I was going to watch the Bourne Ultimatum this weekend; really I was. But when we got to the mall it turned out the stores were still closed (we like morning showings—fewer people) and the first showing of Stardust was earlier than Bourne, so we watched that instead.

I haven’t yet read Stardust, but I like to take movies separately from any book or story they might be based on anyway. You can’t duplicate a book with a movie; you really need to make some significant changes to make it work and I think of the result as a separate entity. So I like to see separately whether the movie works as a movie. Stardust, to me, was a wonderful movie. It was fun and funny, heart-warming, beautiful, and just plain fun. The actors were great, particularly Claire Danes and Robert DeNiro.

But back to the Bourne Ultimatum. I’m hoping I’ll get around to seeing it this weekend, but in the meantime, here’s a hysterical video parody of the movie. Ya gotta love actors who don’t mind making fun of themselves:

In other news, today’s review is of Douglas Clegg’s The Abandoned. I know people have said lots of good things about Clegg, but honestly, I didn’t really like the book that much. Hopefully I’ll find some better books when I take this and Second Genesis back to the library this afternoon. The Second Genesis review will be up later this week.

I didn’t really start watching Dr. Who in earnest until I was in my teens, and then I was totally addicted to its campy sci-fi wonderfulness. The funny thing is, I later saw an episode that I recognized as one I’d briefly caught part of when I was rather younger, and hurriedly switched away from because it scared the hell out of me—at the time I had no idea what the show was or what it was about. I just knew there were giant spiders biting a girl, and something about a humanoid alien about to get his brain vivisected, and when you’re young those are scary things! It left enough of an impression that I still found the same episode a bit creepy the second time around, even though by then I was quite familiar with the show.

Today, though, I have to share a great little video called “The Complete Dr. Who in Five Minutes:”

Found on the eminently handy SF Signal blog.

In an unrelated note, my review of James Rollins’s Sandstorm is up at the reviews blog. I have two cookbook and three novel reviews coming up soon!

Time to pass on a fun link: Wil Wheaton’s Sci-Fi Guilty Pleasures of the 80s. I love Wil’s writing, and since I grew up in the 80s I remember each and every one of these movies with, yes, that sense of guilty pleasure. Scanners is my favorite on that list, and of course I can’t help being disappointed that The Last Starfighter only got an honorable mention. However, Wil says if there’s a good response he’ll do more of these, so read & respond! I want more.

Edit: Apologies to folks waiting for return emails from me. I think the Medrol did the steroid thing of supressing my immune system enough that I developed an infection, so I feel pretty cruddy and have a doctors’ appt. tomorrow, and really am not accomplishing much. Hopefully they can make it all better, with as few antibiotic side effects as possible. Yes, this is an appt. with a new doctor, not that crappy old one.

Wow. What else can I add? Too funny and fun. I absolutely loved “The 300″ and saw it in the theater twice, which I haven’t done with a movie in years; I’m getting a kick out of the few take-off videos that are actually really good. This one, IMO, is perfect!

Technorati Tags: movies, videos

(more…)

Yes, it’s really that time: time for another issue of the Twilight Time. The subject is: To crit or not to crit?

Technorati Tags: game master, gameplay, gamers, games, gaming, GM, Jonathan Coulton, roleplaying, rpgs, World of Warcraft

(more…)

I tend not to discuss celebrities because, well, beyond having a train-wreck fascination with their headlines on FARK, I really don’t care what most of them are doing. Kevin Federline, through those headlines, has sort of become a poster child, however, for exactly why I loathe the whole “celebrity culture” phenomenon. Let’s face it–he got famous because he married someone famous, and he’s been leaching off of that ever since with the aid of his mile-wide ego. Therefore, I do have to pass this on, because it so beautifully expresses my feelings on everything.

Weird Al’s ‘interview’ with Kevin Federline:

Above link naturally found on FARK.

I’m on ur server
farmin ur goldz

Technorati Tags: Kevin Federline, Weird Al

I tend to be a bit behind the times, but hey, I did finally watch an “ask a ninja” video, of his first live appearance. (I originally embedded the video but I hate autoplay and for some reason couldn’t get it to shut off, and am not in the frame of mind for extended debugging.)

Now I’ll have to go find more. Which is probably why I resisted so long, of course; I didn’t want to have yet another time sink on my hands!

I haven’t been playing much Warcraft lately at least; I can’t get into much of the endgame stuff and I’ve gotten a tad bored of the leveling. Not to mention so many other people have dropped off lately due to boredom as well. If the expansion had come out at its original release date it probably would have been perfect; as it is it seems to be a bit late to avoid the boredom creep. Anyway, I’ve finally redone the rest of the level 70 dark shirt designs:

I also stumbled on an absolutely gorgeous piece of Warcraft fanart called The Winterspring Assault. Frankly it’s better than any official art out there!

Technorati Tags: cafe press, cafepress.com, ask a ninja, t-shirts, Warcraft, World of Warcraft

Okay, must-see movie. Ready to see this now. The visuals make me hungry they’re so beautiful. Have to wait three months…

This version of the trailer is twice as long, with much more detail, but kind of fuzzy in both visuals and audio.

Technorati Tags: movies

This one speaks for itself.

In slightly different news, the Thanksgiving cooking has finally begun here. I made white chocolate ice cream from one of those review books. YUM! It’s incredibly good, so I have high hopes for this cookbook now. Of course, admittedly it’s from Chronicle Books. I only recall one or two cookbooks that I ever bought from them that I disliked or found lacking in some way. So far the quality has been surprisingly good.

I have most of my list of recipes constructed, but not the whole thing. I’ve at least picked out the recipes from most of the review books and some of the cookbooks we’ve bought ourselves that I’d like to review for the holidays. Among those books: “Big Fat Cookies,” “Christmas Cookies,” “Luscious Lemon Desserts,” “The Chocolate Deck,” “A Passion for Ice Cream,” “Biscuit Bliss,” and… well I don’t remember the rest just now, and it’s 3 am so the lights are off, which means I can’t see the titles.

That “Biscuit Bliss” cookbook? Wow. I could probably review it already, but I want an excuse to make more out of it.

Chocolate Addict Women’s Long Sleeve Dark T-Shirt

Technorati Tags: beauty, cookbooks, cooking, self-esteem, Thanksgiving, videos

I’ve seen most of these before, but they’re still fun: Moronland.net - 40 Things That Only Happen in Movies. It’s tough to pick a favorite, but I may have to go with this one:

19. Guns are like disposable razors. If you run out of bullets, just throw the gun away. you will always find another one.

(Link found at FARK, naturally.)

We’re up to 12 “Adventurers’ Last Words” designs at Cafepress, with a bunch to come yet:

Adventurers’ Last Words: You call that a plan?!
Mugs, shirts, more!

I swear, when we get together with that friend of ours, ideas fly faster than I can write them down. It’s even worse now that his son has leveled up enough to join us; he takes after his father in the quick wit department! Put the four of us together and I end up scribbling stuff down so fast I can hardly read my own handwriting. I have enough t-shirt ideas to keep us going for months. Eventually I’ll start paring out ones that don’t sell, but I want to give each one a bit of time.

Technorati Tags: cafe press, cafepress.com, fark, humor, movies, roleplaying, rpgs, t-shirts