 back on track
posted by Christopher on 1.11.2004 - 8:26 pm
looks like the beatings have finally ceased. after my new SATA drive bit the big one, losing some of the progress of this strip in its wake of fire, things seemed to have stabilized a bit. a replacement is on the way, and i'm just going to use my old 7200rpm drive in the meantime.
yesterday i turned 29, and actually had a really good birthday. i tend not to put much stock in my birthday - just another day - but my girlfriend decided to take me around and show me a good time, so i went with it. we slept in 'till 10, slothed around, and finally managed to get into san francisco by noon. took the F line down to pier 39 where we ate at the Neptune (good harpoon day for me - i'm mostly vegan, except for occasional fish). the weather was really nice, and it was cool to watch all the boats on the bay while we ate. after that, we went to the aquarium, which is actually really cool. it's very different from monterey bay - you get on this moving walkway, and travel through a giant glass tunnel for 20 minutes or so, where all the fish swim around and over you. we then took the F back to van ness, where we caught a showing of The Cooler. excellent movie. for dinner we ate at the Golden Era, which is a mostly vegan chinese/vietnamese place on O'Farrell. amazingly good food, and really cheap. the evening's entertainment was the audium. i found it really fascinating. you sit in this room in pitch black surrounded by a hundred and someodd speakers. this guy sits up in an alcove in the room and plays experimental music (bips and boops and random samples) that he composed on a 4 track, and manually places the sounds wherever he wants around the room. takes a certain type to appreciate it. all in all a great day.
i guess in this strip, i'm most happy w/ the beer. it's hard to find pictures of cases of beer, so i just created these from scratch. also pretty fond of panels 4 and 5.
till next week.
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 Paycheck --
posted by Dante on 1.12.2004 - 8:47 am
I saw Paycheck over the weekend. I have come to a very simple conclusion about going to the movies. One must read negative reviews that are as light on spoilers as can be found. These spoiler-less, negative reviews can help to manage your expectations while not ruining any of the storyline.
Take Paycheck for instance. The reviews I read said that the 'bag of tricks' was overplayed and become tedious. (I don't think that's a spoiler, since that's highlighted in the propaganda for the film that they air on television.) After seeing the film, I can say that this concept wasn't terribly overplayed, and it wasn't obvious. Not to say that the items rose to the realms of MacGyver-esque, but some of them were clever enough to be acceptable.
I thought that the acting took a serious turn for the worse in the final 10 minutes or so. This impression could simply be because the action is over, and we have nothing left to camoflage lackluster performance. A few explosions and gunfire can really downplay mediocre acting.
Overall, I would say that Paycheck is worth seeing. Not the best movie in theaters right now, but a far sight from the worst.
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