For Pi day, right? Massive line with news crew though. If rather be at Complex Analysis.
Apparently this is the place to be on Pi Day–the line is clear down the block!
Stopping by the local mini branch and there’s an exciting storyteller with balloons. A fully grown woman amazed a bunch of 1-8 year olds with the ability to climb into a 6 foot yellow balloon and carefully escape. In a terrifically tiny branch library, how can you not but pay attention to 20 kids chanting, cheering, clapping, and generally recreating the sounds of a hurricane from a storybook? It was better than anything I might have otherwise watched on TV tonight.
Annie Bannanie at story hour
Annie Bannanie and Dr. Electric
Annie Bannanie and the 6 foot balloon and the leaf blower
📖 Read pages 55 – 86 of 776 of Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript with JQUERY, CSS & HTML5 by Robin Nixon
I’ve been promising myself that I would do some brushing up on programming skills this year and this seems like a fairly reasonable text with some simple examples.
Papa Fred re-enacting a photo from more than 40 years ago.
Exterior of Mijares Mexican Restaurant
A great way to make an entrance to a room: with Mariachis!
I caught some audio of the singing of Happy Birthday as well as a serenade by the Mariachis at Mijares. Apologies in advance for the poor audio quality in a relatively loud and busy room, but it’ll give a small flavor and reminder of the party
The son of a German General becomes part of a mysterious conspiracy to gain hidden Nazi funds.
Directed by John Frankenheimer. With Michael Caine, Anthony Andrews, Victoria Tennant, Lilli Palmer.
I expected far better than this from Frankenheimer and Caine. I didn’t realize until after watching it that it was made in the mid 1980’s. It plays far more like a 70’s plot including the music and the cinematography. I’ve not read the Robert Ludlum novel, though I suspect as is the case for others in his canon that the book was far better than the film version, particularly for late 70’s/early 80’s material.
I watched this as a poorly cropped and overly letterboxed version on Amazon Prime, so the quality was certainly lacking from that perspective.
While there was a reasonable amount of suspense throughout, it’s not the directing that creates the ride, but really the liberally applied music which, while not great, was probably the best part of the experience. Those interested in what sound can do for a plot should study this piece.
In all, the plot was a muddy and convoluted and didn’t play itself out well at all. Tom Cruise’s first Mission Impossible was clearer. Frankenheimer had a few nice films, but it’s middling fare like this that squarely peg him as passable journeyman for most of his career.
Caine had one or two nice quips in the picture and was serviceable, but didn’t have quite the personality that shines through in many other pictures. The overall cast was great, they just weren’t given much in terms of plot or dialogue.
Some of the highlight quotes for me:
[Spotting a car tailing them]
Noel Holcroft: Probably just another Sunday driver. But on the other hand, as it is Tuesday, why don’t you put your foot on the gas and see what happens.
Noel Holcroft: May I suggest, that it is extremely difficult for a man, in a gray flannel suit, to behave naturally, while riding on a horse in the middle of the night, waiting for someone to shoot at you!
Leighton: Oh, dear, oh, dear. Assumption, Mr. Holcroft, is, as they say in my profession, the mother of fuck-up.
Leighton: Naughty, naughty, Mr. Holcroft. You mustn’t speak to strangers. Could be harmful to the health.
Leighton: There’s a lot of villainous characters lurking about. I’m glad to say that most of them are mine.
Noel Holcroft: I have a friend who lives in the country, and it’s supposed to be an hour from 42nd Street. A lie! The only thing that’s an hour from 42nd Street is 43rd Street!
The former World Heavyweight Champion Rocky Balboa serves as a trainer and mentor to Adonis Johnson, the son of his late friend and former rival Apollo Creed.
Directed by Ryan Coogler. With Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad.
An interesting picture, but not nearly as good as I was led to believe it would be. There was some reasonably well created drama, but I far preferred the first in the series as having more heart. This was better than some of the cheeseball sequels in the middle of the series however and was well written, directed and acted.
Watched on Amazon Prime streaming over Kindle Fire.
It was great to see Michael Kirk and his friend who joined in the festivities. Though Michael forgot his laptop, we talked about how his site was doing post IndieWebCamp and I demo’d some of the recent reading workflow I’ve worked through in the past several months. Sadly I forgot the official photo of the group.
Chris Aldrich in his natural habitat (with pastries nearby). Hearing Tantek’s voice in my head, I went back after we wrapped up so I didn’t have to illustrate another one.
