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I saw a vascular specialist/vascular surgeon on Tuesday for a second opinion on what I should do now that my six months are up with the blood thinners. He said I should get of the blood thinners since the clot is gone and any blockage that remains is scar tissue. He also said I should wear a calf compression stocking for two years. So today was the first day with the stocking and after a whole day mostly on my feet working outside there’s no swelling and it’s even pretty comfortable! I’m still taking the blood thinners until part two of my second opinion on August 3rd.

This is probably obvious to most people but as I was making a list of 15 books with the most impact on me the other day and while I was making the list I noticed that most of the books I was listing were fiction. That seemed odd to me since most of the books I read are non-fiction. Then I began wondering why that is the way it is. I think it’s that non-fiction usually gets integrated into the readers knowledge, filling in gaps in knowledge, but rarely offers something that changes how you view things. Fiction can go in directions you don’t expect and as such it can really hit you.

Before this last past hockey season I never paid attention to hockey, but Nicole was a fan and we started going to some Sharks games. At first my watching was more from an aesthetic standpoint. The patterns traced out by the players skating around were interesting to watch but as far as following what was going on I was pretty lost. Why are people constantly going on and off the ice? Why were penalties called? During the regular season my knowledge level didn’t really increase and it took the playoffs announcers to impart knowledge to me about the game.

I still have problems with two rules: icing, and intent to end play. Icing is when a player in their own end of the ice hits the puck across both center lines into the opposite goal line without any other player touching the puck along its journey. Icing isn’t actually called until an opposing player touches the puck in the end area. It doesn’t always seem to apply though; I think the goalie is exempt from causing the icing call. The intent to end play isn’t hard to understand, the whistle blows and the play is dead… almost. Play is actually dead when the referee intends to blow the whistle. This is I think the most abstract rule in all of sports since the referee can say they meant to blow the whistle seconds before they actually do. Most of the time it makes no difference but there was a play where it did make a difference. A puck was still loose but obscured from the referee’s view. It was hit in to the goal but the whistle was blown indicating the play to be dead. Normally a puck in motion gets to count as a goal, but the referee said the intended end of play was when the puck appeared dead to the referee.

The best part I think is that during the playoffs, after I had a good enough grasp of the rules, I started seeing the action as a whole again but instead of seeing it in an aesthetic way I was seeing it as a real-time moving traveling salesman type problem. The players constantly are searching for the shortest path to the goal but the nodes (their teammates) and the legs are constantly changing their values. The weights of the legs are determined by distance and proximity of the opposing players. It’s a very difficult problem to solve! I think very similar problems are solved in soccer, and to a lesser extent basketball.

Now I look forward to seeing what I’m going to learn in the coming season.

In the good news, I’ve have the time between my allergy shots extended to 4 weeks. I’ve felt ready for it for a couple of months. Now I’m pretty much on the home stretch of allergy shots. Also the doctor reviewed my previous blood test and found that I don’t have to have any more blood tests done to determine whether I’m genetically predisposed to clotting. Those were all done initially and I am definitely not a born clotter.

In clot news, I saw my doctor this morning to decide what’s next for the ugly leg.  Considering my leg is pretty much the same as it was after 3 months the clot is still there and she says it’s likely to remain there. So the choice is whether to continue on the Warfarin and start developing a risk for major internal organ bleeding over time, or to stop taking it and see if the clot gets worse again. I decided it to put off that decision in favor of talking to a vascular surgeon to see what they think can be done.

Hopefully a surgeon will consider this something that can be dealt with and the clot can be removed. Since I’m not a clotter by nature I won’t have to worry about recurrence so much. I know what to look for now.

Rounding out the first half of the year…

The Girlfriend Experience – Looking back on it I can see some of the points it was trying to make and, but while I was watching it I really didn’t care. It was all kind of an uninvolved jumbled mess.

Casino Royale – Lots of fun action sequences here. I liked the introduction being done in black and white and a nice way to show history. I also liked the impression of insecurity in Bond underneath his cocky, in-control presentation to everyone.

The Bucket List – This one surprised me. I thought it was going to be all about them going out and doing trivial crap. That’s all the trailer and reviews really mentioned. Instead that was just a backdrop for quality of life at the end and learning what’s important.

I Could Never Be Your Woman – Entertaining movie about age issues with people in the tv and movie industry both on screen and in their relationships. I thought the relationships were well played throughout and the casting for Michelle Pfeiffer’s daughter was great!

Pittsburgh – I’d watch Jeff Goldblum in the Music Man; that’s what I learned from watching this. Aside from that it’s kind of an odd pseudo-documentary. It feels partly real and partly fiction and that makes it feel almost invasive at times.

The Nanny Diaries – The opening and closing visual presentations in this movie were very clever. The rest of the movie is entertaining but it’s not too special, except where you get to spot the Mary Poppins references littered throughout the film. They are musical (not sung), visual, and scattered throughout the story.

Shutter – A Japanese ghost/horror movie but centered around Americans. It’s fairly suspenseful at times and the story told is pretty good. The story of the ghost and how it acts are the main reason to see this.

300 – Well it looked pretty cool. And since it’s all told as a story being told, the embellishments told are well represented and that was entertaining, but it all just seemed so ridiculous.

The Accidental Husband – This was less believable than most romantic comedies. For being out for revenge, the male lead didn’t seem so vengeful. In fact he seemed to like her pretty much from the get go. Uma Thurman’s drunk scene was pretty funny though.

Untraceable – I think this movies wins for most realistic use of technical jargon. Not to say that it’s all correct, but the sentences made some sense and weren’t far off the marl. It kind of falls down towards the end to make it all work out, but I still think it’s pretty decent.

Jump! – I know jumping rope is hard, but these kids make so much of it look easy. The things they try to attempt and how far they push themselves is great to watch. I join them in hoping to see jump rope as an Olympic sport some day.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno – So much fun and pretty much what I expect from Kevin Smith. Great dialog and entertaining characters. It’s also a good look at making low budget films, probably inspired from his making of Clerks. Yay for seeing Jeff Anderson not as Randal and Jason Mewes not as Jay!

Usually I tend to read non-fiction. This year has been mostly about catching up on the fiction so here’s what I’ve had going on since September.

Other

The Family That Couldn’t Sleep: A Medical Mystery – Based against the background of one family with a very rare prion disease the book goes over the history of prion diseases in animals and people. It also covers the people who have been and are the big name workers in the field. There is a lot of good information here and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know about prions or mad cow.

American Sphinx – The Character of Thomas Jefferson – I started reading this after the primaries but before the election and it ended up being frustrating so I had to put it down. After the election I was able to pick it up again and enjoy it. The book shows clearly that our two party system and the style of politics in this country come from Thomas Jefferson. All the divisive attacks and casting everything as good vs evil or right vs wrong come from how he saw and presented his arguments. Good book, but not during elections.

Pathwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Colombus – Published in 1996, this is the first and only Orson Scott Card book I’ve read so far. His research into all the elements Columbus and the period are evident in the story telling and it makes for a good story.  I recommend this one too.

Misquoting Jesus – I always wondered if there were deleted scenes in the New Testament or who got to write it. This isn’t really the material that answers those questions but it’s close. It discusses why changes happened over the years and which people may have been responsible for which types of changes. The author shares his relationship to the bible in the introduction and it’s an interesting story of growth as well. I recommend this to anyone with any curiosity about religious history. The paperback version has some further Q&A with the author and a summary of responses to the book which are also interesting.

Star Wars

I fell behind on my Star Wars reading a bit last year so here is me catching up. Of course I’m starting to fall behind again now.

Star Wars Republic Commando: True Colors – Like the other Republic Commando novels this one is very good, probably even better than the second one. These books would not be a bad place to start reading republic era Star Wars.

Star Wars: Death Star – This book takes every story fragment relating to the death star in all the movies and novels and consolidates them all into one story. The author pair previously wrote the MedStar Star Wars books,  version of MASH set in the Star Wars universe and not done very well. None of those problems are present here and the stitching of the various stories works fairly well. Of course the ending is known in advance so you don’ thave to get too worked up over any characters.

Star Wars: Order 66 – A Republic Commando Novel – The final Republic Commando novel and it’s another good one. The result is a little predictable since it wraps up things you know are coming from the previous novels but it’s still a a good read.

Star Wars: Lecacy of the Force – Inferno – Inferno through Invincible continue the New Jedi Order books and there is familiar conflict in the galaxy but with a next generation Jedi thinking he has to bring peace.

Star Wars: Lecacy of the Force – Fury – This series also seems like a good time to kill off a lot of characters that have become familiar in the novels. The level of destruction is impressive.

Star Wars: Lecacy of the Force – Betrayal – The story told of Boba Fett and Mandalore in this series is a good one and it also ties in with the Republic Commando series. Karen Traviss writes the books that have a lot of Boba Fett in them.

Star Wars: Lecacy of the Force – Invincible – The climax is intense and the very end points the direction that will be taking place in the next story arc which looks to be heading towards the dark future portrayed in the Star Wars: Legacy comics.

The Clone Wars – This is a novelization of the pilot movie for the tv series. I haven’t seen the movie or the series but I have read some of the comics and it seems to stay in line with that. It’s pretty clearly aimed at a younger audience which at time is annoying. The best parts are those involving clone troopers because Karen Traviss, author of the Republic Command novels and Mandalorian authority wrote this.

Shannarah

I fell behind on the Shannarah reading in the last couple of years so I decided it was time to catch up on that too which I think clears me until 2014 when the next trilogy is scheduled to be completed.

Running With the Demon – Set if our time, this takes place a couple thousand years before the first Shannarah books written. It’s a different feeling book than the other Shannarah books and it took a little longer to grab me. I liked the portrayal of demons working among the humans.

A Knight of the Word – Ten years after Running With the Demon and this story is both interesting and frustrating. Frustrating because you know all along what one of the characters is going to need to do but they don’t see it until the end.

Armageddon’s Children – About 80 years after A Knight of the Word is how this “Genesis of Shannarah” series starts. The world is collapsing and it looks like a lot of movies told you it would look. It better highlights the troubles of survival in these times though. I think this is probably the best book of this trilogy. Good cliff-hanger too!

The Elves of Cintra – This book gets everyone where they need to be for the finale and it’s a fun book. You also get to see what the elves have been up to living in our world all this time.

The Gypsy Morph – The opening of this book also tells you part of the end. That’s not a bad thing since I found myself looking forward to it. The on-going allusion to the story of exodus in the series is even stronger in this book and works well. The series as a whole tells the history I’ve been curious about since the few lines of reference to our time in the first Shannarah novel. How did we get from here to there?

When free preview weekends for movie channels come around I record pretty much everything I haven’t seen and then I try to watch them all before the next free-preview weekend comes around. Because of this habit I sometimes watch movies I normally wouldn’t bother with just because it’s there.

I should try to do these once a month so the list isn’t so large.

YouTube

Three channels I enjoy on youtube right now are:

spricket24

ponceman

TheReceptionist

TV

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – I’m sorry this got cancelled. I really liked where it was going and the character growth and one more season to finish it off would have been nice. Also it would have been nice if some of the elements int eh series were carried over to Terminator Salvation.

Chuck – I thought the season finale of one of my favorite shows was great so it might seem a little odd that I’m disappointed that it was renewed for another 1/2 season. They wrote the end of the second season like it was the end of the series and in doing so they brought it to the problem point in The Greatest American Hero. The problem being that in The Greatest American Hero at some point he no longer needed his FBI partner to do things as he mastered the suit and so the FBI partner was in the show less because there was less for him to do. Without that interplay the show then became generic. The writers of Chuck have skillfully walked that line until the final episode where it’s clear that the government agents are no longer needed. That wasn’t the only line they crossed though, they crossed the same point that caused Cheers to lose a big portion of its audience when Sam and Diane hooked up. Chuck and Sarah connected and now that tension is gone and hard to put back. I’ll give it a shot but I’m pretty sure this last half season is really the end.

Time Warp –  This is a newish show on Discover that I like most of the time. They take high speed camera that can record up to about 40,000 frames per second and slow down everyday things to see what’s happening in detail. A lot of the time it also just focuses on things getting squished.

Movies

College Road Trip – Why is a movie about picking out a college and visiting it rated G? Would this even be interesting to young kids? I think I G-movies like this are useful in showing more adult things in a way kids can accept, assuming they were interested enough to watch it. Bonus points for the genius super-pig, but as a whole not too interesting.

Wind Chill – This was a pretty good creepy story until the end. What kind of ending was that? Turn it off five minutes before the end and you will be more satisfied.

Knowing – Overall this was entertaining, but I was surprised at the heavy religious messages throughout.  The ending went on forever, but that might just have been because I really had to go to the bathroom at that point. Also I take issue with the GPS coordinates in the movie, having recently worked with GPS coordinates. Those given in the movie would only be accurate to a diameter of about 3000 meters.

Outlander – You see a movie with vikings and aliens and you think that you’ve got something worth watching. It’s true, this movie is a lot of fun. Don’t think about it though or you’ll spoil the illusion. I think it would have been better had it been set in the times when the Norse gods were still running around. Playing into that would have been a lot of fun.

The Secret Life of Bees –  I’m starting to think that rural semi-mystical stories might be saying something about how humans work. The fact that they’re always good to watch probably reinforces whatever that message is. Anyway, I liked it.

Being There – I think this is the most subtle, low-key, comedy I’ve ever seen. When the credits start stop watching so you can avoid the bloopers. They really detract from the film. Also I’ve found a lot of good arguments on a number of viewpoints on the final scene. I might have to watch it a few more times before I really decide what I think though.

WarGames – I watched this because I recently watched the sequel and this one holds up better than I expected. Partially because WOPR is a great looking movie computer and actually has personality on screen. I think Professor Falken’s portrayal when in NORAD is not right though. Still enjoyable!

Mutant Chronicles – Avoid this movie. Yeah it has Ron Perlman and John Malkovich but I’m pretty sure they want you to avoid it too. It tries to be kind of an Art-Deco/WWI/WWII style but it can’t really make up its mind. People have to be brought to the machine to be converted which should make it spreading different than what it is. It gets worse from there.

Next -Nicholas Cage must be having a thing for knowing the future between this and Knowing. I liked it. I thought it was pretty smart in how a person like the main character would have to hide himself. Maybe that was covered in the book, I don’t know, but it came across well on the screen.

Star Trek – Such a fun movie. Tons of nods to the old series but they didn’t get in the way. At the same time they didn’t wimp out in the end. Pushing the boundaries of too much lens flare though.

Fred Claus – I’m a fan of Christmas movies. This one I wasn’t looking forward to so much because the trailer looked pretty dumb. It turned out to be pretty funny and even had a touching spirit of Christmas type moment in it.

The Godfather: Part II – Finally I get to see parts two and three.  Part II is two movies in one spliced together showing what led up to and came after the first one. I think the early story of Vito is more interesting than Michael’s ongoing quest for legitimacy for the family but both are good.

The Godfather: Part III – I think this one is looked upon unfavorably because it seems more fantastical than the other two. It’s taken to such a high level of corruption that shows the quest for legitimacy is futile and shows it all to be a tragic cycle. I like the whole series.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall – It’s kind of like a Love Boat episode but more raunchy and not on a boat. It is pretty funny though. I liked it.

Step Up 2 the Streets – Yay dance movies! The best dancing isn’t in the finale and they didn’t use any of the character’s super powers specialties but I still liked it. It has the feel of guilty pleasure when watching it.

The Incredible Hulk – The on-foot chase through the dwellings in Brazil was great. The rest of it was like the tv show but bigger and faster. They referenced the theme music, the hulk is of constant size. It was still entertaining but it just kept making me feel like I was watching a version of the tv show with more action and bigger effects. I liked it but I also liked Hulk.

The Seeker: The Dark is Rising – I liked this series of book a lot as a kid so I was looking forward to this movie. Unfortunately I don’t htink this movie would make much sense to anyone who hadn’t read the books. It’s just not very good. Nothing is explained it’s just a string of events. I think the acting of the main character was pretty good though despite the rest of the writing.

Leatherheads – I wonder how much of this fictionalized account of the beginnings of pro football are true; not enough to look it up though. It’s light-hearted and fun but some of the music doesn’t match the period.

The Game Plan – Dwayne Johnson is almost always entertaining to watch so I gave this one a shot. He doesn’t really disappoint here either. His co-starts make him look small by comparison in some scenes too. It was predictable but it still sucked me in.

The Great Buck Howard – I had no idea what to expect. Unlike Mutant Chronicles, John Malkovich wants you to see this one. Good story based on the director working for The Amazing Kreskin.

In the Valley of Elah – I didn’t intend to but I watched this on Memorial Day. That seemed to make the film more heavy and made me think about Memorial Day more in general that day. I cried a little while watching it and in light of the recent killing soldier turning on his own troops I wonder again how much damage is being done in Iraq.

Terminator Salvation – I liked the choice of time periods to cover in John Connor’s life but I wish it incorporated some characters and elements from the television series. Maybe that will come in the inevitable sequel but I doubt it. The characters of Marcus and Kyle Reese were the more interesting characters in the movie.

Big Trouble – This movie had me laughing out loud quite a bit. I think perhaps more than any other movie I’ve seen in the last year.

License to Wed – The first half is fairly funny and then then it turns to not caring a whole lot. I also thought the groom was just not right. Mandy Moore and Robin Williams hold it together though/

Lady in the Water – I liked this more than The Happening and Signs, also by M. Night Shyamalan. It wasn’t the normal structure his stories take which made it a nice change up. All of the characters were entertaining!

Be Kind Rewind – An overlooked low budget movie about low budget film making! I think you should give this movie a chance. yeah it’s a little weird but it works. I wonder of anyone has Sweded this movie.

The Simpsons Movie – Simpsons humor but in a much longer episode. I saw it for spider-pig but the rest was funny too.

The Gathering – A creepy English church-based horror film that has a good amount of creepy. Like the kind of creepy you get from 70s English church-based horror films. The ending is a little weak but it works.

Convoy – This movie clearly wou;dn’t have come about if Smokey and the Bandit hadn’t happened a year earlier but it is fully its own movie and the climax is great! I swear some of the road music had to be the inspiration for the Knight Rider music.

Australia – It’s two movies in one. The first half is a comedy an the second half is a love story. However people usually like their movies to be single movies or at least integrated and not sequential. Each half was good on its own and wouldn’t have made sense without the other but the feel of them didn’t feel right together.

Land of the Lost – This movie isn’t for kids yet a number of kids were in the audience. I thought it was fun, but I think if I thought it was going to be like the show I’d be disappointed. Everything about it is cartoony from the cg creatures to how everything acts. So I guess entertaining but don’t expect the tv show.

It takes less than a second to dry.

You can drive with all the windows open and now worry about messing it up or it getting tangled.

The texture changes every day (so far).

You can feel the slightest temperature change on your scalp and it’s very directional.

There is still a feeling sometimes that it’s messed up and I will check a mirror; then comes the “duh” moment.

I like feeling the fuzz.

State of the Doug

The last one before I’m another year older.

Saving Silverman – It could have been funny but mostly something is off and the jokes don’t work. If it wasn’t for the nipple fire scene and Neil Diamond at the end it would be a total loss.

Calendar Girls – This was nice in that it wasn’t the typical British comedy. It wasn’t the underdog working towards a minor goal in a small town. It had that going on but it was more about the effect of that on the relationships of those going through it.

RV – Started out funny and then it degenerated to random odd events. The annoying family that kept following them was more interesting than the RV trip.

You Don’t Mess With the Zohan – I thought this was skillfully rediculous and it’s Mariah Carey’s best film role, playing herself. I think it’s my favorite Adam Sandler film since Happy Gilmore.

The Rules of Attraction – This is sort of a follow up to American Psycho since it follows the younger brother of thae main character there, but I really didn’t care about any of the characters and wanted them all to go away so the movie would be over.

Bride Wars – There were some funny bits here but I think it needed to focus more heavily on Anne hathaway’s character. It seemed to indicate that it was going to in the narration but then it split the time pretty evenly which I think made things worse for the telling.

Mirrors – I thought this was well done overall. There was good tension, there was good creepiness, there was a good ending. A few inconsistencies don’t really detract from the whole experiance.

Revolutionary Road – I really liked this, but if it wasn’t for the crazy son of the realtor this probably would have been too heavy. That’s even more remarkable because he’s the only character that tells you the truth of what’s going on in the movie. I want to read the book.

Mamma Mia! – I liked the overall idea of it, but I think the overall execution didn’t work so well. The greek chorus was under used. The times the movie truly shines are when Meryl Streep is on the screen. When she leaves it shows the rest to be kind of flat.

Standing in the Shadows of Motown – Awesome documentary about the band behind all the Motown hits. They didn’t get credit to the end but they were all amazing musicians. It also has several songs from a reunion concert with the last remaining members and a variety of vocalists, proving it was the band that made the sound.

Casanova – I wasn’t sure, but watching it made me feel like I was watching all sorts of historical inaccuracies. Like I even felt like the costumes were probably wrong. And why is it that whenever we want someone foreign and not low class we always give them English accents in movies?

King Arthur – I liked this movie a lot and I really didn’t expect to. Also based on the trailers I expected a lot more Keira Knightly, but really she’s barely in it. Anyway, I thought the  historical context for the Arthurian legends was believable and a welcome change from the sword and sorcery aspect usually told.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans – I think this might be my favorite Underworld movie; it’s certainly better than the first one. The werewolf effects are starting to get close to the level they were at in the 80s, but really computer generated werewolves still don’t cut it.

Gangs of New York – It’s strange to think that New York could have ever been the way it is portrayed in this movie, especially considering how quickly it went from that to the metropolis we normally see it as. I really want to read some New York history now, especially the book the movie is based upon. At the very least it shows the problem of private and competing fire companies.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – When I saw this I knew it had the whole Forest Gump thing going for it, and if it wasn’t for Slumdog Millionaire it would have won a lot more awards. The makeup was amazing and the adaptation was a good one. The original short story can be found on-line easily enough and is worth a read; it’s only about 20 pages.

Under the Tuscan Sun – It kind of meanders and is nice to watch while you’re watching it, but now I don’t have a strong memory of the movie. So I guess for me it was enertaining but not overly memorable.

Coraline – This was a really well done horror movie for kids. Judging by the reaction of the kids in the audience it was effective that way too. The style and animation were amazing too!

The Guru – Not to be confused with the recent Mike Meyers movie, this was actually a fairly funny romantic-ish comedy.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People – We rented it for Simon Pegg and it was a fun enough movie, but the special features were interestng. No one wants to say it but they indicate that the movie is more sympathetic to the main character than the book and is a better story as a result. The book is true and is about the author, Toby Young, which if you’ve seen Top Chef season 5 you know his as the substitute asshole judge. Basically he is famous for being an asshole and the movie makes him a nicer person.

Valentino – This movie is played seriously but it’s so bad that it’s often laugh-out-loud funny. In fact inthe imdb trivia it says that the founder of the Razzies ranks it as the 26th most laughably bad movie of all time and I agree with that.

Wargames: The Dead Code – It’s been a long time since I saw the original but I thought this made a mostly decent sequel. Sure you have to ignore the computer technology, but not as much as I expected to and I thought the basic premise was updated well to modern threats. I need to watch the original agin to see how well it really holds up.

Beauty Shop – The cast line up for this movie is fantastic, but mostly it’s just flat in the delivery. The only exception is Kevin Bacon as the over-the-top fake-European hair stylist.

What Happens in Vegas – A romantic comedy with very little romance and that’s nice for a change. In some ways it’s similar to Just Married, which also starred Ashton Kutcher, but the premise underlying the antagonism is totally different and it’s more entertaining. I actually watched it twice because when I told Nicole about it she wanted to watch it.

The Happening – This is pretty dumb. If something is removing the self-preservation instinct from people I don’t expect everyone to commit suicide, I’d expect them to engage in more risky behavior. Not caring whether they smash into someone during lane changes, thing like that. Everyone committing suicide imples that everyone just wants to commit suicide. Good job on making wind blowing through trees seem creepy though.

Smokey and the Bandit – Awesome driving, great stunts, and just a whole lot of fun. I never managed to see this before now but I’m glad I finally did.

Smokey and the Bandit II – Unfortunately I thought this movie would be more of the same that made the first one great. This one has slow driving, very few stunts, and a whole lot of who cares. The finale was pretty cool to watch but it was more cartoony than the first one even though the scale was greater. It was too long to wait to get there too. At least the makers of Operation Dumbo Drop thought the plot was good enough to borrow for their film.

The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause – I’ve enjoyed the first two Santa Clause movies because Tim Allen makes a good Santa Claus. This one is likewise as fun and even though it isn’t as good I think I enjoyed it more than the second one. Maybe it was the extra time travel elements involved. It was fun seeing Juliette from Lost too as Mrs. Claus.

Twilight – When I watched it I thought it was a pretty good vampire story but it also seemed pretty light while maintaining a nice tone. On second thought, it’s nice that it’s not all over the top vampire action all the time that a lot of vampire movies seem to feel like they need to do.

21 – Framing the whole story with a med school interview was kind of silly but it doesn’t hurt the movie. Come to think of it, that makes the movie a lot like Risky Business with the business school interview. I wish they had gone over the techniques used in the movie, but I hear that’s on the special features of the dvd.

College Road Trip – I wasn’t expecting a G-rated movie and really there was nothing that couldn’t be shown to someone of any age, but I really don’t think little kids would find of lot of it interesting. Anyway, Albert the genius pig and the little boy were funny and the rest just kind of gets you there.

Wind Chill – The whole thing was a nice atmospheric ghost story and then the end came and was just kind of there. That’s it? Turn it off when she walks into the woods and you’ll be happier with the ending.

Sunday in New York – Jane Fonda in a good comedy about pre-marital sex. It’s based on a broadway play and it shows in the staging. And here I didn’t know Jane Fonda was in any good movies.