back in the swing of things

Have you ever been to a movie you were tempted to walk out of? I never thought this would happen to me, but I was wrong. I went to see Miami Vice last week and it was every bit as bad as I imagined it would be. The dialogue was just terrible, on a level with Star Wars: Episode II (yes, it was that bad). The directing was bad to the point of being distracting, which is odd considering the same man directed Heat and the Last of the Mohicans. Despite all of that, the reason I felt like leaving is because I was bored. That's it. If this had been a rental or just a movie I found while flipping channels on my TV at home I would not have watched more than five minutes of it.

I wasn't surprised by how bad the movie was (I expected as much), but I was surprised by the lack of anything interesting happening.

Last night I watched WarGames (Blogger's spell check wanted to replace "WarGames" with "arguing". What?) on TV. Despite the fact that the film is so outdated it made me laugh (monitors with only the ability to display black backgrounds and green text, huge computer banks with randomly flashing lights that apparently mean something to someone), it really is one of the best "hacker/computer" movies out there.

Tysen, Kathryn and I have tickets to a free pre-screening of Little Miss Sunshine tonight. I'm looking forward to it from the previews. I've always thought Greg Kinnear was funnier than he got credit for.

Don is coming to visit me in a couple weeks. Should be a lot of fun. It's been a while since I've seen him (New Years).

updates galore

Wow, it's been well over a month since I've posted to my blog. At least now I know people do visit here once in a while because I was reprimanded by several people for not updating.

Another opinion is that I haven't been updating because I finally have a life, but we all know that's not really the case.

So much has happened since my last post, meaning this post will most likely be a rambling of sorts while I try to remember all points of interest.

Emily visited last weekend and I had a great time. We checked out the bar just across the street from my apartment which, for reasons I cannot explain, I had never visited before. It's a bit of a yuppie bar, but not a bad place to have a beer and watch part of a game. I may visit there once in a while now that I know what it's like.

We spent all of Monday in DC. We visited all of the big monuments and more. Both of us were totally worn out by the day to the point where we barely left the apartment on Tuesday. We didn't go into DC for the 4th of July fireworks because of the rain, but I wasn't very disappointed. Maybe I'll go next year if I'm looking for something to do. (Kathryn posted a cool picture she took of the fireworks on her blog.)

On Sunday Em and I spent the day watching the World Cup and drinking. By the evening, we had polished off a couple white russians, a bottle of wine, and some beer. We were inebriated. We then sat out on my balcony, in the rain, watching the spectacular thunder storm, and singing Red Elvises songs, while Della Resse told Richard Pryor in Harlem Nights to, "Kiss my entire ass!" It was a good night.

You can check out some of the pictures Emily took of the visit on her blog.

The weekend before, Greg came to visit and we also had a great time. On Saturday we met Justin, Matt, and Drew at the Old Dominion Beer Festival, drank some good beer and bullshitted all day. I can't ask for much more than that.

On Tuesday we went to Georgetown and met up with a couple of Greg's college friends, Jeremiah and Autumn. They were really cool and hopefully I'll be hanging out with them more in the future.

While I was at work Monday and Tuesday, Greg spent the day sightseeing. Unfortunately for him, it rained constantly for both days causing less than favorable conditions and the closing of a couple Smithsonian buildings (probably due to flooding or power loss). Of course, the weather cleared up the day after he left.

While staying at my place, Greg introduced me to a series of graphic novels called the Last Man. I picked up the first one at a comic shop in Woodbridge (along with Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, Volume 1). After reading that first book, I'm really looking forward to picking up the second one (along with Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 2). I'm a comic book nerd.

I also ordered books V and VI of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I can't wait to read these, as the first four books have been by far the best Stephen King books I've ever read.

Last night, I went with Justin, Tysen, and Kathryn to a pre-screening of a Scanner Darkly. It was both interesting and strange. Justin said, "I think Philip K. Dick was a heroin addict," and I am inclined to agree. The entire film uses rotoscope animation, enhancing the already odd feel of the movie. If you're a fan of the sci-fi distopia genre, you'd probably enjoy this film.

Those are enough updates for now. There's a sizable chunk of information for you to chew on, compared to what I usually post.