Quixotic Quest: April Edition

Even taking two classes and my continuing work schedule, I was able to get a few books in. Of course they were both written by my favorite, Sarah Vowell. I also had gotten further in the Best Travel Writing of 2004 book — almost to the end (although the last few have been real downers being about traveling in war torn foreign lands). I will one day finish this book.

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. I thought this was seriously funny. I never imagined that killing presidents would be so. While the story of Lincoln’s assassination is fascinating, Garfield and McKinley’s are equally interesting as well. Vowell is a very entertaining writer. She wears her GenX id front and center. You could feel the sarcasm in words, yet she gets across how much history fascinates and motivates her. I love that. She is a great voice of our geneartion. A++

(I also bought the book on CD. While I can take her for 15 minutes at a time 4 hours of Sarah Vowell gets on you at times. If not for Jon Stewart. I would’ve hated her. Stewart’s turn as President Garfield was hilarious. It has given me a different view of the guy. Jon Stewart as well)

Take the Cannolis by Sara Vowell. While this is a collection of essays that were written somewhere else, they are still fresh and funny. I liked her take on Tom Cruise. The fact that Ms. Vowell is deeply immensed in pop culture as am I has me attracted to her writings. This book lacked the hilarity of the previous only because each topic/essay had to be treated as one. B

May has started on a bang as I am reading Shadow of the Wind and would have finished today if not for writing my final report for school.

One sheet. Two Sheet.

Posterwire, a blog about movie posters. Neat. I have several in my collection, if you want to call it that. I like to collect them but don’t have space for them so I don’t. Anyway, my favorites so far are Joe V. The Volcano and Swingers.

Movie Review: Amityville Horror 2005

It’s just about summer movie season. And to get a start, I caught the latest remake of The Amityville Horror. Not the movie I wanted to watch (The Upside of Anger), but was coaxed into it. In fact I was called out when I complained that it would scare me. It did, but I think it was more because of knowing that something sudden was going to happen. Anyway the movie was standard haunted house. Creepy ghost children. Bleeding walls. Voices telling the occupants to get out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What sucked about this version, they had to explain why it was haunted. You will not believe it, or you would’ve guessed it. Indian graveyard! Plus scary missionary! What?! Dumb. Don’t watch this until it is the only thing on TV.

1 of 5 stars.

Technology sucks

My phone, a Motorola v180, is on the fritz. It doesn’t want to display anything, but a black screen. This seems to be a hardware problem. As a flip phone, the connectors probably reside in the hinge, and it is probably loose. Damn this sucks as I can’t access my phone book. I don’t really have too many numbers, but I don’t really rememeber anyone’s number. Plus, I can’t even remember how to dial the voice mail. I am hostage to this broken phone until I can get it fixed.

The Will Ferrells have been Philiminated

After staving off elimination for the last couple of weeks, the inevitable has happened. Brian and Greg have been eliminated from the Amazing Race 7. They were the breath of fresh air for this season. Okay, they were my pick to win, but they did show that they were a bunch of fun. They rocked.

So who’s left? Rob and Amber. They will win it if no one yields them. Meredith and Gretchen. They will be the next to be eliminated. Lynn and Alex. Too busy hating. Uchenna and his wife. Slim chance to win. The next leg is non-elimination and it’s in India. Heh, heh.

Mulder has a blog

David Duchovny is blogging while directing a film. I haven’t read anything, but the man married to Tia Leone and having Scully as his work wife gets big props in my book.

A couple of new toys

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Forgive me for the crappy shot that this picture is, but I had to show some of the fun stuff I recently purchased or was sent to me. I took this shot with an iSight that my cousin sent to me as part of a payment he owes me. It is of my new 20″ cinema display. I have it hooked up to my TiBook and using it as a second monitor. Having dual displays rocks.

2 More Movie Reviews

The battery on my laptop is going quickly, because I just got the 20″ Apple Display, that I have to review the two movies I saw this weekend

Guess Who. And in starring in Sydney Poitier’s role as the awkward part of an inter-racial couple is Ashton Kutcher. America has just been punk’d. It was weird watching this flick. It was a marketed as a comedy, but had some tones of the original on which it was modeled after. There were some flat spots because of the need to harken back to the original. It was maddeningly a mixed bag. Funny at times, stupid serious at others. It was a train wreck in the making.

2 of 5 stars.

Sin City. Don’t believe the hype. I have read 3 of Frank Miller’s comic books from this series. They were awesome, especially when I went through my high end pulp fiction phase (think: the black lizard imprint of vantage (?)), yet placed on the big screen, the dialogue sounds awefully bad. The stories were straight revenge. I wish they done the “Dame to Kill for” story, but I think they weren’t after the femme fatale plot of many noir flicks. This was Death Wish for the comic book geek set.

3 of 5 stars.