Update

It's been a while since I last updated this thing, so I guess all three of my readers are getting a little impatient. Or not, who knows. Anyway, here's what's been going on lately . . .

Movies
I caught two movies over the last weekend - saw Michael Clayton on DVD, and Before The Devil Knows You're Dead on DVD. I didn't love either one. I thought I'd like Michael Clayton, seeing as it had good reviews, was nominated for awards, and starred Seth Gecko. Not sure if I just wasn't in the mood but I found it a little boring, and unnecessarily confusing.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead was a little better, but I still didn't love that. It did star the talent and always-watchable Philip Seymour Hoffmann, although it did also feature him prominently in a graphic sex scene. I think there should be some kind of warning for those types of situations. Anyway this was OK, but I didn't really see what all of the fuss was about.

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately, the decline in movies from the mid-nineties to now. In the last year or so I've seen two movies that I thought were really good - Knocked Up and Superbad. And then a couple more I enjoyed to varying degrees - 30 Days of Night, Smokin Aces, I suppose the Grindhouse movies. A quick search of movies from 1995 though on Wikipedia revealed the following films were released at the midway point of the last decade - The Usual Suspects, Heat, Mallrats, Higher Learning, Casino, Dead Man Walking, Dead Presidents, Desperado, Seven, Get Shorty, Leaving Las Vegas, Strange Days, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, and Twelve Monkeys. What happened?

Fine dining
Sunday lunchtime I took the girl to Cafe Primo (yeah I'm a classy guy). I discovered though that they have abandoned their "9.90 menus" for regular prices. Meaning a simple pasta dish now costs $15, and they have a steak menu which ranges from about $20-28. This is, I think, ridiculous, and reminds me of the time a few months ago when the Vietnamese bakery round the corner from my work started charging white people prices. The best thing about these places were they were cheap, now that they cost the same as everywhere else, you may as well go somewhere nice right?

Grand Theft Auto IV
So the biggest game of the year was released yesterday and I am currently sans Playstation (thanks AAMI!). I toyed with the idea of buying it anyway, figuring my PS3 will be replaced in a few weeks time, and JB had a good opening week price on it. But when I went back today they were all sold out. This thing looks amazing though, I can't wait to get into it.

Running
The last month or two I've been training for a half marathon. Now all of a sudden it's upon me. Well, this Sunday to be exact. I'm not really sure how I'll go - I did my last long run a few days ago on the treadmill and got to 21km (the length of Sunday's run) but that was in optimal conditions. The funny thing is that the run starts at 8am, with the winners presentations starting at 10am. By my calculations, I'll be crossing the finish line around 10.15am, most likely while everyone's attention will be diverted to a podium somewhere.