June 18, 2004	I have to work this weekend - both Saturday and Sunday. Am I happy? Well, on Saturday I will be getting time & a half and on Sunday I will get double time, so yay there. But I am also working next weekend which means I don't get a day off until Canada Day. Which means I am working 17 days straight. Which really, really, really sucks. On top of that, there are also some extended shifts I have to work - which amount to 12 hour days (at least 5 of them) in the next two weeks. Why? you ask. All because I work in TV news and there is a frickin' election. And to add insult to injury, since I working on a national broadcast, I will have to be there until all the polls close and a PM is declared. And if the election is the horse race it is looks like it might be, the PM might not be declared until say, oh I don't know, 2am. And I am scheduled to be back in at 10am the next friggin' day!!!! Anybody know where I can get another job that pays really well? ·  10:58 PM : comments back soon
June 16, 2004	Alright, I will confess here and now. I admit it. I really liked "Chronicles of Riddick." The geeky fangirl in me enjoyed it immensely. *hangs head in shame* Yeah, yeah, I know there were huge gaping holes in logic, no real character development and a lot of the other elements I complained about in "The Day After Tomorrow." But "Riddick" was able to pull the elements off by sheer playfulness. Vin Diesel looked like he was having a ball as did everyone else - Colm Feore looked like he really wanted to chew the scenery but was holding back. For a geekgirl like me (and geekboy like Toast) watching the movie became partly a game of "identify the movie from which that was taken" and "which roleplaying system are they 'borrowing' from now?" There were also classic (pulp fiction) references for the more literary minded. The overall look of the movie was art deco as seen by Geiger in a nightmare. It was a frankenstein-ien amalgam, a patchwork of geekiness that was pulled together stylishly. Ebert mentions rather disparagingly that he has no idea what an "elemental" is. (Please, that is so basic D&D!!) I can see how the "average joe action fan" will love it and the "average discriminating viewer" will hate it but only the fanboys and fangirls will get all the layers. If you are in well versed in cult classic sci-fi and fantasy (movies, books & RPGs) you will enjoy this movie. I might just have to go see it again. *sheepish grin* PS: I would love to ask Vin Diesel what level is Riddick and what are his stats. And Vin so must play the Justicar in a movie adaption of "White Plume Mountain." God, I am soooooo geeking out. Must go and try to hide in the herd again. Where did I put "The DaVinci Code"? ·  11:12 PM : comments back soon
	I miss this...*sigh* ·  11:09 PM : comments back soon
June 13, 2004	Last night, I got to bed around 4am. Tomorrow, I will be getting up around 4am. I got a phone call at 3:20 this afternoon to inform me I am covering the morning shift on Monday - it starts at 5am. Am I happy? Let me put it this way: I would rather have root canal sans anaesthetic daily. ·  9:28 PM : comments back soon
	Tonight Toast and I headed down to the St. Lawrence Market BBQ and Beer fest thingy to get me some ribs. While noshing, we ran into That Easy Life & 6:30 who were on their way to the Rivoli for a North by Northwest concert. After Toast had sampled some tasty craft beer, we ducked into the Rainbow Market Square Cinema to catch "The Day After Tomorrow." SPOILER ALERT - If you are planning on catching this film and actually care about the plot, stop reading now!! Okay. I admit immediately that I was hesitant to see this film - big disaster movies are usually big on the disaster and skimpy on plot, character develop etc. Especially when they involve Roland Emmerich (and/or Michael Bey, but that is for another time). But it stars Dennis Quaid (I do still like Dennis - a hold over from "The Big Easy") and, to my pleasant surprise, Dash Mihok. This movie is pure drivel. It has all the hallmarks of your standard disaster movie: one person knows what is happening but no-one in power believes him, broken family until one family member is in peril and the main character has to save them and redeem himself in the process, death of stalwart companion etc... I giggled and groaned through most of it. I laughed when the reporter got creamed by the billboard. I snickered when, while what must have been F-10 tornadoes are ravaging downtown L.A., you hear a voice-over tv or radio anchor saying something like "We are awaiting reports of any injuries." I cheered when the global warming is first detected by a buoy off the coast of Nova Scotia in the Georges Banks. (One of my brother's Coast Guard ship's duties is to place those buoys every spring and maintain them over the summer then pick them up in the late fall so they aren't damaged by winter ice.) I laughed again when a RAF pilot is flash frozen or perhaps, freeze-dried, whilst on his way to Balmoral Castle to evacuate the Royal Family. I guess they don't make it either. I groaned repeatedly when the characters who are trapped in the New York public library decide to burn the books to keep warm. Burn the books and ignore all the wooden chairs, wooden railing around the second storey, wooden shelves the books are on, and great big huge wooden desks that take up most of the floor space!!!!!!!!!!!! Yup, they burn the books. At one point, Jake Gyllenhaal's character comes running into the room where they are holed up carrying two chairs that he proceeds to smash. I thought "FINALLY, he's going to start burning the furniture." But no. He uses the cane backing of the chairs to make snowshoes and leaves the broken wooden shards of the chairs on the floor. I really, really hated the fact the wolves in the movie were CGI. Not once do you see a shot of a real wolf, only this awful CGI. The rest of the animals in the zoo were real - the deer, the black bear - but not the wolves. They weren't quite as awful as the CGI elephant in "Gangs of New York" but they were pretty close. I really laughed and cheered when, after the scene where the reporter says Mexico has closed its borders, she announces that Mexico has opened its border again - only after having arranged with the US President that the US will forgive Latin American debt. Way to go, Mexico!!! Brilliant!!! Canada is offed without blinking an eye. There is some mention of Nova Scotia suffering flooding, I think it was, but other than that 32 million people just go *poof* out of existence. The only thing we see of the rest of the world is a hail storm in Tokyo, snow in New Delhi and a tiny subplot of British climate researches bravely staying at their posts when they know it is too late for them to be saved. There is suprisingly little blood or bodies in this movie. Stalwart companion dies without us even really seeing him fall - we just see him cut the rope that is dragging his fellow adventures down with him. I was afraid for a minute that Dash might be cut in half by a pane of glass but, thankfully, that didn't happen. Reporter getting smushed by billboard happens so quick you don't actually see anything and meteorologist guy and girlfriend are just shown with widening eyes, watching their approaching doom, without any cuts to the view out the window of the appoaching F-10 tornado. Stubborn cop and followers are just shown as snowmen scattered along the road. You are told that the President's motorcade didn't make it and the British scientist's generator gives out and plunges them into darkness so we can't see their demise. According to Toast, this was a better movie than "The Core" - which I didn't bother to see. Wow, "The Core" must really be awful. ·  3:15 AM : comments back soon
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