Month: December 2011

Tuesday, huh?

Last night, I watched Die Hard: With a Vengeance. Tonight, I watched Cowboys & Aliens. Not exactly what you’d call a real feast for the brain on either count, but both movies had their (scattered) moments. The third Die Hard movie isn’t going to replace the first one on my list of favorites anytime soon, though I was amused by some of the casting. Particularly musician Sam Phillips as mute terrorist Katya. Her presence — plus that of Aldis Hodge (from Leverage) as a young boy — makes the movie seem a lot more interesting on paper than it actually is.

(Then again, Die Hard itself was based on a novel, which was a sequel to a book adapted to film in 1968…a film starring Frank Sinatra. So, on paper at least, Frank Sinatra starred in the prequel to Die Hard.)

As for the other movie…well, it does exactly what it says on the tin. There are cowboys, and there are aliens, and there’s a whole lot of stuff getting blowed up real good.

I spent almost all of a very rainy Tuesday working on the Kaleidotrope website. I think I’ll be ready to launch next Monday, with the first of four issues for the year, but I still need to do some work in the background to make it all hang together.

A holly jolly weekend

I spent Christmas weekend at my sister’s house in Maryland. My parents and I drove there, the dog in the back seat of the car with me and the presents tucked away in the trunk, early on Saturday morning. That evening, we went out for a nice Christmas Eve dinner in Bethesda, just the eight of us — my sister, her husband, his mother, my parents, my aunt and uncle, and me — and the next day we had brunch and Christmas dinner both at my sister’s house. Aside from our dog, who got into a panic when we left him at my sister’s and headed back to the hotel last night — he’s very much a creature of quiet comforts and habit, and my sister’s dog is a little rambunctious by comparison — I think everyone had a lovely time.

Hope you had a lovely holiday and/or weekend.

I’m just amazed that it’s already the end of Monday. Where’d that first half of my vacation go?