Dragging my feet

A proper set of Peru pictures is coming soon ... really. For now, a few more samples.

Animation

Working on getting some more photos online later tonight, but for now, this.

Picture Preview

Hey all, I'm back from Peru and it was a pretty fantastic trip. I've got something like 800 pictures to sort out (not to mention the ones from other cameras). I'll probably post a set from each day and then my overall favorites over the next week or so, but for now, here are 2 or my favorites.

Me and Machu

Milky Way

Zen

Justin, floating.

More from Easter. Justin has ups.

Ups

Justin, flying.

Rewind

Backing up. This is from Easter. Matias is quite pleased with himself

Me, Charlie and Nick

Two normal looking guys ... and Charlie.
(I stole this one, and yesterday's picture, from Daneen, btw. Thanks, Neeners!)

Alexa and Man #3

Last and most certainly least. Man #3.
(And, Alexa somehow even knew it at the time)

Alexa with Man #2

Alexa and I after ice cream at Maple View

Alexa with Man #1

Isn't Sasha always Man #1?

3 Old Men

Work

I know you guys are going to miss me too much, so I've magically set up posts from the future while I'm in Peru. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I guess I'm going to go with a thousand words a day. Enjoy.

Orange, cleaning out his inbox

Vacation

OK, ladies and germs, tomorrow at 5 am, I'm heading off to hike the Inca trail with Ryan, Joe, Nate and Johnrey. It should be pretty sweet trip, however I hear the wifi isn't so great up there (although we're high enough that the satellite coverage could be strong ...), so, unless I'm inspired to write something from Cusco before we get on the trail, no posts for the next week. But I'll be back with pictures and blisters after that, so have a good week without me.

Glee (Pilot) - 4.0

I watched the pilot for Glee yesterday. As every tween in America knows, Glee is a show about a high school glee club that debuted after the American Idol finale only to go on a 6 month hiatus before its real premier next fall. Of course, I am neither a tween, nor in America, so I had never heard of the show, but Compton (who is at least 1.5 of those 2 things) told me I should watch, so I watched. I'm easy like that. In fact, I'm so easy, I'm thinking bullets for today:

• This is by the guy who made nip/tuck. I don't like nip/tuck, so that is bad, but ...
• Glee is a cool title for a show, which is good, but ...
  
• Like, nip/tuck, I wasn't really liking this, until ...
• ... they sang "Don't Stop Believing" at the end. Which was awesome, and I proceeded to rewatch like 3 times. So that is like 3 more times than I rewind most shows, so that is good, but ...
• The rest of the show really wasn't anything special, imo, so ...
• I'm giving the show 1 point for each time I rewinded, but not a single point more and ...
• I probably won't be watching in the fall ... Unless of course Compton tells me to and I'm supposed to be working. In that highly unlikely case, I'd probably watch.

Here's a youtube of the video. I'm watching agian now, so I guess, it gets a 4 instead of a 3. Yes, I am a big old girl.

For Ted and Brian

While I was running yesterday, I tripped on my shoelace, staggered for 3 or 4 steps and then fell face first in to a bush while 2 college-aged girls stood and watched. Now it looks like a very pissed off baby cougar attacked my left leg.

That is all.

Wearing the Pants

Today, Alexa submitted Chile's opinion on what the world's greenhouse gas levels should be to the United Nations. I, on the other hand, watched like 15 minutes of Beetlejuice and cleaned the kitchen.

Life (Pilot) - 6.0

Continuing our quest for a new show, Alexa and I watched the first episode of Life last night, and it wasn't half bad. Actually, let me take that back, it was almost exactly half bad, but, fortunately, the other half was pretty cool. First, the good stuff, I liked the cast from top to bottom, and the overall premise is pretty good. The general idea is that the lead character, a cop, went to prison for a crime he didn't commit, and now, after 12 years, he's been exonerated and is back at his job and is rather bitter and quirky. Add that to funnier-than-expected delivery and it's enough of a twist on the cop show to have real potential.

Now, the bad half. Along side the introduction of the solid concept, the show was a standard-order one-off Law-and-Order mystery and not a very compelling one at that, definitely more Criminal Intent than SVU. Now, I understand that a pilot needs to be somewhat self-contained, but if the show is just going to be Law and Order: Ex-con Edition, I feel inclined to make time for a show that comes on at 1:00, 1:30, 2:00, 3:30, 5:00, 6:00, 8:00 and 11:00 even in Chile.

So, I think we'll try another episode or two, but we're definitely not hooked just yet.

No Reservations - 2.0

Alexa and I caught the last hour of this Catherine Zeta-Jones gem over the weekend. It was pretty bad. Worse than bad actually - It was cliched. I guess sometimes it's good to watch a movie that just doesn't work out at all, if only to remind yourself that making movies is really hard and sometimes, even with decent actors and an ok director (he made Shine and Snow Falling on Cedars), things just fall apart.

Big Bang Theory (Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2) - 3.5

Alexa and I are look looking for a new show to watch together, so we're holding tryouts. Well, I'm holding tryouts. Alexa is just watching whatever I put on the TV. Last night's contender was The Big Bang Theory, which was mildly amusing, but had 2 major downsides.

1) The canned laughter was *terrible*. It completely distracted me and took away from what was otherwise a reasonably enjoyable, if somewhat pointless, show.
2) I liked the two guys well enough, but the girl pulled off the dumb blond thing a little bit too convincingly for my liking, and I wasn't sold on the geeky friends either.

I'm guessing this gets better as it goes. The pieces are pretty much there for a decent HIMYM-y sitcom. However, Alexa rated this even lower than my 3.5, so I don't think we're going to spend the time to find out. The recently-canceled Life is next in the queue, so we'll see if that fares any better.

Slipping

Somehow Alexa found about about the new batch of Macbook updates before me today and sent me an message to let me know. As happy as I am about the updates (I think an early 30th bday present is coming my was soon ...), that is almost offset by the fact that Alexa saw it first. The natural order has been upset. I think I need to go do some programming or something to re-assert my nerd-supremacy.

Lunch

We went to lunch with one of Alexa's coworkers, and this "lunch" lasted for 7 hours. This isn't especially uncommon. Chile is different than the States in a lot of ways, but one difference that really stands out is that Chilean families talk. American families (or at least my American family), on the other hand, do stuff. We play games. We go places. We watch stuff. Chilean families chat. Parents and kids and cousins and aunts and boyfriends and mothers in law and neighbors and people from church and random American coworkers and their fiances all just kind of hang out and chat about whatever, then you eat some empanadas and pollo con arroz and pebre and have tea and alfajores, and then you talk some more, then someone plays the guitar and you drink some tea and eat sopaipillas and watch a little bit of Blue Lagoon in Spanish and then, 7 hours later, you go home. It's nice. I like doing and going and watching as well, but, sometimes, sitting and talking about nothing in particular is the way to go. It's also a little hard when you only speak a little Spanish, and you start repeating yourself like an idiot after 2 or 3 hours, but mostly, it's nice.

New Frightened Rabbit

This song is fantastic. I've become a big Frightened Rabbit fan over the last 6 months. I'd say Midnight Organ Fight would sit atop a re-worked list of favorite albums from last year. Later he covered Neutral Milk Hotel from the same bench, which a tall order, but not half bad.

Small World

I don't write much about it here, but in addition to all of my other dorky persuasions, I am also a board game dork. Since I mostly play with my family and Jon, I usually try to pick up a new game in advance of family trips, and for recent trip to the U.S. I got a new game called Small World.

I'm breaking my Board Game blogging embargo for 2 reasons, 1) Small World is really a very good game and well worth writing about, and 2) I think it is an ideal "starter game" for people who like Monopoly and Risk, but have never taken the dive down the rabbit hole to games you can't find at Toys-R-Us. Small World works well for "non-gamers" for a few reasons:

1) The Length: It takes between an hour and 90 minutes to play, which is what I consider the sweet spot that accommodates both strategists (Jon) and people who can't sit still for more than an hour or so (Alexa) and people in between (Me). Also, you don't really have to pay attention while other people move (good for Alexa), but it's fun if you do, since you can yell at them if they attack you (good for me).
2) The Theme: My three world sell is "Risk with Monsters". You're trying to take over spaces on a map, but you're using Orcs and Elves (and Ghouls and Amazons and ...) instead of amorphous colors. It's fun.
3) The Complexity: It only takes 10 or 15 minutes to teach the basics, but after having played more than 10 times, I find that I still change my strategy fairly often. Plus, the rules were very cleverly designed. There's minimal dice rolling and scores are kept hidden, so it's generally not super competitive which is another plus.

So, there ya go. Small World is great. It's exactly the level of seriousness I like in a game and I'm sure it would slot in to my personal Top 5 board game list if I were ever to make one.

You know you've surfed the web too much when ...

... you just watched this.



Time to work.

5 little things

The Top 5 Things in LOTR that Make Me Rewind Every Time

1. After the trees break the dam to flood Isengard, the burning ent dips his head down in to the flood to extinguish himself.
2. The massive tracking shot of the watchtowers being lit in Return of the King.
3. "If you want him, come and claim him."
4. Legolas fighting --- Mounting his Horse near the beginning of Two Towers and riding his shield down the stairs at the end. And the elephant scene* ... oh, the elephant scene.
   
5. The shot of Theodin's face de-aging right after Gandalf un-curses him.

Alexa and I stumbled across the beginning Fellowship of the Ring on TV this weekend and now, 10 hours later, we've finished watching the all 3 movies (the last two as Extended Editions). I just praised the movies yesterday as the most likely from this decade to survive beyond our generation. Beyond the obvious fact that they're really well made, there are a few main reasons why the trilogy will have a long shelf-life. The most important factor is the books; kids will keep reading them (mine sure will) which will keep the stories fresh**. So the audience will be there, but the fact that the movies are so much damn fun to watch is what will keep people coming back***. Part of the thrill of these movies comes from watching good film-making (#2 in the above list) and effects (#5), but many others came about because they didn't take themselves too seriously and were able to have fun with the movie (#1 and 4)****. These things***** each take only seconds, but they seem to happen every 10 minutes for 10 damn hours, and when you combine all of the moments, you've got what I consider the only truly epic movies of my generation******.

* - Yes, I know elephant is supposed spelled all wacky, and, no, I don't care.
** - This point alone puts Harry Potter at Number 2 on my list from yesterday.
*** - The reason no one is going to watch those Narnia movies again, isn't because they weren't well made (the effects were often great), it's because they weren't any fun. Star Wars on the other hand is still so popular largely because light sabers are awesome.
**** - #3 was just a good old-fashioned dose of awesome (says Devin).
***** - I've left off ton's by the way: Gandalf vs. the Demon. (And Gandalf vs. the Demon, redux.) Gandalf arriving at the end of Two Towers. Boromir's Death. The Eagles, everytime they appear. Sauron's Tower exploding. Aragon's first scene. Bilbo disappearing from his party. The ring going in to the fire. etc. etc. etc.
****** - Apologies to "Braveheart", but it's true.

New Music

I've listened to a bunch of new-to-me music in the last few days, and I've got to say, so far the droney-drone-drone-ness of Menomena's random film soundtrack and the angsty-falsetto-ness of Passion Pit is currently trumping the old-French-poppy-ness of Serge Gainsbourg, the earnest-yell-and-screamy-ness of the Japandroids (although that is an awesome band name).

The Iron and Wine outtake album is good too, but not really new to me. I'm still undecided about "The Vaselines", but like them ok so far.

2000 -----> 2050

Had a long discussion with Compton, Denny and Liles on Reader today about what the great movies of the decade are. Defining "great" is always tricky, but in honor of that thread I hereby present:

The 5* Movies from this Decade Most Likely to be Seen by our Grandkids
1) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
2) The Harry Potter Series
3) The Pixar Collection (WALL-E, Up, Finding Nemo and Ratatouille)
4) Gladiator
5) Dark Knight

* - Yes, by 5 I mean 17.

My top 20 ... or not.

After 15 minutes and 150 rankings on this site, here is what it thinks my top 20 movies are:

1. Saving Private Ryan
2. The Godfather
3. Rain Man
4. Dead Poets Society
5. Adaptation
6. The Sixth Sense
7. Run Lola Run
8. The Bourne Ultimatum
9. The Big Lebowski
10. Groundhog Day
11. 2001: A Space Odyssey
12. The Sting
13. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
14. Ratatouille
15. Fight Club
16. The Pursuit of Happyness
17. Interview With a Vampire
18. Twister
19. Contact
20. Annie Hall

Not completely absurd, but nowhere close to reality either. The site is better than this email ranker site anyways.

Some Albums!

Whoa (says Keanu Wildfire), I'm 29.5 years old and we're like 5/12ths of the way through 2009. Wacky, no. Where the hell did the decade go? Anyway, here are the 3 albums this year that have the official Jeremy stamp of approval (insert fancy stamp graphic here). No particular order presents itself, so ... bullets!!

• Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
• The Thermals - Now we can see
• Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

There are a few other stamp contenders (Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit), but those three, A+.

So, trendy, Michael Cera-esque readers, tell me what I'm missing.

Nick and Nora's Infinte Playlist - 5.5

I was sick at my parents house and had to choose between this and "Zac and Miri make a porno"* I'm like 72%** sure I choose correctly. I really liked the leads here***, and thought they had great chemistry, but everyone else in this movie really annoyed me, but hey I was sick, and this was available, and my parents weren't going to walk in on me watching porn**** in thier living room at like 9 pm on a Tuesday with this choice, so I can't complain too much*****.

* - Miri? Is that right? The useless Hobbit from Lord of the Rings was making the Porno with Zac? Was it even Zac? Zack? Where am I? Where are my slippers? Who turned off my humidifier? Damn kids ...
** - I made a survey for work today and allowed people to use a 100 point scale (0=Bad, 100=Good) for answers, and I got yelled at for it. It was just like Ted (et al) bitching about me rating things 7.2 out of 10 on the old website. I've clearly learned nothing. The yellers were right both times.
*** - Isn't Michael Cera like 27 or something? The dude is almost older than I am, and he still pulls off this role. Amazing. How does he keep being all indie cool while I type confusedly about movie names at a computer screen?
**** - Well, meta-porn, but still.
***** - My dad did walk in while the annoying girl was pulling her gum out of the barf filled toilet, which was pretty choice as well.

Star Trek - 8.0

Not that I really have anything new to say here, but for completeness sake --- I watched Star Trek way back when it first came out, and it was good. Nice action and funnier than I expected. It fully deserves the half zillion dollars it's already made. In fact, I'd put it right up there with the last 2 Bourne Movies, Iron Man and Dark Knight as one of my favorite Action/Adventure-y movies in recent years. Then again, Alexa and I are 2/3rds of the way through re-watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy which makes the movies in that list seem kind of, well ... small.