Quote of the Day - July 30, 2005

Those who are different change the world. Those who are the same keep it that way.

- the T-shirt I wore today

Quote of the Day - July 28, 2005

I am a figment of my own imagination.

- another potential "WIERD" T-shirt

Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain, and More Rain

If you thought Gaston's assault on Richmond last year was bad, this is 3 times as bad. They're actually checking to see if this beats a world record for amount of rainfall in 24 hours. Yikes.

Quote of the Day - July 27, 2005

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

- Adam Savage on Mythbusters

Lift off! Woooo!

Well, I'm slightly going to break one of my blogging rules to say that I watched Discovery's launch in the big screen auditorium at work today. Second row, center. I may make it on the news. There was a massive burst of applause at liftoff, followed by several minutes of a room full of people holding their breath, and a final burst of applause when the external fuel tank pulled away from the orbiter. That camera on the external fuel tank is new, by the way, and what a very cool camera it is. Watching the orbiter pull away was neat. Or is nifty the properly geeky term? I don't know what it was like for the average person with a passing interest watching, but where I was... it was intense. Now hopefully, the touchdown will go just as well.

Quote of the Day - July 25, 2005

Fry: Hey, I don't see you planning for your retirement.
Bender: I got plans. I plan to turn my "On/Off" switch to "Off".

- Futurama episode "Insane in the Mainframe"

Insomnia: Death to Sanity

My body has decided as of late that 7:15 am is wake-up time. Seeing as how that's earlier than I had been waking up, that's good, right? Except that my body has also decided that 3:00 am is sleepy time, as opposed to my previous sleep time of 1:00 am. So instead of getting between six and seven hours of sleep, I've gotten four or five hours of sleep. Even with the weekend freedom to go back to sleep until 9 or 10, that's not nearly enough sleep. You would think that I would be able to fall asleep when I am too exhausted to even form a coherent sentence, as I was both Saturday and Sunday night. No. That would be logical. And healthy.

As a result of the sleep deprivation, I was not in a good mood today and as such should probably not have interacted with other humans. Someone parked right in front of my grocery cart at the parcel pick-up (why does Shoppers not have cart returns in their lot?). Mine was the only cart with anything in it, he could have parked anywhere in front of the building, and he parked in front of my cart so I had to walk one and a half car lengths to get to my goceries, which, if I could have gotten them all in one trip, I wouldn't have bothered doing parcel pickup. I was tempted to take the bags containing my cartons of orange juice and slam them against his door. Or window. And then I decided that I really needed to go home and sleep because grocery rage is not a good sign. And now I'm home. And - surprise, suprise! - not sleeping. Gah!

Parts: The Clonus Horror (aka The Island) Review

I saw The Island yesterday. The theatre was incredibly empty, and judging by estimated box office returns, the theatre I went to was not alone in this respect. When I first saw the trailer for the movie, I thought "Wait. I've seen this movie. On MST3K. It was called Parts: The Clonus Horror. Why are they remaking this movie exactly?" The good news is, The Island is considerably better than the movie its trailer reminded me of. The beginning feels a bit like The Prisoner, then morphs into Logan's Run. Then there's a massive explosion/chase scene that splits the movie in half, and the second half isn't nearly as interesting as the first. Once the truth is revealed, we get hit over the head with many anvils, each one heavier than the last.

The plausibility of the premise also starts to fall apart as certain technical "facts" and details are revealed over time. Another reason the second half is not as intriguing or as good as the first.

I give it three stars. It's not a must see, but if you've seen everything else, give it a shot. If I feel like being particularly critical, I may do a spoiler tagged review later. Right now, though, I have other things to do (imagine that!).