I Can't Make Out Whether You're Bloody Bad-Mannered or Just Half-Witted

It's the weekend, eh! Yay! Whadaya got planned, eh? Eh?

Yeah, me neither...

Not a bad day, if I say so myself. It was a Take Your Family Into Work Day today... we all piled into the auto and tooled on down to the Rug Shop, where I spent time working on two versions of the same website.... This one and This one. Why am I working on two separate versions of the same site? It's a long story... and somewhat boring... so if you don't mind, I'm going to skip it... there ain't nothing so complicated as the inside of a torpedo...

It's been a productive week, for which I am grateful. Progress on the website(s) at long last, and some Piranha jobs, for starters. I still have the camp slideshow to do! Geez Louise, it's been since, what? The beginning of July? Or was it June? Well, I am nothing if not a Procrastinatrix. Well, it looks like I'm a nomenclator as well (is that the right spelling, Crystal? It's giving me a red underline in my edit window...). It won't take me long to do the slideshow... just sort out some nice pics, crop n' clean them, drop them into iMovie, apply Ken Burns Effects, add some music, and go to print. Easy peasy.

Also have some other odds and ends, as far as obligations... a BTF logo for Josh, some book covers for Rebekah, posting more of my scripts on my Wagnervana site...

Time to break up the monotony with a Funny Picture...


My guess is that he's playing the blues... Tonya! Can you play the balalaika?

I watched a powerfully acted movie tonight, which I doubt any of you have ever heard of before. It's called Chopper, and it stars Eric Bana, in one of the more riveting performances I've ever seen. Not sure if I'd recommend it to all y'all though... it's pretty gritty, as far as subject matter. But Bana is really incredible. Here, lemme pop in the trailer... I found one that is acceptable...



It's an Australian movie that came out in 2000, and Bana plays, well, what can only be described as a celebrity criminal, based upon a real-life person named Mark Read... you know what, I can't even briefly explain this film... if I tried, this bit will stretch on way too long, especially if I'm not really recommending the film in the first place. I read great things about Bana's performance, and since I'm sort of a student of great acting, I nabbed it from Netflix. You only get the slightest hint of Bana's depth from the trailer, but that's enough...

The theater's too deep for me. I prefer bicycling.

While I'm on the subject of "what I've watched recently", I also watched a documentary on Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels that was as fascinating, in a different way. It was basically narrated by Kenneth Branagh, who read excerpts from Goebbel's diary, covering his childhood, and his evolution from a nobody into one of Hitler's inner circle. It was accompanied by photos and video footage of the era. Lest you think otherwise, it certainly wasn't flattering or an attempt at explaining how and why he turned out the way he did... it was more a psychological study, and it was captivating. Oh, it was called The Goebbels Experiment, and if you have Netflix and a pair of hours, you can watch it on Watch Instantly, if you're either a student of WW2 or interested in the way the human mind sometimes works...

Bah, I have to break up the monotony again... better do a video this time. You gotta see this; I saw it on Patrick Rothfuss' blog the other day...



That is amazing.

Back when I first started posting videos in my blog, I posted a clip from a pair of guitarists called Seis Cuerdas which always impresses me... I think I'll resurrect that clip and post it here, since we've got a guitar theme going tonight...



My stepdad's seen them play live at Santa Monica (they perform at the promenade there, as you can see), and I think brother Johnny has seen them as well. Apparently, they are amazing live - I'd love to catch them sometime... I have a CD of their music and it's awesome. I can't imagine the hours of practice...

I'm having an odd go of it with The Talisman, by Stephen King. I'm exactly half way through it (page 372 of 750+), and honestly, I don't know why I feel compelled to continue reading. It is one ridiculously dreary and uncomfortable scene after another - it really is a grind to read it. Yet I keep reading it. I've been pondering why... it's not as though I want to see what happens next, or see how the main plot resolves itself - I'm literally not enjoying the book. Best reason I can come up with for continuing is maybe to try and see why I found the book so good when I read it back in high school... I figure I must have seen something in it the first time to file it away in the back of my brain as a positive experience. For the life of me, I can't see it yet, after almost 400 pages. Nothing encouraging or positive ever happens to balance out the downward spiral. It's exactly the opposite type of novel I'd either write or elect to read... yet I'm still reading it.

I'm eying Mistborn with great interest, though. The story summary on the back cover sounds positively brimming with possibilities. I'm chomping at the bit to start it, actually. But tonight? More Talisman. For no discernible reason.

Gah... I need a shower. They tell me there's some people in the world take a bath every week!

Anyway, I'm done. Don't forget to hop over to Rememorandum and check out the results of Logan's monumental journey through the hundreds of albums on his iPod. Until tomorrow, remember, if I had my choice between mice and Mausers, I think I'd take the mice every time.