I just got back from kayaking on Lake Union. Days like this make me very happy that I live in Seattle. Cruising around the lake with boats rolling by, watching sea planes land and take off, and checking out all the cool houseboats. It's also neat to get right up next to the million dollar yachts. And now it's 9:00 pm and the sun is just setting. Makes the other nine months worth it.

Friday night I went to see Arrested Development at the Showbox. This was incredible. They called it a reunion tour even though they've been back together a few years and released an albumn overseas. But it was aptly named because the majority of the songs they played were from their first albumn. The best is they had updated all the music. The songs were still the same, but they added much more vocal harmony. This is good. If you think about it Arrested Development has a DJ, a drummer, a basist and four vocalists. I've been listening to their albumn since the show and I notice that Speech (the primary vocalist) does almost all of the vocals with just a little added from the others. In the show he was still the primary vocalist, but the others had much more pronounced roles. Overall their energy was fabulous, running around stage, dancing up a storm. I could see that they are a band that really puts their all into performing, and I'd go see them again in a heart beat. Plus, how can you not like a group with a 71 year old guy who has white dreads?

Wow, lots to talk about today.

First off, I was over at the Matrix website and I started looking through some of their photo galleries. The behind the scenes photos from the freeway chase scene are excellent. It was refreshing to see how many actual physical cars they wrecked (as opposed to say, the George Lucas all digital all the time theory.) I think this is why the scene worked so well. Computers are getting better but they still can't make fake stuff move just like the real stuff does. Go see that particular gallery here, here, and here.

While I'm looking through those photo's I saw something that made me straight laugh out loud. Check out this picture. Although only the hard core computer nerds out there will get that joke. Yes, that truck was really one of the semi's on the freeway - I missed when I watched, but will look for it when I see it on IMAX. With Trinity hacking a computer using nmap, ssh, and crc32 (all real life computer nerd things) and that truck The Matrix Reloaded offered quite a bit of fun inside jokes for us computer nerds. If you're wondering what the joke with the truck is you can get info about it here. Bonus: I learned something reading that link, turns out the terms Big and Little Endian originally come from Gullivers Travels.

Because I miss my surfing days I watched Boarding House: North Shore on the WB last night. It was suprisingly good. I watched some of MTV's Surf Girls a while ago and it wasn't so good. The main difference for me is the surfing. The WB show has real life professional surfers who are really good (well, most of them) and shows them surfing a lot. The MTV show has aspiring surfers and shows them surfing very little. The MTV show focuses on what most MTV reality shows focus on, interpersonal issues and people trying to grow. The WB show focuses on surfing. It's actually a very intruiging reality concept. As far as I can tell there are no gimmicks, no voting people out, nothing like that. They just took some really talented people, put them all in a house together for the duration of some big surfing events, and filmed them (this is remarkably like the first few Real World seasons on MTV, you know, back when it was good.) It kind of feels like a documentary about these professional surfers during the competitions. This works quite well if you like to watch surfing.

Then after that I watched Frida. Wow, what an artistic and pretty movie this is. Bright colors and images all about that just makes the screen seem like a painting in motion. And there are some scenes where they transition from actual Frida Kahlo paintings to live action in a wonderfully seamless way. I was impressed. Unfortunately I don't know enough history about Frida or Diego Rivera to know how accurate the movie is from that perspective, but nothing stood out as wrong. One thing did keep distracting me: I know Frida Kahlo had those signature eyebrows, but Salma Hayek is one of the best looking women around and the eyebrows kept distracting me - pulling me out of the movie. Still, I thought it was great and recommend it to you.

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit crushing game shows, stuffing junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. Choose a future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

Yes, I watched Trainspotting this afternoon. This is a great drug movie. I don't have any real personal experience in the world of hard drug addictions, but I can imagine it would be something like this. Plus it's lots of fun to try to figure out what they're saying through the heavy Scottish accents. But a word of warning, this film is not for those with weak stomachs. I guess if nothing else, how can you not get behind a movie with a character named Sick Boy?

At or around this time Spud, Sick Boy and I made a healthy, informed, democratic decision to get back on heroin as soon as possible. It took about twelve hours.

Gotta love resourceful motivated people.

Not rafting this weekend was actually quite fun. I've been missing weekends in Seattle.

Friday Guy invited me to go see Blur in concert at the showbox. This was cool and made me wish I was more of a fan of theirs. But I did recognize a couple of their songs. They sing both the "Woooohoooooo" song and the "Girls who want Boys who like Boys who do Girls who do Boys love their Girls who do Girls love their Boys" song. Their other stuff was defintely good, but it's tough to watch a band in concert when you don't know their songs. I did get a suprise as I was leaving. Their board out front said that Arrested Development will be there. I've alwaysliked them so I'm excited to see that show on Friday.

Then on Saturday I got to play with my weekend soccer team that I neglected all spring, then I lounged around home watching Narc until it was time to go party with some friends I don't see enough. All spring I kept getting invited out with them but never made it because I was rafting, so this was a good change.

As for Narc, I'd say it's a really well done cop movie. But in the end exists only in itself. If you want to watch a dark (and violent...) cop movie with no connection or statement about the outside world - you're all over it. It's not going to enrich your life or anything, and it's too dark to be good escapist entertainment.

I also redid the rafting pictures page a bit so it fits into the format of the rest of the site. There is now a link to it on the left navigation bar as well.

For those wondering the quote from trivia this week was:

"I say, let me never be complete. I say, may I never be content. I say, deliver me from swedish furniture. I say, deliver me from clever art. I say, deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth... I say, evolve, and let the chips fall where they may."

And it was from Fight Club. But I still can't place it and that still bugs me.

I saw Finding Nemo this week. I didn't think the story itself was as creative or funny as the Toy Story films or Monster's Inc. But visually this is far and away Pixar's best movie yet. Yes, rendering technology get's better every year, so that's a leg up. But the environment and art in this film are spectacular. Every scene is rich. From time to time try to take your eyes off the main focus of a scene and take it all in. Amazing.

Went to trivia last night as usual, and was suprised that there were two movie questions. The trick is normally the movie questions at trivia are from the good old days before I really started watching them - so I tend to be a bit helpless. But these were both more recent. The bonus question was fun: which one character has each of the following actors played - Pacino, Deniro, Nicholson, and Max Von Sydow (there were also two other names, but I can't remember them.) We ended up getting that one by a little reasoning, educated guessing and brainstorming. Turns out the correct answer is: The Devil.

The other one was a whole different thing. The guy read a movie quote and asked what movie it was from. The thing was it sounded like a Fight Club quote, but I couldn't place it in the movie. So I thought it might be from something like Trainspotting that had some of the same themes. But other people thought it was from Fight Club so I sat there for at least 10 minutes runnning through the movie trying to place it. I couldn't do it and this annoyed me greatly. My other teammembers started laughing at me because it looked like I was concentrating so hard I was going to burst a blood vessel or something. This just means I'll have to pop the DVD in and watch the movie one more time.

First off, Blue's News pointed me to the Matrix Reloaded: The Abridged Script. I was laughing through just about the whole thing. Beware, all kinds of spoilers and there are some pretty geeky jokes (if you don't know what irc is you problably won't get a whole section.)

It turns out that I was dissapointed in 2 Fast 2 Furious. This was frustrating because I wasn't really expecting much. Anyway, after watching it I went back and watched the original and was reminded that it really is a good movie. It was fresh, had interesting characters, and perhaps most importantly didn't really have a villian. This last piece is key because it helped it with being fresh, with no villian it had to at least try to do stray away from standard formulas (although it didn't stray far.) Perhaps the coolest thing about it is the whole movie delved into the street racing world and it stayed there.

In the second installment there is a villian (who serves no purpose but to be the villian) and the movie only sort of kind of exists around street racing - but not really. They degraded it to a poor action movie with a couple of marginally interesting driving scenes. Bleh.

I rented a new DVD with six episodes of the British comedy Coupling. They were funny, and the weird thing is I felt like I'd seen some of them before. I think these episodes were running when I lived in London so that might have been it. Or it could just be that it was some of the jokes that seemed familiar and the good jokes had made it to me through other routes. NBC is actually remaking this show with American actors for this fall - they're hoping it will be a replacement for the ever-popular Friends. I think it has a chance to do that. I've heard some people complain/wonder why NBC has to remake them instead of just airing the originals. One easy answer is all the British slang. Either way, it's a good show and I hope the remakes hold up.

The Recruit is silly and escapist. It would be fun if you don't really care if movie characters do stupid things, don't know much about computers, and like staring at Colin Farrel. None of these things describe me.

Last weekend I had my first commercial rafting trip. It doesn't really count since it was mostly guys I used to work with. Anyway, they came out for a day on the river and we had a great trip. It was sunny and warm so we spent the first half of the trip doing lots of water fighting (the first half is always slow, with lots of flat water.) And then we really got into the rapids for the second half. The water level was really up on Saturday too. During training the river was mostly around 3,000 Cubic Feet per Second (CFS - a measure of water flow.) Then on graduation weekend it was around 5,000. On Saturday it was up at 11,000. That means there was more then twice as much water in the river as I'd ever seen before. It was a totally different river. Because of that I was taking conservative lines through all the nasty stuff, but my customers cought on and started asking to be a little more hardcore. So when we came to Drunkards Drop we went in hard, and the river made us pay for it. We had a nice little group swim and you can see the pictures here. It's just a craptacular page I made with Frontpage (I know, my geek factor just took a hit) but it had to be quick and dirty since I made it today at work.

But I also did a bit of movie overdosing over the past week. Here's the list with short blurbs on each:

The Italian Job: This movie was fun. Great pace, fun stunts, smart characters, incredible cast, and lots of funny bits. It's basically a less quirky version of Ocean's 11. Also, I knew Charlize Theron was hot before, but her character in this movie really bumped her up a notch. Highly recommended.

Private Parts: I know lots of people who refuse to go anywhere near this because they despise Howard Stern. But the reality is this is a really well done comedy with a sweet underlying story. If you don't believe me read Ebert's review.

Bruce Almighty: I've never really been a big Jim Carey fan. I like some of his stuff, but don't really find his humor to be all that engaging - I think I like dialog too much to be a big physical humor fan. That said I found this to be a passable movie. It suffers the fate of most mediocre comedies - all the good bits seem to have been given away in the previews. I don't think it's worth a theater trip (I'm glad I went to a matine) but would be a fine rental.

Field of Dreams: I really like this movie - until the ending. It just feels quick and wrong. Watching it this time I remembered feeling the same way the first time I saw it long ago. So I decided to ponder why I don't like the ending and how it could have been better. While I still think it's all a bit too clean for how quickly it all happens I came to terms with most of it. But I'm still disappointed with how they handle James Earl Jones' character. There needs to be some resolution with that story line.

Big Fat Liar: This is a wonderful movie for a 12-14 year old. It wasn't so good for me. However, I was struck by a few things: Amanda Bynes really is a talented young acress - lets get her a real script (and she towered over Frankie Muniz, but is only listed at 5' 8", that suprised me.) And Paul Giamatti did a great job as well (as a tie in he played Pig Vomit in Private Parts.)

Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker: I really, really, really like the Batman cartoons from the mid-nineties. They were awesome. I don't like the Batman Beyond cartoons so much. They just don't have the right "Batman feel" for me. Moments where you just see two eyeslits emerge from the darkness, that's what the dark night is all about (60's camp Batman shows need not apply.) But some friends recommended this to me so I rented it. It was fine entertainment, but I didn't really enjoy it all that much. It wasn't a waste of my time, but I doubt I'll ever watch it again.

Well, that's it for the last week (no, I'm not kidding - I really watched all those movies in the last week.) I'm hoping to go see two more in the theater soon. Finding Nemo looks awesome and is a must see. I'm also guiltily looking forward to 2 Fast 2 Furious. I really enjoyed the original and almost use it as my definition for a movie that decides what it wants to be and goes after that singular vision (in this case a mindless fast paced action packed movie with lots of attitude.) When I walk into the theater for the sequel I won't be expecting anything else and the reviews I've read make me think I won't be dissapointed.

Until next time.

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