On the Road Again...

For reference, it's track 11 that's running through my brain.

So, I'm checking out for a bit. Somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 this evening, my wife, my niece and I will be driving out for Idaho. I've decided to make the Colorado leg an overnighter because...well, my niece is 5 and you know how they can be on long trips. Better to have her sleep. This would've worked out better if I'd gotten a better night's sleep last night, but waiting on some much needed clothes to dry kinda killed that. Not to mention the mysterious banging noise that woke my wife and I at 5:30 this morning. I wish it'd been some punk kid so I could deprive their parents of offspring.

I'm a little worried about the trip. My lower back has been a wreck for a couple weeks now; it slipped out on July 3rd and I've seen the chiropractor twice for it, the last of which better have done the trip or it's going to be a really long, uncomfortable drive.

I'm really looking forward to the return trip. No insult intended towards my in-laws, but I've seen southern Idaho before and it makes post-nuke Nagasaki look lush.

...Is it far enough removed that it's ok to make jokes about places getting blown up in WWII yet? Oh well.

What I'm so excited about is that my wife and I will be stopping in Chicago on the way home. It's worth noting that Chicago is not on the way home from Idaho, or at least not the most direct way, but we're staying there for a couple days to celebrate anniversary #2. Quite thrilling, really. We'll be staying not more than a few blocks from the Sears Tower.

Hopefully all the terrorists who had ideas about attacking the Sears Tower were caught in Florida a couple weeks back. I don't want it on me.

When we get back, I'll try to post some pictures.

In far less important news, NBC.com has started running the summer webisodes of The Office. I have yet to see them, but I did save the first two on my computer, so I'll get to them later. I hope they're still available when I get back.

Hide the Rum...

I went to see Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest last night expecting to see a lot of fun piratey (totally a word) action. Instead, I saw a two and a half hour treatise on human nature.
This is not to say I didn't rather enjoy the movie. It was a lot of fun. Without spoiling the movie, it seems that since the first movie, most everyone's become a jerk. Some of them don't realize it until later in this one, but they've all become a bit less likeable. Will Turner probably comes out the best (except maybe Governor Swann, who isn't any better, just that he wasn't that likeable anyway) because his motives are arguably the most pure. If there's one lesson to be learned in Dead Man's Chest, it's that no good deed goes unpunished. And there's a lot of punishment to go around here. I've read reviews that said that the CG overpowers the acting. I'm beginning to think that CG has become a scapegoat for just about everything when a movie doesn't meet up with expectations. This film wasn't meant to be the same thing as the first movie. The way the characters play out can attest to that. There is less comedy, true, but that's because there's more action and building up to whatever is in the last movie. The CG looked spectacular. I don't think that it interferred with any of the performances, as some reviewers have claimed. I wonder if they said the same thing with early animatrons and things like that in movies...

Anyway, it was worth watching. I really do look forward to seeing how it plays out in the third movie. I want to see how some of the characters redeem themselves after this one. Maybe there'll be more Will and Elizabeth in it, as well. Sparrow seemed to be THE central character even though there's a lot going on for the others, especially Will.

There were more nods to the ride, though you'll have to look harder to find them. The
voodoo lady's bayou set with all the fireflies was one of them. It was nice to see they brought back the monkey, too. You know how I'm partial to them.

Anyway, I wouldn't bother to stay around after the credits, though. Yes, there is a scene, much like the first, but...after 20 minutes of credits (probably less than that), it didn't really seem worth it. Still, go see the movie. And then settle in for the wait until next year.

Stupid years...

Super and Not-So-Superman

My back is killing me. I'd tell you how I hurt it, but I'm not even sure what happened, just that one moment I was fine, the next...immense pain. As such, I can't even really get comfortable enough to sit and type long, so this'll probably be a short post.

Or I'll just be in a very bad mood when I'm done.

Saw Superman on Saturday. Dude. Very cool. I'd say stuff about my few problems with it, but it was good enough that I don't want to risk ruining it for anyone. It was good enough to make up for how horrible X-Men 3 was. I forgive Singer for abandoning the X-Men to make this film. I've seen that people have had great things to say about Spacey as Luthor (and they were right), but they've also been less than kind to Routh's Superman and Bosworth's Lois Lane, but I was comfortable with them. Routh did a good job for somebody I'd never heard of. He did a good job portraying Superman's humanity as well as that sense of alienation that the character needed for other elements of the story to play out. I think that, by the end, Superman found his place in the universe. Which turned out to be cooler than I expected. Singer showed some heart with this one. Next, Pirates of the Carribean!

Also, my mother-in-law has gone home leaving my wife and I with Andria's niece. We're having a good time and all, but if she continues getting up and crashing on the couch as I'm getting prepped for work, we're going to have to have a little talk. I can't tiptoe around and get my morning routine done (not to mention that I'd worked in some time for a couple races in Midnight Club that didn't happen because I blew so much time trying not to wake her up).
She's got a bed. Why can't she sleep in it?!?!?

Oh, and we went to 2 different 4th of July fireworks displays yesterday. Actually, we only saw the one, but we showed up where the first was going to be, decided it was destined to be crap, and left. The one we stayed for wasn't much better. It was raining quite a bit and apparently that affected how much they were able to shoot off. In the 45 minutes or so from the time it was supposed to start to when we left, they shot off about 5 rounds of fireworks separated by long periods of waiting in the rain. Bleh. Oddly enough, the town across the river (who the storm had to pass to get to us) shot off their stuff just fine. We weren't sitting where we could see it, but we could hear it all. I wonder what they did differently...