Updates

• The redesign of discostup.com is beginning to take shape from the mists. I did some reading on site design this weekend and I also experimented with the Yahoo site builder quite a bit this evening. It seems to be a good program, and it has proved sufficient for the simple tasks I've used it for thus far (basic photo pages, WCD). I am now, however, finding that when I make pages that are "busy" (i.e. lots of stuff such as multiple pics and complicated backgrounds on them), my whole computer slows down substantially, which I don't quite understand. The machine runs Half-Life 2 clean as a whistle but gets bogged down with a "mini-stripe" background. Odd. Regardless, progress is being made. I'm definitely looking at making a more full site (like Baditude, sort of) and making it fully public. This blog will likely morph somewhat as well. Some of the logistics of the whole process are still being worked on (in my head), and I think it will still be a few weeks until any sort of substantial unveiling occurs. Stay tuned.

Weekend

• My weekend was fairly chill with neither overt excitement nor excess alcohol to speak of. There was a fair bit of cinema involved.

• I suppose it started Thursday when George and I went and saw "XXX - State of the Union". The whole idea came together on a whim - both of us were in the mood for a "good-bad" movie and Ice Cube's 'tude is always a plus. (And Cube was in "Anaconda", one of the best good-bad movies of all time). I hadn't seen the first XXX, but I figured I could get the gist of it anyway. I counted approximately 20 seconds from the opening shot until something blew up, which was satisfying. Overall the film was solid in terms of good-badness; there were definitely a few laugh out loud in-your-face-tude scenes. But I've seen better. It's funny how acting, dialogue, and almost everything else take a serious back seat in those kinds of films.

• Friday night Gwen and I walked downtown and took in "The Interpreter". I had heard good things and was certainly entertained. I would rate it about 8 out of 10. The plot was interesting and complex enough without going ridiculously overboard, which was a nice change from the average suspense/thriller these days. Nicole Kidman is an A-list actress, and I enjoyed watching her out-act Sean Penn. Penn, in his defense, did a solid job of at least keeping up with her for the most part, (and he was certainly better in this than the horribly overrated, full of Penn over-acting "Mystic River) though he's still a league below the top tier Kidman.

• Saturday Gwen and I cruised out to the local Best Buy. I'm in the market for a laptop these days and so I started doing some leg work on that front. I've never had to deal with the concept of foreign (i.e German) power and electricity before. All I know is that it's differnt over there and it makes shopping for electronics more of a hassle. No purchase of yet. I did, however, pick up "Eternal Sunshine", "Lost in Translation", the new Beck CD, and the Chemical Brothers CD at the store. So all was not lost. After Best Buy, Gwen and I came home, had a modest dinner and then watched "Days of Heaven", a 1978 film by Terrance Malick ("Badlands", "The Thin Red Line") starring a young Richard Gere. It was a period piece (shudder) about the early 1900's involving a love triangle. Very, very meh. It was recommended to me by Paul Tatara, and was probably the worst of his recs thus far. The movie was disjointed, moved too slowly most of the way and then suddenly too fast when it mattered, and overall left little impression other than the spark you get when you send back a Netflix and know something new is on the way.

• Today was Mother's Day, which I spent with Gwendolyn at my cousin Cynthia's house with that whole portion of the family (including super cousin Heath). A good meal and good fun. Called Mama Stup and everything's all right. Now I'm back at home. And that's all I have to say about that. Time for bed.