Monday, July 11, 2005
Random Summer Thoughts
1. Summertime...and this blogger is lazy. Between my broken alarm clock and its tendency to turn itself off and reset the clock to midnight rather than wake me up on time and the lack of official commitments, I have been sleeping more (which is good) but later (which is generally bad).
2. This is not to imply that I have done nothing with my time. I've spent a lot of the early part of my summer studying for a certification test in chemistry. I can now distinguish effectively between molarity and molality, provide the electron configuration of damn near any atom I see fit, and properly pronounce and solve problems involving "nucular" half-life. But I'm still gonna get thrown off by kinetics, acid-base reactions, and VSEPR unless I crack down, so I'll be hitting the library later today.
3. Speaking of the library, I can not recommend libraries enough as a source of summer reading/viewing/listening. Why pay money for these things? There are libraries out there with growing DVD collections! This summer alone, I have gotten to watch Spartacus, Scent of a Woman (hoo-hah!), and Hidalgo. Yeah...I don't know what I was thinking on that last one either.
4. Science studying and movie viewing aside, my biggest new summer past time is pub trivia. I went to three separate games last week. Sadly, placed no higher than second. But the game continues...and maybe I'll win another golf shirt based on my knowledge of children's literature. (Roald Dahl is awesome, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)
5. While Dahl is fresh on my mind, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory looks interesting and worth seeing in the theaters. Granted, Gene Wilder's performance as Wonka was damn near perfect, but the rest of that film was...not. I'm very curious to see what Burton can pull off with a script that's closer to the original source material.
6. To recap: Charlie + Chocolate Factory = worth seeing in theaters.
Fantastic 4 = not.
Ebert gave it one star. Even my comic book loving friends could muster up only a half-hearted review. This is not a proud day for geeks.
7. From the "things not worth seeing" file: Delaware. A friend of mine had tickets to a baseball game in Baltimore and we ended up having to drive through the nation's second-smallest state to get there. At one point we were trapped behind a bus that said "Delaware Express Tours." Considering the state is about the size of a postage stamp, how fast can you really tour it without missing the whole thing?
8. From the"things worth seeing" file: Camden Yards...still one of my favorite stadiums (stadia?). Plus I got to meet up with my friend Amanda for the first time since she returned from teaching in Kazakhstan. We devised a new scheme to infiltrate the Peace Corps...for fiendish purposes. (villainous mustache twirl)
9. From the "things I don't want to see, but have to..." file: Dentist. Going today. Really don't want to go, but considering how long it's been since my teeth have been examined, I suppose it's about time. The secret word for today is "novocaine."
10. Oh, and because my Invisible Sister may be reading this somewhere in Europe, I finally got to catch three episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica on Sunday. They showed them on network TV, so that even people without cable could enjoy. And I have to say...I'm impressed. I'm not quite as impressed with it as I was with Firefly...but it's not bad. Edward James Olmos presents a very gritty alternate universe version of Lorne Green's Capt. Adama and the Cylons are now downright creepy.
11. Wrapping up, a quick reminder that summer means more silly posts on random subjects. (Like this one) If you want serious, philosophical discussions, there are plenty of other, more pretentious blogs for you to try.
Cheers.
1. Summertime...and this blogger is lazy. Between my broken alarm clock and its tendency to turn itself off and reset the clock to midnight rather than wake me up on time and the lack of official commitments, I have been sleeping more (which is good) but later (which is generally bad).
2. This is not to imply that I have done nothing with my time. I've spent a lot of the early part of my summer studying for a certification test in chemistry. I can now distinguish effectively between molarity and molality, provide the electron configuration of damn near any atom I see fit, and properly pronounce and solve problems involving "nucular" half-life. But I'm still gonna get thrown off by kinetics, acid-base reactions, and VSEPR unless I crack down, so I'll be hitting the library later today.
3. Speaking of the library, I can not recommend libraries enough as a source of summer reading/viewing/listening. Why pay money for these things? There are libraries out there with growing DVD collections! This summer alone, I have gotten to watch Spartacus, Scent of a Woman (hoo-hah!), and Hidalgo. Yeah...I don't know what I was thinking on that last one either.
4. Science studying and movie viewing aside, my biggest new summer past time is pub trivia. I went to three separate games last week. Sadly, placed no higher than second. But the game continues...and maybe I'll win another golf shirt based on my knowledge of children's literature. (Roald Dahl is awesome, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)
5. While Dahl is fresh on my mind, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory looks interesting and worth seeing in the theaters. Granted, Gene Wilder's performance as Wonka was damn near perfect, but the rest of that film was...not. I'm very curious to see what Burton can pull off with a script that's closer to the original source material.
6. To recap: Charlie + Chocolate Factory = worth seeing in theaters.
Fantastic 4 = not.
Ebert gave it one star. Even my comic book loving friends could muster up only a half-hearted review. This is not a proud day for geeks.
7. From the "things not worth seeing" file: Delaware. A friend of mine had tickets to a baseball game in Baltimore and we ended up having to drive through the nation's second-smallest state to get there. At one point we were trapped behind a bus that said "Delaware Express Tours." Considering the state is about the size of a postage stamp, how fast can you really tour it without missing the whole thing?
8. From the"things worth seeing" file: Camden Yards...still one of my favorite stadiums (stadia?). Plus I got to meet up with my friend Amanda for the first time since she returned from teaching in Kazakhstan. We devised a new scheme to infiltrate the Peace Corps...for fiendish purposes. (villainous mustache twirl)
9. From the "things I don't want to see, but have to..." file: Dentist. Going today. Really don't want to go, but considering how long it's been since my teeth have been examined, I suppose it's about time. The secret word for today is "novocaine."
10. Oh, and because my Invisible Sister may be reading this somewhere in Europe, I finally got to catch three episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica on Sunday. They showed them on network TV, so that even people without cable could enjoy. And I have to say...I'm impressed. I'm not quite as impressed with it as I was with Firefly...but it's not bad. Edward James Olmos presents a very gritty alternate universe version of Lorne Green's Capt. Adama and the Cylons are now downright creepy.
11. Wrapping up, a quick reminder that summer means more silly posts on random subjects. (Like this one) If you want serious, philosophical discussions, there are plenty of other, more pretentious blogs for you to try.
Cheers.
