Friday, October 13, 2006

Brick - See it

Last night I watched a film called 'Brick' on pay per view and I must say that I enjoyed it more than many films I have seen over the past few years. I highly recommend you check out this great hommage to film noir set in a California High School. It's original, funny, painful and well thought out. Great cinematography and a haunting score. One small complaint is that there is a LOT of slang used in this monie, most of it isn't the current kid/gangsta crap. It sounds like it's right out of Daschle Hammett. It comes fast and hard and you might need to rewind now and then to catch it. Check out the trailer (link above).

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Update on my Rig..

Thanks for the links and advise and contacts. Chris (The Big Red Monkey) called me shortly after the post. He asked me questions. Questions I felt uncomfortable answering on an unsecured line. Several hours later an email arrived with specs that frankly scared me. This sort of technology is supposed to under lock and key at area 51. This kind of rig can kill people in many multi-player games just by logging in.

I got a call today from Monkey. He says "Dude, I may not be able to send you this rig."

"Is there something wrong?" I asked.

"Oh no, it's just that it's just too damn sweet. I may not be able to let it go"

I salivate... Soon, soon it will be in my hands. And then they'll learn, they'll all learn the meaning of the word FRAG.

Hack...wheeze..cough....

We returned triumphant from last weekend at Ohio Ren. It was one of our best weekends EVER. I have no idea how to explain it. Holliday weekend? Perfect weather? Alignment of the planets? Who knows? It just kicked ass for two solid days. It was so busy that of Saturday I paid patrons to go and get us food so we wouldn't pass out.

But no good weekend goes unpunnished and by Monday a creeping Crud over took Rossana and I. We did what we could and rested up because my mother gave us an early x-mas present in the form of tickets to see Spamalot at the State Theater and I wasn't going to miss that, no sir.

I will say now that I can see why many people find this musical so fun. It is indeed very silly. Great set design and some very clever numbers. I thought the sound could have been a bit louder given the high tech system I drooled over in the back of the theater. My biggest.... well... its not a complaint per se. It's jst that a super geek like me can pretty much quote a lot of Monty Python and the Hold Grail word for word. So it was very obvious and jarring where the new diologue and story elements (such as they were) were tacked on. Also, part of what makes Python so funny is the rapid fire delivery, which has to be way slowed down to work on the stage. There are some great physical comedy bits but it wasn't anywhere near as great as several other plays and musicals I've seen over the years. It's clever, but Tony award winning clever? Hmmmm. If you love Python, save the whacking large amount of money tickets cost for this show and buy the latest deluxe DVD release. You'll be glad you did.