I got up for my flight down to Austin at the crack of way the hell to early (a little before 4am) and my uncle Paul drove me over to the airport. I sat on the airplanes and did some work-type stuff (mostly reading) as well as dozed a little (hey, it was EARLY damnit!) and arrived in Austin at about 11am. Da ta! At about noon I got dropped off at Elissa's apartment and had a pleasant surprise -- she skipped her physics class so we could hang out together until she had to go to work. About 1:30 she took off for work, and I hopped online and did a little more work-like activities.
We got a bunch of movies on Friday night and ended up watching the Longest Yard (new Adam Sandler movie) -- it was quite funny and we had a good time. Before the movie, we went out to Fuddrucker's on South Lamar because I'd been craving one of their burgers since forever. They managed to mess my order up though, and I ended up getting a 1 lbs hamburger! Yeesh!
We lazed around the apartment and slept in until noon on Saturday. Once we finally got out of bed, we went hiking out at McKinney Falls here in Austin for about 3 hours. It was perfect hiking weather -- about 70 degrees and sunny. Had a blast! We didn't see any snakes though. :-( But we did see about a dozen deer, including a 4 point buck. In three years of living in Texas, I've seen hundreds of deer, and this is the first buck I've seen (always see doe and fawns) -- so Lis and I were quite excited about that.
Then we went out to dinner at El Gallo, this nice little authentic Mexican place on Congress. Mmmm, the food was awesome! We came home and started watching Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but Lis wasn't feeling well (too much food and too much drink), so we bailed on the movie about half-way through. From what I saw, I really wasn't that impressed with it. Which is surprising because Jennifer loved it, and she's usually got awesome taste. Maybe I just need to see the ending to really enjoy the movie.
Today we're going to head out to the Zoo (where Lis used to work) and see all the animals and stuff. It should be a blast!
It's quite fun being back in Austin, it's like Lis and I are back to normal. Which is exactly what happened when she came up to MN to visit me. I'm very happy with the fact that we just fall into our old comfortable routines even when we've been apart instead of getting into weird funks with one another. I think it's a good sign that we've got a lasting relationship. I must admit, that girl makes me happy!
In any event, my updates to the blog are going to be somewhat sporadic on the weekends -- but I'll probably be posting regularly during the week while I'm in the office. It's going to be nice seeing everyone from work again; it's been about 5 months!
I hope everyone's having a great weekend!
The ending isn't much different from the rest of it, so if you didn't like it up to the halfway point, you probably won't like it any more for the ending...
Have you gotten to the island yet?
Yay for having fun!!!
Kinda surprises me that you didn't like Sky Captain. I think it's a clever movie. Loved it. I agree that it doesn't really "change" a lot during the length of it. But watch it through anyway, maybe you just need some time to get into that "pulp scifi" feel.
Sky Captain isn't a perfect movie, but it deserves mad props for:
1) Being made by a director so dedicated to the craft that he spent decades of his life realizing his vision
2) Shaking up the standard Hollywood cliches
3) Creating a whole new look for movies. Sky Captain is the Chrysler PT Cruiser of movies... it resembles the old, but it's definately new.
4) Finally using a deceased actor's image in a way that is respectful and makes sense, not having him dancing with a goddamned mop.
The shame of it is that since it didn't pull in megabucks, we'll probably never see a sequel or any other movies in the same style.
In any case, I think it's worth watching if only because the very last line in the movie is a punchline to a joke that's been running the entire movie... and pretty damn funny.
I think it's neat the Sky Captain tried something new. The only thing that was real were the actors themselves. Everything else was CG. It was kind of neat to have the 50s/60s style of sci-fi done with a completely modern technique. The "glossy" effect was interesting too.
Sin City used very much the same kind of technology, but they did have real vehicles and props in it, however. I like how they kept it feeling like a noir graphic novel. Not that I ever read them, but friends of mine that have say it was very true to the graphic novels by Frank Miller.