I heard a a great interview with Francis Collins on NPR's Fresh Air podcast. He is a geneticist and the director of the National Human Genome Research Project. He is also a Christian, having converted in adulthood after being raised atheist.

I loved hearing about Collins's belief in the compatibility of science and religion, especially his views on evolution. He says that the genetic similarity between species provides incontrovertible evidence (his words) that all life on earth is descended from a single organism, yet he doesn't think that necessarily removes God from the picture. He naturally embraces a non-literal interpretation of the biblical creation account and admires the writings of C.S. Lewis.

Also, as a prominent geneticist and evangelical Christian, he has a very interesting perspective on the debate over stem cell research. His answer is not a simple for or against, and is a refreshing alternative to the knee-jerk answers normally given by politicians and pundits.

I recommend listening to the entire interview. If you decide you want to find out more about what he has to say, you may want to read his book. I know I do.

I've been meaning to watch this movie for a long time. I'm kind of a lazy John Sayles (director-writer) fan. I've watched a handful of his movies, but admire them a lot, and I have a book of his short stories, which are awesome, although I've only read about 3 or 4 of them. I always want to catch his stuff and never follow through, but at least I'm not the only one, because Buchanan and I talk about John Sayles whenever we see each other, although it's usually about how we haven't seen the latest movie yet. Haha.

So anyway, this was on TV and I couldn't resist. Going in I was nervous because of the character Chris Cooper plays, named Dickie Pilager, who is running for governor. It's quite obvious that Dickie is inspired by our current President, being that he lacks conversation and vocabulary skills. Seeing the commercials, I assumed the point of the movie was to mock the President, especially since it was released in September of an election year. Instead, what we get is a comprehensive criticism of "the system" and all the parties involved. It doesn't make any bold statements or contain any shocking conent, but it's entertaining.

Danny Huston stars as a private eye sent to investigate the story behind a dead body that washes ashore during Pilager's taping of an election video. Huston, always perfect as an annoyingly smug but likeable guy, stands as the connecting point between all of the different people involved, including Richard Dreyfuss as Pilager's manager, Daryl Hannah (loved her) as Pilager's unloving sister, Maria Bello as Huston's ex (and fellow journalist), Tim Roth, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Zane, Thora Birch, and a few more familiar faces.

Like I said, the movie isn't earth-shattering, but Sayles manages to take a bunch of different characters and storylines and give each enough time to make them feel worthwhile and comprehensive. The movie keeps a light feel while wading through some pretty corrupt waters, and that has a lot to do with Huston's character. Silver City is currently at the bottom of my list of Sayles movies I've seen thus far, but that doesn't mean it's not worth a casual viewing. But if you're going to seek out something of his, I'd say Lone Star, Limbo, and The Secret of Roan Inish are a better place to start.

Think of all the benefits.

Wow, I do not blog nearly as much as I use to. I think I need to go out and be more creative. I need to read more to stimulate my mind and I need to get outside more to stimulate my body. That would be exercise stupid. I realize that I may just be at my best then.

So Easter is coming up and I really feel like I need to make a good Easter lesson for church. I think that I may just have that lesson this weekend and get my "regulars" in on the teaching. That could be fun. Maybe I will give them an outline and what to read to get ready for the week. Anyways, perhaps one of these days, I will. Of course sooner rather than later would be much better.

So I ate fried fish last night. It was at a Mexican restaurant. When you get fried fish at a Mexican restaurant, they fry the fish whole and serve the whole fish. I was surprised. Fortunately it tasted pretty good and the person I ate with wasn't grossed out by it.

I have an annoucement coming up, I just need to make sure I contact the right people first, but you will all know about it soon.

There is nothing more ugly than a Christian orthodoxy without understanding or without compassion.
-- Francis Schaeffer

I bet the guys who are jumping on the American Idol Sanjaya train these days are the same guys who used to say "Yeah, Baby!" all the time when the Austin Powers movies first came out. Either that, or they're the guys who used to say "Vegas, Baby!" all the time when Swingers got popular.

I'm all for Vote for the Worst, but all the parodies and jokes all over tv and the internet need to stop.

Barefoot Gen Volume Three: Life After the Bomb by Keiji Nakazawa

Barefoot Gen Volume Two: The Day After by Keiji Nakazawa

The God Who Is There by Francis A. Schaeffer

According to this Boing Boing post, 11 7-Eleven stores are going to be remade as Kwik-E-Marts to promote the Simpsons Movie.

If all goes as planned, the convenience store chain plans to refit 11 stores across the U.S. to resemble the front of the Kwik-E-Mart, the convenience store that Homer and other characters frequent in the classic cartoon TV series.

Customers also will be able to buy products inspired by the nearly two-decades-old show, including KrustyO's cereal, Buzz Cola and iced Squishees (the cup says Squishee, but the contents will be Slurpee).

If there is one of these anyway near where I live, I'll definitely go just to take pictures. I wonder if they'll be selling any Duff.

At first I dismissed Desktop Tower Defense as yet another tower defense game. I didn't even bother checking it out. After I saw it popping up all over the place, I decided to give it a try. It's a really great game actually. It involves a bit more strategy then your standard tower defense game since you start off with a totally clean playing field and you have to place your towers strategically to get the enemy to go where you want. Also, the boss enemies are really tough. Definitely try out easy mode first to get used to the game.

This is a bit of a cheat, because I already posted most of this in the movies folder on the bbs two weeks ago. Oh well. The first thing I said to Ric after the movie was that this movie had a lot of similarities to Gladiator (soldiers, shots of hay fields, the ideal of a wife and young son back at home), but I definitely preferred 300.

The movie had a good sense of humor mixed in with a lot of very cool action, and I liked the artistic aspect as well (although, with all that cgi blood spatter, I did think it was funny that the soldiers didn't have any blood spatter on their bodies).

One complaint I have is that they made Xerxes seem pretty feminine, what with the eyebrows, his body posture, and the back massage he gave to Leonidas (and I didn't like how they altered his voice). I just laughed at every scene he was in instead of thinking of him as a threat. I know they were trying to portray him as seductive, but I thought the attempt was a failed one.

The movie did contain a few characters/ideas that seemed too familiar, as if I'd already seen them in other movies, but overall I really enjoyed this take on Spartan soldiers, showing them to be warriors to the core. I was glad they included the line from the wife, "Come back with your shield or on it," because that's one of the things that stuck in my mind when I first learned about the Spartans in 7th grade.

Gerard Butler is a man's man here, definitely showing ability to adapt, considering that he was singing away as the Phantom not very long ago. I always thought he did a nice job in Dear Frankie too; I'm going to have to keep my eye on him.

In the end, style and action won out overall, and I was thoroughly entertained (and I definitely felt like working out after I saw it!).

Here are the first set pictures from Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd. So it seems that this film is actually going to be made. I was a little skeptical at first because there have been rumors of bringing the musical to movie theaters for several years (at one point Sam Mendes was reported to be directing). I'm excited that Tim Burton is doing it. It's just the kind of weird, macabre, yet ever-so-slightly humorous story that Burton does well.

If you have not had the pleasure of seeing Sweeney Todd, I highly recommend watching the stage production with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury (yes, THAT Angela Lansbury). As my college Intro to Theater professor said, it's a musical for people who hate musicals (unless you see no humor in a Vicorian-era barber who murders his customers and sends them downstairs to an accomplice who cooks them into meat pies to be sold to unwitting Londoners, in which case you may want to stay away from this one).

Picture credit: Perez Hilton, via film ick.

In case you haven't noticed, I don't really do movie reviews anymore. Why? Because honestly, I don't think anyone gives a crap about what I think about a movie. I know I take what other folks say about movies with several grains of salt. However, Gringo requested I put up my thoughts on Reign Over Me, so here you go. This is what I wrote on the VA Board:

I saw Reign Over Me last night. I liked parts of it, but overall I thought it was quite a mess. The pacing was very bizarre, bad editing, and it kept trying to be a comedy when it wasn't. Anytime I was getting sucked into the movie with a genuine performance, something would happen to take me out of it. I also had some major problems with the fact that Jada Pinkett Smith was portrayed as a bad wife holding her husband back. It just didn't make sense to me. Not to mention horrible usage of the word "faggot" which is a word I hate and just needs to go away. So yeah, I liked certain things, Sandler had some great moments, but overall I don't recommend it.

I'll also add that there were a couple plot lines that were pretty unnecessary and only caused the film to drag on. Which it does. The movie is two hours long as it is and it felt like I was in there a lot longer. I was very excited for this movie and I'm glad I saw it, but it really bummed me out. It could have been a whole lot better. So there's my review, take it for what you will.

Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man

The U.S. vs. John Lennon

The Wire - The Complete Second Season

Alias - The Complete Second Season

The Lives of Others takes place in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall, and tells the story of a secret service agent who is assigned to spy on a successful writer and his actress girlfriend. He's a straight arrow, true to his government and his job (actually a rather talented interrogator), and when he's assigned this case merely because the Minister of Culture has an eye on the actress, he begins to question the judgment of his superiors, who are looking for evidence against an innocent man (the writer, Dreyman).

This won Best Foreign Film this year, and I'm so happy it did. Wiesler, our secret service agent, is played by Ulrich Mühe, who seems incredibly familiar even though I can't find any evidence that I've seen him in another movie. His character's line between honesty and dishonesty is tugged at constantly - he's observing a couple unbeknownst to them, but it's for his country, but he disagrees with why he observes them, but he learns to respect them, and then he wants to observe them all the more, and then he wants to help them, although that's not what he's supposed to do.

A tight screenplay takes us through the events quickly and thoughtfully. I appreciated the attention to artists and their passion for what they do, and that the inner conflict going on with Dreyman, who is actually a good man until the secret service overuses its power.

I'd be interested to hear what other people who saw this movie thought about it, particularly the last scene. I don't know why I liked it so much, but how the scene froze after the final line just made my day.

This is pretty awesome. I think it actually shows that Bruce Campbell beats out Anakin for being master of the "Noooooo!"

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Boomshine is a pretty simple game where you click on the screen to create a small explosion. The goal is to create chain reactions to blow up a certain amount of targets. It gets progressively harder. I got to level 12 and gave up after getting 54 of the 55 required numerous times.

For those of you who visit here for movie reviews: hang in there, my next post will have one.

For the rest of you who could care less about my movie reviews: lucky for you, today is another day without one!

This weekend was a sleepy one. I think after doing the Carlsbad drive on Thursday, along with going out to Fullerton the same day, and then deciding to go to Laguna Niguel the next day, I tired myself out. Yes, I'm a driving wuss. It was all worth it anyway.

Friday Ric and I each drove straight from work to hang out with the Andersons. Baby Emily let me hold her only so long as she was sleeping and was completely unaware that I wasn't her mom. As soon as she woke up and figured out that we'd pulled a switcheroo on her, she'd cry like crazy. Apparently mom's the only one who can stop her cries. Dad, hmm, well he just messes with her mind a bit too much, so she gets confused and keeps on crying. We all barbecued kabobs, ate bruschetta, and ate brownies, and then we settled in to watch Casino Royale. A fun night.

Saturday Ric and I both slept in for a while. I went over to do laundry at my parents' place. My dad is getting oooold. Each time I go over there, I wonder more and more how long he'll be able to function by himself all day. He's attempting to paint my parents' house right now, and it's not looking good. Meanwhile, he sleeps about 75% of the waking day away. I watched It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World with my sister and then we went out to a few stores to kill the night away. I finally used my Borders giftcards and bought myself CDs for learning Italian, a nice hardback of The Count of Monte Cristo, and Goonies on DVD (although it was a toss-up between that and The Incredible Mr. Limpet). We had coffee at Starbucks after that and talked a lot about how old my dad is. :)

Sunday, we both weren't feeling well, so we slept in instead of going to church. After a failed attempt to go run at the track because there was a game going on, I watched some tv and then headed over with Ric to his parents' house for the afternoon/evening. Ric did laundry and I spent a good while cleaning the inside and outside of my car. It looked beautiful when I was through with it, but I'm sure I'll have it looking like a mess in no-time, even though I do try to be neat. We reverted back to watching Arrested Development later on in the night, but before that I watched some of Discovery's new one, Planet Earth. If you haven't checked it out, you should, because it looks incredible. Just get over the fact that the narrator is a bit self-congratulatory ("for the first time caught on fim with our amazing camera" sounds a bit too much like "the only channel that brings you Doppler weather!"), and the rest is awesome.

Tonight: all the cleaning I didn't do over the weekend.

Anyone interested in doing another podcast episode using TalkShoe? I don't know how the quality is, but it looks easy to do.

We've posted Episode 4 at the Dancing Bananas website. I also put all of the episodes on YouTube and moved the subscribe links to the sidebar. As always, you'll find links to the high quality version. We've recorded episode 5 and it should be out soon.

Click for full glory~~

And it only took my 2+ months to gain 10 levels.

Emma introduces a video made by her friends: Superman and the Burning Statue of Liberty

Download the high quality version (16.9 MB, requires Quicktime)

Scripting News is turning 10 on April 1st. This post reminded me that brendoman.com is turning 5 on April 10th. I wish I had an idea for Dave, but since I don't even know what I'm going to do, I have nothing. In the ideal world, I would suggest a big giant geek (and non-geek) meetup but I know that's not really possible since we are so spread out. Instead, I'll probably do a mini-retrospective of sorts, putting up some favorite posts, giving a nod to some of the other founding fathers (and mothers) of this pretty darn great community, and open the floor to you the readers to do the same. It's hard to believe it's been five years. I'm looking forward to the reminiscing I'm sure I'll be doing in the next couple weeks gearing up to this event.

Thought the wave of Transformers news was over? Not quite. According to this report, Hugo Weaving has been cast as the voice of Megatron. I think that's dang near perfect. I'm pretty excited for the movie, not quite as much as Gringo, but now I'm pretty hopeful too.

Bubble Bobble: The Revival is a pretty faithful remake of the original. My friends and I used to spend hours playing this game. It's highly addictive, so watch out.

According to this test I am an Animated Inventor. I don't know about the Inventor thing but I know I can be quite animated at times. Take the test for yourself and get your PersonalDNA.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I've hardly been in the office, and I don't really log on when at home, so I haven't had much time for posts. Up next week are reviews of The Lives of Others, 300, and John Sayles' Silver City.

Meanwhile, yesterday was a nice day off. The road to Carlsbad is lovely and refreshing, and it was fun to just hang out with the girls instead of just working with them. The Mini finally got to discover its mileage potential, which got up to about 45 miles a gallon, which is more than double what it gets on surface streets. That was fun.

Today we had an office party for the March birthdays. We birthday girls got gerber daisies - all the colors that Amy's going to be using in her wedding. That was a fun coincidence. Tonight Ric and I are headed out to the Andersons' place for barbecue, conversation, and probably some movie-watching.

The rest of the weekend - nice and open! Hopefully we'll get some rest and get some cleaning done.

Dotville is an awesome SimCity type game where you are trying to become the Emperor of Dotville and defeat the evil Squares. You have to reach the level of Emperor by 50 turns. Good luck!

Plain View #64 - March 14, 2007

Bufe

Lent

Half Nelson

Bloody Cats

Craig's List

Springfield and Easy's

Wedding

Edukators redux (women in the ministry)

Oscars

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Link: http://www.gitrsblog.us/

BRUSH YOUR TEETH!

I've finally finished the last sections of Against the Day. I think I finally understand the difficulty people have with Pynchon's writing. It's not the length of the book that's daunting: it's the scope. In a single chapter a character might form a new romantic relationship, become pregnant, travel to an Eastern European nation, get involved in a local war, give birth, and escape again to Italy. For most writers that would be enough for an entire novel, but Pynchon knocks it out in 25 pages. Multiply that times 40 and add in plenty of references to obscure historical events, archaic scientific theories and advanced mathematics, and you have Against the Day. After a while, reading it becomes exhausting.

My frustration came when I realized the book didn't seem to be going in any one direction. There's a lot that happens, but most of it doesn't have much to do with everything else. I saw this at the beginning, but I assumed that the various threads would converge in a single climactic event. But whenever something sufficiently momentous occurs in the book, like the explosion of a meteorite in the earth's atmosphere, that event quickly fades into the general background of the novel and the characters go on with their lives. I began to realize that there is no unifying event, that the stories do not neatly converge in a single climactic moment, and I started getting tired of reading the book. Sure, there are a lot of interesting ideas in it, but is that really any good if the novel doesn't tell a good story?

Then last week I came across an article that put Against the Day in a whole new light for me. It was this article about the discovery of a new state of matter called a string-net liquid. As it turns out, the thinking behind the discovery ties into string theory in physics, which explains the unification of everything in the universe, including light and matter.

From the New Scientist article:

"Suddenly we realised, maybe the vacuum of our whole universe is a string-net liquid," says Wen. "It would provide a unified explanation of how both light and matter arise." So in their theory elementary particles are not the fundamental building blocks of matter. Instead, they emerge from the deeper structure of the non-empty vacuum of space-time."

This linking of light and matter is one of the central themes to the various stories running throughout the novel. Some of the more bizarre occurrences in the book, such as a magician using a device to actually create duplicates of human beings, are extensions of this idea (I should point out that The Prestige bears a striking resemblance as well, probably because it and Against the Day both draw heavily on the theories of Nikola Tesla).

Here is a passage from Against the Day that addresses the link between light and matter in particularly direct way:

As if imparting a secret Lew could not help thinking he had somehow, without knowing how, become ready to hear, the Cohen said, "We are light, you see, all of light--we are the light offered the batsmen at the end of the day, the shining eyes of the beloved, the flare of the safety-match at the high city window, the stars and nebulæ in full midnight glory, the rising moon through the tram wires, the naphtha lamp glimmering on the costermonger's barrow...When we lost our æthereal being and became embodied, we slowed, thickened, congealed to"--grabbing each side of his face and wobbling it back and forth--"this. The soul itself is a memory we carry of having once moved at the speed and density of light. The first step in our Discipline here is learning how to re-acquire refraction, that condition of light, to become once more able to pass where we will, through lantern-horn, through window-glass, eventually, though we risk being divided in two, through Iceland spar, which is an expression in crystal form of Earth's velocity as it rushes through the Æther, alterning dimensions, and creating double refraction...."

It occurred to me then that Against the Day is as much a reflection of string theory as it is an elaboration on the scientific theories of the early 20th century. My thinking led me to think again about the string-net liquid described in the New Scientist article:

"If you take a snapshot of the position of electrons in an FQHE system they appear random and you think you have a liquid," says Wen. But step back, and you see that, unlike in a liquid, the electrons dance around each other in well-defined steps."

It occurred to me that this could very well describe the structure of Against the Day itself. There are several narrative threads going on that seem to have little to do with what else is happening in the book, and don't seem to be moving in any particular direction. It can seem pretty random at times. But as the novel goes on, the stories begin to intersect and intertwine in various ways. They don't converge into one narrative, but they become interconnected, like a net. And of course, laid across the whole thing are those themes I keep bringing up: light, refraction, doubling, anarchy, and war.

When I recognized these correlations between string theory and Against the Day, I gained a new appreciation for Pynchon's novel. It's a very challenging work, but it's also entertaining and very rewarding. From the lack of a clear resolution, I get the idea that the reader is expected to simply enjoy the book's multiple threads and not worry about where it's going.

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg

I can't believe I'd never seen this before. David O' Russell and Lily Tomlin go at it on the set, resulting in a complete O' Russell breakdown. NSFW.

Here's another one of Tomlin flipping out:

I've heard stories of people flipping out on set before, but this is nuts.

EDIT: Sorry, having some trouble with the YouTube plugin. They worked in the preview. Let's see if they work now.

I haven't been watching a whole lot of movies lately. I did see 300 and Zodiac in the theater and enjoyed them both quite a bit. I still watch movies from Blockbuster but not quite at the rate I used to. I had to report a movie that I never received and one of my movies arrived with the envelope all mangled. Not sure what is going on with that. So what have I been watching? I caught up on the second season of How I Met Your Mother, which keeps getting better and better. I also finished the first season of Beverly Hills, 90210 and am now eagerly awaiting the release of the second season. I'm also still a sucker for LOST and they are actually finally starting to answer some questions, or so it seems. But the big time sink has been a show my brother and a few others have been telling me about, HBO's The Wire.

Before you say, "I don't do cop shows," let me just tell you this isn't your normal cop show. I'm not a big cop show guy and I'm totally hooked. The characters are fantastic, including the "bad guys." The show goes back and forth between the criminals and the people trying to catch them. It gets pretty messy and complex and there isn't a clear cut winner in the battle. I started watching a couple weeks ago and I'm already on the fifth episode of season 2. Definitely check this one out if you get the chance.

Finally! I've alway thought that someone should turn the Flaming Lips album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots into an actual story, maybe animation or something. But, even better than that, Yoshimi is going to Broadway! Read more about it here.

Neatorama: The ten most magnificent trees in the world.

The first television episode of This American life debuts this week. One of the segments is animated by Chris Ware. You can watch that segment in its entirety by clicking here.

You're welcome.

So something is brewing here at work. A resident just came by asking for a bunch of reports from last Wednesday when I was working because apparently someone stole some furniture or something and the police and HOA are investigating it. I think they want to blame the whole thing on us. The problem is that on that day the visitor gate was broken so I had to monitor the incoming traffic very closely and I didn't have any time to do my reports. Not to mention no one else at our post is doing them simply out of frustration and apathy for our crappy job. So I'm not sure what is going to happen. Maybe this will be a wake up call to our non-existent management that they need to do something to improve morale around here. Maybe we'll all get fired. I'm honestly hoping we all get fired. How sad is that?

Twintip is a great skiing game from the Norway tourism board. Use the keyboard to jump and do tricks. Cross the finish line for bonus points.

Report: 11 pro wrestlers linked to pharmacy probe

Seriously, did anybody ever think otherwise?

I don't know if any Fox TV executives read this blog, but if they do I would like to throw in my support for "Nurses". It stars Eliza Dushku. My brother's friend, Brett, has been cast as Eliza's brother so I figured I would show my support. Also, if it gets picked up, my brother said I could go to the cast party so that would be awesome. From what my brother said, it's a comedy-drama along the lines of "Grey's Anatomy." So all those TV execs out there take note.

Mental Floss has a nice overview of Jonathan Glazer's music video and commercial work. As I've mentioned before, he's my favorite music video director, and it's nice to see other people give him some praise. As a bonus, I also got to see some videos I had never seen before (including the one for Nick Cave's wonderful "Into My Arms").

For some reason, though, Mental Floss overlooked his very best video, the one he did for UNKLE's "Rabbit In Your Headlights." I've remedied their error by providing it below.

Hey there, don't look at the scores on this thing, because I suck.

This weekend was brought to me by the letter D.

D is for David and Kristin's visit. They surprised me at work on Thursday by showing up without me having any clue that they were in town. On Friday, along with Gron, we all went to eat at Stubrik's, where none of us had eaten in a long time. From there we booked it to the Norton Simon in Pasadena for a half-hour of art-viewing before it closed, and from there we headed to the Yard House in Brea for some desserts. David, don't forget to link us to some photos! It was great to hang out with the old gang in person, since most of us only connect on blogs and IM these days.

D is also for Done. I got a lot done on Saturday. Went to look at a rental house, did a lot of laundry, went to dinner with my sister at Corner Bakery in Brea, went shopping at Ann Taylor Loft, Nordstrom, PetSmart, and Target, and came away with a bunch of clothes and a replacement for Pip's favorite pet toy. He went nuts when he saw it, since the house had been missing it for about a month.

D is also for Disneyland. We were given passes at Christmas, but with Ric working 6 days most weeks, he's been too stressed to make it out there yet. After church (and seeing baby Anderson again) and a relaxing day at home, we finally made it to the park last night. Lucky for us, they didn't penalize us. We were supposed to go in by March 2nd, but we didn't notice that date on our voucher until we were headed there last night. We went on Buzz, ate some gumbo, watched some fireworks, finally saw Jack Sparrow on Pirates, and headed home to watch more Arrested Development. What a fun night. I'm looking forward to many more like that. Stress-free visits to the park are great. You know you can always hit something up the next time around with a pass, so you don't feel pressured to see everything in one night.

Up this week: not much! Cleaning house, little errands, TV with Wendy, etc. Work's busy with software companies giving us pitches and brown-nosing to win our business. Last week we were at a meeting where someone mentioned that they needed chocolate to stay awake in the afternoon, and about 10 minutes later, the presenter's associate came back with a massive bag of chocolate candy bars - not to mention the day planners and eagle plush toys they gave out. Thursday I'm heading down to Carlsbad for the day with girls from work, to work on some wedding planning stuff for Amy. I'm not sure if I mentioned I'm helping out with decor/flowers for her wedding, plus she's my new workout partner. I think a day off work will be fun, since it's been a couple of months since the last holiday.

Wipeout:

Basically a flash version of the surfing game from California Games. One of my old faves. Watch out for the shark.

MySpace Impact

I'm actually pretty impressed with this. Lots of different ways to get involved in various things, voter registration, and links to nominees and key issues. Cool.

IDW PANEL FROM LA - NEWSARAMA

Some sweet news from Wizard World L.A.:

Ryall then told the crowd that Joss Whedon said in the new issues of Buffy/Angel magazine, "I am talking to Brian Lynch, about doing sort of a 'season 6 of Angel.'" Ryall then continued, "After Shadow Puppets, we will be doing some new Angel books, with Brian and Joss, picking up where the show left off. They will be post-show, and definitely canon, and co-written by Joss." Presumably this is the companion to Dark Horse's "Buffy season 8" that fans have been waiting for.

I'm a big Brian Lynch fan and of course a fan of Joss, so this is pretty dang cool. I have read most of Lynch's Spike: Asylum and I have really dug it. I'm still waiting for my first issue of Buffy Season 8 to arrive in the mail but I have heard great things. Why didn't I get the issue at my local comic shop? Because the guy who runs the place is Comic Book Guy, only an even bigger jerk. I swore to myself I'd never go back there. Thanks for living up to that stereotype, guy.

Hope everyone has a good one. I'm planning on a quiet evening watching Alias. Good times. I was all set to buy Morrissey tickets today but they changed the on-sale date to the 31st. Went to the Ann Lynn show last night in Riverside, they were really great. Their cover of Peter Gabriel's "Mercy Streets" is incredible. We're trying to convince them to record it. Hopefully that will happen. I'm an idiot and forgot my laptop power cable when I was getting ready to go to work this morning. So no homework for me today. I'm keeping occupied by watching streaming TV shows. Hope everyone has a fun and safe day!

Sorry guys, nothing interesting is happening. Or maybe I'm not interesting. Or both. St. Patrick's day is tomorrow. I don't know how tired I'll be when I get off work. That will determine if I do anything. I had a test today. I forgot one line of code and couldn't figure it out for the life of me before time was up, so I didn't do so well. Maybe a B since the rest looked pretty. That kind of bummed me out. As soon as I got home I looked at my book and realized what I did wrong. That always happens. Besides that, not much going on. Phil, Janelle, and I watched some Alias last night. Hopefully we're watching more today, but Janelle is sick so that is up in the air. Phil and I might also be going to Ann Lynn's last show, which is depressing. Hopefully I will come up with more impressive things to write about while I'm at work this weekend. Have a good one, folks!

My sister and I have been talking lately about how we want to make a point of going to certain types of arts events during different seasons of the year. Really, we don't want a year to go by without taking advantage of all the great theatres around us. I want to try and see a philharmonic performance, an opera, and a play at one of the bigger theatres each year, and then we'll also try and go to the university's big events too.

When I got fired up about the idea, I looked up the Ahmanson and was trying to choose plays. I guess I mentioned that Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was playing, and Ric brightened up and said he loved the play, which he read in high school, and that he wanted to see it. So I made that my Valentine's gift for him this year, and we brought my sister along too.

This rendition of Edward Albee's play stars Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin, as Martha and George, a husband-wife duo. These two host a late-night get-together with a couple they met at a faculty welcome party at the university where Martha's father is president. Between drinks, the conversation goes all over the place, and we learn all about the backgrounds of both couples. By the end of the night, both marriages seem to be pretty scarred.

The funny thing is that this really plays out rather dramatically, although it is filled with humor. The story isn't funny, but the players within it are, and Bill Irwin steals the show with the way he delivers his awesome dialogue. The play was on Broadway before it came here, and Irwin actually won a Tony for his performance.

I've never read the play, but after researching it, found that a few changes were made in the script that I'm not sure I completely agree with, but I did enjoy the play. The performances were very lively and entertaining, and the direction was very smooth. Even though we sat in the absolute last row, we had a good time.

I mentioned that I saw this to Amy, so now she and Ryan are going to go. Don't go hungry, because getting snacks between acts is impossible (2 small vendor tables and lines that go forever, and only 10 minutes to get back to your seat). Hope you have a good time!

Hi all, work's been busy, so I forgot to post in the last couple of days.

I watched this one in two fitness center sessions, and got all choked up at the end. I need to remember not to watch certain types of movies in a public setting. Sophie Scholl is crisp in script, clean in subject matter, uses great color, is beautifully shot at all times, and is superbly handled by lead actor, Julia Jentsch.

The story is basically about a small group of university students who publish literature against Hitler's regime in the early 1940s. A brother and sister, Sophie and Hans Scholl, are members of this group called the White Rose, and they are taken into custody after they distribute mass amounts of fliers in the atrium at the local university. Quickly sent to interrogation, we follow along with Sophie, who at first is great at calmly using a fabricated alibi, and then is powerfully affecting when she admits the truth and is proud of it even though it threatens her life. From interrogation to court to a verdict in practically no time at all, this is an example of good people practising free speech and the terrible reaction from a tyrant's regime. The final scenes in the courtroom are particularly strong.

This movie can be shown to any audience and is strong at showing the abuse of Hitler's power at a different level than we're used to seeing: this isn't a concentration camp feature - everything happens in interrogation rooms, prison, and courts.

Also encouraging is how Sophie turns to God in this situation, and finds strength from him even though she hasn't been a practicing Christian before these events. The emphasis on her looking through windows, up at skies, and her prayer scenes are all a glimpse into Sophie's soul, as she is otherwise keeping up a calm appearance in front of her opposition.

Loved it. Just an FYI, this one was nominated for best Foreign Film at last year's Oscars and won all sorts of German awards.