Archive for February, 2006
28th February 2006
Somehow today managed to fly by.
We had an exam in class today, it was cool to see how some of the students did, and realize that for some of them, no matter how much effort I make they just won’t care.
At work I was in meetings or other miscellaneous things for most of the day.
When I got home I had a deadline to hit for a freelance job, so I worked most of the night. I didn’t get to see my wife hardly at all, and now she is in bed. Tomorrow should be better though.
Ransom (1996)
Who’s in it
Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise, Liev Shreiber, and Gary Lindo - Ron Howard (Director)
What was good
This is an intense movie. Mel Gibson’s son is kidnapped and he comes to grips with what this means for his son’s life, that more than likely it is lost. He doesn’t give into demands, and he turns the tables on the bad men, gambling with his son’s life. His gamble works, he scares the men into turning on themselves and forces them right into the public eye to get what they were after, money.
What sucked
Not too much. Sometimes you have a hard time believing that a guy as rich as Gibson wouldn’t just pay, that he would risk his son’s life, but that is the point of the movie, so you have to suspend belief. The only other reason this didn’t get a perfect rating for me, is because I couldn’t watch this a million times. But don’t get me wrong, it’s another masterpiece from Ron Howard.
Who should go see this
Everyone should see this. It only gets violent at the end in the shooting scenes, but is it an intense thriller of a movie that is entertaining too.. If you like Mel, this is also a good movie for you, he does a lot of his crazy face grimacing, takes his shirt off, and runs around, the staples of what makes dem ladies swoon.
26th February 2006
It is hard work to keep up with life on a blog, and Feb. is almost past, maybe next month will be more consistent, fresh start.
We went to young adult bible study before church, and then just stayed for the 10:25 service. We talked with a number of people at church, which I have really started to enjoy as a weekly thing. Sarah even commented on a walk yesterday that it was almost like we weren’t boring anymore, like we knew people now.
From church I went over to a comic thing at the hotel on Shadeland, looking to fill in my holes in the V is for Vendetta series, and I did. Sarah was invited to Journey’s for lunch, so she went, and stopped at L Fish Furniture on the way.
I got home before her, so I took a little time to read that series of comics before I did any work. Then I did get to work on a number of different things, from computer repair to freelance.
As I mentioned later on we took a walk which was nice, and then I ended up being on the phone with people for awhile after that, from Dad Chapman to Justin. She had a lot of school work to do, so she watched the closing ceremonies and worked on that. I dinked around with my mac and it’s internet card for awhile and then went to bed.
R Movies
23rd February 2006
Finally, some time to write about last weekend.Friday I got home from work a little after 6, I knew that something was going on, but I couldn’t remember what. Sarah reminded me that the talent show was tonight and that the staff was going out for drinks at Uno’s afterwards. So Sarah went to the talent show while I did some freelance work and then she stopped back to get me afterwards. As soon as she got in the door, Kate called. They just got back this week from Hawaii, good for them, and wanted to know if we wanted to come over. So the night was shaping up fast. We hung up and headed out to Uno’s.
Uno’s with the staff was the usual fun. A ton of people sitting around a table, trying to talk to every person at some point, but having to shout to hear each other. It is funny to sit there though, and think back just three years ago when we sat in a similar situation just down the road at a different restaurant, and at that point we knew no one. I really hope the camaraderie on the staff continues even as some of them start to retire.
Sarah and I both got drinks, we were feeling frisky, I got two long islands and boy were those good. Paul Johnson got there a little later and we shot the breeze, he’s always a guarantee for a hoot, goofy dude. We took off from Uno’s and our exodus made the whole party kind of break up, that was around 9:30 or so. We then headed out to Journey’s.
When we got there, one of the first things I heard was “Our computer just died”, so being the curious geek I am, I went into the back room and took a look at it, ruled out some stuff, and figured since they said it made a “pop” noise, that it blew a transistor in the power supply, and that would need to be replaced. I told them I would take it with me though, if they wanted, and take a look at it.
I don’t really remember specifics of the night after that. We got out the drinks, and boy oh boy, even Sarah had a ton of fun:) We just kind of hung out, maybe watched TV, didn’t play cards, and just talked and did a ton of laughing about a bunch of random crap. About 3 I passed out in the guest room, and Sarah never came in, she never made it off the couch, and neither did the other two, Wes was on the floor. It was great.
Saturday
Except for the next morning, we had to be at a servant event downtown at 9. So when I was woken up by Sarah at 9:00, I was duly surprised “at me surroundings wouldn’t ya knew”. We rushed right out to head home, get changed into some work clothes and head back to Indianapolis. We got there about 10:30, there being Wheeler Mission Men’s Mission on Delaware and Michigan? I think?
I think we lucky out of any hard duty with cleaning the bathrooms, which could have been ucky for us, I think we would have gotten sick. All I did was mop the floor and we were only there for about an hour or so. We had an informative session otherwise the actual work we did wouldn’t have even been an hour. We came home afterwards and just relaxed, my body was getting kind of achy from the previous night and I needed some downtime. I looked at the computer and figured out that it was the power supply, and then Sarah and I had some cuddle time.
During that timeframe at home, Eric gave us a call to see what we were up to that night. Turns out he was having some people over that he would really like us to meet, and wanted to know if we could come over for drinks and games and such. That sounded cool, we would already be out so we just decided we would drop by. At 2:45 we were supposed to meet Christine at the school to go meet David in Greensburg for dinner.
The trip to Greensburg is always fast. It only takes about a half hour to go 45 miles, 74 is one of the only areas here with 70mph speed limit. David ran into some traffic, so we were there first, which is a first for us. We ordered and got our food pretty quick after he got there, and talked. David had a sinus infection as a result of being worn out. He went to San Francisco for the Wonder Con, I think the first time ever, and sleeping in weird places and doing all that travel can really take it out of your. Plus, he is doing PR work to break into the comics industry, and doing and awesome job, for a magazine that reviews Trade Paperbacks for Library’s. Pretty cool idea. So, long and short of it, he was tired and wasn’t as energetic as usual.
But he did show us a really awesome J Scott Campbell sketch, and he deserves it. You can’t help but be jealous a bit, but he works so hard to get this stuff, you can’t feel like that. I probably couldn’t go through the effort no matter how bad I want one. He also brought me a sweet mask from the upcoming V is for Vendetta movie that they were handing out exclusively at this Con. They were free I am sure, but cool none the less, and so awesome that he would think of me. He is always so nice about that, such a good guy.
We got back just before 6, so we had some time to kill before we went over Eric’s, would lives close to school. We headed over to Washington street to do some more furniture shopping at a couple of warehouses over there. They had a ton of stuff, and good prices. We just still feel like, nothing just jumps out and grabs us. We left there around 7:30 and headed over, a little earlier than I thought, but what the heck.
When we got there, no one was there. So we ran back down Emerson to Walmart and got the Skipbo game and looked around for a business card booklet for me. When we got back, they still weren’t there, so we went over to the Hospital, gave them a call to leave a message, drove past one more time and headed home. When we got home, there was a message from Eric that they just got back, the message recorded five minutes after we left. That is always how it goes. He said, “Come back over” on the message, but mentally, I was tired. We had a long day previously, we did a lot of driving around which always wears me out mentally, and now we were home, I just figured it didn’t work out this time, maybe next time.
But there was a level of importance there, with these friends he had over and that arranged meeting. We found out later they were from Carmel, and so they had come a long way. I broke out the spiked diet pepsis, and that is all it took to shut off my stupid brain and all of it’s thoughts and get in the fun mood. I wore the mask just for emphasis, the one I got today, and we headed over.
The mask got some laughs, and more of the “What the hell?” kind of looks, which is cool too. We were introduced to Mike and Amy, like I said they live on the north side. Mike is a consultant to some financial related software that he either wrote from scratch, or has customized to work for some very large clients, and Amy does a bunch of things, from teaching to therapy. At this point, I have forgotten specifics, it has been a week already. But they were really nice to talk to, and we all warmed up and got some laughs.
The drinks flowed freely, and we played Texas Hold em and Skipbo, which between the two of them took up the rest of the night. But we only were there for about 3 hours when everything was said and done. But it was really awesome for Eric to think of me and meeting Mike since he is a computer kind of guy. It was a ton of fun though, and I got some good laughs, I was so glad we went back over.
Sunday
We said “Hey” in the morning to Eric and Jessica at church, and saw the Johnson’s also, but I thought maybe today would end up being a little more low key. When we got home I dinked around in my room, something computer related I am sure, maybe it was signing up for some free hosting and a domain register through the the Microsoft Office Live. Sarah relaxed on the couch. At about 4 I told her if she wanted, we could go out and take a look at furniture, I could use to get out of the house and that was a destination. She agreed, but she called Johnson’s first. Paul had invited us over tonight when we saw them Friday, but we didn’t talk about it at church. They were still planning on it, so we headed out, went to Sofa Express and Kittles. Again, nothing at either store really jumped out at us, we liked more stuff at Sofa Express I think.
We got to Johnson’s just after 6 and hung out, talked, watched the Olympics and Nascar, had some beer, and played Skipbo and Uker until about 10 or so, it was a ton of fun. Paul is always a riot, as I have mentioned before, and we were on tonight more than usual. They even gave me a couple of old computers to dink around with and trash for them before we left, and Pam asked me about DSL technology, so it was cool to talk about some stuff that I knew something about.
We came home, pretty darn tired, it had been one heck of a busy weekend.
The Transporter (2002)
Who’s in it
Jason Statham, Matt Shultze, Qi Shu
What was good
The plot and most of the movie. The idea is, this ex-military guy drives people or objects without any questions to their destinations based on an initial agreement. If the initial agreement is broken, then nothing happens. Frank’s (Statham) attention to detail, martial arts skills, and nerves of steel make him an extremely compelling character.
What sucked
Not too much. The movie starts to get a little muddled in focus by the end of the movie, where it starts as Frank as the transporter, and in the end because more of a love story between him and Lai (Shu). Lai’s english was really distracting also, it was very broken and hard to follow. But if that sort of stuff doesn’t bother you, then don’t worry. I think this was originally released in England, so this one has a much more British feel, especially with some of the driving scenes, then the second one.
Who should go see this
There is violence in this movie as well, but I think that this is more along the lines of a James Bond flick, then a hyped Mission Impossible movie like the second Transporter. I would probably recommend this to my parents, and to most of my friends who like a compact, funny, action movie with some amazing stunts.
The Transporter 2 (2002)
Who’s in it
Jason Statham, Amber Valetta, Kate Nauta, Matthew Modine
What was good
Most of the fight scenes, the highlight being the firehose fight scene. These intensely choreographed scenes are not something you have ever seen before, and are pulled off so much more convincingly and with more convinction than say crazy man Jackie Chan in some of his movies.
What sucked
How over the top in disbelief some of the scenes were, from a car driving off the side of a building into a parking garage to an airplane that hits the water and doesn’t shatter into a million pieces. This second movie was really all about the stunts and effects and less about the story than the first. I know that is all relative, but just look at the bad girl in this movie and you will know what I am talking about.
Who should go see this
I would recommend this movie to most people. Probably not either sets of parents, just because there is a decent amount of violence in both movies, plus all of the hand to hand combat scenes. But both movies are short, entertaining and funny, with an interesting premise, so if you can stand a little violence, rent this series.
21st February 2006
Updated: T Movies
20th February 2006
We had the busiest weekend I can remember in recent history. But first, the movies that I was behind on getting online.
Updated: E-F Movies, P-R Movies, U-W Movies
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