Or What I Did On My Christmas Vacation.
We left our intrepid heroes beating Boris and Natasha with rolled up newspapers and rubbing their noses in it.
We now rejoin our heroes as they don ski flip flops.
We went and saw Eragon on the twenty mumble...the Thursday before Christmas...I could look it up, but I'm not gonna, so THERE! It actually wasn't a horrible movie. Despite
jwz calling it as bad or worse than Dungeons and Dragons (the movie), it wasn't. I think he needs to quit swallowing anything his groupies hand him. D&D was a dreadful movie. Bad effects, horrible plotting, no characters worth noting, and total lack of direction. Eragon suffers from badly written source material (I haven't read the book, but enough people I know and trust have and they tell me that it's obvious that yes, it was written by a teenager, and it shows).
It's obvious that Eragon (the book and movie's main character gives name to both) is either a complete idiot or suffers from being a teenager. But I repeat myself. I pegged Jeremy Irons character for what he is about thirty seconds after he first appears on screen. It took Eragon half the movie to finally have his "duh" moment. John Malkovich is in this movie, but he's got about five minutes total time on screen. I think there's a blatant reference to every major fantasy setting ever written in there, but again, that's source material. My kid (who finished reading the book the day before we went and saw it) commented that the movie squished everything together (for an 8 year old, that's an acceptable description of plot compression). And yet, I don't feel like I missed anything. The story is a standard boy meets dragon, boy helped by mysterious old guy, boy saves world from evil ruler plot.
Total fluff, but well done fluff. I was entertained and didn't feel like I wanted my 1.5 hours of my life back.
Friday was work, but not really. I mean, sure, I WENT to work, but aside from assuring everything was in order for my ten days away to be frantic phone call about the entire network failing catastrophicly free, I just coasted until the office party. That killed the afternoon and I then officially left work for a nice break.
Saturday morning was an uneventful drive to Connecticut.
The next few days were spent chilllin' with
robeli's family, and doing the whole Christmas thing. There's a newly renovated Marriott Courtyard on Yale's border (the Yale bookstore is about half a block up and across the street). If you ever have occasion to stay there, make sure your room doesn't face the street. New Haven never sleeps, and all night long they like to shoot at each other. Not in that part of town, but the sirens NEVER STOPPED (St. Raphael hospital is just a few blocks west, and the main approach is Whalley, which our room had a delightful view of). Our first night there? Three separate shootings. In fact, I think someone got shot in New Haven every night we were there except for Christmas proper. Lovely little city.
It's actually very sad driving through New Haven and West Haven heading in to Orange. Those houses are these big (even by modern standards, these houses are big) old early 1900s Victorians. When they were built, it's obvious they were the homes of the highly affluent. Now they're all converted into multi apt. dwellings and are falling apart.
We drove home, again uneventfully, Wednesday night. I love uneventful drives.
We spent the next few days just hanging at home and relaxing.
And now I'm back at work.
We left our intrepid heroes beating Boris and Natasha with rolled up newspapers and rubbing their noses in it.
We now rejoin our heroes as they don ski flip flops.
We went and saw Eragon on the twenty mumble...the Thursday before Christmas...I could look it up, but I'm not gonna, so THERE! It actually wasn't a horrible movie. Despite
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
It's obvious that Eragon (the book and movie's main character gives name to both) is either a complete idiot or suffers from being a teenager. But I repeat myself. I pegged Jeremy Irons character for what he is about thirty seconds after he first appears on screen. It took Eragon half the movie to finally have his "duh" moment. John Malkovich is in this movie, but he's got about five minutes total time on screen. I think there's a blatant reference to every major fantasy setting ever written in there, but again, that's source material. My kid (who finished reading the book the day before we went and saw it) commented that the movie squished everything together (for an 8 year old, that's an acceptable description of plot compression). And yet, I don't feel like I missed anything. The story is a standard boy meets dragon, boy helped by mysterious old guy, boy saves world from evil ruler plot.
Total fluff, but well done fluff. I was entertained and didn't feel like I wanted my 1.5 hours of my life back.
Friday was work, but not really. I mean, sure, I WENT to work, but aside from assuring everything was in order for my ten days away to be frantic phone call about the entire network failing catastrophicly free, I just coasted until the office party. That killed the afternoon and I then officially left work for a nice break.
Saturday morning was an uneventful drive to Connecticut.
The next few days were spent chilllin' with
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
It's actually very sad driving through New Haven and West Haven heading in to Orange. Those houses are these big (even by modern standards, these houses are big) old early 1900s Victorians. When they were built, it's obvious they were the homes of the highly affluent. Now they're all converted into multi apt. dwellings and are falling apart.
We drove home, again uneventfully, Wednesday night. I love uneventful drives.
We spent the next few days just hanging at home and relaxing.
And now I'm back at work.