"the very last one in a very long line"
Archive for November, 2007
Should Ratatouille Be Nominated For Best Picture?
Nov 30th
My answer is – YES! I actually take back what I previously said about Beowulf; I had somehow forgotten I had seen this wonderful film over the summer. Ratatouille is by far the best film I had seen all year.
Disney/Pixar are contemplating pushing Ratatouille for the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards, but the Mouse House is worried that such a push, might diminish their chances of winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar.
clinical vs. business
Nov 30th
Work continues to weave its own crazy web. I am one of four clinical analysts in the IT department for a local hospital. We handle most things clinical; everyone has their own departments from within the hospital that they are responsible for. I am responsible for several departments, but my two big ones are lab and radiology. Now, I don’t know the first thing about clinical; I have no medical background, and the terminology rolls off me like water off a duck’s back. When I took this job over a year ago, I was absolutely terrified. But I’ve learned a lot over the last 12 months, and my mentor and fellow analysts have been great in assisting me. In fact, my counterpart (a nurse) and I made a deal – she would help me with all things clinical if I would help her with all things technical. More >
update 112707
Nov 27th
It’s been over a week since my last post. During the work week, I’m pretty exhausted mentally and physically to put in an entry. There’s a lot to talk about, but it gets to the point where I don’t know what to blog about. I know I’m coming off a nice holiday weekend where I had plenty of time to put some thoughts online, but instead I took advantage of it by relaxing and spending time with my wife. Not to mention I spent most of the past week or so rebuilding the laptop. Hopefully things calm down for me with a nice 6-day weekend coming. And maybe it won’t take me 10 days or more to write about something.
Beowulf
Nov 18th
Beowulf – 5 out of 5 – Outstanding retelling of a classic poem that I hated reading back in high school. The film has an all-star cast including Anthony Hopkins, Robin Penn-Wright, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover as the demon Grendel, Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother, and Ray Winstone as the fearless warrior Beowulf. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, it was done in beautiful CGI; we happened to catch it at a theater with a digital projector, and it was shown in 3D. Spectacular!
Viewing films in 3D have certainly improved. I was always impressed with 3D presentations done in theme parks like Disney and Universal. However, I found myself with a headache because of straining my eyes to visualize the 3D effects. Those attractions lasted 5 to 10 minutes; I wasn’t so sure about a film lasting nearly 2 hours. I had nothing to worry with Beowulf. In fact, the 3D presentation was done so well that I had forgotten I was wearing special glasses. Lots of action and great storytelling made this the best film I had seen this year.
UPDATE: 11/30/07 – I forgot about Ratatouille. So I digress and say Beowulf is one of the best films I have seen this year.
wish list update
Nov 18th
With a baby on the way, I’ve decided to take down my wish list page. I don’t need anything for Christmas this year; it’s all about our baby now. If you’re wanting to get something, please save it for the baby!
update 111807
Nov 18th
Sorry for the lack of updates. There seems to be a lot going on, and with the holidays quickly approaching, there’s not a lot of time to do much blogging. My laptop has also been giving me grief for the past week. Windows Media Player has suddenly stopped recognizing the WMV file format, so I’m unable to view videos. There are other media players that I can use offline, but when I want to watch movies on Netflix’s site, it no longer works. I completely uninstalled and reinstalled WMP, but I still get the same result. My friend suggested installing Windows on top of everything, but that didn’t work either. So I’m currently trying to back up all my data so I can do a complete rebuild. This normally wouldn’t be such a task for me, but without an external HD, it’s a challenge (and time-consuming).
Christine and I have started to spread the news of her pregnancy to our friends and co-workers. Those we have told are very excited and happy for us. We had stopped in Babies R Us the other night, and I have to say, it was pretty humbling. I learned …
- about swaddling,
- that Serta makes mattresses for babies,
- and that I can’t hear the baby’s heartbeat unless I have one of these.
I certainly cannot wait for our little peanut to come into our lives!
’tis the season
Nov 12th
To my family – we need wish lists! Thanksgiving is next week, and Christmas is just around the corner. Mine is posted here.
UPDATE – 12/1/07 – I’ve disabled the link to the wish list page. I’m not concerned about receiving gifts this Christmas. If you’d like, save for May/June of 2008 when the baby arrives!
