blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

Category: Movies

  • Sick, dammit all to hell

    Hrmph. This figures. I have a nasty head & chest cold. It started the day after Christmas (Boxing day), and hasn’t let up yet. I’ve spent the last 3 days in the house coughing and blowing my nose. This SUCKS. I take time off from work… valuable, precious time off work… and I get sick. Argh!

    I’ve watched a bunch of TV (more Law & Order: Criminal Intent than most people see in an entire year), some movies (including finally watching Blood Diamond, good film), and playing Call of Duty 4 when my head feels up to it.

    I’m starting to get antsy. Mid-day today I felt pretty decent, but by 4pm it all started going wrong again, and now, even after Kelly went and picked up Thai take-out (mmmm… spicey fried rice from Tuk Tuk), I’m completely stuffed up. I am, however, saying ‘to hell with it’ and am sipping on a beer. I figure, it’ll probably help me sleep, so whatever. And it’s Friday.

  • The Bourne Potter Hobbit

    After another long days work I met Kelly and our friend Miranda at Kennedy School at around 6pm for some dinner and then to the theater to watch The Bourne Ultimatum. The movie was good, however I find it hard to give a fair review of it for a couple reasons. First, we met early enough to eat dinner and have a few beers, which made me a little ‘relaxed’, and second, the theater was heated to about 100 degrees, only adding to my generally sleepiness… so I found myself fighting drowsiness during some of the film. Not to say the film lacked any action. It was packed with it. Just that the combination of everything didn’t put me in an attentive state. Without seeing a seeing it a second time I can’t say for sure, but I liked it, just not quite as much as the first one of the series.

    After getting home around 10pm I headed straight for bed to finish the last 20 or so pages of the last Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hollows. I’d been trying to finish it for a few days, and early this morning I was reading it while sipping on coffee before I had to force myself to get cleaned up and go to work. It meant stopping during the big finale. I think I want to re-read the last chapter or two straight through this next weekend, but it was a good finish to the series. Also, I’m glad to finally be done with those seven books. Time to move on.

    In other news, The Hobbit is finally getting made! (queue a little Hobbit-like jig from me) The spat between New Line and Peter Jackson has apparently been resolved so he will be executive producing what will be two more films (still unclear exactly as to whether it’s going to be simply splitting The Hobbit in two, or if it will attempt to broaden the story to include some of the other, related stories. Either way, I’m very excited about being able to watch more of PJ’s interpretation of Tolkien’s world.

  • Tin Man

    Today was a largely restful day, thankfully. The only thing I did away from home was going with Kelly to a birthday party for our friend M & J’s daughter (who turned 1) at this very kiddie friendly spot called Peanut Butter & Ellie’s. It was, uh, bright, and colorful. However, if I had a wee one it’d probably be a decent little spot I guess. Not sure it mattered to the 1 year old, but there were plenty of others with 3, 4 and 5 year olds who seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. However we got to see some friends and chat for a bit before Kelly and I came home to and watched the last two parts of the three-part SciFi Channel movie Tin Man, a re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t too bad. I mean, it wasn’t great, but it was entertaining and far superior to the other crap that channel pumps out… just look at their list of ‘original movies’, you’ll get the idea.

  • Week(end) roundup

    Hello readers (the, um, five of you). Here’s a recap of the week, with an added bonus weird Portland fact at the end (which you must read through all the following junk to discover… because I say so).

    Sunday: After spending most of the morning reveling in the rawk greatness I’d seen the previous night, Kelly and I watched Rescue Dawn, which was fantastic.

    Monday: I met Snooks after work for a couple pints at Kennedy School, where I got to talk in a limited fashion about Battlestar Galactica: Razor (which Snooks hadn’t yet seen, so I had to skirt around, well, pretty much everything).

    Tuesday: I met my friend MB at Rialto (around the corner from my office) for lunch. Had their reuben sandwich. It was no Goose Hollow reuben, but it was good. However, I was left that afternoon feeling generally full and icky. I’m not blaming it on the sandwich, I think I was fighting off a cold. Stayed in and read about 200 pages of the seventh and final Harry Potter book. Was nice to have an evening in while Kelly was out seeing a play.

    Wednesday: Kelly and I met after at Binks after I left work for a quick beer before going home and watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3, which was, uh, not great. Not quite as crap as I was expecting, but definitely not my favorite of the three.

    Thursday: Kelly and I met at Rose & Thistle for a few pints before coming home and listening to some old cassettes (which came up because over the previous weekend I’d finally gone through all my old tapes and boxed a bunch up to donate somewhere).

    Today: After a couple weeks designing the interface for a bunch of new features for SuperSweetCo’s next release of it’s flagship product (culminating with a demo at 4pm) I hung out at a work happy hour where I got to learn some funny shiz about some coworkers, before catching the train homeward. On the way I stopped at Moon & Sixpence for a pint of Old Speckled Hen before catching my bus connection home.

    Oh, just in case you’re wondering, I’ve still got Van Halen stuck in my head. I’m still rawking out!

    Lastly, I leave you with this odd tidbit I read via a Slashdot post regarding some folks wanting to rename 42nd Ave Douglas Adams Blvd, about the worlds smallest park, here in Portland. Odd.

  • A sound of transforming roman hero beers

    Over the weekend Kelly and I watched several movies, one of which was the horrible adaptation of the brilliant Ray Bradbury short story A Sound of Thunder, which, while having some (and I emphasize some) interesting bits, it was overall a terrible film. Read the original story here (the only one I could find).

    Later that night we watched the Transformers movie. Perhaps it’s just that I hold a special place in my heart for cars transforming into robots, but I thought the movie was pretty fun.

    We also started watching the HBO series Rome, which was very interesting.

    Lastly, we finished watching the first series of Jekyll (starring the brilliant James Nesbitt), and got caught up on Heroes. Jekyll was great, and Heroes is I think a bit slower this year than the last, but still excellent.

    Tonight I met up with Snooks at Kennedy School for some dinner, and we later moved on to another local pub, the Concordia Ale House, where I had both the delicious Terminal Gravity Strong Ale, as well as an Oktoberfest Marzen style lager by a brewery who’s name I now forget. Fun times, and was home before 11.

  • Missing in action

    Damn it’s been a while since I’ve written. There’s no real reason for my absence other than a combination of laziness and a general malaise I’ve been feeling with regard to personal projects. Where to begin…

    It seems I’ve not written since my birthday, so I suppose I’ll break it down by day/event as best as my feeble, aging mind can manage.

    Saturday, October 27th:
    Kelly and I hosted a small gathering at my house to celebrate the my birthday, which was a lot of fun, and involved my friends bringing me copious amounts of beer. My friends know me so well.

    Sunday, October 28th:
    My family and I went for dinner at Wan Q’s, a Chinese restaurant in Beaverton. Had a fun time celebrating both mine and my father’s birthday (we share the same birthday). I remember feeling very full as we left, and dreading going back to work after so many days off. 🙂

    Tuesday, October 31, 2007:
    We had a few little-un’s come by for Halloween, more than the past couple years. Later that night Kelly and I watched Stir Of Echoes, one of those good ‘ghost story’ movies I like quite a bit, along with The Changeling.

    Thursday, November 1, 2007:
    Went to Moon & Sixpence with my brother Travis, and was met later by Miranda. Had a great time hanging out, though remember being out a bit later than I’d intended.

    Friday, November 2, 2007:
    After working form home, Kelly and I met our good friends Rick and Amy at the legendary Goose Hollow Inn for dinner and drinks (mmm… reuben sammich). Yum!

    Saturday, November 3, 2007:
    Went out to Beaverton to hang out with a friend and ex-coworker of Kelly’s and her boyfriend, where I was fed delicious BBQ’d steak & shrimp, and got to play a little Call of Duty 3 (trying hard not to be frustrated that I have no experience with console controllers, and that I still wish that game was released for the PC). Had a really fun time hanging out with both A and S that night.

    Tuesday, November 6, 2007:
    Went to Kennedy School with Snooks for some beers, and conversation ranging from sci-fi TV shows to politics.

    Tonight:
    After work met Kelly at Rose & Thistle for a few beers before heading home.

    That pretty much catches y’all up. I’m sure I’m missing something, but whatever. Hopefully I don’t let my stress / laziness keep me from posting a bit more frequently.

  • Gratuitous Amounts of Energy

    This is the best thing ever. Don’t argue with me, I’ve got ENERGY LEGS!

    Found this during lunch today via this blog post. Hilarious stuff, though Powerthirst is probably the best one.

    “MENERGY”

    *dies from laughter*

  • Order of the Phoenix

    Today Kelly and I went back to Kennedy School a little past noon to catch the 1pm show of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was good, though seeings how I’m currently about 100 pages from re-reading the book (and no, I haven’t read books 6 or 7 yet) I was a bit annoyed at all the differences between the book and the film. I understand why most of the changes were made, I mean, the book is 850+ pages, and in order to really capture it properly the movie would have been 5 hours long. However, it was so badly truncated in spots, and whole character sub-plots were cut out that it made it feel like it was somewhat hollowed out. It was still good, just not as true to the book as the other four films have been. Oh well.

    We got home and watched more Heroes. Such a fantastic show. I’m going to be sad when I’m caught up and go from DVD marathons to waiting week to week for new episodes.

  • Home, Simpsons, Moon

    Since yesterday’s post, I attended most of the rest of the conference, sadly missing the last speaker in order to catch the flight home. The flight took a bit longer than was scheduled, arriving a bit after 8:30pm (instead of 8:10), though thanks to a co-worker (and his wife, actually) I got a ride home rather than having to take mass transit. I was able to spend the evening catching up on Kelly’s last couple days, as well as sharing my experiences of my trip.

    Today was, thankfully, pretty mellow. Kelly had class, so I was able to sleep in a little bit (with the cat at my side). I woke up around 10:30am, made coffee and had some cereal, and finished the rest of my unpacking, doing laundry, and generally getting things back in order.

    After Kelly’s day of class, I met her at Kennedy School around 5:30pm. We sat in one of the bars, had a couple drinks, and then went down the hall to the theater to watch The Simpsons Movie, which was fun and worth seeing (a few scenes had me nearly wetting myself with laughter). After that, we went to the local grocery store before heading home.

    As I set in to play some Call of Duty 2 online I got a call from my brother T who wanted to come into town to the Moon & Sixpence for a few pints, so I ended up there hanging out with him for the remainder of the evening. Good night out, though I hope tomorrow Kelly and I can relax around the house a bit. Of course, if it doesn’t rain too badly, I might just get in some yardwork. The curse of homeownership. 🙂

  • Just Hangin’ around

    Last night was kind of funny… funny in that “I’m, like, an old man now” way. My ‘plans’ to stay up irresponsibly late, with the stereo cranking out the heavy metal and dancing in my skivvies (what with having the house to myself and all) were ruined by a combination of a couple beers and general exhaustion. I dozed off sometime around 11pm watching some old Humphrey Bogart film. Awoke at around 1am and lurched my way to bed.

    Not much to report today. Woke up early to the cat biting my leg, got out of the house at a decent time, and got to the office where I spent my day taking care of some of the last bits of the big new feature I spent the last few weeks working on. Another hot day in Portland, and only now (as it’s now dark) has it cooled off to what I call an “acceptable level”. Had a good friend stop by for a beer and a smoke, and now I’m just cooking up my chicken on the grill.

    Tomorrow I’ve got my first annual employee review at SuperSweetCo. Well, a bit more than a year (more like 1.25, shit happens, we’re all busy). I’m a little nervous, only because I’m not sure what to expect. Hell, perhaps I’ll write tomorrow that I’ve been fired for being too much of a dork. Or maybe I’ll have been promoted to Grand Poobah. Time will tell. 🙂