowly working him into the current comic book incarnation just as Ben Grimm evolved into a rockier Thing there.

One of Jon’s complaints was Galactus. I was just relieved that they didn’t have him as a giant space fart as some of the early images indicated. What they did do was nod to the comic community in the form of a silhouette in the shape of Ol’ Purple Pants’ helmet over Saturn and then again when the Surfer met with Galactapus. I had no complaints. Considering what form Galactus has taken in the comic books from time to time, specifically in an issue of Quasar back in the day, it wasn’t far from the source.

The visuals were excellent. Even seeing the Fantasticar in action wasn’t as cheesy as it could have been. Sue’s use of powers was not only well done, but appropriate for her ability. The Thing didn’t get as much clobberin’ time as I would have liked, but what he did was good. Human Torch looked perfect, especially in the scenes with the Silver Surfer. Dr. Doom’s weird organic lightning power was present, but did nothing that he couldn’t have designed his suit to do, so I still see that as an unnecessary conceit. The Surfer’s power was fun to watch, but had an odd origin that didn’t really jive with the comics. It was used as a plot device, though, so I can’t fault them too much.

The one power I did not appreciate the use of was Reed’s stretching ability. There is just something about Ioaian Griuoffffffiuod that doesn’t sell it to me. There were a couple of good scenes with it, one of which was in London, the other when it was not Reed using it. Speaking of that scene, which you see briefly in some trailers, I loved watching Johnny do the Super Skrull thing and use all four powers at once. While it remains to be seen if the Skrulls will make an appearance in a future FF movie, who knows if the Super Skrull will as well? This is probably the closest thing we’ll get to seeing that sort of action and it was fantastic (pun intended.)

I was a bit disappointed with the blatant product placement throughout the film. Dodge was plastered all over the Fantasticar, which struck me as contrary to Reed’s earlier sentiments about corporate sponsoring. Dos Equis was not just prominently featured, it was practically shoved in my face and spilled in my lap. They would have had to give out free bottles of the stuff to make the message any clearer.

I give this movie 3 ½ out of 5 super powered astronauts on a scale that I just made up and doesn’t matter for a thing.

New Job Blues

I realized again as I wrapped up my day in the NOC last Saturday that I really don’t like endings. I don’t like saying goodbye. I don’t like closing chapters on what was overall a positive experience in my life. I wasn’t too sentimental about leaving Reston. I will miss RTC, but I think that is because I am very familiar with it and Dulles is considerably more daunting in comparison. I will miss my friends in the NOC more.

As I came into work on Monday and sat down in my empty cubicle. I do mean empty; no computer, nothing on the desk, in the drawers, or in the cabinets. I think they thought I would be bringing my own equipment with me. The joke is on them. I got nuthin. I brought in my home laptop after a warning last week from Jamie, a friend and fellow programmer.

So I sat there with my laptop, which was dwarfed by the empty space around it, completely at a loss. I had no direction. I had no equipment, I had nothing to do but wait for the all-hands meeting to start at 10:00. After a few minutes, two of my new team members strolled in and we chatted for a little bit. However, it was clear they had their own things to do before the all hands, so I went back to the scant solitude of my empty cubicle.

The all-hands meeting was considerably better. They gave each of us assigned seating and I happened to be at a table with two people I had worked with before. The familiar faces were nice to see. Two hours later and we adjourned to the “fun” portion of the meeting at the Dulles Golf Center down the way. The food was good, but since Jamie decided to stay at work to finish some things up, I really had no one to talk with. I searched out a couple of my new teammates and sat with them, but after a few minutes of not being introduced to others at the table and being politely ignored in conversation. I realized something else.

I really don’t like beginnings. I am slow to make friends and I fear my shyness often comes off as aloofness. I tend to stay on the quiet side until I get to know the people around me, and I haven’t done that yet. Things tend to get off on a slow pace for me in social situations, which is one reason I avoid them when possible. I’d rather have a close-knit group of friends that I can identify with and feel comfortable around.

What I like is middles. That time period when I am comfortable in my surroundings, I know what I’m meant to do, I know the people I need to interact with, and I can see what’s coming. Call it a comfort zone thing or whatever, but I like it. I am eagerly looking forward to reaching that point here.