HP6

A sixth Hewlett-Packard? Of course not...

Lisa and I saw the sixth Harry Potter movie the other day. I think they've mostly improved since the first one, mostly in terms of the presentation of the characters and story. I thought this movie had the best dialogue and character interaction - there wasn't anything that I thought was really cheesy and made my eyes roll all over the place. Some of the lines from the previous movies were excruciating. However, this far into the series I'm taking the special effects for granted, and given that there wasn't anything spectacular in terms of action (it was all very good, but nothing way better than every other movie out there) I don't feel the need to see it again. As good as it was, the movies just can't compete with the richness of the books. It'd be fun to watch all the movies again, but not as rewarding as reading all the books again. The Lord of the Rings movies mean much more to me than the HP films. And...that's my big grand opinion on it all.

Praising Pixar

Discussing the greatness of Pixar's movies may become an annual tradition for me, right after seeing their latest film. In the past I ranked them based on how much I enjoy them, but they're all so well done that I feel bad leaving any of them at the bottom. So, instead, here they are in groups, not based on which ones are my favorites to watch, but just based on my assessment of their quality as films. They are all wonderful, really, and beautifully animated, but some are better than other. So, here it goes:

THE GOOD ONES

Cars - one of my favorites to watch (and I've done so with the kids a lot) but not the best as a film.

Monsters Inc.

A Bug's Life

THE GREAT ONES

Toy Story - this was the landmark first movie, and that almost pushed it into the next category, but I left it here.

Toy Story 2 - possibly better than the first one.

Finding Nemo - do ya? Do Ya? DO YA?

Up - a nice addition to the family.

THE REALLY GREAT ONES

The Incredibles - my favorite of them all, too

Ratatouille - underappreciated, I think, since it didn't have the marketing appeal that Cars or Finding Nemo did, but wonderfully original (as they all are)

Wall-E - it's incredible what they were able to do for the first half of the movie without dialogue.

And here's what we get to look forward to for next year.

National Anthems

It's game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight, with the Red Wings playing the Penguins, a rematch of last year's finals (they're ahead 3-1 as I type). In honor of hockey, here's a video. Sometimes I think it would be cool to be Canadian, just for the national anthem, which I think is way better than ours (God Bless America is better than the national anthem too). And, I've never been to a sporting event where the crowd removed the need for someone to sing the anthem.

Top Ten Aerosmith

Developed while eating lunch and listening to the Big Ones album, here are my top ten favorite Aerosmith songs, albeit without a good knowledge of their 70s stuff:

1. Cryin'
2. Angel
3. What It Takes
4. Livin' on the Edge
5. Janie's Got a Gun
6. Walk This Way
7. Love in an Elevator
8. Dream On
9. Dude (Looks Like a Lady)
10. Rag Doll

Thanks for caring.

Don't call it a comeback

Mostly, it's an attempt to get out of last place on the blog list on Nick and Beth's blog. It's hard to return after five months off with something awesome, so here's this:

I was on the radio today, due to a piece of sports trivia that I know. A local sports talk show does a quick trivia quiz at the end of the show and I happened to be in the car at the time, driving up to Ferris. They ask five questions and then take answers from anyone to any of the questions. The theme was "Stanley Cup goals," and I could only think of one significant goal (my hockey history knowledge is not as expansive as my baseball history knowledge) - that Uwe Krupp scored the gamewinner in overtime to clinch the Stanley Cup for the Colorado Avalanche (in 1996, it turns out). I managed to balance driving, talking on the phone, and controlling the volume on the radio all at the same time, and due to the radio delay I managed to catch the end of what I said on the radio itself. I mostly remember this goal because I was working a physics research project at Calvin that summer and I downloaded the replay of it from the Internet. It was one of the first videos I ever downloaded (it was 1996!). It took forever and the quality was crappy, but it got me on the radio 13 years later. I didn't win anything, unless I answer more trivia questions this week and get the most right for the whole week. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

In other news, I gave my last final for the semester today, and I start a decent load of summer teaching in a couple weeks. And I'm going to try and read John Adams by David McCullough this summer too. It's about time I read a book instead of watching reruns of Family Guy.

Mourning Studio 28

It was announced this past weekend that one of the original mega movie theaters, Studio 28, in Grand Rapids, will show it's last movies this coming weekend. It makes me a little sad, I suppose, although it's not surprising. Attendance there has declined significantly as of late - Lisa and I were there recently to see the new Indiana Jones, and it was startlingly empty. I don't know that this was my first movie theater ever, but it's certainly been the most visited one of my life. Among other things, I've seen a lot of Star Wars movies there: Empire Strikes Back there when I was little, the entire Star Wars Trilogy in a charity re-release during high school, the Special Editions during college, and even Episode III on opening night just a few years ago. I won't necessarily miss the location, as all the newer Celebration Cinemas are quite accessible, and we mostly go to the cheap theater if anything. However, Studio 28 has one thing that none of the other theaters have: Theater 1. It's fully THX-certified, and just plain huge (over 800 seats!) - so large, in fact, that when they converted the other 19 theaters at Studio 28 to stadium seating, they didn't do Theater 1, since it's simply too big for it! Theater 1 is where I saw most of those Star Wars movies, Waterworld, one of the Lord of the Rings movies with my brothers and their wives-at-the-time, Titanic, and Independence Day - for the last one I really recall entering the theater in the midst of a huge crush of people, and no one tore my ticket. There are probably many movies I saw at Studio 28 that I don't remember, either. I'm nearly sure that I saw Jurassic Park there, too, but I don't have a specific memory of it. Well, there'd be something cool about visiting one last time, but there isn't anything in particular that I want to see right now, and Theater 1 is showing Madagascar 2. I don't need that to be my final Studio 28 experience. Anyway, here's the official announcement too. Bye, Studio 28 - you were cool.

World Series Post

I'm watching the Phillies and the Rays play game 5 of the World Series. We're a double play away from the end right now, the hopeless Cubs a distant memory. I thought I might be done watching on Monday night, but this goofy suspended game didn't get continued until tonight. I'm enjoying it, though, since the game is almost done and it's not even 10pm, rather than midnight or later like it's been some years. One out to go. Someday they have to schedule a World Series game for a Saturday afternoon, even if they have to compete with college football. I'd like to think that my kids would appreciate a Tigers World Series someday, but the games would be on way too late for them to stay up for it. Game over, the Phillies are champions, and guys get crushed at the bottom of a pile at the pitching mound. Overall, I'm happy with it, since I'm not a fan of upstart franchises like Tampa Bay winning the World Series in only their 10th season, which we've seen quite recently with the Florida Marlins (twice) and the Arizona Diamondbacks. In other random notes, the special "World Champion" hats the Phillies are now wearing are quite gaudy, and the regular hats look dumb with those hugs World Series patches on the sides. So, yay for the Phillies. Maybe the Tigers can live up to expectations next year.

By the way, Obama is going to win the election. That's not an endorsement or a condemnation, but I think it's pretty much done. It's not very bold to make a prediction like that when there are only two outcomes, but I think it's going to go that way.

The World Series trophy just made its appearance, which ranks somewhere in the middle of all the sports trophies in terms of coolness. At the top: the Stanley Cup and the green jackets of the Masters. Toward the bottom: the fragile, sissy glass football that the college football champions get.

It's over!