Friday, April 30, 2004

I almost forgot

I went hiking up Enderby Cliffs last sunday. Follow this link for the pics.

-sunburned
Summer working

I started summer work today. It wasn't programming or anything, and I didn't even see my employer. She stayed at home because she was out until 12:30 last night setting up a display. Which leads me to tell you what I did today. The University was having an open house research expo and I was manning the Math/Stat department's display. Hey, I thought it was volunteer work but an email tells me that I'm getting paid for it. Rawxer.

I borrowed a book from the public library the other day. I had to return another, though. I was returning the Annotated Dragon Lance Chronicles, which I read before back in grades 5 to 7. I couldn't renew it any more, I suppose twice is all you can. Funny, though, when they check it back into the computer I can sign it out and start renewing it again for another total of 63 days.

Right, back to the book I borrowed. Dungeons and Dreamers: The rise of computer game culture from Geek to Chic. Great book, I highly recommend it if you're remotely into games and/or game-design. On top of that, while I was at the University library today I borrowed a couple more books. Deitel & Deitel's Java 2 text and Programming Pearls which may give me some nice reading material.

Zombies ate my fingers - I've finally watched my Night of the Living Dead DVD I got for Easter. I have to say, it's as bad as I remember, but good at the same time. The freakiest part of the movie is seeing the corpse of the house's owner upstairs in the house everyone boards themselves up in. The corpse doesn't move and you only see it twice for a second each time but it sets the atmosphere and emotion.

Speaking of zombies, I had the opportunity to watch the remake of Dawn of the Dead. I'll try not to spoil it too much. It was awesome. It holds true to zombie mythology in the way the disease is spread and shines light in new areas. Let me just say one word 'pregnancy'. It's nice to see a world going up in flames (cinemagraphically) the way the world went to hell in this movie. The car crash scene just after the woman escapes her suburban neighborhood rawked. I wish I could rewind it and watch it again (because it just shows how the world is going to hell). I could go on and on.

And have you noticed how fast zombies move these days? I think the only recent zombie movie that holds true to real zombie speed is Resident Evil. The latest movie to introduce speedy-zombies was 28 Days Later which was alright because to me those weren't bread and butter zombies. Those were rage-infused humans. The new Dawn movie had speedy zombies.
Let's look back to the original Dead series. Night was the first, and their zombies were slow-ass. Slow ass. Grandma with her walker running full force was the top speed of even the healthiest zombie in that movie. Dawn's zombies were slow, too. The remake, however, strapped roller-blades on them and let them loose on top of a hill (figuratively). No longer can Grandma with her walker outrun these beasts, until she's been bitten and comes back. The ultimate cure for back-pain, Grandma's ready for a marathon.

-another 2 cents

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