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Moonlight missives from Atlantic Canada ∙ HALIFAX, Nova Scotia |
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Sunday, February 24, 2008
Go Ellen!
Labels: movies
Friday, November 30, 2007
I have seen things...
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Population of punks and other news-of-the-day
 The first census results from 2006 have been released and Halifax has shown a slow and steady rate of growth of about 3.8%. We now number 372,679 Haligonians. I was more surprised to see that Miramichi only dropped by a few hundred people and are still about 18,000. I was expecting a much lower number with the degree of outmigration from the area. The bad news is that a brief perusal of the nightly news indicates that the population growth that Canada is experiencing lies mostly in the "dumbass psycho punk" category. In Morrisburg, Ontario, a decorated army veteran, back from Afghanistan, was jumped in a bar by some sociopath trying prove himself against a "hero", by jumping him from behind and hitting him with an object. Meanwhile, in Winnipeg, two sixteen-year-olds and a thirteen-year-old have developed a sport whereby they steal cars and sideswipe joggers for fun and kicks. Police caught them, but predicatably, the youngest has already been released to await a court date in the future. ...and to think, when I woke up this morning, the biggest news in the nation was the invention of an Ottawa man, to make "rolling up the rim" at Tim Hortons easier. The tool was displayed in Dartmouth yesterday and made local news last night, but this morning the story had gone national. The best part was that it confirms Canada still has an innovative manufacturing industry. Sure, we've gone from designing Avro Arrows to coffee cup implements in less than a half-century but I, for one, welcome this opportunity to more efficently "play again" (which is about all I ever seem to get from the contest cups.) On the silver screen I've yet to see 300, which I am dying to do on the local IMAX screen, but it's also big in the news now. Not only did it make oodles of cash on its opening weekend, but it's attracted some criticism for being historically inaccurate and being veiled Iranian bashing. Please, don't spoil the movie for me. I hate historical inaccuracy. Really though. How much accuracy do you want? It's based on a comic book, not Encyclopedia Britannica. It's art, not history. Furthermore, if the bleeding hearts out there think that it's insensitive or something, why not spare Hollywood the grief and instead petition the Greek government to make a formal apology for the battle of Thermoplylae itself. Try holding your breath and stamping your feet while you do. I've played at least three different versions of Sid Meier's Civilization -- which makes me an expert in such matters -- and I have nothing good to say about Xerxes and the Persians. Xerxes, "your head would look good on a pole." Labels: Afghanistan, crime, demographics, games, Halifax, movies, Ontario, Tim Hortons, Winnipeg
Friday, March 09, 2007
Bloggin' for Amin-ute
 It's Friday and time to kick back. My plans for the evening have been to watch "Last King of Scotland" and maybe a couple of other videos. It feels good that the weekend is finally here. Labels: movies
Monday, February 19, 2007
A flurry of videos
 The weather's bad and I'm under it. Overall, it's just been a crabby day for me, with the beginnings of a cold and a race to complete my work before the roads got too hectic in today's snowfall. Now home, I've spent the evening watching quite the slate of downloaded TV shows. I've now caught up on all the episodes of "Little Mosque on the Prairie". Usually I download shows from channels I don't have but Little Mosque proves the opposite. In fact, CBC is on the television in the background now. I was going to watch tonight's episode fresh, rather than downloading it. To date, I'd only caught the premiere. However, it turns out that it's on Wednesdays now. Worse yet, after I had accepted the schedule change, another promo came on saying that Little Mosque was up next. Completely confused, I learned that they run repeats on Mondays, and I had just watched the same episode less than an hour before. If I was critical of the show in any way previously, allow me to reduce my apprehension. The show is funny. The characters are likeable. The jokes are full and varied. Best of all, they're keeping the pace up from episode to episode. Each one is as funny as the last and I've enjoyed it. Now, I've just finished watching last night's spectacular episode of "Rome", which I will be sorry to say goodbye to if indeed it finishes in four more swiftly coming episodes. The attention to detail, the clarity of each clang and slice of combat, the politics of the world's first true republic. Boy, I'm going to miss this one. I'd by a subscription to HBO just to say thanks, but if it's no more...  I also just finished the first episode of the BBC's "Ivanhoe", a six-part miniseries based on the novel by Sir Walter Scott (whose bust graces nearby Victoria Park along with Burns.) Both Rome and Ivanhoe are on screen products of the meticulous historians at the BBC (they consult on Rome for HBO.) Ivanhoe, is of course, fiction, but it's the setting that one is immersed in to which I offer my praise. Nothing like this is on my television. All I get to watch each evening is ETalk, American Idol, or the CSI-of-the-night. Now I'm only finished the first episode of Ivanhoe, but before I get back to medieval England, I need to jump into space. I have Sunday's episode of "Battlestar Galactica" queued up now. Labels: movies, personal, television
Friday, February 16, 2007
No Energy
 Same ship, different day? The whole week has felt rather solemn. I don't normally blog about work but suffice to say that various crises seem to be popping up weekly, just to keep us busy. It's not that they're insurmountable, but a lot of time they're things that could be avoided and so dealing with them just wears me out and wastes a lot of time that would otherwise be profitable. Today was busy. Next week will be busy. I'm going to need something nice and happy to happen to shake this mood I'm in. Finally caught "Dreamgirls" tonight at Park Lane. I really enjoyed Eddie Murphy in it. Jennifer Hudson stole the show with the power in her voice. Mostly, I really enjoy movies that seek to recreate eras in history. While I drool over Eighteenth century dramas and first century epics, I also appreciate more recent time periods. Dreamgirls is a glittery romp through early Motown and R&B, through to disco. There are very few "gritty" scenes like those normally juxtaposed to add depth to characters. The movie uses more interpersonal conflict than situational. It's almost all glamour, quite befitting the "dreams" of stardom and the characters are built around that.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Old Boy in the Hood
 It's been a quiet night here at home and we took the time to pop in a DVD. Yesterday, I made one purchase on the trip and that was to pick up Park Chan Wook's "Old Boy" which has been lauded across the internet and represents a big break through for Korean films internationally.  The movie follows the story of Oh Dae Su, who is snatched from the streets and imprisoned for fifteen years, without knowing his captor or the reason. He's eventually let go and then proceeds on a five-day search for vengeance and the truth as to why he was taken.To be honest, I can't entirely jump on the praise bandwagon. Much like "Sympathy For Lady Vengeance", by the same director, I likes the cinematography and the mood. There were a lot of little touches that made the movie quite robust. However, some of the plot details just didn't seem to follow. Perhaps I missed a few subtle things. Maybe the hypnotism angle was more important than I realized it to be. Some actions of characters just didn't seem consistant or necessary. I can't be more precise without giving away the plot, but suffice to say that the change in character in the last twenty minutes seemed like it could have turned out better had the scissors been used to enact a far more conventional solution. A few of the scenes were pretty graphic also. I'll have trouble going to the dentist after this, I can see. We actually turned the volume down in a couple of scenes. Maybe it's a sign that I'm getting old too.  So that leaves me with one more video to track down in order to complete the Vengeance trilogy. I'm eager to see "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance". I've also got "JSA" on the ol' hard drive which I'm also planning to watch. I'm ashamed to say I missed it when it came out. It was in theatres around the time that I first went to South Korea, butI think it had just finished its run. A friend of mine got to see it on the plane when he went over a few months later, but such luck was not to be mine.So with that, I end the weekend. I have a bit to do to get ready for work tomorrow but after that, I'm going to hit the hay.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Night at Night at the Museum
 CSS Acadia, on display near the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. That's the best I can do for museum pictures in my photo archives; I am happily back from seeing "Night At The Museum", starring Ben Stiller and a host of other actors including Robin Williams, Dick Van Dyke and even Mickey Rooney. Not only did we catch the movie, but we saw it on the IMAX screen at Bayers Lake, so it was quite the experience.  There were some critics who said that the gags were a bit worn out, but one could also argue that they're basically "classic" gags anyway. The film is pure fun. It's great for kids and adults alike. It's also a lot of fun to see some very likeable actors in supporting roles -- especially Van Dyke, Rooney, and Bill Cobbs as outgoing night watchmen. Ricky Gervaise also played the museum curator, like an academic version of his character on The Office, exuding similar mannerisms and anxieties.Overall, "fun" is the best word for it. Besides the entertaining cast, the plot is simple to digest, hopeful and not too deep, and the premise is every kid's dream (and some adults, I admit.) Who hasn't wished they could party in the same room as twelth-century Huns alongside Christopher Columbus and dinosaurs? The hero triumphs both through diplomacy and self-taught historical education. If I ever have kids, those are the top two talents I would ever hope to instill. Labels: movies
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
The Scotch Diary
 Waves at Lawrencetown. It's been a quiet night. One of my Christmas gifts to Yeji was a French film, called "Boy Meets Girl", that she had said she wanted. I watched a few moments of it which was enough. It was like some misunderstood teenager's art school portfolio piece, shot in black and white, which lots of long shots on superfluous props to symbolize imperfections in character. Background characters would enter the scene, say something briskly, then something profound, then something profane and exit the shot. The lead characters would stare away from each other purposefully, and make a pose for the camera. The lighting was such that everything in the background was lost in shadow, while the faces of the lead characters in the foreground were illuminated so as to appear like mimes. In the middle of a party, two glasses "accidently" collided and shattered glass fell to the floor. I think it was a metaphor for life. So, with the living room comandeered, I fled to the bedroom. I got on the exercise machine for half an hour and then pulled out Hunter S. Thompson's, "The Rum Diary" (which is also, by the way, set to become a movie, starring Johnny Depp.) Now I'm far more grounded in reality -- though not much less bitter about it -- and trying to forget about how personally rewarding it can be to go to a foreign country, with cheap liquor and fat paycheques.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Home for the holidays
 A portion of my folks' Christmas tree. We've made it up to Miramichi for Christmas. It rained throughout most of the drive but threatened to become snow or freezing rain by the time we hit Bouctouche. We even passed a snowplow that had his blade down but he was only connecting with water, thankfully. It's still raining too. One thing we kept remarking on was the amount of green left in the fields in Nova Scotia. The landscape in New Brunswick wasn't so summery but most of the rivers are still largely open, or with very limited ice. Having just finally watched "An Inconvenient Truth", my mind is still wandering toward what a significant change is happening to our weather systems. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve. Rather than spend too much time blogging, I think I'll catch up with the folks. Labels: climate change, holidays, Miramichi, movies, personal
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Snooze button
 Heritage home doorway. Exhausted. That's how I feel. Double deadlines this week but I finished the second one by about 4:30 today. Lots of late nights, early mornings, and extra tasks have kept me running ragged. Oh, and one of our designers is stuck in an airport in Colorado which has been shut down due to weather. He won't even be able to get a flight out until Christmas Day. Going to grab a nap and make sure I am rested by the weekend. Good night.  UPDATE: The nap was short. Brian from P.E.I. is visiting relatives in Halifax for Christmas and dropped by with a belated birthday present for Yeji: the DVD for "Sympathy For Lady Vengeance" which we watched this evening. It's a great film and now I am going to have to redouble my efforts to get a hold of Park Chan Woo's other works.The shots from Busan were also nice to see, since it's Yeji's hometown and has such a strong visual character to the houses, buildings, and landscape. Quite a few movies use the city as a backdrop and it's quite well known for the Pusan International Film Festival (Note that the use of Busan and Pusan are almost interchangeable since they simply represent different forms of romanization of the city's name.) No word on the status of the movie "Expats", about English teachers who go awry, which is also to be set there.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Weekend Apocalypse
 Main Avenue, Fairview. Still entertaining company so not much time to post. It's back to work tomorrow too, so I'd better concentrate on getting my chores done than blogging the night away.  As far as a brief report goes however, we saw Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" last night and in lieu of a lengthy review, I'll quickly let you know that you may wish to save your money. The plot is simplistic, ends with a lame twist, and really makes you root or the Spanish to come and cleanse these savage Mayans from the earth. Sorry, but I think that's what we're supposed to take from it. The first half has our hero and his fellow villagers dragged in one direction. The second half has the lead character, Jaguar Paw, running very quickly in the other direction to escape his enemies. Insert savagery, gore and bloody violence. That's pretty much it. Comparing it with his last work, when I watched "The Passion of the Christ", Gibson's film made me cheer when Christ finally died. Maybe this is the filmmaker's prerogative, to challenge our traditional moralities and beliefs... but at the expense of coming to wish ill upon the main characters? Gibson is proving to be much less a director than he is a sadist. Labels: movies
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Blogger less than Prestigious
 Some of Halifax's older homes, at night. I apologize but I am actually posting this one from the future. Blogger was down last night when I tried to post so I had to wait until morning. We spent the evening out with a couple of my old friends and took in "The Prestige" which we enjoyed quite a bit. It was dark, Victorian, and sinister, with quite a few twists. One of the difficult narrative aspects is in keeping the timeframe straight. It sort of begins on the verge of what transpires at the end, and starts into a retelling by Michael Caine's character. That's not unheard of but through the course of the retelling, much also is centred around reenactments of what characters read in their adversary's journals, one of which is written by a character who has written theirs based upon what they read in the writing of the first, which in turn was their persepctive of the events initially retold, and so on. It adds up to about four different time frames colliding so you have to keep a good sense of time in your head to identify the scenes and where they fit in the overall plot. It's nice to have to think for a change. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman were both great in their roles. Christopher Nolan, the director, managed to do a fine job setting the mood and atmosphere of magic and stage in late-Victorian England.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Gone to the dogs, this weekend.
 Enjoying the Lawrencetown surf. It's the weekend. We've had quite a rainy day and they predicted high winds for tonight to I am happy to be at home. I stopped in at Future Shop over lunch and picked up a couple of distractions. One was the DVD of "Drums Along the Mohawk" starring Henry Fonda about a farmer who brings his New York wife to settle in Mohawk territory, just as the Revolutionary War gets going. I was originally looking for Dr. Strangelove but once I saw this and flipped it over to see tricorns and muskets, I was sold. I also picked up the newest Sims expansion, which is Sims 2: Pets. I really haven't had much time to play the Sims over the last couple of months, and my biggest saved neighbourhood was on my old desktop which is awaiting a new motherboard. Nonetheless, I've ket up with the game's expansions so far and there were still a couple of copies left when I got to the store, so I bought it. It will run on my laptop, although the graphics are reduced. I'm looking forward to getting my old desktop running again since the graphics card in it is twice as powerful. Sims look a bit grainy on my laptop and you can't see neighbouring houses. I started out tonight making a new female slacker character with a cat. I have to admit that the animations and interactions are really well done. I've already learned one valuable lesson though: don't pet stray dogs. They'll come into the house and destroy your couch. *grumble*
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Sackville and Back
 "The Town Clock and downtown, looking east of Citadel Hill." This isn't the clearest photo I have. It was actually taken quite a while ago with one of my older cameras, but it's been sitting in my file folder waiting for a chance to shine, so here it is. I'm going to try and retake it with my current camera some evening when I am out walking. If it's too grainy, just pretend I pulled a TPB:TM and shot it in 16mm. Today was nice but it's obviously getting colder. We're supposed to be in line for a frost warning tonight. This afternoon, we went to a wedding in Sackville. I suppose it's a good field trip for when we make our own plans. After that, it was to Canadian Tire for a new dining room table (nothing pricey) and I've spent the evening putting it together until now. We have a couple of DVDs in store for tonight. Yeji rented a French movie called "Fat Girl" (original title: "À ma soeur!") which is playing now. I'm not following it too closely, blogging and all. It's seems to be a likeable movie for all the same reasons that I like most French movies, and that doesn't require paying attention to the story line. I'd be crass if I said it's about a chubby, sociopathic girl who attempts to deal with her sister's raging slutiness, but I wouldn't be far off the mark. If there's time afterward, I finally picked up a copy of "Pork Chop Hill" which I'll watch later. With the recent shootout at the OK-DMZ and the impending mushroom cloud being watched for over North Korea this weekend, I figure it'd make for some appropriate watching. Even awesomer than TV
Labels: movies, Nova Scotia
Friday, October 06, 2006
Off to Bayers Lake
 "The Captain's Pride sails toward the waterfront." Just a short post. We're on our way to Bayers Lake to do some shopping and see the Trailer Park Boys: The Big Dirty if we can get in. Being a local movie, I expect it to be packed. One other bit of local news to relate is that the Governor General inducted a number of Nova Scotians (as well as others of course) into the Order of Canada today. One of whom, was Walter Borden. Back in the day, I had a few coffees with him from time to time, as he also could be found in the downtown cafés of Halifax. That was back when he was working on Lexx and voicing the role of His Shadow. We always got a kick out of imagining that we were sharing coffee with the omnipotent overlord of the universe -- him being so mild-mannered and all. He always struck a pretty strong impression though. I remember hearing that he had been a motivational speaker through the local schools. He's one of a few people whose conversations on poetry and writing have stuck with me through the years. I was really pleased to hear his name attached to such an honour. Congratulations, Walter. Labels: movies, Nova Scotia, personal
Monday, October 02, 2006
Spare time for Loose Change
 Beach at Lawrencetown. I'm getting the feeling that I should run as many of these beach pictures as I can because it won't be long before they'll need to be replace by snow pictures. It's certainly not winter, but summer is a thing of the past around here. Today was chilly and rainy. Our internet was down when I got home so this is my first chance to get on, collect email, check the news alerts and blog. While I was waiting to get connected again, I managed to finally watch "Loose Change". I'm not going to list my own opinions on each aspect of the film. I just don't have enough of a vested interest in the almighty American democracy to stick my neck on the line over this in print, on a Monday night, after a long day at work. Suffice to say, the night (time difference for me) the towers came down, the two main words out of my mouth always were "controlled demolition". It's like chopping down a tree. No matter how big your axe, or how big a notch you chop in the side, the chances of a tree falling straight down and imploding on itself are pretty darn slim. The explosives are only a small aspect of the movie though. There were a lot of things I had never heard before (especially the Cleveland part - wow.) I'll encourage anyone to watch the movie and form their own conclusions. I will say one thing though. Until habeas corpus for non-citizens is restored, I won't be making any pilgrimages to Ground Zero. I may not fit the racial profile of a terrorist, but I *do* have a beard and a non-citizen is a non-citizen be they from Libya, North Korea, or Canada. Without the right to a lawyer or speedy trial if I run afoul down there, that's more than enough to cause a paranoid fellow like me trouble, I'm sure. I would love to take a road trip through the States someday, see the sights, the history, friends -- however I think I'll wait until they piece their consitution back together first. Labels: conspiracy, movies, personal, terrorism, United States
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Natural City, a review.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Timeshare computing
 The Halifax Armories. I'm a bit late with the blog post as I am just finally getting on the computer. We only have the laptop functioning right now and somebody was hogging it all night to chat and download K-pop. Instead, I spent the night watching DVDs, Khartoum and Zulu Dawn specifically. I avoided digging out my folk CDs, even though they make for a nice Friday night. I know that folk leads to alcohol and that leads to guitar playing and surely that would result in my poor guitar's neck snapping completely. The guy that fixes guitars is still out for another week so I am resisting all temptation to touch the guitar until then. Two DVDs being enough, I switched to reading but failed to accomplish much except to say that I am officially giving up on Gavin Menzies' 1421 after reaching the half way mark and still feeling cheated. He devotes page after page to assumptions based on initially questionable premises. The Piri Reis map is a perfect example. His argument is that only the Chinese could have made the map and then uses it as his template for much of the voyages he imagines. What about those of us who don't take his word for it that the map was Chinese? Without evidence it's a question of faith. He says the Chinese were the only civilization that had a fleet that could map that much of the earth, but incidently, the fleet was purposefully erased from the historical record in China and most of what they left behind elsewhere was written in Sanskrit. He might as well say that the Chinese had 747s and mapped the whole thing from the air... or that a civilization of rat-like, vegetarian telepaths transmitted the information to them on orders from the elite of the nomadic carrot people. I'm digging Michael Bradley's new book off the shelf (Swords at Sunset) and starting into that instead. I've already read his first two books in this examination -- Holy Grail Across the Atlantic and Grail Knights of North America -- and they were far more worthy of the time. Also worth reading by Bradley, and on a related theme, is The Columbus Conspiracy. Nova Scotia features quite heavily in this cryptohistory. Labels: China, cryptohistory, Holy Grail, movies, personal
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Mid weekend update
 Bedford's famous Chickenburger diner. We took an evening drive out to Bedford last night to stop into one of the last but locally famous old-fashioned diners, the Chickenburger. It's a real landmark in Bedford, serving up hamburgers and shakes since the 40s, as well as such deep-fried entrees as clams and chips and onion rings. The fanciness is more in the exerience than the menu. They've maintained a bright, neon-lit, classic atmosphere with the jukebox playing in one corner and a number of locals that visit regularly in classic cars. It's a great treat on a Saturday night. I have a few mixed feelings about the photo though. There's not enough space to take a shot of the whole front of the building from the sidewalk. One would have to cross the rather busy street to do that. Normally, I'd just take the shot angled from the side but in last night's case I found that view blocked by parked SUVs. The more things stay the same, the more they change.  One the way home, we decided to give the DVD player even more of a run for its money. We usually only rent movies once every few months but lately we've been getting out fill. "Beowulf & Grendel" was my pick and I was lucky to get it. All the copies had been rented last week when I went and they were all gone last night too. One of the staff found me a copy in the return bin. For the most part I loved it. Stellan Skarsgard was great, as was Gerard Butler, as per norm. Sarah Polley took a little while to find her voice. She was one of the few actors that didn't have, or use, a Scandanavian accent but even still, it was only halfway through that her voice became suitably neutral. In her first few scenes she sounds less like a Danish witch and more like someone from the WCC that they picked up on Yonge Street. There's always debate of language and accents when doing historical pieces. If some characters have them, I think all character should. They should strive for consistency. Given the choice though, I'd love to see someone pull a Mel Gibson on some of the old Viking myths and shoot the whole thing in Old Icelandic with subtitles. That was one of the few saving graces of the "Passion of the Christ" and one of the things I am most looking forward to about "Apocalypto". Filmed in Iceland much of the scenery was just simply majestic. I think that when a used copy comes up for sale, I'll add it to my collection. We also rented "In Her Shoes" with Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine. It wasn't so bad. The movie tells the tale of two sisters whose upbringing was marred by the death of their mentally ill mother early on, leading to their estrangement from their grandmother who they track down on the way to a happy ending.  Maybe the best movie we rented was "Eve & the Fire Horse". Currently doing its round of film festivals it was a truly entertaining film about a young girl's conflict between Catholicism and Buddhism as she grew up in Canada in the sixties. It stars Phoebe Jo Jo Kut as Eve and Hollie Lo as her sister, Karena. I highly recommend it. Eve is a Fire Horse, born in 1966. It's said in the movie that parents would drown the babies born in that year since the combination of being Horse and being associated with Fire were too frightful. Horse children, especially girls, are extremely stubborn and hard to control. It would seem that the Chinese Zodiac is quite accurate in these matters. Trust me when I say that I know this from direct experience. ("Yes dear, I'm almost done blogging. I'll be there in a moment.")  Some of the vision sequences were a bit odd and out of place (cinematographically, not contextually) but I suspect they represent more of a young girl's flights of fancy. The dancing Jesus and Buddha were very trippy and I still have no idea what kind of religion Jennifer Cheon represented, in her Chinese-styled version of an "I Dream of Jeannie" outfit and smoking a cigarello while she fixed the plumbing. The cast list just credits her with the role of "goddess" but whatever she is goddess of, please baptise me now.Labels: Bedford, movies, personal, restaurants
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Just a post
 CBC Building at the corner of Bell Road, South Park, and Sackville Streets. Just taking it easy tonight. I have a few subjects in mind that I'd like to blog about but I have no energy to track down links or express myself in any tangible way. Today started dark and cloudy but the sun came out in force by about 10am. At noon, I went to press on the metal bar to open the rear door at work (from the inside, I might add) and I just about burnt my hand. Serious sun beaming down. It's still humid tonight although it could just be the apartment. It's like a sauna in here most of the time. That's great in winter but not so much, now. We're watching Transamerica on DVD, and I spent most of the evening playing the Sims 2 which I've reinstalled on my laptop. On that front, Maxis just announced a much anticipated expansion set for October -- Sims 2: Pets. The video of the animation sequences make it look like they've been paying unbelievable attention to capturing the moods and habits of the animals. In the meantime, at the end of August, they'll also be releasing a new Stuff Pack, Glamour Life, to tide people over. I've kept up with releases so far, but wow, it took me over two and a half hours to install them all last night.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Evening consitutional
 Sunset silhouettes of new construction. If one thing can be said for the month of July, it's that I've gotten a lot more exercise than usual. Another observation is that I am getting lots of chances to give my new camera a workout. Both of us took an extended stroll up to the citadel and around the commons tonight, as the sun was setting. I've added a couple dozen more photos to my backlog now. The above picture stood out a bit more than the others as I was testing my camera's ability to cut through direct sunlight. I was pretty happy with the result. We came home and I finally got to watch that DVD that's due tomorrow. It was "The Libertine", starring Johnny Depp. The first half is a bit like watching a version of "Eyes Wide Shut" but set in the 17th century, and without the hot wife. The second half is like an R-rated version of "The Elephant Man". Next up is "Khartoum", starring Laurence Olivier and Charlton Heston. I picked it up at the rental place also, although this one was a purchase from the previously-viewed shelf so there's no due date.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Tropical Storm Boring
 Corner of Spring Graden and Brunswick, Halifax. It's much more tolerable weather today than that shown in the picture above. Last night, the tail end of tropical storm Beryl passed through but seemed to go by quickly. Newcasters were drumming up some concern in advance but it looks like we escaped any significant damage and are left with a much-welcomed cooling down. We had high winds for a short time but mostly it was just damp and mild. I still walked up to Spring Garden in a T-shirt (to take in "My Super Ex-Girlfriend") and hardly got wet all. The only drops I felt were from the trees as you passed under. Today is also rainy but nice, since the temperature is more hospitable. Our apartment is normally sweltering hot and on days like the last few, I have to camp out with fan and a handful of freezies to keep my brain from boiling. It acquires heat from the floors below and just traps it in here with little circulation. Today feels nice though. The pendulum could shift however. Scientists are monitoring a vast area of the North Altlantic that is several degrees warmer than it should be. The fear is that it could energize hurricanes as they move up the eastern seaboard. Usually these things spin out and we only get the leftovers (as in the case last night) but there is a fear that if a strong hurricane came along, this warm water could keep it powered up long enought to reach landfall in Nova Scotia as anything up to a Category 3 hurricane. I was overseas when it happened but people really fear a rerun of the Hurricane Juan destruction from 2003. Labels: climate change, movies, personal
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Another Saturday night
 We took a spin around town tonight. I wasn't driving so it gave me a chance to replenish some of my latenight photo archives. Today actually felt humid and a lot more people were waking up from hibernation and heading downtown to enjoy it. Our impromptu tour took us around the peninsula, for the most part, but it came after a pleasant meal at Steak & Stein and a long-awaited viewing of X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Naturally, we took in the Da Vinci Code last week as well. I used to spend a lot of time going to the theatre but after coming back from overseas a couple of years ago, Hollywood has done very little to encourage me to return to the fold. I enjoyed both of these, although X-Men 3 much moreso. In opposition to its critics, I actually believe it to be my favourite of the trilogy. It received a lot of bad press accusing it of favouring special effects over plot, however I found the plot to be steady and well-developed and seriously: when you're watching a movie about mutants and how they deal with their mutations, special effects demonstrations become plot points. As for the Da Vinci Code, I have to admit that I did not read Dan Brown's book. I read the books by Lincoln, Baigent, and Leigh about a dozen years ago, and more books on the subject of the Holy Grail since then, so I felt pretty grounded in the theory behind the DaVinci Code, though somewhat non-plussed regarding this incarnation. I was slightly annoyed that Robert Langdon solved such obscure anagrams so quickly, and I was surprised to find that Brown had relied so heavily on the Priory of Sion, which is often considered to be the weakest link in the Lincoln/Baigent/Leigh fact trail. Still, it brought me back sentimentally to the days when I and my amiable companions would scan the darkness of church vaults for dusty symbols and trace our fingers along the brickwork seeking their promised, illuminating geometries. Now I just sit at home and watch PBS. Ian McKellen was great as Lord Teabing just as he was great as Magneto in the X-Men movies. He must be on top of the world, having two movies as successful as these dominating the box office right now. Mind you, if he wasn't in the DaVinci Code, then I think X-Men 3 would have a monopoly on the good acting this month. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou left me feeling almost as bored as they looked. That's about it for tonight. Time to shut off the lava lamp and slip into bed.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Refurbished Replicants
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Officer on the Bridge
Monday, February 27, 2006
There can be only five.
Labels: movies
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Red Rover, Red Rover...
 One of the many images of Mars by Kees Veenenbos featured in Ancient Mars: Waterworld Imagined, in the galleries of Space.com After a round of mini golf last night, we managed to finally take in the IMAX movie "Roving Mars". It was short (about three-quarters of an hour) but well put together. It chronicles the development of the Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, as they were assembled, tested, launched and settled on Mars to begin their remarkable missions. Like a lot of IMAX films, the material that sells the show, is often in short supply. In this case the actual footage from Mars takes a backseat to the interviews, terrestrial footage, and CGI renderings... however those computer images are fantastic. The launch sequence is probably the most memorable aspect of the movie, as the rocket enters each stage and CGI puts you right alongside of it until the final capsule spins off to Mars. Resuming after a short span, we see the Landers as they go through their descent and bounce to a stop where they slowly unfold and begin truckin'.  Spirit and Opportunity are given their own personalities in the movie based on the natural feelings of their handlers toward them. Spirit is the first born, troublesome and hard working bot. Opportunity is the one that has it's road paved for it already by its big sister, and seems a wee bit spoiled, with the best landing zone and least surface trouble (Spirit is almost lost when dust covers her solar panels, until a fortuitous gust cleans them off at the last minute.) While initially only expected to survive three months, the rovers continue to this day (kind of like the Irish Rovers), sending back data which captivates us on earth regularly. Today's news? Spirit has stumbled upon another odd formation that scientists have taken to call "Home Plate" in the Gusav crater, and they're now busily coming up with theories on what it is. Labels: Futurism, interstellar colonization, movies, space, technology |
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