Snow, Prog, and the Mysterious Multiplying Knives

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SNOW...

Yesterday was two hours of intense snowfall (about 4" where I live), followed by an abrupt shift in temperature that resulted in four additional hours of pouring rain.  By the time I went outside to shovel it looked like a flood; I was basically guiding water down my sidewalk to the only available exit point, which was the end of my driveway.

This morning, of course, everything froze solid and now I have an ice rink for mice in front of my car.  I left a few tiny cups of hot cocoa before leaving for work.

PROG...

When I updated my Head Music section on the site, I had just finished watching Centuries of Torment, the incredible 3+ hour documentary on Cannibal Corpse, arguably the granddaddy of American Death Metal.  You would think that 3+ hours would be a bit of overkill, but you'd be wrong.  Especially since Overkill is more speed metal than death metal.

Ha!  I kill me!

Anyway, the documentary put me in a "metal mood" so the Head Music section was filled with nothing but brutal, chugging death metal.  And the next day I began listening to nothing but prog music.  There's a whole slew of bands out there that are working incredibly hard at emulating and embracing the leanings of 60s and 70s music (think King Crimson, Sabbath) instead of the intricate and tired metal iteration heralded by bands like Dream Theater and the like.  So a quick shout-out to two bands I'm 100% grooving on at the moment:  Diagonal's self-titled debut and Earthless' Rhythms From a Cosmic Sky.

THE MYSTERIOUS MULTIPLYING KNIVES...

Wednesdays my wife works late, so my schedule is usually play and take care of the boy until he goes to bed around 8 PM, relax for about an hour and then set about cleaning the house, usually tackling the dishes first.  It's just the two of us and the boy, so I was befuddled last night when, upon washing the dishes I noticed that our dirty flatware roughly came out to three forks, maybe 5 spoons, but 8 knives.

Not me, not my sink, not my knifeWhy are we using so many knives?  I was home yesterday, which could account for possibly one additional knife (I distinctly recall using one to cut the crusts off of Jack's Raisin Bread & Cheese sandwich), but that's the only time I used a knife yesterday.  As I thought back on it, this isn't the first time I've noticed an overabundance of knives in the sink, their abundance and use eluding me.

I'd ask my wife about it, but the night before we had an argument over, of all thing, the movie MAMMA MIA, so I'm keeping cautious around her.  Don't need to see another soiled knife in the sink...

Book #1: A Clash of Kings

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After a lengthy review hiatus, Geek Monkey now returns you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Although, I can be forgiven (I hope!) somewhat - we're talking about finishing a 960-page sequel to a 800-page book over the holidays when your son is running around jumping off every available surface and your wife is glaring at you because it's your 15th consecutive day sitting like a lump on the couch playing video games instead of things like, say, laundry or cooking or cleaning or changing diapers or...

Sorry, you get the idea. Let's talk about A Clash of Kings!

This is a prime example of getting it right in the sequel department. I noted in my review of the first book A Game of Thrones that things were a little convoluted and didn't "gel" until close to the end. A lot of ideas were presented, and at the novel's closed we had no idea where and how they fit into the bigger picture. What George R.R. Martin does in Kings is clearly put the focus on the many hands vying for control of the Seven Kingdoms, and letting each party's decisions and motivations play one against for the reader to delight in. At this point we still don't know who really should be on the throne - everyone's claim is based on past wrongs and half truths. Martin also begins to ratchet up the fantastical elements - where in the previous book we got a handful of ambiguous zombies and the insane, 70's exploitation/60's Hammer films birth of two dragons (hysterical and great at the same time - I still laugh when I think of it) in Kings things becomes more graphic, more horrible, and more threatening as it appears that everything remotely magical seems to be in service of something far more sinister than the simple machinations of scheming Lords. Shadowy assassins are literally birthed out of priestesses, unseen force in the North are slowly gaining strength, beings can seemingly change their appearance at will and the prophecies of a young boy are frighteningly coming true.

But the real joy of A Clash of Kings comes from the characterizations of the major players. Especially the women. Martin gives all the strength he couldn't embellish for Lord Eddard Stark for reasons I won't spoil here to his wife Catelyn Tully, who provides a backbone to her sons and daughters fighting in very different ways for survival. Likewise for my favorite new character in the book Brienne, whose awkward sense of femininity is only out-paced by her skills with a sword.

The men fare just as well. Tyrion Lannister, the "Imp" who is now Hand to the King is a great fantasy invention, and his race to cover every single angle, even as more pop up every minute is simultaneously exciting, hilarious, and cut-throat. This is his book as much as it is anyone's, and it's a credit to Martin that he treats his "villains" (I'm using a lot of quotes today, sorry) with as much depth and thought as he does his heroes.

If anyone in my opinion gets the high hat in Book 2 it's Jon Snow, the bastard son of Eddard Stark that by all conventional fantasy wisdom should prove by the series' end to be the hero of the piece. But his fleeting appearances in the book are a small price to pay for something so substantial and fun.

Looks like Book 3 is coming much faster than I earlier anticipated!

Celluloid Moon

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Catchy title, yes?  I guess I ought to explain what it means...

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I wanted to create something that specifically focused on film.  It would be a running commentary of all the movies I'd watch in 2009, as well as provide a forum to talk about film-related things that interested me.  I'd use it as a base of operations to refer back to when I commented of wrote something on someone else's site, and generally watch it over the course of a year to see if and how it grows.

That's Celluloid Moon.

There's still a movie section here at Geek Monkey where, if you like, you can click and see a lot of my earlier movie reviews and articles.  And there's a chance that some of what I print over at Celluloid Moon will find its way over here.  But for the most part I wanted to keep the two entities separate, and just see where it takes me.  Which is kind of the exact opposite of what I originally wanted to accomplish with Geek Monkey, which was take all of my different sites and centralize them in one easy to navigate area.

Wait.  It gets even more complicated, because there are TWO Celluloid Moon sites.  I wasn't sure that I wanted to go back and use Blogger again (even though I have absolutely zero complaints - they're a great host), so decided to run the same site on two different hosts to see which one gets more traffic.  So you can opt to view/add/comment on either the Blogger Version or the slightly cleaner Wordpress Version - either way, it's the same information, the same reviews, the same guy runnin' it.

Right now there's a rambling essay about my ambivelent feelings toward the recent Academy Award Nominations, as well as four moderate-length reviews ranging from Jean Luc Godard's BREATHLESS to the more recent SEMI-PRO, starring Will Ferrell.  And later today I'll be posting much shorter recaps about the slew of films I saw this weekend to gear myself up for the Awards ceremony, including THE READER, DOUBT, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

So stop by and visit, comment, agree or disagree.  It's an open area to talk about movies of all sorts.

See you there.

Another Video Game Junkie

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My wife sent this blurry pic to my mother via her cell phone this morning, who then forwarded it to me:

Now, while I willingly admit to being a video game junkie myself, I don't play any video games in front of the boy (the violence and all that).  And yet somehow he has managed, at 18 months old, to grasp the intricacies of the Nintendo DS. 

Upon closer examination it looks the little bastard even beat my score!