Pellet Review: Bewitched

I know this has been out for a while, but from all the other reviews it got, we deemed this to be cable-on-demand quality. And you know what? From that perspective, it was okay. The movie is what it looks like when 3 Academy Award winners (Nicole Kidman, Michael Caine, and Shirley Maclaine) decide to take it easy for a while. Seriously - no acting chops here, which was okay. The movie didn't need it, it was meant to be fun, and it was. We had turned it on with the understanding that if it sucked, we can always pause it and continue the next day. But it was entertaining enough that we stuck with it until a little past midnight.

Recommended if you just want something to chill out by.

Our new garden!!

Yes, I know, it's a little patch of land. But it's the fruit of a weekend's worth of labour. And besides...it's our first attempt at landscaping!!! I'd say it's not too shabby :D

But of course, let's check back in a couple of months to see how it goes.

What's in there, you ask? In clockwise order, starting from the inner left...an emerald cedar, a *new* garden wall with impatiens, 3 boxwoods, a japanese maple, a purpleleaf sandcherry surrounded by dusty millers and those little white flower thingies. In the center we have 2 spiraeas. Some rocks and garden lights are also in there. One of these days I'll probably take a nighttime shot. Now, if only we can get rid of those bags......

Random Thoughts 2

Can I be any closer to being Superman?

In your arms, I am invulnerable.
In your kiss, I take flight.
In your honesty, I can see through your very soul.
In your smile, am I not a step away from the sun?

I breathe in your joy, and in it I feel strong.
You electrify me with your touch, and yet I still stand.
I hear music when there is none to be heard.
When I close my eyes, am I not wherever you are?

Lying down with you, each moment seems to crawl.
Are we moving too fast as the world comes to a stop?
Every second with you seems like eternity.
In those seconds, I feel immortal.

I need not come from another world.
Nor do I need to wear a cape, or reds, or blues.
All I need to be is here.
All I need to have is you.

Pellet Review: The Da Vinci Code

Hm.

While I was watching the movie, I tried my best to forget that I have read the book so that I can experience it as if I was one of many moviegoers who might see what the fuss is all about for the first time. An hour-and-a-half into it, I still found myself intrigued and transfixed, wondering what the next revelation will be. By two hours, I was starting to look at my watch. After two hours-and-a-half, I came to the conclusion that I really would not have appreciated this movie without having read the book to begin with.

The book itself was fast-paced - each revelation and cliff-hanger came in very fast (and short) bursts and really propelled the book along. Of course, the book had the luxury of not having a two-hour-and-a-half constraint. The movie, on the other hand, had to cut out a whole whack of the puzzle-solving - which was the fun thing about the book. What made it on screen, therefore, was a watered-down version of the mystery, preserving only the key plot points.

My hubby and I agreed that everyone else was cast perfectly. Tom Hanks, on the other hand....whatever we each visualized as Robert Langdon in our minds, Tom Hanks wasn't it. Marc suggested Pierce Brosnan. I thought Ralph Fiennes (or his younger brother Joseph) would have done it. Of course, barring their accents - but I think both of them managed to pull off an American role in the past. If you ask me, Tom Hanks seemed to be sleepwalking through the movie.

At any rate, if you want to see what the controversy and the fuss is all about, by all means, go! Knowing myself, I'd probably buy the DVD anyway just because. But just bring your expectations down - despite what the trailer shows, this is not a chase movie. This one has a lot of talking heads.

Save me, Britney!

Sometimes the music you listen to on your way to work sets the mood for the rest of the day. I've had a few times where there was absolutely nothing on the radio and I spend my 45-minute drive to Mississauga listening to chatter or music that just does nothing for me (or actually depress me). When the music is right, though, I am so glad to be driving my own private karaoke booth.

Guilty pleasure: when nothing on the radio is on, my Britney CD becomes a last resort. There's a few songs in there that are fast n' funky and really such a joy to lip-sync. But it certainly helps salvage an otherwise-depressing drive into work.

On my personal top 10 this month: "Afterglow" by INXS. Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" is still up there.

Connected

"We are connected....in time, in space and by feeling...."

The above was from a song we recently sang in our concert, and this is what's in my head as I write this.

Consider - everything that happens in our lives could have had so many different outcomes. One path we may have taken branches out into a different reality that is created based on that path. And that path branches out into other realities. So in theory, there are an infinite number of realities that co-exist with ours at this very moment.

Well - what if all the people around us are manifestations of these realities? Ever looked at someone and told yourself "That could've been me"? Thing is, you may be right. Just think, maybe all it might take is one bad day - one bad hour or moment - and your life may be exactly like this other person's.

If you look at the people around you, you could even say "that could've been me if I had been....." Been born a month earlier? Been born a woman (or man)? Been born into money? So many possibilities here.

Maybe we are all one person, but just manifested as different outcomes of all the infinite possibilities that could've happened to us. So, when you look at someone and see yourself looking back at you, well.....maybe it is.

I want to be Counselor Troi!

If you don't know who Counselor Troi is....SHAME!!!

Well, maybe not. Ex-Trek people like myself seems to think that everyone should know all of the Star Trek Next Gen characters like Kirk or Spock (I say "Ex-Trek" because my viewing habits have slid partway through DS9 and Voyager....and none at all for Enterprise).

But for the uninitiated, Counselor Troi is a member of the command crew who is an empath (someone who can feel or sense other people's feelings). So natch, she spends a lot of her time saying "I can sense in you". Really, she says that in almost all episodes to the point where one asks what does she really do for a living on the starship. I mean, she sees Captain Picard looking out the window with a frown and she says "I can sense turmoil within you, Captain." So can we.

So why the heck do I want to be like her?

Well, there was this one episode where she had to be tested as part of her promotion to Lieutanant Commander. This test involved passing a simluation where she was in command of a ship that was in big trouble (as in if-we-don't-do-something-about-the-antimatter-imbalance-in-the-engine-we-will-all-die kind of trouble). Suffice it to say she failed again and again as she tried different solutions.

Problem was, her 'solutions' all avoided the one thing she absolutely had to do in order to save the ship - though she didn't know it at the time because it was not in her nature to do. It was out of her sphere of experience. However, the moment she went outside her comfort zone, she passed the test because she did what she had to do.

The solution? She had to order one of the crew - the Chief Engineer - to go and fix the problem down in the engine room even though she knew that it was going to cost him his life. And even though he was her friend, she did what she had to do.

Man, I gotta watch that episode again.

So what does this have to do with me? Well, I had a small heart-to-heart talk with my boss a couple of weeks ago, and - in a nutshell - he told me I'm too nice of a guy. Someone in my position has to be tougher - not rude, mind you (or else HR will get me) - but someone who will need to do what needs to be done. People just seem to get the impression that they can tell me whatever they want and I will bend.

Funny thing is, I've been told the same thing in my personal life. That I never really say what's on my mind, or offer my opinion and stick to it even if it's in conflict with someone else's.

Definitely outside my comfort zone. As a person, I just want to be able to make everyone happy and I am so averse to conflict. And some people will tell me that's unavoidable.

But that's why I want to be like Counselor Troi! I want to be able to have my own epiphany one day and wake up being a stronger person than I am today.

Now, is that the blue pill or the red?