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It’s that time of year again… “The Bloggies” shadow looms large over the weblog community, not unlike the all seeing eye of Sauron, constantly watching, judging.
– Me, January 12th 2004

And now they’re back for 2005, so it’s time to start begging like a homeless man at christmas time…

I’m not expecting anything, but a nomination or two (Best British or Irish Weblog, Best American Weblog (I can go for both right??) and Best-Kept-Secret Weblog) would be nice.

Well, a guy can dream…

Happy New Year everyone, the peach has finally dropped…

Hope you’re having a good one and looking forward to a prosperous 2005 (weird writing that, must get used to it).

It’s been such a lazy week, a great lazy week… Not often I get a week off to be lazy without packing up house or going camping, but this week has just been fabulously lazy…

All we’ve done is watch movies, play Halo 2, eat and sleep. Does life get much better than that? I mean really…

I’ve also been playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas religeously as well as new additions of ESPN NBA 2K5, ESPN College Hoops 2K5 and WWE Smackdown vs. Raw. So all of these new found addictions are time consuming as you could imagine.

Anyways, I’ve decided to do mini reviews of the films we have watched recently.

The Incredibles

First of all we have The Incredibles, which Phil and I saw at the cinema while everyone finished up Christmas shopping at the Mall of Georgia, and it’s a pretty funny, if a slight bit overly long, movie. It’s a Pixar movie, and the novelty of computer animated films is starting to wear a bit thin, in my opinion, we also watched “Aladdin” on DVD prior to Christmas and sometimes you can’t beat a “traditional” hand-drawn animated film (even if most of the modern hand-drawn films were done by computer anyways).

Anyways, it’s the story of a family of superhero’s who are forced to live a normal life until a new supervillan tries to take over. Highly enjoyable, very funny and full of enough silly references to keep everyone happy…

Collateral

Next up we have Tom Cruise’s latest effort, Collateral. It’s funny to see Tom (aka The Tom) as a bad guy (no, I refuse to acknowledge “Interview with the Vampire”) but he does it so well, and Jamie Foxx is a great foil for him as the cab driver taken on a ride and a half.

It’s surprisingly good, but the only minor complaint I’d have is it’s a Michael Mann film, therefore it’s full of swirling hand held camera scenes that left me feeling dizzy, plus there is a scene in a nightclub that made no sense whatsoever. That aside, it’s a good rental movie, and not as predictable as you think it might be.

And onto todays batch, which was a definate mixed bag as Erika had control for most of it, and her choices have a tendancy to be hit or miss.

The Way We Were

It opened with the classic Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford movie, The Way We Were. This was the first time I’d seen this as it’s not really my kind of movie, but I gave it a chance after Erika’s last choice of Streisand film, “Funny Girl,” was surprisingly enjoyable, unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this at all, it just jumped about too much with a flashback at the start, then they are together, then not, then they get back together and are married then split up and then they meet up at the end, both in different releationships. It was hard to keep up really.

Plus I’m also not really one for mushy romantic films in the first place, don’t get me wrong, it was good in points, just too much throughout. But if you like that kind of thing then you’ll most likely enjoy it.

I’ll Be There

Another Erika choice was british comedy I’ll Be There, starring Craig Ferguson as a washed up 80’s rock star and Charlotte Church as the daughter he never knew he had. Yes, it’s one of those movies which is highly predictable but kind of entertaining regardless, but if it wasn’t for the performance of Ferguson this would probably be a really boring film. Charlotte Church doesn’t really bring much to the screen apart from her singing voice, which isn’t suited for some of the pop/motown songs she sings in this.

But I can say I’ve seen it, therefore I don’t need to see it ever again, take from that what you will…

I, Robot

Speaking of will, it’s Big Will time as we rounded off today with the recently released I, Robot, set in the not-too distant future where humans have become lazy and rely on robots for just about everything, enter Will Smith as a detective investigating a suicide/murder that has a robot as the main suspect. Although the name suggests a close tie with Isaac Asimov’s books and when I first saw the trailer I was slightly saddened by what I saw but it’s actually really enjoyable, if slightly contrived, basically it’s your typical summer blockbuster.

The special effects are really well done, with the robots moving with great fluidity and there are two scenes in particular that really lift this up, those being the car chase in the tunnel and the fight at the end. Again this is a good rental movie (though I’m sure it would have kicked ass on the big screen) and if you want a mindless couple of hours, you could do a lot worse than this…

And coming soon, the day we watch all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings films… And the Star Wars trilogy… Looking forward to those.

Nothing quite says “Merry Christmas” like a Halo 2 marathon and chinese buffet for “christmas dinner” does it?

I got all my presents early… An Xbox live subscription, a pool cue, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the PlayStation 2 and an iTrip for my iPod.

Overall I can’t complain… Back to Halo 2, another 7 hours of play still to go…

You know… After a week you’d think I’d have something interesting and possibly remotely Christmasy to talk about but alas, dear readers, I’m just not that interesting…

We’ve had guests over (Adam’s parents) as it was his 21st birthday last Thursday, so we did what any good friends would do, we took him out and got him wasted, and by wasted I really mean a handful of drinks and he threw up in the car on the way home from the local watering hole… And by local watering hole I really mean the most redneck bar I’ve ever had the “privilege” to walk into… And by redneck I really mean a complete lack of sophistocation (to kinda quote Jeff Foxworthy).

Other than that it’s been a staple diet of TV, DVD’s, Xbox Live, playing pool, shopping at the mall and a singular visit to Lake Lanier’s “magical” Magical Night of Lights… If you’re ever invited to go see the “magical” Magical Night of Lights, just avoid it. That’s all I’ll say on that.

So yeah, tomorrow is Christmas, and I don’t know what the three of us will be doing (Adam left a couple of days ago), but I imagine drinking, pool, Xbox Live and Halo 2 will be involved, and possibly a Christmas dinner of some description, then it will be New Years, then my one year anniversary of being here and then there will be nothing left to celebrate until my birthday, at which point I’ll no doubt be miserable having “wasted” another trip around the sun.

But that’s far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far away…

In the meantime, I’ll just wish anyone who stumbles upon this a Merry Christmas, or even the politically correct Happy Holidays, I’ve already got my gifts, I need to wrap presents for Phil and Erika today, once the decorations are down life can return to normal.

Speaking of decorations, I should take a picture of our front garden, it’s truely a sight to see, it’s so bright that air traffic is being diverted from Hartsfield-Jackson to our street… The Bar/Pool room is the only room we’ve decorated, and it’s quite funky, if I do say so myself.

Merry Christmas, until next time…