The good, the bad, and the stupid.

[gridlore]

In order.

Saw the new James Bond film today. Wow. They have remembered what makes a spy movie interesting.. human conflict, interesting villains, exotic locations, and hero who is both competent and flawed. Daniel Craig is channeling Steve McQueen and Patrick McGoohan; he's rugged, witty, and cold as he needs to be, but not as smooth as previous Bonds have been. He bleeds, reacts to pain, and shows more emotion than a multi-use smirk. Another high point? Gone are the damn suitcase of gadgets that marked most of the recent films in the series. Pretty much everything used in the film is off the shelf. Some of the chase scenes went on a bit long, but the poker sequence left kshandra and I breathless. Of course, Dame Judi Dench is the perfect M.

Also good was hitting the Tower Records corpse looting. We probably spent a little too much, but everything was almost half-off.
Iron Maiden - A Matter of Life and Death (the new one - I need to take it off my Amazon Wish List)

Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome - The Seeger Sessions (Been wanting this for a while.)

The Ramones - Rocket to Russia (Hey, it's the Ramones! What more reason do I need?)

Supertramp - Retrospectacle: The Supertramp Anthology (This was a big hole in our collection.. I need to have Dreamer on my play list.)

Megadeth - Greatest Hits - Back to the Start (More smart metal. Dave Mustaine may be an ass, but he's a sarcastic ass who writes a damn good song.)

The Kinks - The Kink Kronikles (Classic. A must have.)

We also picked up Lucas' Surrender (the three original Star Wars films on DVD; complete with the original theatrical releases.

Han Shot First!

Kirsten got a pile of stuff as well, as I'm sure she'll elaborate on.

The bad and the stupid come in the same package. Kiri rented a car for the weekend, since we had tickets to a concert up in the City (The Frey, and I didn't go, feeling crappy.) Kiri parked our car at the Curtner light rail stop, and took the train to get the car. Today, we went to get the car, and found that someone had smashed the passenger rear window in. Inside the car was a flat-panel monitor, a crock pot, my work uniforms, unopened mail, other clothing, etc. What did they take? Two six-packs of Cokes. They also evidently tried to jimmy our gas cap. The morons could have taken easily a grand worth of stuff without much effort, but stole sodas. Idiots

Comments

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, sorry about the people breaking into your car, but congratulations for dodging a bit of a bullet.

Lisa had her van broken into when we were up in Seattle a few years ago. ('Twas my fault; I'd left a window cracked open.) Although her van had a thousand dollars-plus worth of radio equipment, what they stole was my briefcase -- a Land's End bag -- which may have looked like it was full of credit cards. Those card were actually mostly frequent-flyer programs, plus one credit card for a chain of department stores that didn't have a store within 500 miles of Seattle. (I canceled the card, of course.) Oh, a bunch of annoying-to-replace stuff like my Day-Timer, address book, check register, and passport were gone as well, not to mention my return air ticket. (I was able to deal with the stolen ticket eventually, and replaced the passport a bit later.) But there was nothing really intrinsically valuable. Fortunately for us, they were almost as stupid as the ones who hit your car.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Of course, Dame Judi Dench is the perfect M.

I agree, but how does that work in continuity? I gather this is supposed to be "Bond: Year One" (to borrow a term from comics), yet there was quite a point made in Goldeneye that she was a successor (to ol' Bernard Lee, in fact) who didn't approve of 007's outdated Cold War methods/sensibilities. Should I just take the advice of the MST3k theme song? :/

also, George hasn't completely surrendered yet - he used a suboptimal copy (compared to the one that some fans claim MUST have existed at some point in the remastering process), and of course it includes the SE versions too; Penny Arcade suggested that this is because it's absolutely unacceptable that the original version ever sells better than the "improved" one (but if you bundle them together, the problem solves itself).

so very nerdy tonight.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

This is a restarting of the series, but there's no reason to discard one of the best things to happen recently. Judi Dench has one of the better lines in the movie "It used to be when one of our agent messed up that badly they'd have the decency to defect. God, how I miss the Cold War!"

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

restarting the...

so, what, all of the others just didn't happen, now?

(Mind you, it'd almost be worth it to get rid of Moore...)

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

We see Bond get his 007 status, and M comments that she knew he'd been promoted too quickly. So yeah, ignore those other 20 films. (waves Jedi hands) They never happened.

I've never met

[capplor.livejournal.com]

a smart criminal.

I've run across a few very intelligent ones, but on a very obvious level they are all running on one cylinder. Recently I had someone try to mug me in front of the Downtown Traffic court. The one with the County Sheriff's office right across the street. The one with police going in and out on a constant rotation. He was trying to get enough money to pay a parking ticket.

Or the kids who broke into my car, in my driveway, where I often leave it unlocked because I use it very often. They took a few coins, including a counterfeit Sakajawia dollar I got from someone (A useless coin and very likely to get you arrested if you try spending it) a hand-cranked flashlight and the device which hooks my iPod to the radio. They left all of my CDs, my daughter's purse and much else of real value.

Or the idiot who tried to break into my house back *ahem* years ago when my room-mate had a pet wolf. He tried to sue us but had apparently forgotten that he had also robbed the judge's house.

Or the kid who thought that I looked like a challenge, so he pulled a knife on me. I was. I left him broken & took the knife.

So folks, you aint alone.

Could I borrow that Kinks album sometime?

Re: I've never met

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Sure, will you be at Starport this week?

Re: I've never met

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Probably not, we have other commitments this week. I don't expect much free time before Friday.