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So it was Amy’s turn, and she’d gotten this movie for Christmas or her birthday or something. I forget. Anyway, this was actually the first (and actually only to date) movie we’ve actually watched on Blu-Ray. Anyway, this was her pick. My mom was visiting at the time, and the day before had actually married Brandy and I, so I guess watching this movie with Amy, Alex and my mom was kind of our honeymoon movie. Kinda? Maybe? No? OK. Anyway, I’d seen the musical of this on Broadway years earlier. I think with my friend Kathy, although I don’t really remember for sure. The broadway version was corny but fun. I think the same pretty much applies to the film version. Light hearted. Fun Abba songs. Nothing too serious. I’m thinking the play version might have been a bit better actually. But whatever. This is basically just a fun summer movie sort of thing (which we watched in the winter, but whatever). Oh, and some of the greek scenery was really cool looking in full HD. That aspect of watching this as a Blu-Ray rather than in ED like you get on DVDs was indeed pretty cool. But I’ll be honest here, in most cases the difference doesn’t really matter that much. I’m not sure it is worth paying a lot more for unless it is something specifically all about the visuals. But it is certainly better quality than DVD and any streaming I’ve seen. A little over four hours ago my mom got the green light to start driving again, go back to work, and generally to not need someone like me hanging around and “observing” to make sure she is OK. There are no ongoing effects from last week’s episode. Basically, she is fine. Yay! And whew! So slightly over 24 hours from now I’ll be getting on a plane heading back home. It has been great having this extra time with my mom. It was a nice change of pace for me too. But I miss my family. It will be good to get home.
So, continuing working our way through the old Doctor Who’s. We are always watching the oldest available story we haven’t watched yet. So while we have watched some Second and even Third Doctor stories, in the mean time they keep releasing more First Doctor stories. So here we are back with the First Doctor. The most interesting thing to me about this story are the echos, or should I say foreshadowing (well, perhaps if it was intentional) of the much later 4th Doctor Key to Time stories. In both cases the Doctor and his companions are on a quest to collect the “keys” which when brought together will enable a tool of great power. Or something like that. There is a different adventure associated with finding each of the Keys. The endings are somewhat similar too. Anyway, otherwise this was an OK First Doctor story I guess. I’ve never been a big fan of this Doctor though, so I’m not sure that is much praise. It was OK. It was better than some others. I’m still eager to get past these early episodes up to the episodes from the Fourth Doctor and beyond though. We have a ways to go though, especially if we keep going so slow that they release more older episodes faster than we watch them. :-) My mom forwarded along an article with a number of quotes from my cousin Eugene on the experimental diabetes treatment his company is working on… San Diego company studies stem cell implant as a Type 1 diabetes treatment
So, as of the review posted for First Meetings… Percent of the last 20 books I’ve posted reviews for available on Kindle is now up to 75%.
And the percentage of the last 20 books I’ve read available on Kindle stays at 65%.
Up to #8 in the Ender Series. This one isn’t a novel though, but a compilation of four short stories. One is about Ender’s father as a child. One is the story of Ender’s parents meeting. Then there is the original Ender’s Game short story that Ender’s Game novel was an expansion of. And finally the story of how Ender first met Jane the sentient computer program/network. This made it very different than reading any of the actual novels in the series. I enjoyed the two backstory ones about ender’s parents. You understand a little bit better where Ender came from, and it fleshes them out a bit. Similarly, I liked the Jane origin story, although it seemed slightly gimmicky. The oddest one though was the Ender’s Game short story. Not that it was a bad short story, it was a good one, and of course prompted this whole series. But having it included this way was a bit jarring, since I’m reading the series in sequence, but this essentially retells the first story, but in a bit different way. It was interesting to see the differences between the short story version and the novel length version, but still, a little odd to read this as part of the overall sequence of the series. I do like the novels better. But this was an interesting addition to the Ender Universe.
I think this DVD had been a gift at some point in the past. Maybe from my friend Ron. It seems like the sort of thing he might give. In any case, it had sat unwatched for a few years, but its turn had finally come and we all sat down to watch it. If there is anyone who hasn’t heard of this, it is basically a documentary following some surfers on a round the world trip to find new and different places to surf. They wander around, they go places, you get a few minutes of glimpsing the locals through the eyes of Americans who really know very little if anything about where they are or the people there. And then they surf for awhile. And then they go somewhere else. From what I understand, this movie was somewhat significant in surf culture, and many of the places they went where surfing had not been common became places where many people would travel to surf. That’s nice I guess. From the point of view of someone watching in 2010 though, the whole thing took on a comedic tone, simply because of how absolutely dated everything seemed, both in terms of things like cars and clothes and the like, but also in the attitudes of the narrator and the surfers. I guess 45 years or so really does make a big difference. It seemed a bit slow by modern standards too. It just sort of rolled along, with no sense of urgency or getting to the point. Which I guess maybe was the point. OK, in the past I’ve just done the percentage of the last 20 Books I’ve read that are available on Kindle. Of course, I have really done these calculations after I post the reviews of the books, not right after I’ve read them, and right now, I’m way behind. At this point there are 13 books I’ve finished reading that I haven’t yet posted my thoughts on. Oops. Also, this has been all about what percentage of the books were available on Kindle. Now that I actually have one, another relevant stat is how many I’ve actually read on the Kindle. So, two charts… First, percentage of the last 20 books I have REVIEWED that are currently AVAILABLE on Kindle (so this doesn’t include the 13 books I have read but haven’t yet reviewed) – This is now at 70%.
Next, the percentage of the last 20 books I have READ that I actually READ on the Kindle (this does include the 13 books I have read but have not yet reviewed) – This is now at 65%.
By the way, I think I’ll discontinue posting about these charts when/if each hits 90%.
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