Happy Birthday to Me
I’m 29 today. If anyone knows where the last 357 months of my life have gone (including 9 that I spent incubating in my seed pod), please let me know. I certainly don’t have a clue where I put them. *sigh*
I guess what they say is true. Your memory is the first thing to…. uh…. uh…. what was I saying?
Let The Countdown Begin
Speaking of December 18th, there are currently: 24 days until Showtime!
*** Editor’s Note: There was a javascript countdown timer here, but Blogger keeps adding <BR>’s to the code that are causing problems and I can’t change it without making the whole blog look terrible as a result. So for now you can just manually count down in your heads. You remember how to do that right?
Random Thoughts for Random Times
Okay… so I said the other day that I was going to “review” Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and I still haven’t gotten around to it. Haven’t really felt motivated to do so until now and I finally decided that I’d better say my peace before I forget what I wanted to say in the first place.
First off, it’s a good movie. And as an adult, most of you will find it enjoyable if you take it in the context that it is talking to a younger generation than yourself. That’s not to say it isn’t as bad as, say… sitting through a Pokemon movie, but there are a fair number of simplifications to make the movie more palatable to younger viewers that many, more cynical adults may find a tad tiresome.
Plot holes aside, the movie, once again, does a fantastic job of visualizing the world of the novels, though this time the world has a slightly darker edge to it. This is much in line with the books and is to be expected. I figure that by the time the 7th book eventually hits theatres, the Harry Potter world will be a very scary place indeed. But I digress…
The acting is, in my opinion, better than in the first one. Not because of any great leap in the script, but more because the actors playing Harry, Hermione, and Ron have physically matured and are also much more comfortable with their characters roles in the world. I won’t bother to mention the actors playing the adult schoolmasters as most of them have a collective screentime of about…. 16 minutes total. Sure they do a fine job with what we see, but it would have been nicer to see them fleshed out more as they are in the books.
The one adult actor that I will mention though is Richard Harris. Although he’s not alotted much more screen time than the others, he does a good job with what he’s given and his shade can rest very easy knowing that his last movie was definitely a good movie for him – and I don’t mean a good movie in the sense of big box office dollars, but rather a good movie performance wise. Rest in Peace Richard. You’ll be missed.
Overall, it’s a very decent movie and well worth matinee prices (or cheap tuesday prices). It even borders on being an enjoyable full price flick due to it’s length, but I’m undecided on that. Go see it with a bunch of kids and let their enthusiasm overtake you as well. If nothing else it’ll tide you over until December 18th.
Paging George Orwell… Mr. Orwell, You have a call
<RANT MODE ON>
Okay. Call me a paranoid android with delusions of grandeur if you like, but is this stuff really neccessary? I mean come on, I understand the fact that technology advances and things like this are inevitable past a certain point in our technological evolution. But really, can anyone else not see the dangers in this? The whole concept is flawed in my opinion.
No check that. The concept itself isn’t flawed, in fact there are probably some very useful and benificial ways to use this technology. What is flawed are the corrupt and morally misguided government personages (who shall remain, for the most part, nameless) who seem to believe that keeping information on everyone on the planet will protect them from the nasty evils of the world. Grow up and stop trying to fit the world into your mould of reality. It’s an imperfect place. Deal with the fact and get on with your petty, and hopefully short, lives and stop trying to make other people’s lives miserable just because certain aspects of their lifestyle don’t fit into your narrowminded moral or social outlook on the world.
I see by the look of mild disbelief on your face that you’re not quite yet ready to believe me? Fair enough, everyone has their opinions, however misguided they may be *grin sardonically*. But before you close your mind to the idea that the current American regime (as in dictatorship, as in McCarthy-era, jack-boot wearing, war-mongering *cough*“patriots”*cough*) isn’t doing this with your best interests at heart, take a long hard look at This Article and then make up your mind.
Frankly. I think this whole thing stinks to to the nth degree. Computer age or not, the sheer amount of bureaucratic paperwork (figuratively speaking of course) that such a task creates is mind-bogglingly immense not to mention quite retarded.
George Orwell once wrote a book called 1984 about Big Brother watching over ever aspect of our lives. It was a bleak and depressing world where the human freedoms and the creativity of the masses were stymied and even surpressed (quite often violently) by the few who sought to control everything under the guise of “helping everyone”. Personally, if Mr. Orwell were alive today he’d probably think he had fallen through the looking glass into a twisted, darker version of his own creation.
This disturbs me more than anything because quite frankly the idiots who are doing this are doing this solely for their own benefit. So as they can turn the world into two variables: Black or white, Us or them.
Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. That in and of itself should be warning enough to those smart enough to understand it.
….
Anyways. Enough ranting. Just needed to vent after being on a slow boil since I was denied entry into the US awhile back. In other news, I saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets today. I’ll post some sort of review later when the bile in my throat has settled some.
Pax
</RANT>
Man Eating Cow… Or Close enough
HAHAHAHA!!!
This cow has got to be the George Carlin of the Bovine World. You can thank my friend David for being bored at work once again and sending me this stuff.
Enjoy
One Ring To… Help them Write a Secret Diary???
Okay. So my wife found this link on one of my friend’s site and passed it along to me. And now I pass it along to you. Enjoy.
PS – I suppose this means I should actually snoop through my friend’s site more often myself but I guess I’m just lazy. Oh well.
Lest We Forget…
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae, December 8th, 1915
Remember, Remember, The Fifth of November
Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Happy Guy Fawkes day everyone.
For those of you non Brits out there who’re wondering just what the hell I’m on about, Guy Fawkes was a bloke who tried to blow up the British Houses of Parliment back in 1605 and was caught red handed with quite a few barrels of gunpowder.
So, ever since then people throughout Britain have burned effigies of Guy Fawkes in annual bonfires on November 5th.
If you want to know more, a quick google search for Guy Fawkes reveals THIS site as being fairly useful.
PS – For the mindless trivia buffs out there, In the Harry Potter Series of novels, Professor Dumbledore has a pet phoenix named Fawkes. A british-ism that was most likely lost on 90% of the non British, Harry Potter fans out there. And yes, it is the same phoenix that donated it’s feathers for both Harry’s and Lord Voldemort’s magic wands.
Now I really am going to bed. G’nite.
