Toadfish Monastery

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit outside and have a beer...

It was the 25th of December, and usually it's too cold to sit outside and have a beer...


But it was 20 degrees C here...... While the weekend before we had minus 15!!!!


Last _{nature's gone nuts} Post

I'd like to wish you all



MERRY CHRISTMAS



as well.

Quote from: Agujjim on December 23, 2009, 12:01:48 AM
Last _{Can't spell "Kiyoodlelology" without "lol"} Post

And now try saying that loud ten times fast...


Last _{you need heavy drinking to be able to do that} Post

Quote from: Agujjim on December 22, 2009, 07:49:25 PM

Quote from: Kiyoodle the Gambrinous on December 22, 2009, 05:57:43 PM

Quote from: Agujjim on December 21, 2009, 04:37:49 PM
And a hot rum might not hurt, but just one.

Crap, I should have read that more carefully. I had more than one. And it wasn't rum, but Slivovitz. And it wasn't hot.....

One beer is good for nasal / sinus congestion too, but nobody ever follows the 'one' part on that, either.

That's because after one beer, you only get thirsty. That is if the beer is good. You need at least three beers to get the job done.

But once you had three, you  can have a fourth and a fifth, that won't hurt.

And one more for the road........ Weeeell, you know the drill...

Quote from: Opsanus tau on December 22, 2009, 06:46:22 PM
<<<Get well vibes to Kiyo and the Kiyo Girl! >>>

Thank youuuuu! 

Kiyoodlelology...


aka

The science of heavy drinking.


Last _{I think there's one "lo" too many...} Post

Quote from: Agujjim on December 21, 2009, 04:37:49 PM
And a hot rum might not hurt, but just one.

Crap, I should have read that more carefully. I had more than one. And it wasn't rum, but Slivovitz. And it wasn't hot.....

Quote from: Opsanus tau on December 21, 2009, 04:40:01 PM
Poor Kiyo! Sounds like your body is taking advantage of this down time to time out. Nuke your illness with a bombardment of vitamins, soup and sleep. I hope you feel better soon so you can go and have fun!

Yup, it's taking advantage... I'm trying my best, I haven't slept that much since  I was a baby, my mother has decided not to wake me up in the morning so I have slept around ten hours each night now, which hasn't happened to me for a very long time.

And there are definitelly plenty of us, whose bodies have decided that the few days off are an opportunity to get ill... My girlfriend is also ill and on antibiotics. Guess she's got it worst than I do. Just crappy that I cannot be with her and take care of her, cause I am around 700 kilometres away. But at least she's got her mother there.

Quote from: Swatopluk on December 21, 2009, 05:25:57 PM
Some nasty critics called in Dances with Smurfs (in space)
They were nonetheless impressed.

I heard it it got the nickname Smurf porn, because the Na'vi are running around half naked (and they are very attractive as well...).

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on December 21, 2009, 05:52:40 PM
Darn! Kiyo beat me to it!

Sorry mate. I guess I just had some time on my hands...


PS: I'm going to see it at least one more time...

So, after very hard three months on my new job, I have finally decided to take a few days off and have a little rest before Christmas. So I took a four-day vacation, from today till Christmas, with Christmas time bringing us some bank holidays I was looking forward to spending a nice ten day rest with my family (I went down to see my parents and spent Christmas with them).

Of course, everything was fine on Friday at work, and on Friday evening, when I packed my bags, had a nice dinner with my girlfriend and was looking forward to these few days.

But, I woke up in the morning, with a sore-throat and feeling like s***. I was ill. So instead of meeting with friends that I haven't seen for a while, I am spending my few days of vacation ill. I hate this.

I just hope it's a normal cold and not the flu.

******Attention: Spoilers ahead******


Avatar

I saw Avatar and I must say one important thing right at the beginning:

WOW!

This was basically my reaction and it sums up how I feel about the movie. It's mind-blowing! James Cameron has once again showed that he is a revolutionary fim-maker and his touch for details is just amazing. I am happy that he waited 10 years for the technology to improve and didn't shoot it right after Titanic, as he originally intended. One this is important though, if you are planning to see the movie - see it in 3D. I think that in order to get the maximum of the movie, you have to see it in 3D.

Anyway, the story of the movie isn't so revolutionary, but all the rest is. The story is a little bit of Pocahontas wrapped into a very interesting form. The most important thing about the story is how carefully all the layers around are created. The nature is just amazingly created, every single detail is elaborated into perfection. The planet Pandora is like out of a dream - beautiful, coulourful, alive, simply perfect. Once you are sucked into this world via the 3D glasses, you can't stop enjoying the environment. James Cameron has managed a world that is so familiar, but so unlike anything else that you have seen before. A world where fantasy goes alive. It is important to note that the charme of Cameron's movie is not in his 3D-ness itself, it is in how the director works with this technology. I dare say that he is the first director who manages to use the 3D technology for the benefit of the movie, not like many other directors so far. We don't have blood spraying at us or bullets shot at us (although he could have done that, because we get plenty of action). Cameron takes the 3D effect like a cookie, a bonus for the viewers, who wants to see a real world in front of them.

The interesting about the 3D in this movie is that it does not go in the direction towards the outside, but works with the depths. The result is thus not a reality that stands out of the screen but a world that that sucks you in. That is actually what allows this movie to be so revolutionary - I don't think there is a movie that has been able to create such an illusion of space.

Now to the story. I have said that it's not revolutionary, but that's talking only about the main storyline - boy comes with bad guys, is infiltrated into the good guys, falls in love with the good girl, becomes a good guy, the bad guys lose, the good guys win and yipee. But Cameron has managed to create a multilayer world that makes the story so amazing. Starting with the three-meter high inhabitants of Pandora, over to elaborated creatures of the planet's flora and fauna, up to the amazing futuristic machines and breath-taking exteriors. Cameron is a great tour guide through the world of fantasy. When taking a walk through the woods of Pandora, you are all the time amazed by the playful details (like little tree seeds floating through the air). And the best thing is, you still have good humour in the movie, which comes with the whole story, it's not a kind of humour that is put into the movie just for laugh-sake.

The humour comes with the ex-marine, who has been put on the wheelchair due to the war and has no problem with standing up to the authority. Once he is put into his Avatar - an experiment that has managed to mix the genes of the inhabitants of Pandora, the Na'vi, with those of humans and the owners of these human genes can operate this Avatars, just like they would be Na'vi's themselves - he goes to places he's not supposed to and has no problem in teasing the "authorities". He is then infiltrated into the Na'vi tribe in order to make them leave their native tree (which is a very high tree in which they live), because it's found on a rich prospect of very high-value mineral that can be sold on earth for "20 million a kilo". He does that and starts becoming fond of the lifestyle the Na'vis have, falls in love, becomes the leader of the "revolution" that goes agains the evil of the "civilization" and save the people that have been devastated by the ruthless military force of the Earthlings.

At this point, one must highlight another aspect of the movie. It's main colour is blue, and it was used for the overall marketing of the movie. But Cameron could freely use the colour green as well. His movie is so emphasizing the green note that for some people it might be a little intrusive. He very much emphasises the fact that the Na'vi are living in total symbioses with the nature and he does that throughout the movie. It tells us that it's bad to use the nature's richess and not give anything back, to destroy the natural inhabitat etc. On the other hand, I liked this. And if it manages to make an impact on people to live a little nature-friendly, it's good. But one must say that next to Avatar, Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" is no match at all.

With all these things done, I conclude the following: The movie is amazing. It's one of the few movies that I have watched with my mouth opend from beginning till the end. And my mouth hurt, as it's almost three hours long. But it was well wort it and I will go see it at least one more time, while it's in the theatres, because it will probably lose a lot of it's magic once on DVD (unless you have a very good TV, bluray, perfect surround system, tolerant neighbours and the possibility to watch in 3D).

I think I can give it 80%, maybe the movie is not Oscar-material as for the acting and the storyline, but it's one of the best movies this year.

beat someone senceless

It must me Swatology, the science of the moose and the donertier.

Last _{some sciences are waiting to be explored} Post

Here are a few reviews of movies I've seen lately and I've decided to share with you. I'll start with the worse and maybe write about the others later:

The Twilight Saga - New Moon

First of all, I want to state that I have never read the books. So I am not a fan and my review is more of the one of a man who went out with his girlfriend to see a movie that she might like.

With that said, I can state that probably the only people who will appreciate this movie will be those, who are fans of Stephenie Meyers books. For all the rest it's a waste of time and money to go see this in the theatres. I have seen the first part, and while I didn't particularly like it, it was at least partially well done, it was a professional piece of movie. "New Moon" lacks this professionality. From the beginning it appears that Chris Weitz shoots this movie like he really doesn't care about shooting a quality piece, one would even say he hates the whole thing. He tortures the viewers with heavy, slow pace, great details of tragic expressions of tragically bad actors in long discussion about the human soul. When there's finally some action, he puts it in slow motion. I guess he doesn't want the people to get a heart attack from the shock that there is something a little faste happening on the screen. The result is laughter from the audience. But I guess that wasn't really the intention of the director that people laugh at the moment where the main character's werewolf friend takes of his shirt to brush the blood from her forehead.

Anyway, I'm going too fast here. I should probably offer the people a little of the story:
Bella is a teenage girl, who is in love with a vampire. This guy leaves her, for unexplicable reasons (for her unexplicabe, anyone else with an IQ over 30 understands that he wants to protect her from himself, doooooh). The heart-broken girl then starts doing stupid things like jumping from the cliff into frozen water, because when she does something risky, she sees the image of her one and only love. She also starts being very close to a friend of hers, who happens to be a vampire. So she basically is the type of the woman who always choses the wrong man. Now she is torn between the love of both of them, as they logically hate each other, vampires and werewolves are enemies, but they both love the same girl.

Anyway, that is basically it, what the story goes. But even with a story like that one could have created an at least average movie, if good was out of the question.

Robert Pattison is rather a good actor, but he is not given the space to show that. He basically plays a good-looking pale coat-rack for good clothes. The werewolves run around half-naked all the time wrestling and doing "man" stuff all the time. But once they turn into wolves they look like the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood hit by a truck. And the main actress is just an example of bad acting.

I would give it 20%. 10% for the fact that I could see the surprise on my girlfriend's face, when the movie started. I actually told her we were going to see Law Abiding Citizen, but bought tickets for this crap instead and she didn't know it till then. And another 10% for the fact that people in the movie are reading Romeo and Juliette and that might be a good thing, right?

Chip & Dale..

Last _{invasion of the chipmunks could beat the doenertier} Post

Wulfenbach

I tried to think of something I could guess and not appear really clueless, but I didn't think of anything.

So I just wanted to inform everyone that I'm going to see Avatar today and reaaaaally can't wait.


Last blue Post

Quote from: Sibling Zono (anon1mat0) on December 16, 2009, 01:23:40 PM
You'll never get it that way.

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