Somusing

I watched The Dark Knight again with my oldest three boys. They hadn't seen it yet. I was disappointed in it the first time around and I still didn't like it nearly as much as Batman Begins , which is an excellent origin story movie, I think. The Dark Knight is (surprise!) dark and the plot is fairly complicated. And yes, Heath Ledger does a fine Joker. But I didn't enjoy it that much. Maybe Two-Face is too sad or something. But I'm glad I watched it with my boys, partly so I could remember its darkness and know what the boys were seeing and partly because it's important to the plot of The Dark Knight Rises . Which we were lucky enough to see in a second-run theater just a couple of days after watching The Dark Knight . It wasn't the best theater experience -- the focus was off for a little while and there are other things that make this particular theater second-run -- but it's a great movie. I loved the villain and his populist rhetoric. Catwoman wa...

More catching up. 17 Miracles (2011): Really good movie about the Mormon handcart companies. Winnie the Pooh (2011): I liked it a lot! I'm a Winnie the Pooh fan. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011): Enjoyable and not as convoluted as the others (although I liked the others a lot, too). Mansfield Park (1999): I like this movie a lot, although it doesn't have a lot to do with Jane Austen's novel. Monday Monday (2009): A British TV series, good, fairly short. Jerry Maguire (1996): I liked this. Killers (2010): Funnier than I thought it would be. Crazy, Stupid Love. (2011): I really liked this, although the end was overly cheesy and unlikely. Raising Arizona (1987): One of my favorite movies ever! How Do You Know (2010): I really like Reese Witherspoon, but this was just okay. Dear Lemon Lima (2009): Really good music and I liked it, but I didn't like one major part of the plot. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996): A pretty good adaptation of An...

Yes, I'm behind. This is catch-up. Date Night (2010): Loved it! Koyaanisqatsi (1982): I liked this. So did the kids, surprisingly enough. Powaqqatsi (1988): Not as good as the first one. Naqoyqatsi (2002): Even less good than the second one, although the kids liked it because of a couple of scenes from video games. Robin Hood (2010): So good. Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987): Second time seeing it. It's good. Bright Star (2009): Apparently kind of forgettable. Back to the Future (1985): The kids hadn't seen it before. They loved it, and it was fun to see again. Outsourced (2006): Okay Hotel Rwanda (2004): Very good. Moving. Leap Year (2010): Somewhat enjoyable fluff. Whip It (2009): Very good. The Incredible Hulk (2008): Meh. Groundhog Day (1993): Kind of fun. Pizza (2005): Pretty good. Amreeka (2009): Very good. Zed saw this at his Arabic camp at BYU, so we watched it while he was there. Amélie (2001): Cute. We'd had th...

After a brief moment of annoyance at the beginning of this epistolary novel when I thought I might not finish it, I picked it up again and devoured it in a couple of days. It's lovely: funny and moving and informative about the German Occupation of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands between England and France, during World War II. I loved it.

It's been a few years since I heard this song, but a few of us were singing it at work the other day and now I can't get enough of Boney M.'s legendary Rasputin . Here's one version from 1978: A shorter version of the same show in color and better quality, but without the fun Moscow photo/film montage: How can the people sit still, looking bored, at the dinner party or whatever that event was? Impossible. Live at Top of the Pops, Christmas 1978: Wacky Count Rasputin version on Italian TV in 1978: And a 30-year reunion live version in Russia, 2008: Not as much to commend that, except the lip-syncing guy doing nice backflips on stage. And everyone having fun with it. There are more, but I'll stop here. It's one of disco's finest tracks. Back in the non-disco world, Rasputin had a daughter, and it's too bad she died before this song became famous: Rasputin 's daughter, Maria Rasputin (Matryona Rasputina) (1898–1977), emigrate...

I skimmed much of this book , but I found it very informative and useful. It helped me solidify some plans for our kids' education. As an example of the interesting stuff in here: a study showed that college students who work about 20 hours a week get better grades than those who work full-time and better than those who don't work at all. Now that's the kind of thing I like to learn for future reference, you know? There's a lot of good info for parents about prioritizing saving, too, i.e., savings and retirement should come before your kids' education. It's likely that I will be consulting this book again in the future.

This is now required reading for our kids (along with College Without High School ). The first part is about deciding what to major in and the second part is about making the most of your college education once you get there. I wish I had read something like this when I was in high school.