Pirates of the Caribbean!!
15 July 2003, 9:13 PM

Finally!!! A freakin' *GOOD* movie!

That's right. Jeff and I went to see another movie tonight. We were both too tired to celebrate/comfort after my exam on Monday, (or even eat much more than canned Spaghettios) so we decided to go out to an Italian restaurant and see a movie tonight.

I hadn't planned on going to see "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" when I first saw previews for it. I like silly pirate movies enough that I knew I'd see it eventually on DVD, but last weekend we both were looking forward to seeing "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and didn't "Pirates" a second thought. We all know how disappointed I was with *that* movie. Following my disappointment with "Hulk" Hollywood was not sitting well with me.

But every day that I checked Google news, "Pirates" was in the entertainment section, apparently raking in the money and getting a lot of reviews. So, without actually reading any of the reviews we decided to go see the movie.

Since we had nowhere to go after dinner but the movie, we just sat in the theater chatting and munching popcorn for a half-hour before it started. That turned out to be a lucky break because the theater filled to the brim by the time the movie started. On a *Tuesday* night. For a 2.5 hour movie. While a hurricane was dumping rain.

Now I know why it was so filled up. I think a few folks there may have been watching it for the second time. I know Jeff and I are tempted to go see it again in the theater.

It was fantastic! For a movie based on the famed Disney ride, there's a surprisingly good plot, serious when it needed to be, terribly campy when it could be, and above all fun. For once it was SUBTLE about letting the full story present itself and characters develop themselves.

And Johnny Depp was *brilliant*. Even if you despise this kind of movie you've got to see this just for him. *Deliciously* campy.

Games
15 July 2003, 11:28 AM

Here She Comes!
15 July 2003, 9:20 AM

Well, I was right - Claudette's going to hit the Texas coast, smack dab in the middle, very close to Corpus Christie actually. Predictions right now are that it'll hit Port O'Connor.

And it is indeed a hurricane, albeit a small one (category 1). And with nearly half of it's bands over land already it's not gonna get much bigger than this. It also picked up the pace a bit and is moving at 10 mph now, but that's still slow enough to dump a lot of rain on areas and cause some flooding.