Year: 2007

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Over the weekend, Ariesna and I met a bunch of friends at the Amana Ren Faire for an afternoon of frivolity. Overall, the faire was… decent. A few interesting vendors were there, notably: The Scots Dragon, Noble Bee Honey and the Royal Chocolatier1. On the down side, the Roast Beast sandwich from previous years had been replaced with something… else. I don’t recall what the faire folk called it, but I called it crap. It was an extremely fatty beef sandwich of some sort and throughly nasty. If more places at the faire accepted the dominon of Lady Visa, I probably would have chucked the sandwich and gotten something else. I saw a few things in the merchants’ tents that I wouldn’t have minded bringing home, but nothing in my price range. We wandered the faire with Cath and Bryon. And Laura when she eventually showed up. We watched some of the shows, though most were very lame. The joust was the highlight of the shows we watched, though it wasn’t one of the better performances I’ve seen of the joust at this faire. Later in the afternoon of the Amana Ren Faire Laura, Michelle & and I were sitting at some tables. We noticed some loose cash lying on the ground under a man wearing a fantastic Scottish outfit (see Ren Faire Attendees). Laura pointed out the loose cash to him. He thanked her and then came over to chat with us. It turns out he actually is Scottish (from Inverness) and was visting family in the area. He pointed out this pin on the edge of his kilt. He joked in Scotland, sheep are more than just a hobby. *Heh* He was a really nice guy, though with his accent2 and all the noise, I had a hard time understanding everything he said. And I’m not just saying he was nice due to the whee nip off his flask that he offered me. Though it certainly didn’t hurt my opinion of him either. 😀

Update: I forgot to mention, you can view some of my other photos of the day in my photo gallery under Ren Faire.

1 Man that was some seriously good chocolate!
2 Mind you, the Scottish accent is fabulous to hear. Just sometimes hard to understand. Especially with bouncing, screaming children nearby.

John Scalzi @ Prairie Lights

Tonight, John Scalzi made a stop at the Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City, IA for his book tour to promote The Last Colony. Michelle & I got there wicked early1 and chatted with a couple of store employees briefly. Fortunately, they were cool with me bringing in my own copy of The Android’s Dream to get it signed. *whew*

Then while we were looking around the shelves near the area for the reading, they said we could go ahead and purchase a copy of The Last Colony while we were waiting so we wouldn’t have to wait in line later. Schweet. Then I noticed they had copies of The Sagan Diary. I was most pleased by this as I was a bit strapped for cash when the pre-orders were announced for it on Mr. Scalzi’s blog and I’d heard the complete print run had sold out. Naturally, I grabbed one of the 3 copies they had left. 😀 Then we went into the coffee shop3 and grabbed a drink. I had their cafe mocha, while Michelle had a brewed butterscotch toffee coffee, which she promptly ruined by using soy milk for a creamer and adding sugar to it. Then we went back over to the reading area and found Mr. Scalzi had arrived. He was chatting with the few members of the audience4 and with the various members of the staff.
As Mr. Scalzi’s visit happened to be part of the Live from Prairie Lights. This is a local radio program that is recorded live and then later played back on a local radio station, as well as the UofI‘s school/public access TV channel. So he also spent some time talking to the host of the program prepping for the show.

Then just before the show began, he addressed the audience letting us know he’d start off by reading the first chapter of The Last Colony, go into a Q&A session and then he’d be happy to pose for photos. Naturally, that’s when I decided to snap a quick shot. Heh. I also took a couple of photos later, but they weren’t as amusing as this one so they’ll remain offline for now. The reading and Q&A were quite fun to listen to. Not being a writer, I didn’t join in and ask any questions (plus my caffeine buzz was wearing off). After the recording was over, Mr. Scalzi kindly offered to sign any books people had. I quickly stepped into line with my brand-new copy of The Last Colony — specifically purchased at Prairie Lights this very evening to support them, since they brought Mr. Scalzi in for us — and my slightly dog-earred copy of The Android’s Dream.

Side note: Yes, I realize this entry is rather disjumbled. This is partly explained by me having a caffeine-crash headache, partly by me staying up till 1AMish to write it and partly by me just not being a writer.
Side note 2: The quickie post following this will explain part of why the heck I’m still up writing this.

1 Mostly due to somebody’s lead foot2.
2 Said lead foot was not a Men’s size 13.
3 In his opinion on coffee, Mr. Scalzi is quite wrong. Coffee (especially good coffee) does not taste like ass.
4 Around this time, Michelle mentioned to him The Android’s Dream was her favorite book and he said it was his as well.

Stranger Than Fiction, directed by: Marc Forster
Mark’s Rating: 5 out of 5

When I originally saw the ads and trailers for this movie, I knew I would want to rent it1. I figured it would be a couple of hours of silliness and that would be it. I never expected that I’d want to add this movie to my collection; but by the time we finished watching it, both my wife2 and I want to own it. Besides having a fair amount of silliness, the movie is also very clever. Visually clever in how the sfx crew generated all the overlay graphics to numerically describe Mr. Crick’s life at the beginning of the film. And cleverly written in well… the whole dang movie. Definitely worth watching!

The Prestige, directed by: Christopher Nolan
Mark’s Rating: 4 out of 5

It’s a shame that The Prestige came out at the same time as The Illusionist. If it had come out months/years prior or even after, the movie might have done so much better. As it is, The Prestige is always going to be known as “The other magician movie. You know, the one that came out when The Illusionist did”. The Prestige was an enjoyable, if rather dark, movie and had its own clever twists. But when compared to The Illusionist, it just falls short.

 

House of Flying Daggers, directed by: Yimou Zhang
Mark’s Rating: 3.75 out of 5

Stunningly beautiful as to be expected of Yimou Zhang, but the story just didn’t click with me. There were parts where it almost seemed like it would, but then the scene changed and those bits were crushed underfoot. Then again, I was pretty exhausted when trying to watch this one, so I’ll probably give it another chance at a later time.

1 Seriously, who needs to go to the theater for a comedy? The only thing I really want to see on the big screen are action flicks.
2 My wife’s expectations for the movie were initially much lower than my own.