From my iced tea bottle cap

The most exciting phrase to hear in science is not “Eureka,” but “That’s funny.”

— Isaac Asimov

The Bourne Supremacy

3/5 stars

Except for the annoying cinematography, I quite liked this movie. I think that even someone who hasn’t seen the first one could get what’s going on fairly quickly, though some of the specifics of the “Treadstone” project would remain murky.

Sadly, the cinematography nearly ruined the movie. Much of it is filmed in a jumpy, hand-held style…picture Blair Witch but without the cameraperson as part of the cast. This style worked well for the fight scenes. And, in fact, it probably would have worked well in some of the what-the-hell-is-he-doing-now CIA office scenes. But the use of it became gratuituous, and it felt as if about half of the film, or more, was done in this style. Both Andrew and I felt barfy on the way out.

The Ruby in the Smoke

by Phillip Pullman

Sally Lockhart is a 16-year-old girl in Victorian London whose father was recently killed in a sinking ship while away on business. He sold his share of his business before leaving, leaving Sally with very little of what she thought she’d have coming. A note from a man with her father shortly before he died sends Sally on a quest, racing against an evil woman and the man responsible for her father’s death.

I quite enjoyed this book, the first I’ve read by Pullman, and am looking forward to reading the other books in the series.

Becoming Human

by Valerie J. Freireich

The Harmony of Worlds recognizes three levels of humanity. The full humans have all rights and may participate in the government. Altered humans, those genetically altered in some way, also have all rights, but are excluded from being part of the govering body. Then there are the toolmen. The toolmen are men and women genetically bred for one of three specific purposes — the subs perform menial labor, the guardians guard, and the probes spy and project outcomes of government votes and schemes.

Alexander is perhaps the best probe ever created. In the course of his work, however, he betrays the Electors. Alex is subsequently “put down” to protect the secrets of the Electors, rather than facing a complete (and deadly) mind probe at Security.

Years later, Alexander’s clone, August, must struggle with his clone/brother’s reputuation. His existence is largely kept secret, and so his life is secluded and lonely. However, when his existence becomes known to the Delegate most immediately hurt by Alex’s betrayal, August’s life becomes all-too public.

Not a bad read; however, it felt under-developed. I had a bit of trouble getting into the story, though I will certainly look up Freireich’s later works.

The Village

4/5 stars

I never read reviews. Why? Because I rarely agree with them, and they often give stuff away. By and large, so I heard, the reviewers hated this movie because of the “twist”. I, however, had no problem with it. The set-up was excellent, setting me on edge, and while the “twist” was not necessarily set-up comepletely, I didn’t care. Go see it.

Oh, and we had the <SARCASM> pleasure <\SARCASM> of seeing this film in the “Director’s Hall” at our local theater. Four of the screens are “Director’s Hall”s at the theater. For $2/ticket extra, you get the pleasure of sitting in leather seats and assigned seating. That’s it. Even with our extra $2/seat, they still forced us to watch the ads. And there’s not way to know that the showing is in the “Director’s Hall” from the on-line listings, so our choice was to pay the extra $4 or to wait around for a half hour for the next showing. Frankly, my time is worth more than $4/hour, so we bought the tickets, but I’d like to avoid doing that again. Probably, we’ll only go to this theater if it’s the only one showing a movie we want to see.

The Cooler

2/5 stars

I had trouble getting into this one. William H. Macy put in a great performance as a luckless man, with luck so bad that he can stand next to a casino table and turn the whole table into losers. However, that just wasn’t enough. The story just didn’t pull me in.

More Games More Fun, Week 3

We finally had our third games class tonight — it dragged on due to scheduling problems, but was well worth the wait. Tonight’s games were:

• Drunter & Drüber, a silly German game. The board is a grid with spaces containing either buildings, outhouses or nothing. The town rebuilt, forgetting to put in walls for protection, a river for water, and a road. So, our job is to lay down tiles with wall, river or road. It’s perfectly okay to cover over a building, but to destroy an outhouse requires a vote.

  At the beginning of the game, each player is given a type of building that they are protecting, so they have to try and direct the building of road, river and wall so that their buildings are still standing at the end of the game.

  I creamed everyone. Hee hee hee

• Manhattan, which, oddly enough, is another German game. In this game, you place buildings in one of six areas, in positions determined by cards held in your and.. You can build on top of another building as long as you will have at least as many floors on that building as the player with the most floors. You get points at the end of each round by how many buildings you hold (someone “owns” a building if theirs is the last piece played on that building), how many areas you have the most buildings, and the tallest building in all of Manhattan.

  Fun game, but the other two players ganged up on me — still a bit sore, I think, from our game of Drunter & Drüber.

Overall, this was a fun class, and I suspect that we will be taking another class from the same teacher — but not this fall, because life is just too busy right now.

Smart Duck

Bugs Bunny on Broadway

We’ve talked about going to see Bugs Bunny on Broadway for a couple years running, now, but finally went tonight. The concert featured several Bugs Bunny cartoons that use classical music as inspiration, with the National Symphony Orchestra playing along with the cartoons.

The cartoons included The Rabbit of Seville (which I’m not sure I’d previously seen in its entirety), High Note, and What’s Opera, Doc?. They also played several cartoons without the NSO accompanying, presumably to stretch out the show. However, some of these cartoons were quite old, and completely unfunny.

Overall a fun evening; however, I think if we go again, we’ll get tickets in the house. The lawn was full of families with children who could not sit still, even for Bugs Bunny, for the whole concert.

Angels & Demons

by Dan Brown

Robert Langdon, world-renouned symbologist, awakens one morning to a summons to CERN to analyze a symbol branded on a murdered scientist’s chest. This leads Langdon on a wild chase through the Vatican and Rome in search of the Illuminati, an ancient, secret sect of scientists with a grudge against the pope.

I don’t normally read thrillers, but the physics elements of this drew me in. I look forward to reading Langdon’s further adventures.