Movie reivew of Cradle 2 the Grave

Rented "Cradle 2 the Grave" on DVD. It was fine.

The action was o.k.; the martial arts choreograph was o.k.; the plot was o.k.; the acting was o.k.

Jet Li's been in better.


A fair amount of cussing, and some sexual situations. Martial arts violence.


SUMMARY: Rent it if you're into action movies and you can't find anything else. It's an adequate popcorn flick.


--GG

Mary Poppins is a very good movie

The kids seemed to enjoy a musical on t.v., so I rented Mary Poppins a few nights ago.

I hadn't seen it for a long time - I'd forgotten what a well-made, entertaining, nuanced movie it was.

It was a week-long rental, so the kids ended up watching it several times. On the second or third viewing, The Girl declared it to be better than Nanny McPhee. When I saw the first Nanny McPhee movie, I thought that all along.


--GG

A good weekend

A good weekend. Pulled nails out of wood, nailed pieces of wood together, and mowed about a quarter of the yard.

Specifically, I made subtantial progress on the luggage shelves for the shed (in the U.S. you'd call it "the garage" -- except that it'll never house a car), to get the piles of boxes up off the floor and stored vertically, instead. I'm about 1/4 of the way through the upper shelf. The project is taking a fair while, partly because there's a surprising amount of "handling costs" (drilling pilot holes, cutting the slats to length, scrounging up additional slats). It's also not often that I can shut myself away in the shed to work on it, as it's a task that's incompatible with supervising the kids.

"Pulling nails out of wood" refers to my disassembling a pallet, so that I can use the slats for the luggage shelves. I've also salvaged three decent-length 4" x 4" beams from the pallet: they'll probably become workbench legs for some future workbench (probably for the kids).

Because it's summer, the grass is growing pretty quickly. I didn't have time to mow the whole yard, so I just blazed some trails. I also mowed the "soccer field" -- the name we use for the drainfield from our water treatment system.


Plus the usual errands, family time, and such.


So: a good weekend. :)


--GG

Explanation of object-oriented programming

A year or so ago I asked several knowledgeable friends what the heck Object-Oriented Programming was. Each person tried to explain it, but their explanations ended up using additional technical terminology that I didn't know.

This, however, makes total sense to me. Hopefully it will also make sense to you.


--GG

Nice co-workers

For my birthday, my co-workers chipped in and got me a gift certificate for a chain music store. Nice co-workers! :)


After some deliberation, I ended up getting the Smashing Pumpkins CD "Mellon Collie and the
Infinite Sadness", which contains the sadly beautiful song "Tonight, Tonight" (no relation to the Genesis song).

I've always enjoyed The Smashing Pumpkins -- but although I am Of That Era, I didn't actually have any Smashing Pumpkins songs -- until now.

:)


--GG

Two infinite effects pedals

Modern technology is doing some spiffy things.

This guitar effects pedal -- http://line6.com/m5/ -- has a zillion famous pedals inside (well, emulated). It's supposed to be remarkable convincing.

This one -- http://www.zoom.co.jp/products/g3/ -- is a similar concept, but it's three pedals. I like the interface.

One of these days, maybe I'll buy one of them. But not any time soon. :)


--GG

Music your parents hate

Apparently, it's the tradition that kids choose music that their parents will hate.

I'm hoping my children -- when they're teens -- go OLD old-school and get into classical music. Or maybe some jazz?


--GG

Funny money

When I used my ATM card at the store, instead of giving me two fifties, they gave me a hundred dollar bill.

It's probably been two years since I've had -- or even looked at -- an Australian hundred. Usually you just get fifties.

A nice color. Although it's a weird shade of green -- for money.


--GG

Nice synths

A few photos of the band Chromeo's studio -- with all their lovely synths!!!


--GG

Err on the side of attending

Both my grandfathers died in the last year or so. Because I live overseas, and was busy at the time -- and had already "said my goodbyes" during my last visit -- I didn't attend either of their funerals. Even though my folks said they'd pay my airfare. In hindsight, I probably should have.

When I was about twenty, my sister was in a high school play. She said it wasn't very well-written, and I didn't have to come. I lived about a half hour away, so I didn't. But I should have.

In contrast, I've done an open mic night -- which went mediocre. But at least I did it.

And I tried karaoke. It went **really** poorly -- the version of the song that they had was in a totally different key from the version I'd practiced. It was fairly embarrassing. But -- eh -- at least I did it.


So, what I've learned thus far is that if you're in doubt over whether you should attend some concert, go to some party, or catch some event -- if you're truly in doubt, then you should err on the side of doing it. If you were wrong, and it's boring, you're simply out two or three hours of your life. But if you don't go, and wish you had -- well, there's no repairing **that**.


Note: This heuristic probably doesn't apply to doing dangerous stuff.


--GG