Author Archives: tangognat

librarians, handy to have in a disaster movie

I saw Day After Tomorrow yesterday. I think it has been my least favorite summer movie so far. The movie was not ruined by the couple of 4 year old children who would run across the movie theater or randomly scream “Mommy!” every 15 minutes or so, actually the rampaging children made the viewing experience much more enjoyable.

It was nice to see librarians being portrayed in a positive way in a big-budget hollywood film. They were nerdy and bespectacled, but were able to use reference books effectively in an emergency and maintained their roles as preservers of cultural heritage.

full up on books

One of the benefits of having a birthday, and having many delightful friends and relatives who give you presents, is that I no longer have to worry about what I’m reading next. If I add to the pile all the things I’ve bought myself, I have my next couple months reading lined up (I’m putting Baudolino aside for the moment). Over the past couple days I’ve read some young adult books (Ella Enchanted and Year of Secret Assignments — laughed out loud reading both books), a knitting book (Simple Knits with a Twist, now I know how to knit with wire and recycled plastic bags), some assorted manga, and after spending an unfortunate amount of time at the car repair shop (enough time that I left with a free headlight and oil change) I’m most of the way through Sethra Lavode.

I still have a few knitting books and novels by Sandra Cisneros, Sharon Shinn, and Elizabeth Lowell to look forward to reading. Knowing that I have plenty of unread books to read gives me a sense of comfort and security. I won’t have to run out in the middle of the night with an emergency need for reading material, I’m all stocked up!

cheesy sci-fi

I saw the sequel to Pitch Black the other night. Part of the charm of Pitch Black was it being so low budget — it had such a sci-fi B movie plot, and so much was done by filming in an interesting setting and using color effects to show the light from the different suns on the doomed planet. It also was much more focused on character.

But the Chronicles of Riddick falls into the familiar trap of substituting CGI for character or plot. I mean, after Star Wars, it isn’t very new or innovative to show space battles or men in clanking armor shoot laser beams at each other. But! Of the vast cinematic oeuvre of Mr. Diesel, my favorite roles of his are Riddick and the voice of the Iron Giant. So I did like this summer sci-fi action movie, where the laws of physics don’t seem to apply on many of the planets. It has my new favorite action-hero threatening line. It has Riddick being more of a bad ass. It has Colm Feore (my sister’s favorite Pirate King from the Pirates of Penzance) being evil. There are explosions, and lasers, unhospitable planets and overzealous religious people who want to convert your soul and wipe out life on your home planet! Plots don’t matter! Things go boom! Are you afraid of the dark?!!!

I made another wordpress blog

And something awful happened!

I tipped over my beer while I was importing my little sister‘s movabletype entries! The horror!

Actually the whole process was surprisingly painless. I keep being surprised at how easy it is to use wordpress. As soon as I can knock together a stylesheet, I’m switching this blog over, maybe this weekend or next weekend. So heads-up, I’m sure the feed address will change if you are using one of them thar newsfeed readers. I’ll try to post the new address for the feeds before totally switching over. It will be a good excuse to do some housecleaning, like updating my sadly neglected and out of date blogroll.

kool thing

Yikes, I’m glad I invested in a window air conditioner last summer, it has been quite toasty here for the past couple days.

One thing not very cool is the impending “random” searches on the T. Boston Online is collecting stories.

today I’m going to party like it’s my birthday

Because it is my birthday! If that isn’t an excuse to party like it’s your birthday, I don’t know what is! Actually, I’m probably going to eat pizza, go see a couple bad summer movies, and go shopping. I find it a little disconcerting that I am 29, it is an age I thought was unfathomably old when I was 13. I’m planning on staying 29 for the next few years 🙂

Potter!

So I saw Harry Potter, unlike my little sister, I did not attend the movie wearing a “Republicans for Voldemort” t-shirt. I thought it was better than the first two movies in that it captured a few more moments of genuine creepiness bringing it closer to the spirit of the books. I also enjoyed the few seconds of Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman chewing the scenery at the same time.