Movies, work, and a new camera

I saw three movies this week of slightly different genres. The first was X-Men 3. I have to say I was slightly disappointed at X:3. It seemed to be more of a pure action movie, and not able to be as serious about the issues it raised as the previous two movies. On the other hand, there were no lines of dialog that jumped out and bit me with the cheesy affliction, and a lot of the effects were very cool. If you see this movie, be sure you stay until after the credits -- there is a 15 second clip that changes a lot, should they decide to do a sequel as they claim they won't. Recommended.

The second movie was King Kong (I finally saw it). Definitely could tell it was Peter Jackson and WETA behind this movie (some of the scenes were straight from LotR). I've never seen the 1933 version, but I imagine this one was pretty similar. Jack Black is excellent in a serious role (I had my doubts). One thing about older movies I notice is that the dramatic structure is so much more regimented; there are no real transitions as there are in modern movies. Recommended.

The last movie was Over the Hedge. Again, as I said in an edit to my last post, this movie was awesome. I agree with some of the reviewers that the "family" focus of its last act did grow a bit tiresome, but the jokes were funny through the whole thing (Spoiler Alert!), and a lot more complex then I was expecting in some cases (Quick: Name the last cartoon movie that mentioned the Geneva Conventions. Anyone?) The animation was great (it was claimed that each frame of the movie took on average 17 hours to render). People compared it to Toy Story and said the animation was worse, but Toy Story was much less ambitious with what, exactly, it animated. OtH rendered everything to be as lifelike as possible. Highly Recommended.

Transitioning from movies to music for a moment: I found three new bands I really like. It's been a while since I found any new music I really like, but this new stuff may have provided me with a new favorite song. The three bands are Death Cab for Cutie, Motion City Soundtrack, and Brand New. None of them are new to the scene or anything, but they're new to me, and if you like Jimmy Eat World/All American Rejects type stuff, you owe it to yourself to give them a listen.

Work's going great. My boss's boss really liked my last report, and I can feel some of the fall out from that daily. I feel like I'm really a part of the team now, and people certainly solicit and listen to my input. A guy couldn't ask for more in this type of job. Now, I just have to make sure I don't screw it up :-). Sometimes I regret not going to Google for the summer, but there I would never be more then a lowly intern. Here, I get to influence actual policy.

I bought my new camera. Last week, I had all but decided on the Canon Powershot A530. However, there was a phenominal Dell deal on the Canon Powershot A620 this week, so I grabbed it. This baby has a 7.1MP sensor, 4x optical zoom, and all the Canon goodies in the interface. I also picked up a gig SD card and a soft case for it, while I was buying. Expect pictures as soon as Dell decides to ship it to me (I hope this doesn't turn into another flash drive debacle with them...)

That's about it for this week. I expect an epic battle between Conroe (Intel's new processor) and AM2 (AMD's new platform) to be unleashed this week (I'm not sure of the exact NDA date on Intel's stuff, but I have it on good authority it is this coming week). I'll have post-review impressions next week. Until then, have a great week!