movies

Monday

Today was a pretty good day.

I’ll admit, I did spend a little bit of it on my work laptop, checking e-mails and sending chapters out to reviewers. But before that, I actually enjoyed some of my vacation.

I watched last night’s episode of The Walking Dead. The resolution of last week’s kind of weird cliffhanger ended pretty much exactly as I expected it to, and in the least surprising way, but I thought it was handled fairly well, particularly in the brief scene between Hershel and Rick. I’ve had my issues with the show in the past, and I was not a fan of the comic, but this season so far seems to be doing a lot of things right.

After that, and breakfast, I went to see Skyfall. Last night, I started watching On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but I have to admit I fell asleep maybe about halfway through. (Diana Rigg is gorgeous, and there are some good action scenes, but George Lazenby is no Sean Connery. He’s barely George Lazenby at times. I plan to finish watching it, but I’m almost surprised I stayed awake that long.) No such problems with this new Bond, which, I have to say, is probably one of my favorites. It’s beautiful to look at, for one — I saw it in IMAX, after some Twitter chatter suggested I should, and I don’t regret the added ticket cost — and exceptionally well staged. I enjoyed the heck out of it, and highly recommend it.

And then I did a little writing. This short story I’ve been working on since Saturday keeps wanting to change the century it’s set in, but I think I’ve finally hit upon the right time frame.

And then there was the work e-mail. Though I promise, not a lot. I am, after all, on vacation.

Sunday

So I got a haircut. And I read a little for Kaleidotrope. And I sent out another hundred-plus rejection e-mails for the same. And I did the Sunday crossword puzzle. And I read a little for my own enjoyment, while the power was out (again). And I went for a walk. And I took a nap. And while I didn’t see the new James Bond movie, last night I did watch the enjoyable enough Knight & Day, with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

And that was pretty much my weekend.

The power was only out for a few hours, while work crews — “mants,” as Heather might call them — were parked up the block. And now across the street, they have power back too. Finally, after two weeks.

I would, of course, be remiss if I didn’t end by briefly wishing everyone a happy Veteran’s Day, and offering my silent thanks to all those who fought (and fight) to protect our freedoms. Their sacrifice is most definitely appreciated.

Sandy Sunday

If I disappear for the next couple of days, assume it’s probably thanks to Hurricane Sandy. We’re not expecting too much damage or flooding — we’re far enough from the coast to not be any of the handful of evacuated areas — but we might very well lose power. It happened last year, during Hurricane Irene. (That last two weeks, though I was able to sneak away for the second week to Canada. I don’t think I’ll be quite so lucky this time…though hopefully the outage also won’t be quite as bad.)

My office has decided to close tomorrow, which is probably for the best since all mass transit in and out of Manhattan is in the middle of shutting down as I type this. It may be back up sometime tomorrow, but right now even Tuesday isn’t a given. I was going to be off from work tomorrow anyway, but if we’re open on Tuesday and I can’t get in…

I have a meeting I’m supposed to go to on Tuesday, so I didn’t even bring my laptop home with me. I have some access to e-mail, assuming I have power, but…well, we’ll just see. Ideally, everything will be back to normal on Tuesday and I’ll get to work without any problems. Or, barring that, the office will be closed again. Anything in between that — the office open, but problems aplenty — doesn’t sound like fun.

Right now, just enjoying a regular Sunday. I did the crossword puzzle, moved lawn furniture away from the house, watched the okay but kind of disappointing You Only Live Twice, and read a bunch of Kaleidotrope submissions. Right now, it isn’t even raining.

But there’s a storm a’comin’, oh yes.

Saturday

It’s been a busy couple of days, mostly thanks to work. On Thursday night, I went to see Birdemic: Shock and Terror, a live, simulcast Rifftrax show. And on Friday…well, I managed to finally finish “meeting” with instructors at the University of Maryland and Towson, the last two people over the phone. I’ve finished my notes and just need to distribute them next week. So at least that’s one large project I’m pretty much done with.

And that’s pretty much it.

There’s also this so-called “Frankenstorm” that’s supposed to hit in the next day or so. I’m taking Monday off from work regardless, a long-planned (if now somewhat inopportunely timed) three-day weekend.

Monday

It’s true, I didn’t do much today besides watch the first couple of Season 3 episodes of The Walking Dead, watch Thunderball, and watch the third and final Presidential debate.

I think that may be a textbook example of diminishing returns.

The Walking Dead had a surprisingly very good pair of episodes leading into the new season. I’ve never hidden my problems with the show, but I thought these episodes absolutely improved upon some of the problems of last season. It helps that the prison is a much more interesting location, but it was more interesting in the comics, and I threw up my hands after only six issues of that (18 total).

Thunderball was okay, though of the four James Bond movies I’ve watched in recent months probably my least favorite. There are far too many underwater fight scenes, and it honestly starts to drag.

And speaking of starting to drag…well, again, you can always check out my Twitter feed if you want to know what I thought of the debate.

I’m back to work tomorrow, though not from the office, which is nice.