Went so far as getting my "substrate" figured in the aquarium. Ended up with Flourite because I've heard nightmares about Eco-Complete's quality control lately and I didn't want to spend a small fortune on ADA AquaSoil. The bag leaked on the way to me, so I was stuck Friday night cleaning it and getting it into other containers.

Still didn't get my stones lined up, but they're on the way. This town sucks for everything. Even the "rock garden" supply place, that advertises themselves as such, didn't have rocks. WTF? You're a rock garden supply store, and you have no rocks? Whatever.

Anyway, I leveled everything up and got the base layer of Flourite put into the tank. Still no pictures. Once I get the initial setup ready, then I'll get pictures.

I'm not gonna say this weekend, 'cause I've got no faith left to waste on it. Soonish. Close enough.

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Movies.

The Jacket - Good movie. Could have done without the sext scene. In fact, would have been a billion times more powerful without the sex scene. It felt so forced and tacked on that it detracted from what was, otherwise, a damn good story. Outside of that, I liked it really well. Strange time-travel questions in the end. How could she have helped him so that he would help her if she didn't recognize him after he helped her? How did the doctor not realize it was him if he had given her the information that it was him in the past? But still, good movie.

Morvern Callar - I'm sure I'll be called names for it. I'm sure I'll be told I'm a narrow minded ninny. But this movie blew goats. I'm all for visual movies. I love visually stimulating movies that are full of imagery and imagination. This movie got the imagery, no imagination. It wasn't a movie about self-discovery as it's advertised. It's a movie where the director spends so much time ramming the message that the main character is naughty down your throat that there's really not much else to discover. To stick with my theme, I'd have left the ethical question a question by having her report the suicide after "editing" the note he'd left for her. That would have at least left a question as to whether or not what she'd done was all that bad. Even so, it mostly would have been strange visual elements interspersed with a lack of story so uncompelling that I can't imagine how it could be called anything but boring. I got it, I just didn't care. And that's not the feeling you want to invoke if you want your audience to give a shit about your movie.

Then we watched a classic romantic tragedy the likes of which Hollywood just can't seem to come up with these days. No sex at all, but more heart-string tugging than most modern written films could ever dare to come up with. Too many people went into this movie thinking it was supposed to be the ultimate action flick. Sure, there's action, but it's really a love story. A sad, sad, SAD love story. She gets to see his world from his perspective. Circumstances force them back to her world. They get a few moments in her world, and then all hell breaks loose. In the end, she can't save him, but his love for her is apparent to the last.

Yeah, we're two of the people who actually LIKED Jackson's King Kong enough to want to watch it again.

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Hung out with AFKS yesterday afternoon for a bit. He says his sister-in-law is on the verge of self-realization about almost everything, and it's tearing her apart.

Too bad it wasn't soon enough to stop their financial melt-down.

He seems to be going through some weird personal change that I'm not fully capable of comprehending at the moment. Some of it's good, some of it not so good. But at the root of it is his entire personality seems to be changing from one of combative stubbornness to one of complacent non-confrontationalism. It's such a sea-change that I'm often left wondering what happened to the guy I knew when chatting with him. It's cool he's finally beginning to see that fighting everything he comes across is a waste of time, but it's tough to watch him folding on even the issues that used to be the most utterly important to him.

Not fully sure how to process it all. Like I said, some of the change is good. Unfortunately, he's starting to sound like he's given up altogether, rather than just giving up on the things that aren't worth fighting.

We need a time to drink heavily and let him rant it out while uninhibited. Probably won't happen soon.

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I have a confession to make. A deeply personal and disturbing confession. One that's sure to shake the very foundations of some people's beliefs.

I've never seen Robotech all the way through. In fact, I've never even seen Macross, original or Robotech version, all the way through.

I never caught them all back in the day on TV. Never saw anything past about episode twenty or so. Tried to collect the VHS collection when they were coming out. They got cancelled while I was in the middle of it. Tried to collect some of the DVDs. Got distracted and the format shifted before I got back to it so I had no idea which ones I needed. I even tried the Laserdiscs when that was coming out. They stopped making Laserdiscs before I got them all.

So, now I see there's a complete set out there, all in one box, one time purchase. But it's "remastered" with "extended scenes and new footage." Thanks Lucas.

But I'm still tempted. I could finally watch the entire thing. I'd also like to get the original anime toons it's based on, but let's not get carried away all at once here.

So, anybody know if the remastered version sucks any of the life out of the story? Or is it worth what's being asked for it? I can get it for somewhere just north of sixty bucks if I play it right. That seems reasonable, but I don't want to pay that for a gutted story.

I haven't had an addition to my anime and translated anime pile since I finished up Full Metal Alchemist last year whenever that movie special eddition disc came out, so it's about time I get back on that particular train.

That's enough for a Monday. Laterz.