Tag: Links

I’d finished reading all the books and listening to the CD, I borrowed from the library during my previous visit. So last night, I went back to return all of it and get more. After dropping off my returns at the circulation desk (slightly hampered by an old lady’s cane hanging down over the return slot), I wandered over into the fiction section to look for Temple of the Winds (Sword of Truth, Book 4). I first started down the wrong aisle (Goodkind, not Jordan you dolt!) but managed to eventually get myself sorted out and going down the right one.

I got about halfway down the aisle and started to walk around a young lady looking at the shelves when I realized she was standing directly in front of the section I wanted. I excused myself and started looking for Temple of the Winds but it was not to be found. I decided to go ahead and grab a couple of the following books (SotF, FotF and tPoC). As I was turning to leave the aisle, the young lady held up a book (WFS) asked me if it was the first book in the series and if it was any good. I reassured her that it was both the first book and an entertaining read. She then asked if the rest of the series was any good. I replied that of what I’d read (the first 3 books) WFS is the best.

This seemed to disappoint her somewhat and I was going to explain that the other books weren’t bad, when a scruffy looking fellow walked up to me asking for help. He told me that he works for the carnival1 and then went on to explain that he’s not familiar with the Coralville library. I tried to tell him that I wasn’t really familiar with it either2 but he interrupted me saying that he could just tell that I knew libraries and could help him locate a book by Dean Koontz called “Fireball” (he thought). Since the young lady didn’t appear to want to talk any further and I knew Mr. Koontz’s books would just be an aisle or two over; I helped the scruffy guy to find the right section.

When I recounted this story to my wife later that night; she didn’t seem to understand how odd an experience this was for me. After all, I’m 6 foot 5 inches tall and most people don’t talk to me unless they already know me. To me the whole trip to the library had been surreal; but as I started to explain this to her, she interrupted and said…

Oh honey, you just look like a book nerd.

*sigh*

1 Coralville brings in a small carnival every year as part of our 4th of July celebrations.
2 This only being my 2nd visit to check books in probably 6 months to a year.

Yup, I finally went and saw this wretched bit of crap that Lucas put out. It was less horrifically bad than I had anticipated but still failed to be a good movie. The dialog was cheesy and the acting wooden. In particular “Annie” aka Darth Vader blew chunks, though he did get slightly better once he was in the Vader suit. To be fair though, the special effects were kind of nice; nothing particularlly innovative (just lots of CG). Still the massive battle scenes were cool. The individual battles of Jedi vs. Sith were just as cheesy as the dialog with tons of flips and swirls that almost looked impressive but were actually a massively dumb way to fight. Overall, I’ll give E3:RotS 1 star out of 5 (vs. -24 for E1:tPM).

Serenity

As my long time readers might recall, I watched a show called Firefly a while back and greatly enjoyed it. This week, thanks to one of my co-workers, I had an opporunity to drive 5 & 1/2 hours to plant my butt in a packed movie theater at 10 o’clock with a broken air conditioner. That is to say, I was able to attend a special preview showing of the Firefly movie, Serenity. Though the movie hasn’t quite been completed yet; it was fanatastic!

It started off with a short speech by Joss Whedon. He basically thanks the fans for their support and asked them to continue that support by asking them to help promote the movie. Then the movie was off and running. It appears to pick up at least a couple of years after the t.v. show ended1. Not all of the crew is still flying on Serenity though most are. The Alliance is still after River and they seem more desperate than ever to get her back. Desperate to the point where they’ve sent an unamed agent after her. During this agent’s introduction, we get treated to see a holographic recording of Simon rescuing River from the facility where they were experimenting on her; as well as finding out one of the reasons the Alliance wants her back so badly.2 Overall, I thought the story worked very well for fans of Firefly but I’m not sure how well it will play with people who never watched the tv show. The movie doesn’t have any big-name actors and it hasn’t been getting much in the way of promotion from the studio. I hope it does well at the box office (mostly in hopes of the tv show being revived).

Closing thougts about the preview:3

  • The preview didn’t have much in the way of music. This really bothered some people and it is one of the things that they’re still working on.
  • There weren’t any credits; again this is something they’re working on.
  • Supposedly there were some placeholders for special effects that aren’t complete yet, but I didn’t catch them.

1 Supposedly there is a comic book coming out in July (?) that covers what happens between the show & the movie.
2 I bet you’d like it if I told you why, wouldn’t you?. Too bad, this preview-review is going to be spoiler free. :p
3 Sorry, but 11 hours of driving in 2 days plus watching the movie at 10 o’clock, staring straight up at the screen from the front row, doesn’t exactly leave me pumped up for writing an indepth review. Maybe I’ll have something more to say after the official opening on 30 Sept 2005.