Avatar, Road Runner
You see what I did here? I went from Monday Morning Musings to MMM to MM, and now nothing at all. Which means I can do this on Tuesday if I want to. And I do.
So I finally went to see Avatar, probably one of the only movies I’ll see in the theater this year. My Esteemed Partner in Pavement Pounding and I caught the 3D version, though three hours later than we planned (earlier show sold out).
What shall I say about the movie? Well, in terms of plot, I think this YouTube says it rather well:
Plot aside, it’s definitely something to see. I enjoyed the 3D experience, after an initial adjustment period. What I liked was that you didn’t get hit over the head with it. It just added depth to the imagery.
(BTW, Ender’s Game needs to be done in 3-D.)
As you’ve probably read in other places, most of the characters are cardboard cutouts. The Giovanni Ribisi character (slimy corporate exec) could’ve been written by a computer. And it’s a shame, because he’s a fine actor.
By comparison, Paul Reiser’s Carter Burke in Aliens looked like Hamlet. (Don’t get me wrong on Burke…he was a good slimy character.)
Stephen Lang, so brilliant as Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals, is quite underused as the grizzled “Kill ‘Em All and Let God Sort ‘Em Out” military leader. But he was totally believable in the role.
Sigourney Weaver was lovely, as usual, and her character actually showed some growth. Ditto for Sam Worthington, who nicely pulled off a character torn between two worlds, struggling to remember which was “real.”
But the real breakthrough of the movie was the fact that the performance-capture technology used to portray the Na’vi worked really well. I didn’t find myself thinking about the CGI when watching the “actors.”
I did think about the CGI when just enjoying the depth of the environment Mr. Cameron created. It really was astounding. I’ll be curious how it translates to the small screen, especially the small screen in my house, a 27” standard-def TV. I imagine it won’t quite work.
In all, the film succeeds on the level of pure spectacle well enough to outshine Cameron’s puerile political-correctness and some lousy scriptwriting.
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I’m officially a fan of Road Runner Sports. Until last week, they were my source for buying new Brooks Beasts. But no longer. My foot has been bugging me a bit, so I brought my Beasts into the store (while I was there picking up shoes for The Fair Elaine), and the Fit Expert asked me if I’d ever been on “The Thing.” The Thing is a cool techo-foot-analyzer-running-capture gizmo. They analyzed my arches and videoed me running barefoot on a treadmill.
(By the way, watching myself run in slo-mo? Horrifying. I hereby apologize to anyone who’s had the misfortune of seeing it in real time.)
I no longer have Brooks Beasts. I mourn somewhat, because “The Beast” is just a cool shoe name. I’m now in Brooks Adrenalines.
That’s right! They swapped out my more expensive shoes and gave me new Adrenalines and some money back. Keep in mind, I’d been running on The Beasts (my new ones) for several weeks. But they have a 60-day Perfect Fit guarantee. Awesome.
So now I have no excuse for slacking in my running.
MMM: Home Court?, 10K, Hoods, Baseball wrap, Food Network Star
I recognize I didn't MMMuse last week. Family in town. Priorities and all that rot. Anyhoo...
I didn't really watch the NBA Finals, even though I used to be a huge basketball fan. (That was back before I discovered that baseball is the Only Sport Worth Watching.)
Maybe the fact that the Lakers took two games on Orlando's floor takes the wind out of what I'm about to write about, but since I actually wrote it before the Finals began, I'm keeping it.
And here it is (see if you can detect my very subtle yet virulent preference for baseball): Why, exactly, is Home Court Advantage important in any way in basketball?
In baseball, Home Field Advantage is easy enough to understand. Baseball fields aren't all carbon copies of each other. Some are domes, some aren't (and you can play the ball off the catwalks in the domes). Some have quirky outfield fences or obscene amounts of foul ground (Oakland). So knowing your own field could help.
There's also the issue of the Home Team having last-ups. Let's say a game goes extra innings. The home team knows that if they score a run, the game is over. The visitor has to get a lead and then hold it. That's a definable advantage for the home squad.
But with the NBA, how's it work, exactly? Okay, sure, the home team will be loud. But that'll happen in any arena. So the noise level can't really be a factor. The basket's at the same height, and the court's the same length, and the first possession is determined by the tip-off. So where's the advantage?
I'm forced to conclude that the Home Team will normally get more Home Court Calls by the officials. Which is really, really lame. Am I wrong here? Somebody enlighten me, because this seems to be just another reason baseball is superior.
Oh, and congrats to the Lakers. Since I don't really watch, I don't have any particular opinion about who should've won. I like Dwight Howard better than Kobe Bryant, but I don't have the pathological hatred of Kobe that some have. (Nor do I harbor particularly ill fillings toward a certain formerly-Twins-catcher-now-playing-in-Chicago. Like how I still brought this around to baseball?)
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I ran (if you can call it that) a 10K on Saturday. Colin dragged me for the last two miles, and it was my fault for starting us off a little fast. Maybe if I'd tempered my enthusiasm a bit, we'd have come in at a lower time. Still, we started running and didn't stop for 6.2 miles. That's something.
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If you don't know the Hoods are in at the Farmer's Market, you are hereby notified of your First Warning. Your Second Warning will occur if you do not consume some of them by next week. Don't make my kick you out of Oregon.
(And if you don't know what Hoods are, please don't tell me. I may have to issue you a bit of a fustigation.)
(They're strawberries, but you didn't hear it from me.)
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Well, it's time for the Baseball wrap. The season is done, and Ethan wishes we had another game tonight. It was a fun experience, and if I do it again next year, I've learned some valuable lessons, and if some of the kids (and dads) return, it could be a whole lot easier than this season.
Some highlights:
- My son never having to hit off the tee. Because he's awesome.
- Two flyballs caught by one of my guys in one inning (and then he doubled off the runner at first both times). Yes, that's four outs, but we weren't really counting them.
- Serving up a homer to another of my guys. Best hit I saw all season from anyone.
- Watching one of my guys almost have a popup land on his head. Yeah, he didn't really realize there was a game on.
- Getting my most difficult hitter (just getting him to recognize which direction the ball was coming from was a chore) to connect twice in the same game.
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The Next Food Network Star has started up again. Love that show, even if I generally can't be troubled to watch the actual winner's show most of the time. I've found you can pretty much guarantee several things that'll happen:
- Somebody will have a tagline or culinary philosophy that's confusing/banal/just plain stupid. This year's early candidate: "I'm comin' at you from the mind of a chef." Ummm...what?
- Somebody apologizing for their food.
- Somebody describing their dish as containing "good" or "great" or "wonderful" things, as opposed to using, you know, appetizing language including such things as flavors or aromas or textures.
Yes, it's ever-so-slightly train-wrecky. Love that.
MMM Addendum: Cool Runnings
I got to do some cool runnings today. By that I mean, of course, that I layered up and went for a 3-miler in 8-degree-weather. Awesome. The air is so crisp that it felt like my lungs spasmed for a while getting used to the temperature, and I had to tell myself not to lick my lips (because that just makes them colder).
When I got to the bike path near my parents' house, I saw that it was covered with at least a foot of snow. Then I realized that it was packed snow. Running on compacted snow is very cool. Unfortunately I didn't see any moose. That would've been cool. I'll go out again on Wednesday and hope to see one.