Twilight

I finally watched the movie this weekend. It was ok, but I didn’t think it was great. Since I read the series, I knew that with any book-turned-movie that you are bound to run into some disappointments. No way can they really capture the essence of all those pages into a 2 hour movie. Still, it wasn’t really the story itself that was the disappointment.

No, my biggest complaint was in the actors for Bella and Edward. They just seemed really flat. Its one thing for Edward to appear a bit repressed especially since there was a lot of himself that he was hiding in this particular piece of the story. I could have bought that I suppose. Bella was the real drag in this movie. Her performance was awful. Honestly, it was like watching a female version of Toby Maguire. Bella is supposed to be a bit of a loner and kind of shy, but I wasn’t getting that from her performance. She seemed so deadpan most of the time I found myself rolling my eyes a lot at the things she would say with no emotion on her face.

I think the best part was when James broke her leg and bit her. At least then she was required to do something other than stare and mumble something. The version of the movie I bought was the 3 disc set with a bunch of interviews and a documentary of the making of it. That part was more interesting. There were a couple of interview segments with the actors for Bella and Edward. It was clear from their commentary that they understood the characters well enough and the mindset they had in their performances. The delivery was just off somehow.

Oh well, maybe the second movie with Jacob and the pack will be better. What I will really be interested in seeing is the scene in the beginning when Edward breaks up with Bella and leaves her in the woods. To read that scene and the following pages had me bawling my eyes out. Hopefully seeing it on the big screen won’t cause me to bawl in disappointment.

Frankly, the Harry Potter movies did a better job with the casting.

Busy Bee

Things have been pretty busy this week. Lots of meetings and questions and all the stuff that happens when a new project really starts to hit its stride. Once again I find myself in charge of a group of developers. It’s funny that it keeps happening, really. I know I am going to end up jumping in and developing something and that’s OK. Everything is short enough that I should be able to juggle that with everything else.

So yesterday I went out to the Keane site and saw that they added a second date for LA in May. I am already going to one show and now they have added one for the next day. So tempting to go….I have until the end of this week to take advantage of the presale offer. I would need to take a day off from work though and I don’t think I want to do that. Bad timing for the project. Plus I will be seeing them the following week in Chicago anyway, so why get greedy? Assuming of course that I finally get around to buying my plane ticket. I need to hurry up and decide which airport I am flying in to.

Hmmm…so what else? This weekend I am going to a birthday party. I don’t really know the birthday girl that well, although she seems nice enough. She is doing a themed birthday too. A black and white party. I still need to check with Heidi to find out more info about it. I hope its fun.

It’s starting to warm up ‘round these parts too. I was out for a walk last night and it was still pretty warm out. The Strip was crazy crowded too. I am guessing that we have a ton of people in town for Spring Break and also for the March Madness tournament. I am thinking it might be a good idea to avoid the Strip this weekend unless I decide to go early in the morning.

New Beginning

Today I felt like I did something useful again at work. Now that my last project is fading into a memory, I am able to get started fresh on something new. Last week I headed out to Montreal for a few days for some client meetings. I was a little concerned about the French speaking part, but luckily it never really became an issue.

The meetings were very productive and it was nice to feel like a consultant again. After spending the last 10 months as a puppet and scapegoat, I was really questioning whether or not I even wanted to stay in this industry at all. How quickly that can change given the right environment. So here I am, doing the job I am supposed to be doing and feeling much better about everything. In fact, I even had a bit of a geek moment today when I was asked to talk about virtual classroom content and best practices. I think I bombarded poor Jim with a lot of information.

Other than work, life is good. Drama continues to ebb and flow around me, but still somehow I manage to avoid getting too caught up in it. I had to take care of a friend yesterday and I was certainly glad to help in whatever way I could.

I am still spending a lot of time on Facebook. I figured it would taper off after the honeymoon period, but it is still pretty addicting. What has suffered these long months is this blog. I suppose I just felt that all I had to say started and ended with a complaint and ranting about it was going to bore me and anyone else reading this, so why bother? I am trying to get back in the swing of regular updates now.

It’s strange to think about being out of practice with just jotting my thoughts down, and yet I sat here for a bit with a white page just wondering where to begin. It just dawned on me that I do that for every entry. Truly, once you start it just gets easier.

I wish I had some new fun event coming up to talk about, but so far nothing on the horizon until May. I think I am getting a visit from my brother-in-law in April, which is always nice. Other than that, looks like things will be fairly quiet. (Did I just jinx myself with that?)