Various stuff
Mar. 8th, 2007 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
norsegirlWatched a HORRIBLE movie last night. Alexander was showing on TV. I have never watched a bigger budget movie that was so boring, with acting so bad, and which looked like it had the budget of a particularly well funded high school production.
We've all watched those history shows where they throw in some live action recreations to make it more exciting and less like you're just looking at dusty artifacts and dig sites for the whole show. That's what this movie felt like. Only without any of the historical accuracy in costume, sounds or speech. For some reason (mainly the main actor's native accent I'm sure) they decided that all Greeks should speak with an Irish accent and all Persians or slightly exotic Greeks (Angelina Jolie) should speak with a bad Russian-ish accent?!?!?!? There was this one fight scene towards the end (I was sooooo hoping it actually was the end), where they changed all the colours to negative (red trees, green lips) to show the severity of Alexander's wounds. His horse was dying, his lover was dying, he was badly wounded, I figured it was over. But no, everyone but the horse has to recover. And then we get healthy, live a few more months, and go to a very anti-climactic poisoning/fever death and the narrator kicks in to give us a winded "what happened to the empire after his death" bit that goes on for another 20 min. Anyway, during that fight scene, they were in battle against elephants. The sound effect they chose to use the "roar" that godzilla/dragons/monsters in bad 80s Saturday morning cartoons make. ???!!!???? And the worst part of the whole thing... it started at 8 and ended at 11:30, and the only reason I watched was to see the much-hyped gay bath scene. And wouldn't you know, with a 3.5 hour TV marathon event, that's probably the only scene they cut from the entire thing!!!!
In summary: even if it's on TV, avoid Alexander. It's not even terribly good as a movie to watch and loudly mock. Though with a large enough creative group I may be proven wrong.
In other news, my parents' visit was pleasant and went by way too quickly.
Their plane was late on Saturday so they missed their connection in Calgary. Rather than making them wait until the next morning to continue to Edmonton, West Jet put them in a cab with a bunch of large strangers for 3 hours. My mother was not impressed. I hear the flight home was much better. While the visit started off on a bad foot, it went fairly well from there. The delay afforded me the time to get the house mostly cleaned, and it has stayed pretty much as clean as when they arrived (which is a nice change). The first day we just went to Dinner and hung around the house. The second day was the one day of the week Jason has off work, so we did the Royal Alberta Art Gallery and the Muttart Conservatory.
The art gallery had a really interesting show. Apparently they are tearing down the building and putting up a new one, so for their last show on that location, they decided to do an open exhibit. Free admission and anyone who applied was able to get their art on the walls. There was everything from 5-year-old crayon drawings and anime sketches high school students do on their binders to really talented local artists doing portraits and landscapes and even a bit of the kinda weird, off-the-wall alternative modern art. One of my favourite pieces was an egg sculpted out of pipette tips. Everyone else thought they were straws of course. One of the most annoying things were the number of ignorant people who thought nothing of groping the art to feel what it was made from - aaaaargh! And none of them were children I could figure didn't know any better and gently correct. Most were my age or a bit older, one (the worst of the bunch) was a senior citizen. Do people really not know that you are not supposed to touch things in galleries?
The next day was a day off work for me but back to work for Jason. We had a jaunt to the West Edmonton Mall until I had my mid-afternoon interview at Bioware for a contract job testing games.
The interview went okay. I talked too much as always. But I also got an estimate of what the pay rate would be (the guys didn't know for sure, that's an HR thing) and it would actually be a pay CUT from the crappy call centre job I'm doing now. I expect to hear from them by Tuesday or so, but I'm not sure even if I'm offered the job, what the best choice would be. There's no question that I HATE coming to work at Dell. I'm bored, stifled and don't feel like it's going anywhere. But it's also permanent, looks like the pay is better, and allows me the opportunity to work overtime. And while I had no opportunities at all under my previous manager, the new one seems to be saying positive things. Then again, she always seemed to be supportive when she spoke too, it's just that nothing ever materialized. Do I stay here, while looking elsewhere of course, on the off-chance that some internal opportunity will present itself? Or do I keep looking elsewhere and take the contract work at Bioware for less money, but which may not be as boring and miserable? The other thing is that I was originally considering the contract to be a good thing, as I was originally told it would be March-May, which would make me available just as Jason's game released and I could take the summer off to travel and enjoy his vacation time. But when I went to the interview, the time-line changed to April-August, which is somewhat less convenient. That makes me busy just as he becomes available, and might wreck any plans we could come up with for a summer vacation, including Pennsic. Decisions, decisions. If I get an offer I'll post more details and have a better basis upon which to make a decision.
We've all watched those history shows where they throw in some live action recreations to make it more exciting and less like you're just looking at dusty artifacts and dig sites for the whole show. That's what this movie felt like. Only without any of the historical accuracy in costume, sounds or speech. For some reason (mainly the main actor's native accent I'm sure) they decided that all Greeks should speak with an Irish accent and all Persians or slightly exotic Greeks (Angelina Jolie) should speak with a bad Russian-ish accent?!?!?!? There was this one fight scene towards the end (I was sooooo hoping it actually was the end), where they changed all the colours to negative (red trees, green lips) to show the severity of Alexander's wounds. His horse was dying, his lover was dying, he was badly wounded, I figured it was over. But no, everyone but the horse has to recover. And then we get healthy, live a few more months, and go to a very anti-climactic poisoning/fever death and the narrator kicks in to give us a winded "what happened to the empire after his death" bit that goes on for another 20 min. Anyway, during that fight scene, they were in battle against elephants. The sound effect they chose to use the "roar" that godzilla/dragons/monsters in bad 80s Saturday morning cartoons make. ???!!!???? And the worst part of the whole thing... it started at 8 and ended at 11:30, and the only reason I watched was to see the much-hyped gay bath scene. And wouldn't you know, with a 3.5 hour TV marathon event, that's probably the only scene they cut from the entire thing!!!!
In summary: even if it's on TV, avoid Alexander. It's not even terribly good as a movie to watch and loudly mock. Though with a large enough creative group I may be proven wrong.
In other news, my parents' visit was pleasant and went by way too quickly.
Their plane was late on Saturday so they missed their connection in Calgary. Rather than making them wait until the next morning to continue to Edmonton, West Jet put them in a cab with a bunch of large strangers for 3 hours. My mother was not impressed. I hear the flight home was much better. While the visit started off on a bad foot, it went fairly well from there. The delay afforded me the time to get the house mostly cleaned, and it has stayed pretty much as clean as when they arrived (which is a nice change). The first day we just went to Dinner and hung around the house. The second day was the one day of the week Jason has off work, so we did the Royal Alberta Art Gallery and the Muttart Conservatory.
The art gallery had a really interesting show. Apparently they are tearing down the building and putting up a new one, so for their last show on that location, they decided to do an open exhibit. Free admission and anyone who applied was able to get their art on the walls. There was everything from 5-year-old crayon drawings and anime sketches high school students do on their binders to really talented local artists doing portraits and landscapes and even a bit of the kinda weird, off-the-wall alternative modern art. One of my favourite pieces was an egg sculpted out of pipette tips. Everyone else thought they were straws of course. One of the most annoying things were the number of ignorant people who thought nothing of groping the art to feel what it was made from - aaaaargh! And none of them were children I could figure didn't know any better and gently correct. Most were my age or a bit older, one (the worst of the bunch) was a senior citizen. Do people really not know that you are not supposed to touch things in galleries?
The next day was a day off work for me but back to work for Jason. We had a jaunt to the West Edmonton Mall until I had my mid-afternoon interview at Bioware for a contract job testing games.
The interview went okay. I talked too much as always. But I also got an estimate of what the pay rate would be (the guys didn't know for sure, that's an HR thing) and it would actually be a pay CUT from the crappy call centre job I'm doing now. I expect to hear from them by Tuesday or so, but I'm not sure even if I'm offered the job, what the best choice would be. There's no question that I HATE coming to work at Dell. I'm bored, stifled and don't feel like it's going anywhere. But it's also permanent, looks like the pay is better, and allows me the opportunity to work overtime. And while I had no opportunities at all under my previous manager, the new one seems to be saying positive things. Then again, she always seemed to be supportive when she spoke too, it's just that nothing ever materialized. Do I stay here, while looking elsewhere of course, on the off-chance that some internal opportunity will present itself? Or do I keep looking elsewhere and take the contract work at Bioware for less money, but which may not be as boring and miserable? The other thing is that I was originally considering the contract to be a good thing, as I was originally told it would be March-May, which would make me available just as Jason's game released and I could take the summer off to travel and enjoy his vacation time. But when I went to the interview, the time-line changed to April-August, which is somewhat less convenient. That makes me busy just as he becomes available, and might wreck any plans we could come up with for a summer vacation, including Pennsic. Decisions, decisions. If I get an offer I'll post more details and have a better basis upon which to make a decision.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-08 06:59 pm (UTC)Ugh.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-08 07:36 pm (UTC)I really need the domesday stuff Today.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-08 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-09 12:46 am (UTC)