Christmastime is here again

Another year, another trip home for the holidays. Unfortunately, this year I'm flying in on Christmas Eve, but hopefully we'll still make the evening service at our church. I might be meeting up with Phil at some point while I'm home, but that's kind of up in the air until Tuesday or Wednesday next week. I'm looking forward to seeing all the friends and family in the area, but there's going to be a lot of running around to do. I hope I can keep my energy up. Merry Christmas everyone, and happy New Year.

Of apes and men

Man, I love Vern's writing style. He's always good for a laugh. I doubt I'll go see Brokeback Mountain, though. It might be worth a rental.

I saw King Kong Sunday. That was a very strange movie. I thought it would be a great adventure flick, and I really admire Peter Jackson, but at one point a character even says "This isn't an adventure, is it?", and gets a reply of "No." Or maybe a head shake, I'm not sure. But they're right, this movie aspires to be something more than an adventure, and ends up a little bit creepy.

I picked up the new Frighteners dvd, which came with a free ticket to King Kong, and I still really enjoy that movie. I saw it in theaters when it came out, and as I recall it was actually pushed back because there was a mass murder in Tasmania just before it was supposed to be released, where some guy killed around twenty people in an afternoon. Jackson's a New Zealander, but they're close enough to Australia (kind of like Canada is to America) that it would be a pretty sensitive time. I was over there in Melbourne about a year later, and I don't remember ever hearing a peep about the incident, unlike, say, Columbine.

Anyway, Jackson has always liked scaring his audience, and King Kong is no exception, but in addition to an adventure movie and a horror flick, he also wants it to be a love story. And I just didn't buy it. I don't care how good of an actress Naomi Watts is, I don't care to see her fall in love with a giant ape. These long takes of them staring into each other's eyes just made me want to laugh. If you're going to see this one, make sure you don't expect a non-stop thrill ride, and it might help to have someone with you to share the joke.

Work and plans

I haven't felt like writing much lately. I finally got all my video editing programs installed, which I'd been putting off in order to hear back from the companies that I'd be able to re-register them first, and I'm still waiting to hear from one of them. Now that they're on the PC, I have to deal with the fact that I have a project to finish by mid-January.

I recovered all my writing, and some of my pictures, but none of my business records. I'll have to recreate them for tax season, which is just around the corner, unless Ramzi can give me the gift of file recovery. I'm mailing him my hard drives. On the other hand, the day job is going well, and I have a week off to travel to Indiana for the holidays.