Mark's Blog

Just got back from spending a little time at a local bar and grill with the badminton crew, which was fun. It's one of those immutable laws of nature that a few "tasty beverages" brings out a certain risqué sense of humor in people. Unfortunately I had read el nanO's post on poutine recently and had to order one for old times' sake. I should have bought some heart attack insurance with it, and to make matters worse it wasn't even that good. Oh well, can't win them all.

Saw the Narnia movie last weekend. I hadn't read the book, but I probably walked by it in the library a thousand times as a kid (probably not even an exaggeration). Not sure why I always dismissed it (I'm not much into fantasy, I guess that is probably the reason) but I very much enjoyed the movie regardless. I gave it an 8 on IMDB (-1 for talking beavers). From what I've heard it's fairly faithful to the book and overall the effects were terrific and the story moved along at a good pace even though it was longish at 2 hours 20 minutes. Tilda Swinton did a great job as the, uh, titular witch (that would be a good name for a punk band).

Have been working on the Sonic Normal and have pretty much gotten it down pat. I'm not at near-100% success rate yet but it is getting more consistent and I can probably do it 7 or 8 times out of 10. The trick still feels a bit forced, even when it's successful, but that will improve with time.