Tuesday, May 04, 2004
edit: Upon iTunes purchase, I've decided that Somebody Told Me by the Killers is, indeed, fucking awesome. Also, final grades are in. A or A- in everything except for a B+ in CFC (the class we had to do crap installation art for). Solid As in my two highest credit classes, those being bio and english. Take that, college! I'll have your head yet. /end edit
Eek, I've been remiss in blogging. I know this. I apologize.
I went to see Kill Bill Vol. 2 with Corey a few days ago... ah, Saturday, I guess. He joined us for Saturday Night Family Dinner first, which is always an event. We went to Acapulco's, this large and relatively good Mexican restaurant in Beverly that no one's ever heard of, for whatever unknown reason. And we got to have a nice little laugh at my complete and utter inability to park. Nice to know that some things haven't changed.
Quite frankly I'd be surprised if he wasn't traumatised by the meal. Either I'd been away even longer than I'd thought, or my family was truly in fine form that night. Yes, Dad, I do mean you.
The movie... well, the movie was great. I don't want to go into too much detail, in case there are those out there intending to see it who haven't done so yet. But if the first one was pure action and visuals, this one had more of the dialogue, more of the meat, if you will. It was beautifully funny at points. Which is not to say that it didn't have tons of action, of course. And the visuals were still fantastic, although the sets seemed to get cheesier in this one, especially the painted backdrop in the climactic scene.
Pai Mai was absolutely incredible. The guy playing him was simply great for the role. Of course it helped that, the way it was written, it was a great role in any event, but the actor really ran with it. Bill was acted to perfection... any more and it would've been over the top, any less and it would've been boring. Uma Thurman... well, the movie wouldn't really have worked with anyone else, now would it? I eagerly await the arthouse releases of Volumes 1 and 2 in one showing.
The crowd at the movie theater was impressive. It was also impressive in that it seemed to be compromised mainly of middle school or young high school kids traveling in large packs. You don't realize it, but in Ann Arbor you see mostly older high school and college kids around. No middle schoolers, except for very occasionally on State Street on the weekend. I had almost forgotten all about them.
Now, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I honestly don't remember us (i.e. my class, the class of 2003 or 2007, depending on where you're counting it from) being that exagerrated in middle school. I mean, the girls were all either wearing mini skirts, high heels and too much makeup, or else they were goth/punked out to a ridiculous degree. The guys were all either swaggering around with the mini-skirted girls, or wearing enormously baggy pants and dragging around skateboards, or slouching about in oversize tshirts and large necklaces.
It was absolutely hilarious just sitting in the theater watching these kids walk by. Which, of course, we did, for about 10 minutes before going in to sit down and see the movie. Good times.
That song by the Killers, Somebody Told Me, is a glorious song. Yes. Pity it's on an EP and not a full length CD. I don't like buying a CD unless it's got a reasonable number of songs on it. May be an iTunes store purchase.
I've been doing a bit of birding with my mother lately at the Audobon Sanctuary on Marblehead Neck. It's really a pretty small sanctuary, but it gets a ton of birds and apparently birders come from all over the States to see some of the stuff that stops in there along various migration routes. The warblers all flew in recently, so we went down a couple of times to see them.
The first time we saw mostly yellow-rumps, black-and-whites, and palm warblers. The black-and-whites are my favorite warblers so far, they're really quite striking when you see them in person, and there were tons on the Neck.
The second time we went because there was allegedly a kentucky warbler there, and these guys are incredibly rare. We ran into a few other birders, a couple of whom were from out of state, all looking for this bird. Apparently there had been a big group of people looking for it much earlier in the day (around 6 am-early... birders tend to keep ungodly hours). It was all very exciting.
Anyways, we found the kentucky warbler... it was just hanging out in one area with all the other warblers. It was pretty close to us, and was staying in this one little stand of trees, hopping around eating something yummy under leaves on the ground. It was really easy to see because its underside is bright yellow, so it's pretty simple to pick it out. I have now seen the rare kentucky warbler! Joy!
Oh, and all of those images (except for the palm warbler) were from Bird Photos around Marblehead, MA, a website of photos by a local birder called Rob Kipp. He takes massively good photographs of birds, and makes me jealous of his fantastical camera skills. Blargh. Anyhow, check 'em out, they're amazing.
Not much else has been going on. I did a whole lot of nothing today... well, I finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I liked Good Omens so much that I figured I should read something else of his. This one wasn't half so funny, but it was very good, and a very quick read despite the actual length of the book. I may have to pick up some more of his stuff at some point. I still feel like a bad comic book dork for not following Sandman at all, but oh well.
new car!
Yesterday I went with my mother to the Lexus dealership for the car's one month check up. Oh! Yes, we have a new car. One of these puppies. Very snazzy. It's got features up the wazoo, and the service people seem to be very good, which is really what my mother wanted, after the hassle of the previous cars. It has the GPS direction thing, which isn't perfect, but is better than my sense of direction for sure. And! It has a little camera right above the license plate, and when you put the car in reverse it automatically turns on and the GPS screen shows you the back of the car! So you never back into anything! My god, what innovation. I now have the station wagon all for my own, which is great, but I sure do wish it had that back-view camera.
After that we went to Bob's and I got new sneakers, which I needed, since the ones I have now had the soles worn completely smooth. All that walking around Ann Arbor, I guess.
We then went to the mall (insert gasp of dread here). My cousin Rosi's bat mitzvah is coming up later this month, so both my mother and I require *shudder* dresses. As you may or may not recall from the posts around prom time last year, I absolutely detest dress shopping. Hate hate hate it.
So I was pretty floored when the first store we went into had a long, dressy skirt that I liked, that fit well, and that looked relatively good (well, as good as a shiny black long skirt can look on someone who's wearing a ratty Michigan tshirt and purple socks at the same time). THIS SORT OF THING DOES NOT HAPPEN TO ME. Of course I still need a top of some sort to go with it, and shoes, so there's plenty of room for the Hell of Dress Shopping to continue.
We were going to try to have an 4rthur/b3ta bash in Boston at some point, but Willis is getting out of school tomorrow, so there goes our organizing power right there. We might try to do a midwest bash come fall though, since I'll be out in Michigan, he'll be in Chicago, and there are a couple of folks right around Columbus. And I'm sure there are a few southern Canadians who'd join us. Much as I detest Ohio I would brave Columbus for the event. It could be a magnificently good time if it happens... if you're a b3tan or an 4rthurian in that area, get in touch, you miserable sods. And if you're a Bostonian, why the hell haven't you gotten in touch with us before, eh?
The website had a massive update recently. I added a bunch of stuff to the Pencil, Charcoal, etc. section. I added a few images to the Pen and Ink section. I added an entirely new section, called Paintings and Prints. I uploaded the most recent batch of B3tan Name Illustrations, which people seemed to react very well to, especially those whose names I had drawn in this batch. Check it all out, it's glorious (except for the art work, which is pretty mediocre).
I'm sure there was something else I wanted to write about, but here it is nigh on 1 am, and I'd been hoping to get to bed early, so I could perhaps venture into Boston tomorrow. We shall see. I bid you all a good eve.
11:45 PM
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