This map (created by a generator thing) show all the countries I’ve passed through. Sita’s would probably have a lot more red. I passed up the chance to go with her to Morocco one weekend, Italy another. And I never went to Portugal that time because I had to work… Still it’s quality, not quantity, no?
Today we’re off to Tequila again, their festival finishes tomorrow. I want to be here in Gwod tomorrow because it’s The Virgin of Guadalupe’s saint day and there are various processions and other photo ops going on. Also it’s Sally and Martin’s 35th wedding anniversary- Many congratulations and best wishes. Traditionally coral or jade, apparently.
And here’s the US states I’ve been to: Basically, Massachusetts and California and everywhere in between. Also if the American Sociological Association held an annual conference in a state in the last 5 years, that’ll be there too. Now all that remains is a map of Somerset where you select the postcodes you’ve been to and it tells you what percentage remains to be seen. Minus Bridgwater. And maybe Chard. I’m not sure about North Petherton neither, last time I passed through someone had scrawled Royston Vasey over the name of the place on the ‘welcome and please drive slowly’ sign.
And while I’m here, there’s some new photos from Friday on Flickr that include the world’s biggest coffee, autostitched terracing, dancing (not me, obviously), and what is currently the only picture on Flickr tagged “Otorrinolaringologos”. Echate un vistazo aqui, guey
Seems this bookr thing will slow your computer to a crawl if given half a chance, click the more link if you are rightly proud of your computer´s capabilities… Read More “Testing Bookr”
There was a “here comes the science” explanation of the algorythm used to calculate this, but I just kept clicking around the site trying to find out where I can redeem this voucher.
Went to see The Fountain last night too… Slowly catching up on films. Anyroad, here’s my take on Ghost Rider…
Ghost Rider (2007)
A comic book adaptation whose premise lured me into the cinema on my own on a Monday afternoon…
Nicholas Cage is in his element (fire) playing ‘Johnny Blaze” a motorbike stuntman who gets royally ripped off after selling his soul to the devil. Instead of ending up in hell, or whatever (I never got the hang of the Terms and Conditions chapter of the bible in divinity classes), he ends up turning into the devil’s collector of souls, or the Ghost Rider, a nocturnal fiery skellington on a bike who makes life thoroughly miserable for naughty people.
Eva Mendes is his love interest who is dull throughout despite plunging necklines and necking a bottle of wine in a restaurant. Wes Bently is the devil’s son who, together with some wholly ineffectual and cack-handed fellow demon-goons, is trying to either take over the netherworld or create hell on earth or just gorge on souls. Not wholly clear again which. They’re meant to be evil since they have no problem turning bikers into dust, including, gasp, a lady and some interloper who was ‘just 3 weeks from retirement”. However they have no decent dialogue, don’t kill anywhere near enough people and, most importantly, lack imagination in their modus operandi for dispensing souls. Not worthy adversaries for Johnny B. and I don’t know why the devil couldn’t just get rid of them himself with a plague of boils or whatever…
There’s a strong sense of déja-vu not uncommon with this type of B-movie. The carnie scenes are straight out of DIRE Batman Forever (1995) where Robin gets his pitiful back story. Also, DIRE Little Nicky (2000) has the same Satan’s-offspring-want-to-take-over-the-world nonsense. Any werewolf film you care to mention probably deals better with the subject of nocturnal transmogrification and the consequences on your love life/ work/ friends… Crossroads (1986), about the karate kid duelling with the Devil’s guitarist, Steve Vai covers much of the same ridiculous Catholic ground… So what rescues Ghost Rider from being a directing-by-numbers clichéd bag of arse? Well there’s a few things…
Sam Elliot (the cowboy in The Big Lebowski) seems to take the whole thing in his stride and effortlessly conveys a mythic element to the proceedings. He’s not exactly stretching his acting abilities but gives the film his much-needed seen-it-all, world-weary attitude. The Ghost Rider abides… Nick Cage plays up Johnny’s quirks well and you warm to his special brand of stupid, making you believe that it’s not impossible for your head to periodically turn into a grinning, flaming skull. But it’s the CGI and the sound effects that carry the film. If you go to see this film it’s probably because you want to see an overly anorexic biker dispensing fiery justice and so it’s entirely a good thing that for roughly a third of the film, you’ll be watching just that. The sound effects left me with tinnitus for half an hour after leaving the cinema- it’s like sitting in the central reservation of the M5 motorway for 2 hours with someone lighting a gas boiler next to you- whump!- from time to time. And all in all, it’s a superior summer blockbuster delivered early.
In summary then, though far from intelligent, nowhere near dark enough, and clichéd to the point of plagiaristic it’s a big, brash, loud and eminently watchable piece of theatre.
While I’m typing this I’m processing the photos of the jimadores from Monday into a slide show DVD thing. It’s taking forever and I’m fairly sure it’s crashed, but I think it’s going to be worth it. I edited the sound with audacity and the result is very pleasing. It’s basically me asking the jimadores stupid questions and promising them I’ll deliver copies of the photos to them today. Which is still the plan as long as Farmacias Guadalajara, GDL’s ubercatholic chemists deliver the pix before 3pm. If not it’ll be tomorrow… I’ll shove a low quality version up to YouTube once I get a chance.
I started another photography class yesterday. It was great fun. 2 hours long, with a break in the middle and a bloke with a fantastic sense of humour teaching us the basics of contemporary photography. I’m really looking forward to the next one. I met a nice bunch of people there and we went for a few drinks afterwards as all good students should. Also, Sita’s made another shortlist for a professorship in the States so all in all a very good day all round.
This map (created by a generator thing) show all the countries I’ve passed through. Sita’s would probably have a lot more red. I passed up the chance to go with her to Morocco one weekend, Italy another. And I never went to Portugal that time because I had to work… Still it’s quality, not quantity, no?
