Long Update

So I’ve been slacking on the updates here, figured I could do a real long one and get caught up.. so here goes!

Movies

We (Ross, Liz, Jeremy, and I) saw a Serenity screening early last month, during it’s first viewing at the Highlands Ranch AMC theaters. It was very good, even with the rough edges. I can’t wait to see the polished version in September!

We (Ross, Jeremy, Dennis, Matt, Chad, Jeremy’s Dad, a few others, and I) went to another Serenity screening last week, on the 26th, and guess what? The actress that plays Kaylee was there! That was pretty cool. She was nice and answered a lot of questions (most of them lame) and signed a bunch of posters. Apparently there’s another screening coming up at the end of this month. Watch the Can’t Stop the Signal website for information!

We (Cheryl and I) also saw Kingdom of Heaven. It was interesting only because the sets and costumes were cool. Other than that it was very very slow and not too exciting. I don’t recommend it unless you are bored and happen to find it lying on the road somewhere. But don’t take my word for it, go see it. (heh heh, i dare you)

Hmm, what else have we seen? Letsee.. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (dumb!), The Princess and The Warrior (not bad), Hard Boiled (Yay! Chow Yun Fat!), Sideways (alright), Napoleon Dynamite (funny!), House of Flying Daggers (reminded me of Hero too much, only a so-so from me).

And of course Cheryl had to watch the season finale of Deadwood without me! Grrrrr! Now I have to catch it on my own somehow, which will never happen because I don’t have HBO! Meanie.

Anime

Finished the Samurai Deeper Kyo series: Not bad. The ending was drawn out more than I cared for (probably an episode (at least) too long – but I guess they ran out of ideas before the season was over). Other than that, I liked it.

Just started the Samurai Champloo series (notice a theme here?) this week and so far it’s not bad. Only watched 2 episodes so far, but I do like the animation style. Not too interested in the characters yet, but we’ll see where it goes.

TV Shows

Jeremy borrowed the discs for a series called Wonderfalls. I had never heard of it before, but apparently it was on TV at some point. I watched a few episodes with him and it’s pretty funny. It’s like Early Edition meets That 70s Show .. or maybe Gilmore Girls .. anyway, something like that. So there’s this girl, see, who starts hallucinating that these inanimate objects (animal figurines, stuffed animals, etc) are talking to her. If she does what they say then something good happens (kid reunited with her dad, for example), but the funny part is her trying to interpret what they mean for her to do with her underachiever attitude getting in the way.. that, and the witty dialog and character interactions (especially between her family) makes it a good watch.

Books

Finally, after much dragging of feet, I finished reading the last book in the Greg Mandel series by Peter F Hamilton. The last book certainly took longer to read than the other two books, even though it was still interesting. I think the steam was gone, thus the slower pace.

After finishing that book I picked up the first book in the Black Company series by Glen Cook. And I couldn’t put it down. I just finished the second book last night, and I can’t wait to start the third. Very good books. Kinda short, but I suppose that makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something.

And still reading the Time Traveler’s Wife. About half-way now, but it goes pretty slow since I only read it when I’m at Cheryl’s.

Flying

So. Weather. Sucks. I haven’t been able to fly much lately with the weather trying to cast doom and gloom all over the Front Range. I missed my chance to solo last Tuesday because I chickened out and “felt I needed to get more practice landing, since I hadn’t much time to do that lately”. What a wimp! Well ok, I hadn’t been able to fly for almost 2 weeks, so maybe I had a good excuse. And, of course, yesterday’s flight was canceled due to weather.

Well, we’ll try again next Tuesday – please please be nice weather!

Vacation/Fun

Cheryl and I went to Ouray again this Memorial Weekend, trekking over to Grand Junction and then down past Montrose to the Orvis Hotsprings. I know I said this last time we went, but it’s a really great hot spring (with usually 0 kids around). The nice thing is that the “public” is kicked out at 10pm, so if you are renting a room or in one of the camp spots you can stay and soak after the riffraff are gone. Makes it sorta romantic, if only you can stay awake that long.

We were able to go mountain biking for a bit, but since neither of us has done much biking lately (say, years) it didn’t last for very long. Now I remember why I like powered sports better.

And we leave for Cancun (again!) on the 6th of July for a 5 day trip. Yay us!

Other Stuff

Ross and Liz are getting married. Congrats! Now, who wants to guess what they will name their first child? I’ve voting for Harold or Latifah.

Gigabyte is coming out with a thingy called the iRam. Hmm, with WinXP loaded onto that we could be playing games in seconds!

Funcom is making a MMO game based on Conan. The Barbarian, not the Librarian. Could be cool.

Mythic is making a MMO game based on Romans! In Space!. Actually, looks interesting. Will watch this one.

Neither Xbox 360 nor the Playstation 3 seem to be shipping with a harddrive. Sigh. Hopefully they wake up and figure out that consoles can’t take over PCs for gaming if they can’t provide at /least/ what we get with our PCs.

ATI’s new Crossfire mutli-GPU video card solution looks pretty kick ass. Not too pricey either, I might have to pick me one up when’s it becomes available.

Phew. Is that long enough?