Had a very busy day today… Got our lilac and dahlias planted out front, spread some pesticide to get rid of all the ants we’ve got, hung up smoke detectors, put up a faceplate on an electrical outlet, attached an outflow pipe extender to our hot water heater, hung a hose spool on the side of the house, and filled our bird feeder out back…

I’m tired, and feeling vaguely ill. I wonder if I accidentally inhaled any of that pesticide? Hrrmmm…

Slashdot | Wisdom From The Last Ninja

We’ve been hearing good things about the movie Hostel lately… Folks saying how disgusting, twisted, and creepy it is. We were told it was vaguely reminiscent of Saw, which Terri simply loved. So, of course, we wound up renting it.

Honestly, I’ve got to wonder if we saw the same movie that everyone else was raving about, because I simply was not impressed. The first half of the movie is some kind of college romp across Europe, with more exposed breasts than you can shake a stick at. The second half was an uninspired escape sequence.

That’s really all there was to the movie – no suspense, no horror, no intrigue… Just an hour or so of “hey, look, breasts!” and then an hour or so of “OMG, they’re going to kill me, I have to get out!”

The special effects weren’t even that impressive… Yeah, they cut off toes and whatnot – which certainly looks painful – but it wasn’t anything terribly imaginative or original. And the whole idea of hunting/killing humans for fun is so clicheed it isn’t even funny.

I can’t believe we’ve got another tree down on our property…

The first one was dead and mostly rotten, it’s no wonder the thing fell down. It had no branches, little bark, and it was light as cardboard. It was easy just to pick the thing up and shove it off into the woods alongside our property.

This one is large and substantial. Looks like the ground just got too soft…the roots just kind of gave way. There’s the tree across our yard, with plenty of branches still attached, and a big ol’ ball of roots and dirt on the other end.

We went over to Burlington today to see Silent Hill, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The movie itself was very good. Very creepy, atmospheric, great special effects. I couldn’t honestly say how accurate it is in comparison to the game, since I never managed to play very far in the game… But taken on its own, the movie was fantastic. Definitely one we’ll need to buy.

The theatre made it all the better though… We went to the Majestic 10 theatre over in Burlington, and that place is just plain better than our local theatre. To start with, it’s cheaper. For Terri and I to go see a movie here in town it will cost us about $18 depending on when we go see it. At the Majestic 10, it only cost us $12. Concessions are cheaper as well, a bag of popcorn that would cost $5 here is only $2.50 there. In addition to the better prices, the theatre itself is just plain better as well. The screens are larger and slightly curved, to give you a more immersive experience. The seats are more comfortable by far…and they recline quite a bit…and they’re more steeply inclined, so you don’t have a head in front of your face while you’re trying to watch the movie. And the sound system is just plain impressive.

We wandered up and down Church street for a while after the movie, stopped in a few stores to see what they had. Got some chocolate at the Lake Champlain Chocolates store and drooled over some very nice rocks and natural jewelry at Global Pathways. Then we wound up at Tantra for dinner.

Blatantly ripped from Slashdot:

The problem plaguing new energy developments is no longer NIMBYism, the “Not-In-My-Back-Yard” movement. The problem now, as one wind-power executive puts it, is BANANAism: “Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.”

If it wasn’t so true, it would be hilarious. Instead, we’re currently faced with a no-win scenario. Don’t want Power Plant technology X in your back yard? Fine, we’ll move it to the middle of the desert. You don’t like that because there’s a fault there that *might* cause a teeny Earthquake 500 years from now? Fine, we’ll move it to the swamp land. What’s that? We’d be destroying the natural habitat of mosquitoes? Why do you want to keep mosquitoes around? FINE! Then we’ll move it to the ocean where we can… what? You don’t want it there, EITHER? Why the hell not? Because it might damage a coral reef? What if we build an artifical one? That will change the ocean currents?

NNNGNGGNNGGGG!! HUMANS #$!@@!# CHANGE #@$!#!@! THINGS !@#!#!!!! IT’S !@#!@# WHAT @!#@!# WE @#$!@#$ DO!

Last weekend we were supposed to run over to Vermont for the day. It was Easter weekend, Christopher was gone for most of the day with his father, and we were looking for something to do. I’d been seeing Silent Hill advertised on TV a lot recently, and there’s a very nice theatre over in Burlington where we went to go see Land of the Dead. So, that was the plan – go see Silent Hill, see the sights, grab dinner somewhere… Problem is, Silent Hill doesn’t start showing until the 21st!

So, the plan remains essentially the same, but it’s been rescheduled to this weekend. I’m just hoping that Silent Hill is better some of the other movies we’ve seen recently…