Super Bad Moon Rising

While the title sounds like the name of a pretentious rock band, the lunar eclipse that happened last night was truly a “super moon” as well as a “blood moon.” Heralded by some nitwits as a sign that the world was ending, it only brought about a final battle between photographers and the ever dimming lunar face.

Okay, make that just one photographer, me.

After a week of feeling fairly terrible, the rare combination of fair skies and a rare celestial event prompted me to get the telescope out last night. Once outside, the amazing amount of light pouring out of the sky into an only slightly hazy atmosphere led to the brilliant idea of trying to take some photographs. Brilliant idea or merely a touch of lunacy? That ended up becoming the question of the night.

Summer 2015 Capsule Movie Reviews

In the past I’ve written a few mini-reviews of films after seeing them in theater, but this year I’ve been too tired or busy to type my impressions. So better late than never here are three micro-reviews of films I’ve seen this summer at the nearby Spring Grove Cinema.

Jurassic World

First a disclaimer has to be made: I’ve never been a fan of the franchise despite being a kaiju and science fiction lover. The first flick was entertaining, if not very memorable, and what little I saw of the sequels they were pretty abysmal. This opinion puts me in a tiny minority, of course. So it was with low expectations I went into the darkened theater to watch dinosaurs once again run amok.

Expecting a popcorn based confection with no style or substance, I was very surprised to find a genuinely tasty plot blended perfectly with intelligent action along with surprising amounts of emotional moments. Likeable characters played by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard carried the movie mainly due to a very cookie cutter villain played by Vince D’Onofrio (see Daredevil on Netflix to see what he’s really capable of) and a mixed effort by the supporting cast.

Great Video on CG in Modern Movies

I have been known to complain about poor computer generated special effects in movies and also films that seem to exist only to bombard the audience with artificial imagery, so this video was of great interest during my browsing the Net today. Particularly fascinating is the usage of CG for things we don't even notice -- watch the whole thing. It may change your viewpoint. The final analysis is something I agree with and bless Rocket Jump for including Ray Harryhausen's work at the end.

July is Already Ending?!

It has been well over a month since my last post and time has not flown by, yet seems to have escaped me instead. Still haven’t even taken notes for my next movie review, though I did glance at the movie briefly while making sure the PC monitor is still calibrated. Being an early adopter of Windows 10 meant finessing the video settings on my Nvidia GTX 670, though I’m one of the lucky ones with no Nvidia Windows 10 problems (other than having to enable vertical sync in all games).

A lot has happened since the middle of June, including FFT (Forced Family Time) when my sister and her family visited the week before Independence Day. Starting with cleaning house before hand, I’ve been run into the ground this summer making life quite difficult.

So what does that have to do with bald eagles?