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Review: Casino Royale

20 December 200620 December 2006 Mark

Casino Royale
My rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Bah. I was planning on writing this up as a proper review but now I’m feeling tired so you’re going to get the bullet point version.

The latest installment in the James Bond film empire is Casino Royale. This also happens to be the first installment of the books. The film doesn’t quite cover Bond’s origins, but we do get a few minutes of Bond “working up the corporate ladder”. Kind of interesting but given how little time was spent in those scenes; I wonder if there weren’t other areas that the time could have been better spent on.
Daniel Craig brings an interesting interpretation to the role of Bond. He has back the panache of Connery’s Bond but with a brutal violence that we’ve not seen before. I’m still not convinced this is the best path to go with but it’s certainly better than Brosnan’s somewhat stilted performances.
Some people seem to really like the villain of this film, Le Chiffre. However I found him to be weak and ineffectual; though to be fair had a better plan than some we’ve seen¹.
The chase scene at the beginning was incredible. Though I know there are other movies out there which also do this sort of thing. Fortunately, I’ve not actually seen many of those movies so this still looked new/fresh/interesting rather than old and derivative.
It’s a pity they killed off Caterina Murino’s character so early in the movie. She was much more in the style of classic Bond women than Eva Green.²
Product placement sucks. In this case, I’m referring to the fact Bond was driving a Ford towards the start of the film. On the other hand, winning the classic 1964 Aston Marton in a card game was pretty cool.

¹ Banker to world terrorists vs. Russian EMP satellites, no contest here.
² Smoking hot vs. vaguely attractive.

Life

Lifetime update

18 December 200620 December 2006 Mark

Not too much of interest been going on of late, so here’s the highlights.

Found out there was a Maid-Rite restaurant over in Marion. Tried it out and discovered it was nearly¹ as good as Taylor’s Maid-Rite in Marshalltown.
Had some friends over for soup/chili.
Went to the company holiday party. Best company holiday party I’ve ever been to. Expected to put in a polite appearance, not staying more than an hour or so. Actually stayed nearly 3 hours.
Went to neighborhood holiday party. Huge house. Lots of people. Felt a lot like family christmas. Lots of people I don’t know talking to each other as they all know one another. Met a few nice people, but most of them were from out of the area and were just friends with the hosts
Got older. Went to Applebee’s for lunch with Michelle & her family. Ate way too much. Later went out and saw Casino Royale (good, but I’ll talk about that in another post).

¹ The sandwiches were just as good, but their selection of shakes was pitiful. Granted the night we went over it was cold out and I didn’t have a shake, but 3 flavors? Weak.

Life

We recently noticed that the sink in our master bathroom was leaking. I traced the link to a crack in the sink itself; so we decided to make do for a little while by using the sink downstairs. When you have to climb up & down stairs to wash your hands or brush your teeth that gets old real quick. This weekend we did the work to replace the sink. However we weren’t too keen on the idea of just replacing the pedestal sink with another one. So we splurged a bit and bought a vanity & sink kit from Home Depot. We also picked up a new faucet to go with it (the old one was hideous). Today we installed it. *ugh* Now I really understand why plumbers charge so much. It’s smelly, painful work in cramped quarters.

I’m really feeling it in my back and shoulders, from being tucked under the sink hooking all the pipes up. It didn’t help that this was the first sink I’ve ever installed, plus the first cabinet I’ve ever installed. Counting the extra trips back to Home Depot for items we forget (and items we didn’t realize we needed); it took us 6-7 hours to get everything hooked up. Right now we’re waiting for all the caulk to cure before we try running the water. By tomorrow night, we’ll know for sure if we did everything right. I’m fairly confident on everything except the drain pipe. So cross your fingers for us!

Incidentally, the photos attached to this post are the “after” versions. I forgot to do “before” shots and was too busy to do any “during”. Sorry. 🙁

Update 5 Dec 2006: All the caulk has cured and the sink works perfectly (no leaks). As an added bonus, it drains much better but I think that is due to the drain on the old sink not being hooked up properly.

Life Travel

Chicago’s Field Museum

26 November 200616 February 2007 Mark

Over Thanksgiving weekend, some friends and I went to Chicago to see the King Tut Exhibit. It was amazing. Unfortunately, they had a no photo policy on that exhibit. With the crowd and all the security people, I didn’t want to get kicked out so I didn’t take any pictures of that exhibit. But our tickets included general admission to the rest of the museum, and I took these photos while we were there.

Well…. To be entirely frank, I took a lot more pictures than just these 4 but the rest turned out to be crap. Maybe when I have a chance to work on them a bit with GIMP they might be worth posting, but I’m not holding my breath.

Life Quizzes

NGD, which are you?

20 November 200620 November 2006 Mark

Pure Geek
43 % Nerd, 60% Geek, 39% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Geek, earning you the title of: Pure Geek.

It’s not that you’re a school junkie, like the nerd, and you don’t really stand out in a crowd, like the dork, you just have some interests that aren’t quite mainstream. Perhaps it’s anime, perhaps it’s computers, perhaps it’s bottlecaps, perhaps it’s all of those and more. Your interests take you to events and gatherings that are filled with people you find unusual and beyond-the-pale, but you don’t quite consider yourself “of that crowd.” Instead, you consider yourself to be fairly normal.

Which, you are.

Congratulations! You’re the one on the RIGHT!

Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you’re interested in any of the following:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Professional Wrestling

Love & Sexuality

America/Politics

Thanks Again! — THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST