Ordinary Day

So then! As promised, a separate posting on Superman Returns. I found it an entertaining matinee-type movie: nothing spectacular, but certainly with some good qualities that made it worth my time. Its overall problem for me is that while I found the cast mostly quite enjoyable, the story they had to work with wasn't worthy of their efforts--it really felt like a Superman fan film. Which is not what I want to see when I go out to see a big-budget motion picture, y'know?

(But heh--clearly I liked this film well enough to go find me an LJ icon for it. I've been wanting one for my Supes fandom for a while now, and this'll do me nicely until I find either a really good one of Christopher Reeve, or perhaps one from the animated Superman, which I adore! This particular icon is by meryddian, now credited on my userinfo page. Y'all can blame this on the fact that I really did rather like Brandon Routh's portrayal, way more than I was expecting going in! More on this behind the cut.)

( Spoilers up there in the sky! )

First up: the new Superman Returns trailer. After a look-see, I must say Kevin Spacey does look promising as Lex Luthor, nicely reminiscent of Gene Hackman. The new kid playing Supes--well, he does seem to make a pleasantly doofy-looking Clark, somewhere between the Dean Cain Clark and the Christopher Reeve Clark, and closer to the latter, but not all the way there. Which I like. I'm more dubious about this idea of giving Lois Lane a kid, though. I get the whole concept of showing that she's Moved On(TM), but on the other hand, a Cute, Smart Kid as part of the plot is all too often a danger signal that the movie is going to suck (cases in point: The Legend of Zorro, The Mummy Returns). Here's hoping that in this instance, I'm wrong! I do want this movie to be good. :)

Next: shiny new trailer for Pirates of the Carribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest, and hee, yeah, that does look like fun. And Captain Jack gets all the good lines: "Elizabeth, those clothes do not flatter you at all, it should be a dress or nothing. I happen to have no dress in my cabin!"

Third: trailer for the new Bond flick, Casino Royale. Yeah, that looks like a Bond flick all right. Not sure yet what I think of the new guy, or whether I'll go see this at all, but we'll see what happens.

And in related news, I saw a promo poster for X3 on a bus this morning on my way into work. YES!

Friday night we finally got to see Mirrormask, and that was highly enjoyable. Visually stunning, and with a kind of wry humor that really sneaks up on you, and which showed the hand of Mr. Gaiman quite clearly upon the work.

Saturday, as I posted before, I had to work. Fortunately it wasn't a full day's worth of work, and there was actually something rather pleasant about walking out in the sunshine both on my way into work and on my way home.

Sunday went towards solarbird, spazzkat, and I having a pleasant little sojourn down to Log Boom Park, which is the park right down at the bottom of our hill on the other side of the Burke-Gilman trail, right on the shore of Lake Washington. I'd been there a few times before on various walks, but hadn't ever gone out on the actual log boom. We did that yesterday, and that was fun. There were several folks out and about along the boom, walking dogs and children and suchlike, and it was rather neat to me how far out into the lake it actually went. After that we went back to the lake shore and ate the lunches we'd brought down with us, and watched a few nearby folks playing catch with their dogs. They kept throwing frisbees and balls, and the dogs--border collies, we think--would zoom past us at top speed to get them, with that "OHMIGOD OHMIGOD GOTTA GET IT GOTTA IT" urgency that only a dog on a vital mission to intercept an airborne frisbee can display. Hee.

Then we walked along the trail and came back through the Lake Forest Park shops. We got drinks at Starbucks; have I mentioned that the Blackberry Green Tea Frappucino is extraordinarily tasty? And we saw a guy sitting out in front of the Baskin Robbins with his pets--a poodle and an African Grey parrot! The parrot looked lively and very well-cared for, and made neat whistling noises. The man told us the parrot's name was Omar, and so we naturally had to tell him we had a Quaker parrot ourselves and swap a few parrot stories. That was fun.

We have been continuing to watch episodes of the animated Superman series as well as Justice League, and on the way home I remarked to Dara and Paul that we were having the sort of sunshine that really made me sympathize with the whole idea of Superman recharging his powers in sunlight. And I asked them, if Superman is normal under a red sun and super-powered under a yellow sun, what happens if he's on a planet with a blue-white star? Does he explode? And that led us into a side tangent on green stars as well, and that I'd read at one point that our own sun was actually close to being a green star but that we visually parse it as yellow. (I am pretty sure I got that data from here; this says that the Sun is yellow-green, not actually green.) I love living with geeks. ^_^

Most of the rest of Sunday went to the Justice League marathon that Boomerang was running, and to my finishing off my sweep of lyonesse's novel as well. And overall not as much writing as I would have liked on my own novel, but then, that was to be expected what with working overtime. We'll see how it goes this week!

I am very close to Lothlórien now, and should in fact get there by the end of the week. I wonder if Galadriel knows how to play Mah Jongg.

Saturday evening miles: 2.4
Sunday miles: 3.2
Monday morning miles: 1.6
Miles out of Hobbiton: 908.8
Miles out of Rivendell: 450.8
Miles to Lothlórien: 13.2