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2/5 stars
Not much to say. The effects aren’t bad, but the science, of course is horrible. That’s okay; it was a decent forget-about-life-for-a-couple-hours kind of movie.
Ugh. I’ll be out of it for a while. Sitting at the computer for any more than 15 minutes is excruciating.
This was my first time going along Church Street in Vienna — I had no idea there were any cute shops in Vienna! (Other than the antiques shops along Main Street.) While looking at the booths setup for the festival along Church Street, I found Once Upon a Time, a toy shop in an old General Store building. The toy shop has all the toys that I wanted as a kid, including Bryer horses (I’ll probably go back and get myself one sometime). They also had a huge room full of doll houses and accessories! I finally have a close resource for my doll house!
Up the road a bit was a New Age-y type store, but I decided not to go in this time. There was also a house wares/garden shop, which I did go into. They had a lot of fun things, but most of it was out of my price range.
The festival itself was also fun. I mainly went to see what crafters were there, and to get a big bag of kettle corn. The Usborne book people where there, and I picked up a nicely illustrated astronomy book for my nephew.
by Frederik Pohl
Excellent book. It’s the first in a series of four…sigh…this is the third book in the past month or so that has gotten me started on a series. I hope the subsequent books continue the quality of story and character Pohl exhibits in this one.
Humans discovered Gateway, a station built long ago by a race we now call the Hechee. The station is a gateway to other places, with nearly a thousand Hechee ships left behind. The Hechee, however, left behind little else, so that our knowledge of them is very limited. We know how to make the ships go, but don’t know what fuel they use, how to refuel them, or how to translate the destination settings. People go to Gateway to gamble their lives for potential fortunes. They hop in a ship going to a destination they can’t predict, with an amount of fuel they can’t change for an unknown round-trip duration and into unknown conditions. Most ships don’t return. Most of the ships that do return are without one or more of the crew members who originally embarked. But those who do return with new Hechee artifacts or new scientific results are well rewarded.
Fred hurt his foot, and so my lesson was cancelled. I hope he’s okay.
This will give me a chance to work more on the Dance from The Nutcracker Suite and Country Garden. I had a heck of a time figuring out the tune for Country Garden, but I think I’ve finally gotten it. Now I can work on playing smoothly.
The other night while practicing, I started to hear the improvement in my playing over the past few months. Yay!
I got a doll house from Santa when I was in 3rd grade (or so). It was one of those kits that your Dad has to put together. Unfortunately, my Dad didn’t get around to finishing it for several years. By that time I was less interested in the doll house, so it stayed in the basement.
Sometime when I was in junior high, I decided to pull it out again and think about decorating and furnishing it. However, by then I was expected to pay for much of the decorations and furniture myself, but I wasn’t very good at saving money. I didn’t get much further than wallpapering the kitchen and getting stuff for the bathroom (toilet, tub and sink).
I’ve decided that it’s time to resurrect the doll house. I have a real job, so $20 here and there for wallpaper and carpet or a dining room set isn’t much of a set back. Dad has agreed to fix it up structurally, and I’ll start getting things for decorating.
To that end, I went to a doll house and miniature show in Tyson’s Corner this weekend. It was just a couple meeting rooms at a local hotel, but it was a lot of fun to see what’s out there for doll houses now. Several vendors had “out door” things — shrubbery, pool stuff, loungers, etc. I don’t think I’ll need any of that, but it was all very well designed. Another vendor only did miniature flower arrangements. Holy crap! They started at about $65 and went up. The family in my house isn’t that fancy 🙂
I did find several things to buy. I got some wallpaper for the girl’s room, and some carpet (though I’m not sure if the carpet will look good with the wallpaper — still deciding on that — but no matter, I’ll just use the carpet in the living room if I don’t like it in the girl’s room). I also got a few things for the attic playroom — a toy box, kids’ table and an assortment of toys. I decided that I can’t really buy furniture without getting the room dimensions from Dad — it would be way too easy to buy too much.
Oh, I need to remember to ask Dad if he thinks we can put electric lights in the house.
2/5 stars
Ugh! I did it again. I’ve already seen this one. I have no idea when, but within about 10 minutes, I had remembered most of the plot. It’s a fun movie, though not one I think I’ll see a third time.
Archeologists Rick O’Connell (Fraser) and his wife Evy (Weisz) accidentally awaken the mummy again. This time their kid (Boath) is involved.
3.5/5 stars
Marnie (Hedren) is a pathological thief — she runs from city to city taking jobs which afford her the opportunity to eventually run off with the contents of the company safe. Mark Rutland (Connery), despite having an inkling that she was the woman who cleaned the safe of a business associate, hires her at his publishing house. At her first opportunity, she runs off with the money, but this time is tracked down by Rutland. Instead of turning her over to the police, he marries her!
Andrew and I were a bit confused by Rutland (Connery’s character). We don’t really know what possesses him to marry marnie — he seems to have a bit of an illness himself in taking her on. However, this is the first Hitchcock in a while that we have both liked…perhaps we need to stick with the later rather than earlier Hitchcock.
4/5 stars
What a fun, fun movie. I wasn’t around to enjoy the 60s sex romps, but that didn’t matter!
Barbara Novak (Zellweger) has just written a book to help women everywhere “have sex like men do” — without the need, or encumbrance, of love. Catcher Block (McGregor) is the worst sort of playboy — the exact type of man Novak despises. Yet, they start to fall in love….
3/5 stars
Andrew rented this from netflix, and originally I told him that I wasn’t interested. However, I caught a couple minutes, and it didn’t look like a typical cheesy 50s horror flick, so I told him to hold off on sending it back.
The basic story is that Professor Harrington is killed after incurring the wrath of Dr. Karswell, a cult leader who uses witchcraft. Professor Harrington was to participate in a conference in London debunking paranormal activities. Dr. Holden, an American collegue of Harrington, arrives in London shortly after Harrington’s death. And finds that Karswell is now after him to stop is expose. Holden starts to experience weird things after an encounter with Karswell at the museum…
This is definitely more psychological that I thought it would be. At times, it was almost reminiscent of a Hitchcock film.
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