Spider Man 2

Keegan and I went to see Spider Man 2 yesterday. It was a special time because we don’t often get a chance to spend time together, just the two of us. That is something I’ve really regretted over the years. We were excited to go see the movie and, by and large, we weren’t disappointed. It was definitely better than the first movie. The story line was somewhat more complex than the first, which is a good thing. Tobey McGuire is a great actor and he doesn’t disappoint. Neither do Kirsten Dunst and several of the other actors. I think Rosemary Harris as Peter’s Aunt May was an inspired choice, as was J.K. Simmons as Jonah Jameson. I liked many of the action sequences, particularly the one where Peter meets M.J. in a cafe and, while they’re talking, his spidey sense tingles and just in time, Peter hurls M.J. to the ground as a big car comes hurtling through the window. I like the many humorous elements, e.g. the Asian woman at the street corner plucking her violin and singing an off-key rendition of the Spider Man song.

Negatives: Why does Doc Oc sometimes make the earth shake as he walks around, while other times, inexplicably, he is as quiet as a mouse as he moves around? The ending is just too formulaic, particularly regards Doc Oc being persuaded by Peter to suddenly take back control of his mind. The scene where Otto Octavius is about to be operated on after his accident, while not gory, has rather too much violence and horror for my personal taste.

Overall, it was a good movie but if I were a movie critic, I’d only give it three out of four stars.

The sound of silence

The entry title is a nod to the classic Simon and Garfunkel song…and is meant as a lead-in to an explanation of why there haven’t been many entries in this blog of late. Stuff happens. Mostly, I needed a bit of a break from blogging due to preoccupation with other matters. There is always plenty to discuss here, but the motivation isn’t always plentiful!

During the 4th of July weekend, my family and I went to visit with my side of the family in east central Illinois. We had a good time, and it was especially good to spend time with my mother and to see my many nieces and nephews. They have all changed and grown up a lot somehow in the last six months or so, especially one nephew, Ben. I really enjoyed perusing a scrapbook of his recent three-month stay with his cousins in Manitoba, who own a farm and raise pigs and cattle. The scrapbook of photos and a diary of the daily events was put together by his aunt. It was quite well done and gave me a real picture of the fun, but also hard work, that Ben had on his trip. Ben’s dad, my brother, Tim, had just finished laying new hardwood flooring in his house and that was duly admired. Michele wants that kind of flooring in our house, so I asked some questions of Tim as to how to lay hardwood floors. He and Linda chose a nice birch flooring from Bruce Flooring.

Keegan had a lot of fun Sunday night (the 4th), playing with his cousins and lighting off lots of firecrackers. One of the days we were there, we drove through some of my old stomping grounds, the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It has changed a LOT since I was a student there. Of particular interest was the new Siebel Center for Computer Science, which just opened and is likely one of the world’s most technologically advanced buildings. I was pleased to hear that my oldest nephew, Nils, recently began a full-time job as a systems analyst for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, working on a five-year grant that relates to the Deep Tunnel Project in Chicago.

Another highlight of the trip was going to an incredible bakery in downtown Urbana, called Mirabelle’s. I bought an olive rosemary loaf, as well as a honey walnut loaf, and some raspberry brioches — all very delicious! I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have their almond horns, which is a kind of pastry that, well, is to die for. Michele’s comment was, “We badly need a nice bakery like this where we live!” To which my response is, Amen.