Horses are terrible people

After what was probably about 3 months of dust collecting on my shelves, I finally broke down and watched my netflix rental of Downfall.  It was a great movie.  It portrayed the dullision and manic nature of Hitlers last days. 

The part that got to me was when Goebel's wife killed all of her own children.  How anyone can kill their own children, no matter how dellusional they are, is beyond me. 

While it's not an uplifting movie in any terms, I am glad I finally sat down and watched it.

Ok, so I'm a bit late to the Firefly thing. I'm really not sure how I missed it on TV. Other than reminding me of Time Enough for Love, which Joss Whedon doesn't credit when he talks about how he came up with the idea, I really enjoyed the series and movie. Interestingly the move didn't start out that well in my opinion, compared to the series. I finally saw Serenity last night. The dialog between the characters seemed a bit forced and “different” from the TV show. But by about half-way through, it seems the writing and acting fall back into place. I really enjoyed watching the cut scenes, and one could only guess they were cut to shave off time from the movie, as they sure added to the story. If you've not seen the show and are a sci-fi fan, I highly recommend renting or buying the boxset, digesting that, then moving on to Serenity. It does clean up some loose ends but they killed off one too many people for me to think there will be any followup films or ressurection of the tv show. Books are coming in 2006.

It occured to me as I was watching the Firefly DVD #2 yesterday how much Firefly's old-west settlers, towns, etc remind me of a section of Time Enough for Love by Heinlein. In the section of the book, about midway through, where Lazarus is talking about Dora (name sake for his ship) and the world they lived on, including their trip to settle some land, he describes a very old-west setting well in the space travelling future. I can't help but wonder if this very book is Joss Whedon's inspiration for most every planet, dress, and speech in Firefly. Another similarity of note is that in Time Enough for Love prostitution was dealt with in a very similar way to Firefly's portrayal of “companions.”

Watched it on DVD this past weekend. I liked the premise. The execution was pretty good, except I would pass on the script. The overly obvious plot devices really bothered me (Like the Italian archaeologist). The special effects and the ending were enjoyable. However, the special edition was a joke. It added a 30 second scene to the beginning that didn't need to be there.

Wow does time fly! Not a lot new on this end, Michelle and Eden are visiting her family in Idaho for a week so I've been hanging around the house by myself. Wow it feels big and empty! Last night I watched Eternal Sunrise of the Spotless Mind with Jim Carrey. It was a great movie, one of the better movies I've seen. It's told very well, the directing and cinematography was great, and the story was cleverly told. Thus far I've been fairly lazy with my alone time. I think I may end up working on the house this weekend, I'd like to have the house fixed up in unexpected areas for when Michelle returns. Framewerk is coming along nicely, have had new outside interest, and several sites are being setup using it. It's been exciting to see how it's received.

I've been really stuck in a music rut lately listening to only Modest Mouse and Pink Floyd. I did buy the new Queen Latifah - The Dana Owens Album release, and Les Claypools Big Eye in the Sky. Both are pretty good, they just haven't grabbed me, that is they make good background music. Now before you go "Gavin, you bought a Queen Latifah album?" let me preface that it's not a rap album but rather an album of various Blues and other covers. She's got a great voice.

I've been enjoying my photography and camera, but I sure wish money wasn't an object so I could get this bad boy. I got a request on DeviantArt for a large version of one of my prints which is pretty exciting. It will be my third print that I've sold.