Almost gets three stars, because it was entertaining, and really, how high were anyone’s actual expectations for this? But though I enjoy the cast, Cage is just as ridiculous as you’d expect him to be, Hoult somehow (very amusingly) channels 90s era Hugh Grant (seriously, Renfield Nicholas Hoult : 90s Hugh Grant :: Heathers Christian Slater : 70s Jack Nicholson), and there are a lot of clever lines that made me laugh, the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts. The editing during the fight scenes is far too quick and choppy, resulting in fights that are sometimes hard to track and often give the impression that the fight choreography just wasn’t there and they had to try to save them through the editing. And the decision to go with 70s-martial-arts/horror-style over-the-top fountains of gushing blood somehow didn’t quite work for me. I don’t regret watching this, but it’s not one I’ll ever have much need to watch again.
Year 50 Day 94
Day 94: A classic album by the best band under the twin suns of Tatooine! Amusingly, though I have three different spoofs of the Joy Division Unknown Pleasures album artwork shirt (this one which I’m pretty sure I got from Diesel Sweeties but the store appears to be down right now, Nimoy Division / Vulcan Pleasures, and Depeche Mode / Boys Don’t Cry), I’ve yet to add the original to my shirt drawer.
Year 50 Day 93
Day 93: We have a silly Lego nautical theme above our fireplace. On this side is a Lego pirate ship sailing through shark-infested waters by a small desert island with a castaway in his shack. We’ve decided that he was more interested in protecting his treasure chest than being rescued.
Goth | Visigoth
Updating an old meme with this gorgeous high-viz corset!
(An imperfect photo edit, but then, I’m an imperfect photo editor.)
Corset by Wyte Phantom:
Corset first spotted in a screenshot posted by @ned@mstdn.ca.
Original meme (author unknown, linking to the most recent place I saw it).
Year 50 Day 92
Day 92: Trader Joe’s Cocoa Truffles are really good little chocolate truffles dusted with cocoa powder. Really rich, so one (or, okay, sometimes two) is a perfect small dessert. Highly recommended.
Year 50 Day 91
Day 91: One of the advantages to my wife having the summer off before she starts teaching in the fall is that I can park in the lot next to the building I work in, instead of in the upper lot closer to the building with her office. Of course, the disadvantage to this is that the lot close to my building has no shade, while the upper lot has spot we can almost always grab that is directly under a big tree and nicely shaded. On days when the outside temperature is in the 80s or higher and the temperature inside the car at the end of the day is likely well into triple digits, I’m not sure the advantageous parking spot is really that much of an advantage….
📚 The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
34/2023 – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A good second half to the far-future grand-scale space opera of Hyperion, moving away from the Canterbury Tales-inspired pilgrim’s tales to spend more time with the rest of the universe as the story progresses. Definitely best seen as the second half to a singular work than as a sequel.
NOTE: Given Simmons’ descent into right-wing politics, including Islamophobia and publicly attacking Greta Thunburg, he has earned a space on my “milkshake duck” virtual bookshelf, collecting those authors whose work I discovered, enjoyed, and might still enjoy, before later realizing that they are what I consider to be rather horrible people.
Year 50 Day 90
Day 90: The latest addition to the ridiculous t-shirt collection. We thought it would be my wife’s, but the cut wasn’t quite right for her, so I got it instead. She’s a bit disappointed, but I’m not!
Year 50 Day 89
Day 89: Started the day with another nice morning walk, this time three miles along the Soos Creek trail. Then off to a little shopping, an excellent lunch (and later dinner with some leftovers) at El Piketon, dozing on and off while watching one of the Women’s World Cup games and World Aquatics Championship events, and a convention planning session in the evening. All in all, not a bad day.
Year 50 Day 88
Day 88: Shopping in the morning, a mid-day nap, and then house work in the afternoon which had me busy and running up and down the stairs multiple times. Spining in place to get a good motion blur on the background seemed a good way to capture the feel of the afternoon.