Yearly Archives: 2003

Busy Days, And Movies At Home

My days here have been busy. I’m usu­al­ly doing some­thing from one moment to the next. I now under­stand a way of spend­ing one’s time dif­fer­ent­ly from one I’ve ever expe­ri­enced. I find that I’m gen­er­al­ly a per­son who’s cos­mopoli­tan enough to be able to pass time enjoy­ably with most peo­ple. However, most of my friends seem to be doers, always need­ing some­thing to do lest an awk­ward silence set in. These last five days have been filled with com­fort­able silences though, just from meet­ing and hang­ing out with peo­ple who are com­fort­able enough with each oth­er to sim­ply let con­ver­sa­tion flow at its own pace. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to look at hang­ing out with my friends in the same way again.

I watched In The Bedroom with Darren yes­ter­day. Although I thought it was a very well made film, with usu­al­ly mov­ing (though drawn out) sto­ry­telling, I did­n’t enjoy it very much. There did­n’t seem to be much of a mes­sage at the end, which leaves the enter­tain­ment of the film up to the the sto­ry, char­ac­ters, and plot, all which I felt to be very shal­low. The film is sup­posed to be about “the bonds of mar­riage and the lim­its of for­give­ness [being] put to the test”, but there was only one major con­flict and only a few shal­low attempts at devel­op­ing char­ac­ters and motives. It just did­n’t seem to go any­where, and with­out inter­est­ing (to me, at least) events tak­ing place, I felt as if my time would have been bet­ter spent else­where.

Speaking of films, I’ve been able to catch a few trail­ers which have piqued my curios­i­ty. The Good Thief with Nick Nolte seems like an amaz­ing­ly styl­ized movie (direct­ed by Neil Jordan) about a retired art crook doing one last heist. It appeals to me because of the way Nolte seems to bring a pres­ence of con­flict­ing human­i­ty with his slurred speech and rugged looks. I also find the slow, patient tune at the end of the trail­er to fit per­fect­ly with the cin­e­matog­ra­phy, the way Nolte looks at his lighter before clos­ing it on a bright­ly grey day with the move­ment of a city in the back­ground. All of this from a trail­er, and I’m already hooked. Kill Bill also looks amaz­ing, in a cheesy, Tarantino sort of way.

The Trip Home, Candellas, Amateur Astronomy, Etc.

The trip home was alright, watch­ing Men In Black 2 (not a very good movie at all) and tak­ing under five and a half hours. I like the fact that I can pur­chase a bus tick­et at any time, and not have to wor­ry about book­ing and reser­va­tions. I’ve always liked the idea that I have the free­dom to pick up and go when­ev­er I please. Of course, this only works when I have a guar­an­teed place to stay at the des­ti­na­tion.

My Candela’s came in last week. They are quite nice, although they look rather cheap dur­ing the day­time when they’re off. They give off a decent ambi­ent light when oth­er (more pri­ma­ry) lights are on, but are good at set­ting a mood when they’re the only things illu­mi­nat­ing a room. It’s a has­sle to always let them burn out to pro­long bat­tery life, since that means that I’m usu­al­ly going to bed with them on, and for some­one who wakes up from the first slit of sun­light pierc­ing the room, it can be an annoy­ing thing.

I found a great astron­o­my book for Darren, cov­er­ing every­thing from the small­est detail in pur­chas­ing a tele­scope, to the pat­terns the plan­ets make in their orbits. Astronomy is some­thing that I’ve always found to be mys­te­ri­ous­ly inter­est­ing, a seduc­tive past-time I’d be afraid to be con­sumed by. A few peo­ple I’ve talked to have felt the same way, although some with an even more severe emo­tion. I would have tak­en up such a hob­by as soon as I had the means to, if the area I live in was­n’t so unbe­liev­ably light pol­lut­ed. It’s as if the may­or wants to keep the lights in the city bright enough to have a con­stant day­time. I’m fair­ly sure that I’ll buy a decent tele­scope even­tu­al­ly, once I’ve set­tled down in a con­do and have a career.

I can’t wait to get back to my plea­sure box and begin fool­ing around with Movable Type. I just hope that my host can pro­vide enough flex­i­bil­i­ty for it to work.

When I got home, a stack of red envelopes and wrapped box­es were wait­ing for me. My pre­ma­ture exit at Christmas left gifts unopened and mon­ey unclaimed, quite a wel­come sur­prise. I got anoth­er $50 gift cer­tifi­cate for Futureshop, which will most like­ly be going towards Vice City as soon as it comes out. I haven’t played a very absorb­ing game in a while, the last ones being GTA3 or Neverwinter Nights, but my favourite is still prob­a­bly Half-Life. And with Half-Life 2 slat­ed for a fall release, well, I find myself becom­ing unhealth­ily excit­ed.

I’ll be split­ting a box of Onslaught with Darren today.