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.

This is not what I wanted to post about more

I kind of hate doing the deathwatch thing in a blog because it's not like I'm sharing breaking news here, but man, what a weird week, huh? After Ed McMahon, I was already kind of sad in a distant way about Farrah Fawcet this morning - more for her family and all that, but she was on a steep decline and it wasn't unexpected.

The Michael Jackson news, though, caused a stir at work, much like Heath Ledger did last year - a distinct rise in chatter volume, and a whole lot of browsers clicking away from whatever they were doing over to news sites. I was telling one of my coworkers that I think he was the first real singer/performer identity that I could associate with songs; the oldies permanently on my parents' radio were all a blur of "the dudes that sound like that" and "the girls that sound like that", and the rest was Disney and Muppets. But I have clear memories of being at our next door neighbors' house and listening to "Bad" on the radio. I'm about average age for my coworkers, so that or something like it is true for a lot of us. Even though he's been a tired punchline for years now, it's still kind of strange to be at that end.

And then I got home and saw on the flist that Lorena Gale also passed away, and really, that's enough, universe.

Stuff, nonsense - trying to post more about the mundane

The past three nights, I've had bizarre, vivid dreams each involving groups of people I know placed in the wrong context. The past three nights, I had pepperoni, olive, and pineapple pizza for dinner. I dearly hope these things aren't related! That was the end of the pizza, though, so we shall see what happens tonight.

The first night featured my coworkers at my high school (where the great crisis was my total inability to remember my class schedule hahaha). I forget the second, but it was along the same lines with different people/situations. Last night there was one with coworkers, and one with the Az crew, which started as a site visit or something and morphed into snorkeling somewhere tropical. GG and I got chased by a water snake. :-(

We're training up a new person at work. This is very exciting, as she will help relieve the pressure we've been under lately. Also excellent - it's been lovely and warm here, but not stifling hot in my apartment! High 70s/low 80s is my happy place.

Notes from the last week...

(Not even going to try to backdate this time. *waves hands*)

SF Trip the First:

* On the occasion of friend in town!

* Wandering GG Park is always a good, if circular, time

* Random LOL: The kids yelling "I'M ON A BOAT!" while in fact on boats on Stow Lake

* Haight-Ashbury Street Fair was kind of hilarious

* Crazy Hamlet is crazy! Also, there was pie.

SF Trip the Second:

* On the occasion of a work off-site to a baseball game!

* Giants vs. Angels. I refrained from wearing my Dodgers hat but had fun rooting for the winning SoCal team.

* Teaching an Irish coworker about the game, only to have her miss the seventh inning stretch during a bathroom breaks, and getting vacation tips in return.

* Scoreboard fun: LOLtastic "announcement" of our group as a manager's 21st birthday (hah); later, a proposal (aw).
* Stadium gift cards meant endless food and drink, including hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps (omg).
* Walking through the middle of what almost turned into a fight (and watching that instead of the game - oh, bleachers).
* Smug satisfaction at staying through the end, unlike some people who left and missed a near-comeback.

SF Trip the Third:

* On the occasion of co-workers' birthdays!

* Garden party on the patio was lovely

* Sunny day, but unfortunately windy :-(

* Somehow still had energy on getting home to go out for Mexican food, yum

And unrelated to San Francisco, this website.

Need pie.

Ugh, I just watched the final episode of Pushing Daisies, and the end was Farscape all over again. Sigh. SIGH. Why does this happen to all the really creative shows? (Rhetorical.) More about what would have been.

I should try harder not go get attached to these things (looking at you, Glee). They'll all end up the same, canned right after they've wrapped a climactic cliffhanger of an episode, with no way to edit or change things for a respectable conclusion.

I will never see mustard the same way again

My company organizes big community service outings every year at this time, and today was the one I and a whole lot of people I work with signed up to do. We went to Half Moon Bay to do beach landscape recovery work. I spent about three hours whacking away at mustard and hemlock with a hoe and ripping ice plant out of the sand. I liked the second part better, although I fear for my back tomorrow.

One part of the day was kind of a bummer. During the hoeing portion, a group discovered a burrow of teeeeeeeeeeeeny baby bunnies! So cute! So were were all jazzed about that, and when three of us (IL, SP, me) were working around a different bush and heard squeaking, we got excited for more cute things. We couldn't see it under the thick growth but were really curious, so we started lifting up branches from different sides to try and figure it out. And, well:

IL: I see it! I think it's a bunny...or a mouse?
Me: Oh yeah! Looks like a bunny.
IL (looking into the darkness at wiggly, twitchy baby bunny): What's it doing?
SP: OMG a snake is eating it!
All of us: WAH! *drop branches and leap back*
Everyone else: WTF?
Me: Yeah, it's a bunny being eaten by a snake.
Everyone else: :-(

Aside from that, we made a good dent in the brush, and it was more fun - mostly - than sitting at my desk.

Maker Faire 2009

LK and I went up to San Mateo on Saturday for Maker Faire, where we saw lots of cool stuff and got really sunburned (who knew a geek faire would be outside?).

Pictures below. Highlights included life-size Moustrap, Coke + Mentos = 'splodey, giant cupcake cars (do want!), and the near-fulfillment of my dream to have a Lego room.