It was a relatively low key weekend, which is probably a good thing to have before the constant back and forth of the holiday season begins. The only real piece of excitement?
After seeing the IMAX version of Deathly Hallows late Friday night, I was left with these following thoughts:
I rather liked Deathly Hallows, just as I've liked all the David Yates directed Potter films. I feel the creative teams have really figured out how to appropriately condense the stories from each book. And, more importantly, they're doing their best to overcome J.K. Rowling's horrible style of storytelling (that is, telling and not showing... there's way too much damned exposition in her books). Truly, most of my issues with the movie were issues I have with her book.
The only somewhat awkward scene was the softcore wizard porn (which may have only been awkward because there wasn't more of it).
The score of the film was spectacular. I already bought the soundtrack (much to MoPo's chagrin; she doesn't understand my fascination with film scores).
The $17 per IMAX ticket was a complete waste of money. Is this what all theatrical movies look like on IMAX? I've never seen a "real" movie on IMAX before (just the more environmentally-themed films they tend to show at the Milwaukee Public Museum). There was nothing remotely 3D about this -- truly, it was like the Marcus UltraScreen except every seat in the place felt like it was 5 feet in front of the screen. It was not comfortable and it wasn't even close to an ideal movie-going experience. Horrible.
This is one of those nights that reminds me of my youth--video game in hand, I'd spend the entire night with my face glued to the computer monitor. On more than a few occasions, I'd actually greet my mother, my eyes glassed over, as she left for work in the morning. (Incidentally, another amusing anecdote: I also had a tendency in those days to gulp down an entire 24-pack of Mountain Dew, with my cousin, as we stayed awake all night). You know what? Growing up was awesome. And why shouldn't I have a Saturday night where it's 3am, I'm not tired, and all I want to do is continue playing Fallout: New Vegas and say, "Sleep be damned"? Probably because I know I'm going to regret it Monday morning. Stupid adult responsibilities.
Unfortunately, I replaced the Mountain Dew of my adolescence with coffee tonight, and since I'm not tired whatsoever, I thought a night cap in blog form may help relax my mind.
1. I'm re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in anticipation for the movie. I had been trying to make my way through Lamb, but a lot of the religious references fly right over my head since, while growing up, I was pretty successful at avoiding church. After sloshing through that book for more than a few months, I'm getting through Deathly Hallows at quite a brisk clip. It's refreshing since my tendencies to buy books outpace my tendencies to read them.
2. The first two episodes of The Walking Dead have been tremendous! Yeah, I'm an absolute nerd when it comes to the comic (it's so good!) and I have an overall fascination with zombies in general, but I feel that the show gained a lot of cred with "normal people" when MoPo said she really liked it. If you're not watching it, you really should check it out. (Disclaimer: I have been having more zombie-related dreams these past two weeks, but rest assured--they are walking zombies, not running zombies; that makes a lot of difference!).
5. How about some not-fun news? Last Monday, in all their infinite wisdom, my employers decided to lay off 50% of my department. The layoffs weren't surprising--we've known for 6 months that this was coming (Nielsen brought in a guy over 3 years ago whose sole job was to outsource American jobs to India--dude's even got stock in the consulting firm we use), however no one really expected such magnitude. Of course, a lot of this is money-related (how couldn't it be?)--the venture capitalists who own Nielsen want to take the company public. But you know what's scary? The consultants who will now do the tasks traditionally done by statisticians are not, in any sense of the word, statisticians. To say it will be "interesting" to see how this all unfolds would be an uber-understatement.
6. For better or worse, I've grown a beard! MoPo does not approve. I find it amusing.
Alright. 3:04am. Still not tired, but I think I'll try my hand at reading myself to sleep. Or maybe I'll just go back to playing Fallout (and possibly encounter more Monty Python references like the title of this blog post).
