Today was our first day of really unpleasant weather. We had been lucky with mostly sunny and semi-warm weather up until now, and today the rain/mist and coldness came back. We were told the warm weather was unusual, so we felt lucky to have had any warm weather at all!

After our last breakfast with Frank and Joan at Petra House (yum), we walked into downtown Galway for some souvenir shopping and to check out the Spanish Arches. The arches are on the left bank of the Corrib River, at the point where the river meets the sea. The 2 remaining arches (of 4) are what is left of a 16th century bastion, meant to protect merchant ships from looters. Spanish merchants often docked at this point in the 18th century, thus the name. There is an inscription dedicating the arch to Christopher Columbus. There are many stories about how Columbus sailed through Galway on his way to the Americas--but most agree the stories are unfounded, although Columbus did mention sailing through Galway on earlier voyages. Another nearby site, St. Nicholas Church, is storied to be the site where Columbus prayed before his voyage. As there is a lot of conflicting information on this, it's hard to say if any of that is true or not...but it was still cool to see!

After walking through town, we picked up our bags from Petra House and headed south-east toward the Rock of Cashel. It was about a 3 hour drive, and we had no idea of where the castle was located, other than in the town of Cashel. Luckily, it was situated atop a hill, so all we had to do was drive towards it. Unluckily, being atop a hill, there was no protection from the wind and cold and it turned out to be an outdoor attraction. So cold! Lucas had especially looked forward to the Rock of Cashel and was a bit underwhelmed--there was only a small visitors "lobby" with minimal information followed by a short, poorly made film in the audio-visual room. We missed the last tour by 30 minutes, so we took ourselves out into the cold for a self-guided tour of the ruins. Much of the castle was covered up because of UV irradiation being undertaken to kill microbiological growth on the art. We did see some neat carvings and tombstones, and in general it was cool to visit.

After the Rock we walked into town to visit the former Bishop's Palace, now the Palace Hotel. Frank at Petra House had highly recommended at stop there, and we were glad we took his advice. The hotel itself was beautiful, and we stopped in the Guinness Bar on the lower level to warm ourselves up with tea and coffee. It is said that this bar was the birthplace of Guinness beer, as Arthur Guinness lived here with his father, who was once steward to the bishop. Inside the bar is a wall handpainted with names of all the famous persons who have visited--a small list includes: the Edge, Hayley Mills, President Reagan, Princess Caroline...

We left the hotel and drove on to Clogheen, where we would be staying for the night. We found our B&B, Ballyboy House, fairly easily, considering that road construction had sent us into town on a detour and our directions were backwards unbeknown to us! Once at the house, we relaxed with tea and muffins by the fire, provided by Breeda, the owner. Breeda also provided us with a recommendation for a place for dinner, so we headed out to the Lucky Leprechaun. This night happened to by Holy Thursday, so the restaurants were empty while everyone was attending church services. In fact, we were the only ones at the restaurant, save for the staff...The server was very nice and even though we had a bit of trouble understanding her accent ("are you here on hotlist?" turned out to be "are you here on holidays?" after our 4th time of asking her to repeat herself....). After dinner, we went back to Ballyboy House (which, by the way, was a 400 year old house!) and researched our drive back to Dublin for the next day.

Click the photo for the whole album!

Jenny and I went to see I Am Legend a few weeks ago at the cheap theater. I am glad I waited to see it there, because zombie movies are massive cliches to me these days.

The movie begins as Dr. Robert Neville goes through his day with his dog. He is the last person alive on Manhattan. Through flashbacks, we discover that the island was quarantined when a vaccine meant to cure cancer mutated into monster-making material. Watching Robert in his daily routine gives us a picture of how smart, resourceful, and lonely he is.

For a good while, the movie is interesting in its own right, because it is a lonely survival story. But, with the element having to do with mutated monster people, I just didn't care all that much. It was entertaining, but as soon as the movie shifted gears in favor of featuring these creatures, it became less emotionally involving.

What I really hated was how often the creatures would stand and yell, as if they were lions or orcs or something similar. I find howls like this entertaining in The Golden Compass when two big bad polar bears are showing off their manliness before they decide to fight each other, but here, it's irritating, and repeated far too much.

The movie isn't a bad one, but how it started was so much more interesting to me than how it ended. I especially appreciated that this was the first time I ever really appreciated Will Smith as an actor. The fact that he could sell himself as a scientist was amazing to me. The relationship with Robert's dog is particularly good.

I did watch the alternate ending, and tend to agree that it is the better ending, but I still didn't like it all that much. I was also frustrated with the overuse of CGI on the creatures, especially the one that Robert captures. I really don't see what the harm would have been with a little bit more use of makeup.

Anyway, the movie was better than I expected at the beginning, and pretty much what I expected at its end. I am glad I saw it for the potential that it had, but wish it wouldn't have felt so much like other movies I've seen. I'm also very interested in how more and more movies seem to be showing up in which vaccines turn into evil things. In the olden days, it was radioactive material. Today, it's the medicine that we create. Hm.

I'm messing around with some other ways to make some money on the blog so I decided to give ScratchBack a try. On the right sidebar you will see an empty listing of links. If you want you're link there, you just tip us $10. Your link will remain on the list until it is bumped off, which could be awhile. Just think of it as a small donation with a nice bonus.

I know, I know, I feel like a sell out but it's become clear lately that there really are a lot of folks reading our various blogs and we're rapidly outgrowing even our VPS. Also, it's my dream to do something like this for a living. I know it's a pipe dream, but hey, a guy can dream. This site will be six years old next week. I feel like even though we now have ads, something I swore I would never do, I don't think we've compromised our initial goal here. We still post whatever we feel like. That will never change. I think back then blogging for dollars was completely foreign and now it seems to be common practice. I'm open to any and all feedback about this, so feel free to comment.

Criterion Collection - Buy.com

I don't normally post things like this but I know a lot of readers would be interested. There's lots of good titles for sale at crazy low prices (not for normal DVDs but low for Criterion discs) and there is free shipping. I'm finally going to pick up the Brazil three disc set and maybe a couple others. If you are a Gilliam fan I highly recommend the Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas set. It's really good. The commentary with Hunter S. Thompson alone is worth it.