There's Something Loose...It's Not a Moose
Recently
Amanda and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary. This one was infinitely better than the last one since this one did not involve burying grandparents. In an attempt to do something different, I looked up what was playing at the
Fox. I've lived in Atlanta for 9 years now, and have some how never managed to see a show there. When I saw what was playing I knew that was what we had to do. You see, the current show playing at the
Fox is Carmina Burana. This brought back painful high school memories, but I figured that I liked the music a good bit, and even though it was a opera/ballet, I could look past that and enjoy the music.
The
Fox was nice, in that 1930's retro feel. We took our seats and I noticed one thing right off the bat. It's
hot. I'm in a suit, cuz it's the opera and you have to dress nice. Now I wear a suit about 3 times a year depending on the frequency of job interviews, funerals, or holidays. So I'm not exactly comfy. Plus I'm about to watch a ballet. The general male tollerance for such activity is inversely proportional to the temperature. I'm pretty sure at 60 degrees I could endure just about anything the ballet could throw at me. At 92 degrees I'm about ready to pass out. And to top that, we just found out that it's a double feature, and they'd be doing *something russian*
Ballet first. Amanda suggested that it was Experimental Ballet, a concept that I momentarily could not comprehend.
Then the lights dim, the crowd goes silent. A violin player plays a long tone, pretty soon the whole ochestra is playing the same note. 15 seconds of that and the orchestra goes silent...the crowd erupts with applause. At which point I thought "Ohhh Experimental Ballet. Like quantum ballet. It's exact state can never be known. You can either see it or hear it." But seriously, did I emit a huge ettiquite faux pas by not applauding the orchestra tuning?? I mean Yay we can match C's! But then the curtain opened and the ballet ensued. It was a full out ballet assault that Amanda and I both agreed was realtively unnecessary. But impressive in it's own right. You find yourself thinking "holy shit he's actually holding her, off the ground, in that crazy position." But in the end, it did.
Finally Carmina Burana.
I don't know exactly what I was expecting, and perhaps should have done research but it was pretty cool, and involved several scenes. These scenes were, in this order:
1) Spooky monks worshiping the Wheel of Perpetual Torment near the Entrance to Hell.
2) Courting in Camelot.
3) Courting in Camelot part II.
4) Hell.
5) Sensual naked male pole-dance, in Hell.
6) Hell.
7) Courting in Camelot part III.
8) Spooky monks worshiping the Wheel of Perpetual Torment near the Entrance to Hell.
The Reply Button is the One That Says "Reply"
No more work for me today!! I'm taking 2 days off. No real reason other than I haven't had a day off since May. That and I have 21 days of paid leave currently accrued. So when I got out of the bank on the way to work this morning and my car wouldn't start, I decided to just forget work.
1) My Fucking Car.
Jan 2005 -> Clutch fails mysteriously. $1305.00
Aug 2005 -> Battery Dead. Terminal, terminal caps, wires corroded to the point where they're all one piece of material that faintly resembles metal. $125.00 + 2 days of me labor
Oct 2005 -> Battery sealer that friend told me to use to prevent corrosion causes connectivity problems leaving me stranded at the bank. $30.07 for new wire + system checkout.
2005 has been a BAD year for my car.
2) I'm getting a masters degree. For no other reason than it opens doors. It is an online degree. Interactive-streaming audio+video+chat lectures that are recorded and can be watched later. The course is designed for people who work 40+ hours a day and can't always make a lecture. So my current asshole professor makes assignment/project/policy changes in lecture and does not echo those changes to the website. He also refuses to answer my emails. Period. I've emailed him 4 times. 4!! About getting a login to a certain lab so I can do my project. I have received a response to the 2nd email which was "I forgot, I will do it tomorrow". He didn't. Now it's a month later and still no freaking login. And I'm wondering at what point do you talk to the head of the department? I certainly don't want to piss this guy off to where he fails me out of spite, but I'd also like a response now and then.
3) We're getting our upstairs AC, upstairs furnace, AND ductwork replaced today and tomorrow!! Which is going to make the utility bills lighter, and make it cooler/hotter in here when appropriate.
4) That's pretty much it. I'm not at work so nah-nah-nah-nah :)
You Can't Take the Sky From Me
I managed to check out Serenity this weekend, while taking a break from a take home test. I really don't want to be taking this class. It's over a topic I will never EVER EVER go into in my field, and the professor does not understand what a "distance learning" class entails where 90% of the students are full time employees. So we have outrageous amounts of homeworks, exams, projects and term papers. And I'll get next to nothing out of it. But I have to take it. All for that nifty little piece of paper that will let me put an M.S. on my resume. It's kinda like turning 18. The night before you were not compentent enough to take part of our electoral process, but the next morning WHAM! Over night the Voting Fairy comes by and smacks you with his want so you are mature enough to cast a ballot. You're also wanded by the Selective Service Fairy, the Tobacco Fairy, the Porn Fairy and the Firearms Fairy and a few other Lesser Fairies. You're worked over by so many fairies like you were a drunk sorority girl who wandered into the football teams locker room. All this pain and suffering in a class I don't want to be in just for a piece of paper. So I took a break.
There will probably be spoilers. Ye be warned. Yar.
1) I finally figured out the geography of the Firefly universe. They never really talked about it in the show, and they don't talk about an FTL drive of any kind. I was okay with this. I figure you either have to actually make the physics work, or don't talk about it at all. The worst is when they come up with some bullshit 'dilithium crystals' solution. The movie indicated that they're just in one massive solar system with a buttload of planets. huh.
2) They got everyone from the original cast back. That's good. I worry that they would do something dumb like change out actors. Never works. Also kudos on not casting Hayden Christensen.
3) We find out where the Reavers come from!! Yay!
4) Kaylee is extremely open about her sex life.
5) Like all Weadon projects, this has a high hero body count. I figured Shepard was a goner when he showed up. He'd gone from a crew member to an old aquaintance. That sort of sideways move in the Weadonverse generally ends with you getting a) vamped b) dusted c) a then b d) sliced in the back e) impaled or some equally gruesome demise. I was a bit surprised, and irked! that Wash did not survive the movie. He was hilarious in the show, and provided some nice balance to the militaristic approach that Mal has. And he's not coming back. In Buffy or Angel, being dead was always kind of an iffy area. Heck even the main characters have been offed a time or two. But Firefly doesn't imploy magic.
6) The movie seemed a bit choppy. Like it could have been about 30 minutes longer to help flesh out some scenes. There's always the directors cut DVD.
7) More movies or return to TV? I dunno. I say TV. Firefly could return to the Sci-Fi channel and have 5 or so good seasons.
8) The answers to last blogs quiz: Frak -> Battlestar Galactica (the new one), Frell -> Farscape, Dren -> Farscape, Gorram -> Firefly, Swearing in Chinese->Firefly
9) I like the opening theme to the TV show. I was a bit disappointed it wasn't in the movie.
10) Fox originally aired firefly episodes out of order, preempted it repeatedly, and then canceled it. What exec didn't like the show, I wonder? Same thing happened to Family Guy. It got moved on a bi-weekly basis, and often put after an NFL game where it would be preempted. And that was because of some exec not liking the show. It got excellent ratings, until people couldn't figure out when it would come on. Seems a bad business practice to me.
11) I still have a hard time seeing Mal as anything but evil preacher man from BtVS season 7.
