Monday, November 28, 2005

weekend log

I spent much of the holiday either relaxing at our house with my wife and kids, or doing homework. My grandfather turned 80 on Saturday, so we drove out to the sprawling metropolis of Grelton for that party.

One of the days, Friday I think, I noticed a bunch of birds hanging around. Here's a shot I snapped from our dining room...three blue jays and a mourning dove. Later I saw a woodpecker, numerous cardinals, and the typical sparrows/finches. This feeder has lasted longer than any other we've had.



Megan purchased it for me from Wild Birds Unlimited. It is truly squirrel proof too, the best they can do is scavenge around the ground. I've seen them hanging off it upside down, but the spring loaded base shuts when anyone too heavy attempts getting food from the holes.

Today I finally watched Master & Commander...it was good but I was a little let down. I'll give it 3.5 stars. The prior movie I saw, about a month ago, was Raising Victor Vargas. I'll give that one 2 stars. It was moderately interesting and subtly smart and funny, but nothing I'd watch again.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Have you seen of Gods and Generals yet?

I really enjoyed that one.

:-)

Aaron said...

No, but I see Sanger has it. I'll add it to my hopelessly long list, thanks for the recomendation!

Unknown said...

I was I think one of the better movies done on the civil war. Let me know when you get a chance to watch it. I'd love to hear what you think of it.

I was slightly disappointed with Master & Commander too. I expected better considering the reviews I had read about it.

Aaron said...

I watched God's and Generals last night. The first thing I noticed was Mary Fahl's lovely voice in the opening song. She used to sing with October Project.

The movie was very long, but only lost my attention once. I was pretty close to crying when Jackson befriended the little girl at the holiday party...one of the saddest parts of war is what it does to families. I think it did a good job of merging culture (e.g. Irish brigades) and personality along with many facts and the strategy of the leaders. I think the time line was very hard to keep track of ... oh, a year just went bye?

I'm no civil war buff, but my step-father is, so I'll have to ask him his thoughts on the accuracy of the movie. After seeing the cover I remember we bought this as a gift a while back.

Overall I'm going to give it a 4.

Unknown said...

Thanks Aaron, I gave this movie a four too, I can't claim to be a civil war expert, but I did feel this was from my historical perspective pretty accurate.

I did cry at that point and several others during the movie. I think not only just the history but this movie does hit home the impact the Civil War had on our country.

I've done some local research as to the impact of the Civil War on even such a small township as Springfield township, as well as on Johnson's Island where there was a Prison for Confederate Soldiers.

It sounds like we had the same overall impression, I was the only one who watched it in full here, the others don't have my love of history so to them it was way to long. So thanks for letting me know what you thought of it. It's nice to have someone to trade film recommendations with.

:-)