MOVIE: Monsters Vs Aliens

Mom didn't want to go to a movie unless it was funny. So we went to see this. It was "cute". I was happy to see ONLY ONE slightly sexually suggestive moment in the movie (at least, the only one I found)! All the kids in the audience had a ball, that's for sure.

TV: Battlestar Galactica (finale)

So BSG is over. (sigh) The best current scifi show on television ends it's run with a very good final two hour and eleven minute episode full of action, drama, revelations and just enough religious-mystic overtones to satisfy all (I believe).

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

I had predicted since the first season that Baltar would end up being a pseudo-goodguy in this revamped BSG universe, and, well... prophecy fulfilled.

Kara apparently played the part of God-sent angel to help BSG along to it's final destination only to disappear (literally). For a split second I thought maybe she just ducked Lee quickly so there would be no temptation to "be together", but no. She was obviously "sent" by "God" to help deliver everyone to their destiny.

That destiny was also what I'd predicted in the first season, with BSG and Cylon groups joining with early man (I'd said cavemen in my original thoughts) to begin anew.

Roslyn's passing was sad, but completely predictable, as was Adama's reaction. But still poignant and true to the story.

Not getting more information on how Kara's father knew this song was a bit annoying (and I was beginning to think he was the boxed cylon that we'd never seen). At this point, we don't know. I don't think Kara was a hybrid at all, though. Maybe the new movie "The Plan" will reveal this boxed cylon we never met (or never knew we met..?).

Galen should have popped that wench's head like a zit, I think, for killing his wife.

How "cool" it was that Tigh and his wife had a love that ended up transcending multiple lives. The marital problems she brought into their lives was a typical scenario in too many lives today where a perfectly loving wife is driven away by her husband's work/ambitions (not giving her an out, but there is, as usual, blame on both ends).

All in all, a good episode, and a good ending. I am content.

Oh, and for those who are so inclined:

1 1 2 3 - 6 5 3 6 - 5 3 2 1
C C D E - A G E A - G E D C

Programmers And Those Who Like To Think They Are

Recently, I discovered that there is a big problem with those who don't have the proper "sense of urgency" when it comes to computer programming (even something as simple as survey programming).

There are those who wish to spend lots of time making pretty, re-usable code, when it is there job to push out programs ready to use in very short time frames. They don't want to use blocks of "identical" code with a value changed in each block, because it's not "pretty", it's not "re-usable", it's not what they think is proper programming.

I've got news for the world: Sometimes you get to spend the TIME to make things nice, pretty, easy to re-use, and other times you've got to throw things together in such a way that perhaps NEXT TIME, if you're re-using code, you can THEN make it nicer and easy to alter.

I like to say it this way now: It's M*A*S*H, not Grey's Anatomy.

Call it "meatball programming" (another reference that only those who have watched a lot of M*A*S*H can appreciate) or call it what you want. You can't always make perfect end-products, no matter WHAT the industry is, when you are in a time crunch.

Some people are just not fit for urgency-based daily time schedules.

Eyeballs

Today I had one eye treated with a laser procedure, and they had to literally "disable" the eye (two injections right below the eye, thank you very little). It was pretty interesting, disturbing, bizarre. My right eye, for several hours, looked only straight ahead, while my left eye moved normally. I took some pictures, but am not sure if I'll put them online... the kids thought it was pretty funny. :-) Next Tuesday they do the other eye. Yay! :-P

Daniella Turns 20

Daniella, danigurlll, Dani-rific, turned 20 last week.

(sigh)

So, as my gift to her, I'm taking her up in an airplane and pushing her OUT of it. Then I'll jump out after her.

Should be fun. There is going to be someone attached to each of us (not interested at this time in being fully trained to skydive on our own yet). :-)

Bars Leak Destroys Van

My van now sits in the driveway, a victim of over-the-counter repairs.

I noticed I was slowly leaking water out of the radiator a couple weeks ago. I had been filling it every other day without incident. Then I purchased some "Bars Leak" and antifreeze (pre-diluted). Read the directions carefully, put it in (after work), and drove home.

Made it to within a mile of home, too!

First, the van started sounding like there was water in the cylinders (so I assume the head gasket broke). That caused it to slow down, so I pulled over. I noted as I pulled over the the temperature was pretty high as well.

About five minutes later, after I made a phone call to Triple-A to be towed the rest of the way home, as I sit in the back of the van reading, I here a muffled "pop" sound, and then I notice FLAMES coming out of the hood. I guarantee you've never seen me jump out of a van so fast in any lifetime.

I stood there amazed at what was happening. "What do I do," I wondered. I remembered that I still had a quarter-gallon of anti-freeze fluid, so I carefully felt the hood (the flames were only peaking through at this point) and opened it cautiously. I really didn't want the van BLOWING UP, especially in my face. I saw that basically all of the hoses and wires on top of the engine (including the one leading to the carburator) were on fire. I sloshed the liquid onto it, while at the same time trying to keep my distance. The fire goes out, and that's it.

So, my van, which I've had so much fun with, including the mounted laptop, the "MALENA" license tag, the dual subwoofers and MP3-player soundsystem... is dead. I am certainly NOT going to attempt any repairs (it's a 1996). I am now down to my one vehicle, my 1997 Taurus (which runs very well, knock-on-wood). Worst part is that now I need to find a second vehicle so that Anthony, and then Christopher, will have one to use during their first few months of driving. (sigh)

And that is how Bars Leak destroyed my van. I wonder if I could sue them for the destruction of my van..?

MOVIE: Watchmen

Where do I start... let's start with my overall feeling about the movie. It was very good. It was probably a little better than I expected it to be. (to be clear, I am an original Watchmen reader from the eighties; I know what the Watchmen is supposed to be)

Spoilers abound in this posting, so if you've not seen the movie and/or read the original story and don't want it partially ruined, turn away now.

The characters were portrayed well, especially Rorschach, with my least favorite being Dr. Manhattan (he was constantly in slow motion, annoyingly so, and his voice was just too "high pitch" to be logical to me). The Comedian was good, though I'd almost say the actor playing him was not every seasoned because it was not the best acting job in the world. Silk Spectre (II) was fine (didn't think she was very pretty, honestly). Nite Owl (II) was also spot-on and basically perfect in my mind. Ozymandias was played well, basically a cross between Bill Gates and BatMan.

The Owl Ship was absolutely awesome. I read somewhere someone whined that they added chain guns to the ship... and to such people who will nitpick the movie to death for details different from a 20 year old story I say "don't be silly". The "changes" made to the story were in most cases minor, not taking into account the heavily altered ending, and I was fine with them.

So much of this movie, however, did come directly from the visuals in the original comics, and that was excellent. The various inkblot and "who watches..." texts found painted on walls and elsewhere, the newspaper clippings, photographs; you were fully immersed in this alternate timeline (Nixon's nose was a bit much, though). And seeing Bubastis was pretty nift (the genetically engineered Lynx seen during the final scenes).

I remember thinking "wow, some parents are going to be PISSED" when their children get them to see this movie, and mom's the world over scramble to cover their younger kids' eyes during the very animated sexual encounter in the Owl Ship. Good lord! There are also, I'm sure, many people who probably saw the movie (not having read the original) and thought "what the heck... this isn't a super hero action movie... it's a DRAMA!" And they're right. It is a drama. Advertising should probably have gotten that point across better, but then again, they did what they needed to get butts in the seats, I guess.

Not including the "Black Freighter" storyline was probably wise (it's being released as an animated feature just days after the Watchmen was put out to the cinema). But I at least would have liked to see the young boy's interaction with the newspaper peddler. Oh well.

Probably one of the big things that many Watchmen "purists" are/were/will be up in arms about is the ending. It's only vaguely like the original.

Original:   Ozy creates a fake, giant space alien "squid" the size of skyscraper and teleports it into the heart of the city, causing the deaths of millions. This causes the world to halt it's advancing hostilities and consider the possibility that they (the various nations) should unite and prepare for extraterrestrial intervention, bad or good. Then later, we see signs that the plan, though temporarily successful, is not permanent, in the guise of news bits on television that show hostilities slowly beginning again.

Movie:   Ozy uses Dr. Manhattan-type energy blasts to kill millions in multiple cities around the world, making the world believe that the Doctor is to blame - a god-like being that even the entire world could not defeat, most likely - and the threat that he may attack again is supposed to keep hostilities at bay. Plus, there is no "ironic" ending showing hostilities continuing (in my mind, a huge part of the ending).

Truthfully, I think the ending worked fine for a movie. If a giant squid appeared in the middle of the city at the end, I'd bet the audiences (more non-purists than others) would be like "okay, yeah, that's... dumb". I think this altered ending (except the missing "irony" that it really didn't end hostilities) worked well.

Truly an R-rated movie (very graphic violence, sexual content at one major point, and a bit of raw language). I'd almost have expected there to be NC-17 on this flick, after having watched it twice.

So, I really liked the movie. There was no expectation that it would "the actual comic story" without alteration, and yet they were very true to the original material. It doesn't seem like it's making as much money as I would have hoped/expected, and that's unfortunate, but I really think non-comic people are scratching their heads about it, thinking it's Spider-Man with a dark tone, but getting Days Of Our Lives in spandex.

Journey's Continuation

With the deposit of a letter into the US Mail Box outside my employer's office this morning, I decided that I'm not going to take a sabbatical from my journal and start a new one later this year as originally planned. I'm continuing this one. I'm finding that I am not ready to STOP the flow of information. The small dose of emails I got about my last entry made it clear to me it was a dumb decision. I'm tired of making those... and though I'm sure I'll continue, I'm hoping the flow will lessen as time goes on.

There's too much to share for me not to continue. I'll probably start with the Watchmen movie...