Saturday, June 24, 2006

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

This is a wonderful book that I'd been meaning to read for a long time. It's a nonfiction book that had been recommended by Kenn, and a great selling and well reviewed book to boot. The book is about how people can use their subconscious to make decisions that have yielded important information that seems almost like telling the future or reading someone's mind. The break down of people's expressions and actions to their true meanings is very interesting, and would be something useful to study (except for the fact that it might be a lifetime's worth of work). By "thin-slicing," one can determine the true relationship between two people or a true person's reaction to something before they can cover it up consciously. It's all very interesting, and I recommend it to everyone. I'll eventually read The Tipping Point by the same author, a similar type book.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Nanny McPhee

This movie doesn't get a picture. Why? Because Colin Firth wasn't his usual fabulous self, but instead was only half-fabulous, and thus not worth the picture. The movie was a cute one, made for kids I gather, and instead of marrying a horrible stepmother, he marries well in the end, someone the kids love. It was entertaining though, and although I do like the English, the movie wasn't really English at all, but American at heart. Severly disspointed, meaning that I might have to watch Pride and Prejudice now just to cheer myself up. :)

Glory Road and Prime

Two movies watched. Glory Road is about a basketball coach and his team in Western Texas. The coach of course recruits african-americans for the team in a time when it was contraversial, meaning it is indeed a Disney movie after all, with a moral and all that. Since I do like the sports type movies, it was very good, and I liked the basketball - so it was all in all a winner. Recommended.

The second movie, Prime, has Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep. The character Uma Thurman plays essentially falls in love with a 23 year old, the son of her psychariast (Streep), and Uma's character is 37, so the movie is really about love, age differences, etc, and the ending is quite sad and touching all at once. Funny at the right times, not a tear-jerker, but sigh-ful, and it's done very well. Recommended.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Cars

Another Wednesday, another free movie for me. This one was quite cute, although the people watching and making noises nearby is really annoying. So the car doesn't care about anyone but himself, but learns the beauty of friendship and love. Aw. It's quite cute and the graphics are fairly neat looking, the jokes were pretty much right on, meaning it was funny at times, never too raunchy or sappy. Recommended? YES.

The Break-up

Ah. Totally a movie I should have skipped to begin with. Why in the hell did my father say this movie was one I'd like, and that was funny. Wasn't funny, the scene on the poster never occurs, and was semi-dissapointing overall. Beginning to dislike Vince Vaughn, as the movies that he's in are just not satisfactory. The movie is about the husband and wife who are trying to anger the other, or make the other jealous, when she can't get him to change who he is. And they don't want to leave the condo (although this is a big part of the idea of the movie, it's not really in there too much). I'd say -- not to be recommended unless you're not smart. Just don't do it. :)

Friday, June 16, 2006

Maps.A9.com

maps.a9.com

Since I was just clicking around on A9, the Amazon search engine, I found this maps thing, and since I'm usually entertained by them I went ahead and looked around. Apparently they have photos of sides of the streets for major cities. So I'm thinking, OK, let's look in Chicago (which they have) for my house. And I almost find it. My street is only photographed on the opposite side, but I can see all those houses across the street as if I were walking there myself. Creepy-ish, yet somewhat neat.

They've only got the major cities up, but look around, it is cool.

24: Season 2

OK, so I finally finished the second season. And Devin is adamant about telling me that season 5 is the best, then 4, and then 3, so if I've liked seasons 1 and 2, I'll have to go on watching. It's important for me to restrain myself from watching all the time, cause it's too easy to get hooked, so don't start if you haven't got the time. Otherwise, it's pretty action filled, with plots and evil all around. I would recommend it to most. :)

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Farmers Market, Ontario Mills, and back to work

The weekend was spent in only fun ways. Sunday was spent at the farmer's market in the village, which I found to be cute, quaint, yet dissapointing. I do know that Claremont is a tiny village after all, but there was only one stand with bread type items, which I bought, but I expected more bread, cheese, and sausage perhaps. I suppose those are bigger place items, whereas this farmer's market had lots of flowers, fruit, and craft items in the front area.

Ontario Mills was the afternoon Sunday activity, spent in way too many shoe stores for way too long, and I wasn't even the one looking. Gosh. :) And then we played "go go go" if that's even the name of the game, which was actually quite interesting, although I'm almost the worst player. It's a card game with 3 face down, 3 up, and more in the player's hands. Fun!

Monday we asked/coersed Prof Lape into going to lunch with us (she did want to, which was a good thing :) ), and we went to Wolfe's Market. I'd never been there before, but Zane had said they had fabulous cheese, and Tia always went there when we didn't have food, so they liked it, and I did too. I'm definately thinking I need to get myself some nice yummy cheese, which is a good alternative to the ice cream I finished off two days ago. Still tasty, yet not as unhealthy, perhaps...

Busy at lab, and then running on the treadmill, and reading the news (World Cup included). Must be off to get a ticket to London now, yippee!

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Match Point

A Woody Allen movie with a serious type of topic -- life, liberty and the persuit of happiness, all told through the English's perspective with killing. So the character more or less marries for money and confort, only to find that he loves another women (or has lust for), and causes murder and mayhem. The end is quite amazing actually. The movie: not quite in the style and comedy as Woody Allen's other movies, but worth watching for the beauty the movie holds if nothing else.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Charlotte Whitton, Quote of the day...

"Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult."

Saturday, June 03, 2006

RENT

Another day, another musical. Thought this one was only so-so in terms of comparison to the more classical types of Broadway musicals. The music was mostly annoying with the exception of very few songs, and there were a lot of songs. Surprisingly, the movie was composed of almost entirely songs and any chance for dialogue was cut off by even more singing, mostly in the times you'd expect it. A lot of characters, and a touching story about love and life through a handful of characters who remain friends in the end.

Recommended if you like these types of stories that remain serious and in your thoughts and if you're really into a ton of singing. It was a bit much even for me, but maybe maybe people really love it. I recall the musical really taking off after it's creation -- but that may have been more about the issues it addresses such as homosexuality, bisexuality, HIV and AIDS.

Friday, June 02, 2006

The Pink Panther

The best theme song ever, and I remember loving the cartoon, but I think now this movie just didn't make the grade. Was fairly funny at times, but not worth any money at all, only downloading off the network. Was short and to the point, considering the "inspector" was such an idiot, it was almost hard to watch. Note that this movie may be good for children or the like, but I think I'm just too old for this type of crap.

The movie wasn't even worth the time and bother it took to watch, so please don't go out and watch it now. Fairly disappointed given that I remember the pink panther himself (there is only a diamond of the same name in the movie). Bah Humbug.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

XMen3: The Last Stand

Last night, so many people from HMC went to watch this movie. I went too. A much better sequel than Mission Impossible. It was very on with the first two x-men movies, although the dialogue was a bit iffy at times. The plot was fairly predictable at times, and the bit afte rthe credits was surprising considering a fourth x-men movie was not expected by me at least.

In case you need a refresher -- the movie was about the superheroes about "the cure," which was supposed to remove the mutations from any given of the mutants. So, it's very far fetched from the truth of reality and life.

It is a movie worth seeing if you are into the action of superheroes. Lots of fighting, loud noises, good bass, and fire. :)

Pictures Finally

PICTURES!

I gave into flickr. Add some too and I can see yours.