Do you like cows?

Well another movie tonight. I watched Open Range after a couple episodes of DS9. First I watched Our Man Bashir, which I'd been wanting to see again for a while. It is one of my favourite DS9 episodes. Dr. Julian Bashir is in the holosuite with his favourite program.

The year is 1964. He is Bashir, Julian Bashir. (Yes, cue the James Bond theme here) He masquerades as a jet-setting playboy in his luxurious Hong Kong apartment, but he is actually a talented secret agent for Great Britain! :-)

After Garak interrupts the program the two continue on to enjoy the program and the exploits of a James Bondish spy. Unfortunately as the rest of the senior staff (sans Odo) are returning in a runabout it explodes just as they are beaming off. With only seconds before their patterns degrade in the damaged transporter buffers Eddington and Odo store the patterns wherever the computer can find room. Physical paramaters are transmitted to the holosuite where various characters take on the appearance of the crew. Bashir must keep the program running and the characters alive, or the crew will lose their bodies forever!

Okay, how was that for a long-winded promotional write-up? :-) I didn't quite mean to type all that, but it just came flowing out of my fingers. It is a great episode to watch, especially as the actors get to play different characters. Avery Brooks does a great job as the diabolical villian Hippocrates Noah.

I've seen Open Range a couple times before, the first in theaters. It was still enjoyable though. I actually enjoyed the entire movie, though it might seem slow at times. However, I really enjoyed the gun fight sequence. While it featured a couple inconsistencies such as gunshot victims flying backwards (see Mythbusters where they conclusively demonstrated the impossibility of this common Hollywood stunt) it was quite interesting. Perhaps I've seen too many John Wayne era (no offence to the Duke or his movies, ;-)) movies (or their like) with their currently apparant lack of realism that I especially enjoyed this. The gunfight starts in the street but quickly changes to employ cover up and down the street. Also it isn't over within seconds, but actually drags out over several minutes in a quite believable sequence.

Well I don't want to finish my books too quickly, but neither do I want to go through them too slowly. ;-) I started reading them one chapter at a time today--I think I'm caught up enough that I should finish them roughly at the same time. While Weber's novel is good I'm really enjoying Williams Shadowmarch. He always does an excellent job with his characters and settings.

~Matt

Cinema

I just finished watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It was quite enjoyable. Definately hilarious in many parts. Dual lives, hidden weapons, cover identities--all great fun to see exposed. There was one great scene when Angelina Jolie's character (Jane Smith) wanted her people to find Brad Pitt's character and they said, "how?" His name is John Smith--not easy to track down...;-)

Once you accept the premise that the characters are assassins you can accept the movie's bodycount--heck, you don't really see much blood, so it is almost like an episode of the A-Team. The dialogue was enjoyable after they discover who they are, some of which was seen in the trailer. There were though a couple scenes in the trailer not to appear in the film, but nothing major. The DVD I obtained from the library (my sister picked it up for me today as I was working until the library was closed--and the same tomorrow) along with several others.

I currently have Open Range checked out (seen it before, but not for a while), Mission Impossible (the original Tom Cruise movie), part of season four of Deep Space Nine, and upon the recommendation of Miah The Mothman Prophecies. I've not heard much about the last, but it looks interesting and it is the only one I have now that I've not seen before. I think I'll watch it tomorrow. I would like to watch another tonight, and perhaps if I had The Matrix already I would. But I really need to get to sleep soon as I go to work in the morning.

Yes, I know it is Sunday. When I was first interviewed I said I didn't want to work Sunday mornings on a regular basis. I don't think it is bad to miss church once in a while for work, if necessary (my brother-in-law does it flying)--I just don't want it to be frequent. Therefore every other time I've worked on Sunday it has been the late shift. I will miss church, but on the other hand (smaller) I'll enjoy not being at work until ten or eleven on Sunday.

I'm continuing on with my books and am almost to the point where I'll read one chapter of each in sequence instead of several of the Weber book as I try to get ahead. However, I try to remind myself not to hurry too much. These books are good and I don't really want to rush them too much. :-)

~Matt

Blood River Down

That was the title of the book I finished last night. I still cannot figure it out. The main character Gideon Sunday is an ex-football player out of work and somewhat depressed. Then one evening he opens his pantry and discovers the back wall has been replaced by an idyllic meadow. Though he is curious and looks all around eventually he decides to close the door and go to bed. It is only after a woman and then a large creature come through that (after killing the creature with a baseball bat) he is persuaded to go through.

Starting with Sunday's reluctance to go through the opening there were certainly elements often missing from fantasy quest novels, so the book wasn't completely bad. But some things are still inexplicable such as the presence of electricity in the other world and the simplicity of the society found there. Characters are interesting, but at times I found myself wondering what their motivation was, especially one that kept hatching the most insane plans. At one point Gideon is in a weapons shop and sees modern rifles side by side with swords, maces, and other medieval weapons. He is told that rifles are only for hunting animals as you don't need to give them the sporting chance that men deserve.

I believe that part of my confusion has been relieved since I discovered last night that the book is the first of a trilogy. I'm in no rush to procure the novels, but I'll keep the idea on a back burner. Part of the reason I wanted to finish this book was to see how things end and to see if my questions would be answered!

The books I purchased last night were all by Tad Williams and David Weber (at Weber's site you'll see the book of his I bought described on the front page). David Weber I've been a fan of ever since I discovered his Honor Harrington series (I know I've blogged about them here, but I don't want to search for links right now). I've been watching Baen's site for a while now and just realized that the book I was waiting for was out. In Fury Born contains a prequel to an early book of his that I have (but haven't read) as well as an expanded version of that book. The book looked good, so I decided to wait until this version was released to read the story. I'm enjoying it so far. The only problem is that it has about twenty chapters more than the first Williams book I bought so I need to go a ways solo before I can start reading them in tandem.

Last year my first tandem reading project was with Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. Both are very enjoyable fantasy, though MST more traditional than Covenant. I knew that Williams had published a sci-fi series after MST, but I was waiting for the release of his new fantasy series. Normally I don't like to start a series before it is done, but I've made some exceptions--for Weber because so many are out, and now for Williams' Shadowmarch. I've only just started the book, but I'm already enjoying it. The only problem I can forsee is having to wait a year or more for the next book! ;-)

I also picked up Williams' Otherland series. I've read a bit about these, and I'm still not sure what they are. They are sci-fi, but nothing so ordinary as unadorned space combat. The character covered in the prologue of the first volume is a soldier in World War I's trenches. I think there might be something of VR involved in the series premise, but I don't want to refresh my memory on potential spoilers. At this point I simply want to read the books (once I'm done with Shadowmarch and In Fury Born). Today I work late so before I head into work I'm trying to get caught up in the Weber book so I can read in tandem on my breaks.

~Matt

Borders de Abril

Well I just got back from Borders. I spent my April quarter money already. ;-) At the end of March I cashed (i.e. converted my quarters into bills) most of my money, what would convert to $10 increments. I did the same this month, even though the month is not yet over. I basically spent all of the money this evening. The rest of my quarters from this month I'll simply continue to save. The problem with me is that I see books and I want them, :-). It wouldn't really do me much good to space the money out as I bought one hard cover today (though I used a 30% off coupon) that had just been published and one trade paperback.

Right now I need to get back to the book I'm currently reading. I'm a bit under fifty pages from the end and I want to finish it quickly so that I can start on my new books. I'm somewhat disappointed with this book so I want it to end so that I can see if it can manage to surprise me or simply live up to my now dismal expectations. It isn't bad enough that I want to abandon the book, just finish it quickly. Part of the problem is that it is a fantasy quest-themed novel with a character traveling from our world. But there are some unusual twists, I have not noticed them being fully exploited however.

I must get to reading it though, unfortunately I cannot read it and type this at the same time.

~Matt

Late

Yes, this post is a tad late, acually coming on Thursday morning instead of Wednesday evening--but I have a good reason for that! First though I must say that indeed the sales position was filled at the museum, but I've agreed to send my application over to apply for an opening in the kiosk (those who sell tickets and check tickets at museum entrances--as well as work the parking booths).

I left bigg's at 16:30 today (er...yesterday!) to ensure that I would arrive at the museum on-time, which I did, a bit early in fact. The event went well, except that we had to direct a few more people than normal around. The problem came after. As the supervisor I have to stay until all the food, tables, and chairs are cleared away--only then can I finish shutting down the museum. Tonight the group renting out the museum stayed in the rotunda for dessert and a presentation--so the catering staff were all up there.

Though the event ended in the museum between 19:00 and 19:15 it wasn't until 21:30 that I was able to start the last shut-down procedures! In the mean time I simply read, and then I called my parents down in Florida. I talked to the wife of one of my cousins, the cousin about the be married, and my Favourite Floridian Aunt (she is the one who works with Wycliffe Bible Translators in the Orland area). After some other work I finally got home right around eleven. *sigh* I didn't eat dinner until thirty or forty minutes ago as I spent quite a while talking to my sister about various things. Therefore I wasn't able to make it in here to post--especially since I had to go back downstairs to turn the network back on before I could write this.

~Matt

Museum

Well yesterday I recieved a message that we're having an event at the museum this Friday that I'd not heard about before! I think I'll be able to fully staff it though, which is especially important since I'm working 14:00 - 22:00 at bigg's so I can't come in. Things coming in last minute just make life interesting as long as I have time to deal with them.

Oh, and I had a message when I came home today to call someone from the museum. I've put the number into my phone so I can call tomorrow at lunch. The only reason I can think that somebody at the museum (and I don't recognize the name) would want me to call back is that it is related to the position I applied for in the gift shops. I'd thought that it was already filled, but I could be wrong. I don't want to get my hopes up, but this could be good. Hopefully I'll find out for sure when I call tomorrow and I might be able to talk to the person in charge of my schedule at bigg's. I've thought that if I could switch one of my days off and my work days to a four hour night shift each day I could gain three day-time days of opportunity for a part-time job. I'm just not sure if it is viable yet. I didn't want to mention it when I had no idea if I had a chance of getting the job. If I'm right when I'm guessing about this call then I'll have something concrete to ask about. I'm assuming that since they want me to call back it isn't to say, "don't come in to interview, we already hired somebody else." *shrugs* I'll see. Further speculation is useless at this point. For good or ill I should have this partially figured out by lunch tomorrow.

Ugh, today wasn't too fun. I did get $8.50 in quarters, but it also poured for a couple hours. My left boot is still fine, but two scratches in my right boot let in water. I need to find something to seal them before it rains again! I still enjoy rain, just not when I'm working outside!

~Matt

Today, Today

Well, what did I do today? I was supposed to work, but then yesterday I remembered that I had switched my shift today with a coworker's shift tomorrow. I had to call him this morning to double-check, but he confirmed that he was working today. The shift is from 12:00-20:00, so I didn't have to call or get up especially early anyway.

Unfortunately my sister isn't feeling well--it has the appearance of the flu in the wake of a migraine, so she was pretty much out of commission today. I helped out as much as I could, even cooking dinner. Of course it was pretty difficult, ;-). Mac and cheese. The kids are strange however. I fixed two boxes, and sometimes there will be many leftovers from such a serving. Tonight though they ate every bit. *shrugs* It is quite strange how much their appetites can fluctuate.

I just recieved an e-mail from my parents. They've been crossing the southern part of the country enroute to the wedding of one of my cousins. They're currently in Florida. That and Georgia (which they just went through) are two of the Southern states I never managed to visit while I was traveling with them as a kid. I'm quite jealous! I'm not sure but they might have even been through Louisiana on their way--the only state west of the Mississippi (mostly) I've missed in the lower 48. Well someday I'll have to get down to Florida to visit my aunt there. She lives in St. Cloud, right near Orlando. Really I'd be going to visit her, with DisneyWorld just a side trip. Really! ;-)

This evening I watched Chicken Little. I have it on hold from the library (I need to cancel the hold) but this weekend my brother-in-law went out and rented it. I quite enjoyed it. Yes some parts were definately cliched, but overall I enjoyed the humour and referential humour--especially the opening sequence. The ending wasn't bad either, G-rated enough for a kids movie, but still interesting.

~Matt

Does this make sense?

You are going to the grocery store to buy groceries. When you get to the produce department you see the following two signs in the citrus area. Which product do you pick if you must choose?

Large navel oranges, 5 for $2.00

Small navel oranges, 6 for $3.00

For the math challenged I'll provide the easy comparison. For $6.00 you get 15 large navel oranges. For $6.00 you get 12 small navel oranges.

I suppose there could be reasons for this price difference--but since this a store where everything is geared towards making money that doesn't seem to make sense to me. Since navel oranges are the best eating oranges (their peels remove easily) it wouldn't make sense to waste money buying them to juice. Besides, this is Kentucky where all of the oranges are shipped in from far out of state--you'd have to be nuts to buy oranges for juicing purposes anyway. Well more than just one for a recipe here or there that is. As a consumer I couldn't imagine buying the smaller oranges for more money. Why on earth would anyone do it?

~Matt

PS Yes, I saw these signs in the produce department at my bigg's tonight.

I'd better post now

Or I'll never get it in today. I work this afternoon/evening until 23:00. Today I went to first service, not only because I work this afternoon but because everybody else went then and thus I had a free ride. I like not having to pay for gas when I don't have to! :-) We are part-way through a series on heaven. 'Tis good, though I have heard some before. At TMC we didn't just take heaven for granted as some places might.

I need to get some more pictures up. I also made some wooden furniture for the stick fort I mentioned in my last post. I'm having fun with my nephews out there. It is somewhat like being a kid again--but this time I have more experience and some things are much easier for it. I put together a table that the LEGO figures could stand at and I just produced a throne this afternoon.

Last night I watched Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. It was a great flick. I'd had it on hold at the library for quite a while and it finally came in this week. Last night was the first night that I had time to watch it--so I did with two of my nephews.

~Matt

Day of Building

Today was my second day off this week. I slept in a bit, then spent a lazy morning catching up with things on-line and eventually taking my shower. I then sat out back in the sun for a bit working on the map for my fantasy universe. When the little kids when in for lunch I went in as well and fixed myself something. After I went back outside I ran into my nephew Chase and decided that it was time to have fun. So I spent the rest of the afternoon with Chase and one of my other younger nephews (off and on for them) building with twigs and bark. I'd done this before when camping as a kid. It is great fun to build buildings and settings with sticks, twigs, bark, and other natural materials. Today we took it one step further and made them LEGO sized. Here, I'll let the pictures do most of the talking:

Here you can see the entire complex that developed. The main area in the center consists of a corral and stable for the LEGO horses as well as a structure. The structure has the king's bed on the bottom floor and a wooden table on the top where the king can recieve guests and foreign dignitaries! :-) The entrance to this structure connects to the long stockaded pathway extending down to the LEGO tower at the bottom left of the picture. Then you can either head just a bit south to the first bark gate or turn east down another path to the second bark gate. No hinges yet, for now 'tis just bark holding back the hordes from invading. In the upper right of the picture you can see Chase's creation (besides the stable which he started and extensively designed). He has a kitchen with various bowls (acorn tops) of foods (torn remnants of different coloured flowers) and a table or two. As he has left an opening in the stockade we also have the option to extend the complex a bit to the north.

To the right is the other part of the forifications that I devised. Chase came up the idea--I just executed it. I took four Y shaped sticks and planted them in the earth in the midst of the ivy (or whatever those plants are). I should have taken a picture from further back, but I think you can get the idea from this. Using sticks placed in the Y's as a base I constructed a platform of sticks and then covered it with flat pieces of bark. Next I inserted a couple more sticks between the bark and platform sticks so that I could turn the back half of the area into somewhat of a room. The roof consists of sticks covered with thin flat pieces of bark. I think it looks quite impressive, like a tower rising out of the jungle of green. I couldn't resist putting my LEGO forrester characters up in the tower. I don't have an explanation for how they get up and down, yet! I'm working on it. Oh, I also used chunks of bark to make a low wall around the two-thirds of the platform covered by flat bark. The front third just consists of the bare sticks covered by a couple bits of bark--but it isn't useful enough as I can't directly place LEGO figures there--and even if I could I wouldn't because there is no way to fence it off or make it defensible.

Well one last picture. Last night I had to drop by Wal-Mart to pick up a few supplies. Going by the shoe section on my way to the food area I happened upon a sandal display. I've been looking for some new sandals ever since spring/summer weather arrived. I enjoy sandals but my old pair are at least as old as high school. Not only are they somewhat worse for the wear as far as creases and rips go, but the Velcro doesn't want to stick anymore and always slips at the worst moments. The new ones look quite similar, but they're new and highly functional.

I might post some pictures later. Right now I'm just quite tired and wanting to post this before midnight. I hear some wonderful thunder outside but I'm too tired to enjoy it, :(. At least I think it is thunder, it could be something dragging against the road--I really don't care enough to investigate.

~Matt

PhotoBucket

I'm not sure how many of you use PhotoBucket, but unless I directly upload pictures to Blogger I always host my image files in my PhotoBucket account. I noticed that one site was having problems with their link so I logged into my account to see if mine had any problems. I was quite surprised to see the new layout.

I remember back when PhotoBucket was quite new. I didn't get in at the very start, but close to it. I've seen album sizes increase several times, the first time just as I was getting close to 100%. I've never even come close to using 100% of my bandwitdh however. It is a great service. You don't want to link to others photos directly as that steals bandwidth, and so does uploading things directly to your own website. That is where PhotoBuket is great because for free (unless you want an ad-free larger account) you get to host pictures and directly link to them (which many free webservices such as Angelfire will not allow).

Well it is almost as good as Gmail now, ;-). PhotoBucket now lets you upload video as well as images. Each free account gets one gig of storage and 10 gigs of monthly bandwidth! 'Tis great. Just as I don't worry about deleting e-mails (save spam) with Gmail, I no longer have to worry about too many pictures on-line! :-)

~Matt

The Village

I just finished watching The Village. I saw it some months ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am definately a fan of M. Night Shyamalan. I can't wait for his next film to come out this summer! But, back to the past.

Intellectually some of the suspense was gone because I knew what was coming--I knew the several twists, turns, and surprises of the plot. However, the movie was still suspensful. The style of filming, the often haunting music, and the acting all combined to set me slightly on edge even as I knew something was coming.

As a kid I was scared of the dark--well not the dark exactly, but what could be in it. I didn't mind so much laying in my bed in a dark room--but going down a dark hallway to the bathroom wasn't too feasable of an option. Again, intellectually I knew that there was nothing lurking to snatch or startle me in the dark doorways I passed. This meant nothing though, fear doesn't have an exclusive attachment to the intellect, it is also very much tied to emotions. Besides the emotional commitment to suspense though I enjoyed this film because of the hope involved.

I've watched a couple horror films (in this category I'm not including The Birds or Psycho, both of which I've watched and which didn't scare me)--I might even have blogged about them, and I'm certain I have another Villiage blog back in my archives. These movies I didn't like. My imagination is quite overactive. As a kid it was quite busy dreaming up what could be lurking in the shadows. Now I enjoy developing fantasy and science-fiction worlds, but my mind also works overtime with plots. If I watch a horror movie I know that it isn't real, but my mind ignores this fact, runs with the plot, and personalizes it.

M. Night's movies are different though. A horror movie, from what I can understand, has at its core the premise of Murphy's Law, written in blood. What can go wrong, will go wrong with drastic consequences, and there is no chance of anything good happening. In short there is no hope in a horror movie. You know going in that the movie will end badly for the characters. In a Shyamalan movie though there is a sense of hope. Things may be bad, they may get worse, but somewhere there is light at the end of a tunnel, and somebody will see it.

~Matt

PS I found my old post. It isn't much, but you can see it here. I thought it was longer, but I must be remembering my later posts about Signs and The Sixth Sense.

Spring is coming

It might even be already here, ;-). I think we've seen the last of snow and freezing temperatures for a while. However, I won't complain if temperatures stay in the fifties and sixties for quite a while instead of venturing further up the mercury. Today it was overcast all day with a few sprinkles in the morning and a bit of actual rain in the late afternoon. With the rain everything looks so fresh and clean, especially the new decidious leaves.

I just took the picture at the right while standing on the back porch. Unfortunately pictures taken with my digital camera require a bit of tweaking to get the colours just right--it is slightly out of whack in the green part of the spectrum if I recall correctly. The scene actually looks much more vibrantly green and beautiful.

~Matt

What can I say?

Well work is going along. Today was a much better day than I've had recently. I was the only housekeeping/carts employe in today from 09:00 until 14:00. However, we weren't very busy so I was able to split my time effectively betwen inside and out. Even with my breaks things never got bad at all out in the lot. I wasn't tired or worn out at all when I went home at five. I was ready to go home, but just because it was the end of the work day, not because I was eager to leave work completely behind.

As the title suggests there really isn't too much else to say. I don't feel like finding pictures to upload tonight, so I'll just leave it as this. Oh, and I'm not planning to institute a regular update in the AM and PM--it just so happened that way today. I count posts based on calendar days, not my sleep cycle. Therefore the last post, though during my last awake period was technically made today since it was after midnight and for purposes of posting every day counts for Wednesday. I simply post tonight because I'm pathetic and must post now! ;-)

Oh, oh, I have more! I know everybody must be so eager. Either that or they're thinking that I should shut up already, boring everybody with so much text to either digest or ignore! :-) Well I was disappointed with television tonight. Lost was not on, so I was forced to substitutes. I joined Bones about four minutes after the hour, so I got the gist of the episode but completely missed what happened before the first commercial. It was an interesting episode, set in post-Katrina New Orleans, but it had quite a bit of vodoo in it. Temperance, the main character, is a scientist who rejects the "magic" of vodoo, but of course she believes she is truly objective instead of worshipping science instead of a "traditional religion." *sigh* I can live with that, what more do you expect from humanistic culture?

Criminal Minds was fascinating. The BAU team followed a serial killer who was expert at changing his appearance across the South. It actually seemed as though they tried to compress too much into the forty minutes of the show. The plot would have been interesting, with tweaking of course, as a movie methinks. *shrugs*

~Matt

PS I was wrong earlier about Lincoln currently being the only one on the front and back of a coin. Washington has already made an appearance on the reverse of a state quarter. The back of the New Jersey quarter shows the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware--so with the South Dakota there will be three coins to fit the criteria.