fine whine

We got back from the vacation today, having had a nice spot of weather this morning (it rained all of Thursday) and little to do with it, and tonight we watched The Incredibles. It was, in a word, incredible. Despite the occasional moment where I was totally distracted by the technology (I remember noting that the ice guy's alter ego's leather jacket was amazingly rendered) I was pulled in completely otherwise. The visuals were stunning, and the "production design" insanely great. The home of "E" is magnificently styled but the whole movie reeks of some sixties dream of the future, except in a good way.

Oddly enough, I didn't find myself liking "Bounder" so much as previous shorts they've done. I find myself thinking that they threw that one in just for the kids, since this movie, despite what the audience may have thought (I was surrounded by two times if not three times as many children as adults) this was a movie for grownups. It's the reverse of the traditional (not necessarily animated) "family" movie that is aimed at the kids but throws in the occasional joke only the parents can understand, to make up for all the ones smacking them in the knees.

There wasn't a single fart joke that I could remember in the entire movie. There was however a lot of sophisticated humor and even some breathtaking action sequences that take the promise of the speeder bike chases from Return of the Jedi and makes them, sans Ewoks, into something I'd want to watch again. Fortunately the kids were having a blast, as the movie was more than a bit lengthy, but I was enthralled to the end (whereupon John Ratzenberger as "the Underminer" appears and attempts to steal the show). Being married and working in a job that has no need for my real talents brought nothing extra to the experience for me, of course.

In other Pixar notes, Cars doesn't look all that great from the teaser. I realize that it was little on which to go, but I don't think the reason we haven't seen a movie with slack-jawed yokel talking trucks is because nobody's thought of it yet.

As for their "competition", I maintain my opinion that Shrek and its ilk will never measure up to Pixar's work as long as they aim low with stale pop culture references and fart jokes. Shoot higher, guys, the audience you will lose (if any, gotta give people a little credit) won't remember you anyway.

[I'm on vacation. If you're really bored and tech-savvy, you'll find that this entry is encoded with the Geo Tags of the lodge in which we are staying.]

In an effort to get away, Jessica and I are trooping off, in the (probable) rain tomorrow and Friday to the lodge at Hueston Woods (one of the fine Ohio state parks).

I'm going to be away from computers the whole time (probably) and you know, I don't think I'll mind.

Other than there being a cat running around the house there isn't much new going on around here. I keep meaning to write that novel and I keep not doing it.

In other news, I still really like the computer game X-com: UFO defense, or as it was known everywhere else, UFO: Enemy unknown. It's this classic game that I find far more interesting than the whole run-around-and-shoot-and-whatnot paradigm that seems to represent so much of the current crop of games. I've returned now to X-com some three or four times. I haven't played Doom II a second time yet. For that matter, I haven't even beaten the first levels of Half life.

Heh. There I go, splitting an infinitive, "to not be". I've pointed this so-called rule out to others but never really found it useful myself. When I split an infinitive, it is often for the same reason that I double a negative: to add emphasis or to be clearer. Does it matter? To me it does, but I would like to think that I try to be precise in my communications.

Hah. More on that later.

I just watched American beauty for the first time since I bought it, and it seems a little more, well, relevant this time around. It's rife with jabs at downsizing/efficiency experts, suburban intolerance, and home decorating tips. I'd elaborate more on what I found this time around except that I plan to get back to writing my novel tonight after a week's haitus.

Why am I doing it again? I've acknowledged that this one will likely be as crap as last year's, and yet I intend to do it. I'll be rushing to do so, also, but in the end only the numbers matter. In the end what will I have accomplished? Little, other than enduring a stunt I'd done once before.

So why do it? Am I trying to be cool? To chalk this up as a dubious accomplishment? I don't know. It's a stunt and I'm going to do it and I might even type a large chunk of it on my Palm (batteries willing) now that I've picked up the incredibly neat folding keyboard for it. That thing is a marvelous piece of engineering -- I'll just need to wait to see what it does to battery life. I'm open to finding any possible distraction to keep me from actually typing those remaining 49,000 words.