Yet another "crap, I meant to post stuff but didn't" post. Sigh.

Since I last blathered here:

* The Dodgers clinched the NL West, swept the Cards in the Division series, and are now 1-1 with the stupid Phillies in the NLCS. I am not interested in reruns from a year ago!

* I saw Whip It and it was awesome.

* In the post about television that I apparently didn't make despite saying so, I was going to say I was starting How I Met Your Mother. I've now completed S1, and it's good times. Selection of stuff I like about it:
  - The "updated early-years Friends" feel (because I always enjoyed that show, but since hitting my own mid-late twenties the early seasons took a huge leap forward in relatability for me, so a show set in the now with that angle gets at the same thing but with cell phones)
  - Lily and Robin, who are AWESOME
  - The boys are amusing, too, sure
  - The parade of "hey, I recognize that person!" guest starts (CTB, Danica McKellar)

Doubtful that I'll remember to post before Halloween. Current costume idea: Liz Lemon, if I can figure out how to make it more than just, "Hey, did you get new glasses?"

No new movies seen; hence, linkspam

Here's some stuff I've found interesting recently:

• Dodgers pitcher is enormous Star Wars geek, talks about it.
• This LOLcat explains a lot. 
• Wizarding World of Harry Potter details.
• The Merlin cast made video diaries. Gold.

The next post will probably be about television.

On Wednesday, I came home from a coworker's going away thingy to find ANTS IN MY BATHROOM. On the counter, walls, and ceiling, with no discernable origin or target. It's probably due to the dry weather.

RAGE.

I hate them and everything they stand for. They are mostly gone now, but I'm still finding stragglers on occasion. Die, die, die.

Fiddling

Questions about Blogger to which I do not know the answer:

• Why is font so hard to control? 
• Why does Read More always show twice? Sometimes with different fonts? Solved!
• Where can I find a template that looks nice and doesn't make the text column skinny?

TBD.

ETA: And why are my bullets so hideous?

Mo' movies, mo' posting

It's kind of sad that the only real posting inspiration I get is short film reviews. Oh well. Maybe next time I'll change it up with a linkspam.

The latest two are 9 and (500) Days of Summer. Behind the (woohoo!) spoiler cut...

Lately: Movies

About the middle of July, I got really busy, and suddenly all the movies I'd been looking forward to finally came out. I'm still playing catch-up, and commercials tell me I have more coming down the line. This post contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for Harry Potter, District 9, and Inglourious Basterds.

Apparently, still failing as this blogging thing.

I went to Ireland! It was awesome. Here are pictures:

Here are more:

Notes that aren't contained in the captions:

* Irish people are seriously the nicest, friendliest people in the world. The harrowing drives were made less scary by politeness and waves in passing, and though our overnight stays varied, every single morning began with our host asking for our next destination or plans for the day, then providing detailed directions and recommendations. They're the kind of people who will, if you're stopped on the street reading a map, come up to you not fifteen seconds after you've paused and ask if they can help. Just lovely.

* We loved the OPW ladies! On some of your recommendations, we bought Heritage Cards at Glendalough and made them more than worth it - even found several sites we hadn't originally planned to see - and at every OPW (Office of Public Works) site, the docents and tour guides had this fantastically well-branded process and manner of speaking that despite most sites being under restoration had every air of professionalism and pleasantness.

* There were more photos taken at the stone circle. My sister is reading Outlander. They will remain unpublished.

* As usual, there are more photos from the first half of the trip. By the time we got to Dublin, it was harder to remember to take them. We packed a lot into that day:
-- St. Stephen's Green: Green, pretty;
-- Trinity College (plus Library and Book of Kells exhibits): Interesting, historical, poor layout though;
-- National Museum (Archaeology): BOG PEOPLE!;
-- My company's Dublin office, where we had lunch with some of my coworkers;
-- Kilmainham Gaol: Rather farther from the center than the maps indicated, actually, but quite interesting in tone and message
-- Guinness Storehouse: ROTFLMAO
-- O'Connell Street and Temple Bar: Really just walked around, but especially good for people-watching

* Ireland generally failed at signage, except for Toilets. They really want you to know where the Toilets are. Road signs generally weren't visible until after you were in the intersection, and several of them were perplexing. We didn't get any shots of our favorite ones, the white arrows on blue backgrounds. We decided these signs were saying, "This is a road." They would show up in clusters of five or more, all different sizes, at what we eventually figured out were places the road-builders seemed concerned that people wouldn't be able to differentiate between the road they were aleady on and, oh, stacks of orange cones, sidewalks, other vehicles, things like that.

The other awesome sign was at the bottom of a traffic light. Maybe 100 meters earlier, we'd passed one that said "Experimental traffic controls ahead." Apparently, that was the traffic light, because the sign at the bottom said, "Stop when light is red." *dies all over again*

* I took five different planes on this trip. SFO to Newark, Newark to Dublin, and then Dublin to Newark, Newark to Houston, Houston to SFO. When booking the flights, we discovered that going through Houston on the way home would actually be faster for me than waiting for a San Francisco flight. And as long as I was going that way anyway, I decided to just hold off until the later flight out so I could have dinner near the airport with the family. The youngest two sisters now live in Houston (one with the parentals, one actually in the city), so everyone was there, and I am so glad we got to do that.

All in all, the trip was fantastic. I highly recommend Ireland as a travel destination and want to go back to see the top half.

Virtuality & Moon (Spoilers)

Virtuality

I caught the premiere/tv movie for Virtuality last night. I really shouldn't get attached, but they left a lot of interesting questions and possibilities open and hanging, and the risks they took paid off big time. The first thirty minutes or so were kind of slow, as these things tend to be, but once they got into the affair (ooo) and then the launch (OOO!!), it picked up. Also, that launch sequence was awesome. That and the other nods to classic sci-fi nourished my nerd brain to fullness, which might explain why I, uh, forgot to eat dinner. *facepalm*

My favorites so far are Jimmy and Billie, and the guy with the dead son (too many characters to remember by name this early). Wanna-be Starbuck made me cringe, but that's probably my irrational dislike of Clea DuVall talking, and she redeemed herself by becoming Billie's buddycop at the end. I could get into that.

I know, I know. It's Fox, don't even go there.

Moon

It's the kind of beastly weekend here where my apartment stays boiling until way late, so I escaped at seven to go see Moon.

It was very good, but not quite as good as I wanted it to be. To be honest, I think I set my expectations a little too high. Sam Rockwell was fantastic, but the plot was kind of predictable in a movie that felt like it shouldn't have been. I felt like I was always a few steps ahead, and I find it frustrating waiting for the character(s) in a film to catch up. Guessing correctly ahead didn't ruin the rest like it did The Sixth Sense, though. Conceptually, it also drew from the classic sci-fi pool, making my weekend a very nerdy one, indeed, despite a couple points of science fail.

Bottom line: If an arty theatre near you is showing Moon, I would recommend getting on that.