No, not dead, just not with the time/energy to blog much. Been doing lots, though, which we'll just go ahead and talk about.
I've seen a whole bunch of movies lately. MI:3 was, well, not bad, which was surprising, given how badly MI:2 sucked the good suck. A reasonable plot as these things go, good twists and turns, fights, and what have you. OTOH, Tom Cruise is starting to creep me out, for what should be the obvious non-movie reasons.
The Da Vinci Code was actually surprisingly good, though again it's not like I had high expectations for it, considering how much I'm not a conspiracy theory fan. I turned my brain off and went with it, which worked out, much as it did when I watched National Treasure. Well, most of National Treasure. That movie was...oi. Da Vinci Code, OTOH, has a scary monk, played by this man, who rules, because he wins every movie he is ever in.
Munich was...actually I'm not sure what I think about Munich. I saw it, it was good, then it just sort of stopped. But it provoked some dialogue between my mother and I, to the effect of:
Me: You know, I keep having issues distinguishing one skinny male Middle Eastern guy from all the other skinny male Middle Eastern guys.
Mom: You too, huh?
Me: Yeah. Most of them look the same. That might be the point, though.
And later, post-movie:
Me: You know, I bet it takes an awful lot of effort to do a serious dramatic movie set in the 70s and not bust up laughing every time you put the costume on. You were there. So seriously, what were you people thinking at the time?
Mom: *laughs* It is pretty bad, isn't it?
I also picked up Battlefield 2, the Special Forces xpack, and a headset, the first two because Patch 1.3 adds bot coop, and the third because Whir's been whining for ages about headsets. Since he now doesn't have one, I find this funny. However, BF2 is way fun. Funner than fun. I'll let it go at that.
Read some books, too. 1634: The Ram Rebellion was a fun novel, much like the whole 1632 series, dealing as it does with a West Virginia mining town in the wilds of 30 Years War Germany is a fun bunch of novels. Because, as we all know, I'm all up into books like that. Even when they deal with the economics of a peasant rebellion in a 17th century Germany administered by West Virginians. Especially when they do that. I didn't get the degree for nothing.
Still reading Quicksilver. It's an awesome novel, but it's awesome in a way that you have to read part of it, then set it down for a time and go "Dude, that was awesome!" for a while, then pick it up again. I'm getting there. It's next on the list.
I thought Bill Clinton's My Life was a great book, and thought so for a lot of reasons. For one, it's exceedingly well-written and easy to get into, and because while the man might be a little evasive once or twice, he's pretty honest most of the time about most things, including Lewinsky. For two, because of that, and because he goes into a lot of detail about things, it's a good book about how the Presidency works, and how we got where we are, and that's a good thing. For three, I happen to agree with him a lot, and especially when he talks about the current travesty that is both our political parties. It's kind of why I don't talk politics on here much these days, because the Democrats, in the words of somebody from the book "Never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity," and the Republicans seem to be varying between sheer wrongheadedness, complete and utter incompetance, and outright evil done on the theory that the ends justify the means, or in the case of our current President, combinations of all three. We all know it. NSA spying thing? Not surprised. The horse is dead. Can we just get to 2008 now?
Anyway. Go read the book. It's good. I promise.
Posted by Dwip at June 4, 2006 12:21 PM