Author: Eugene

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Review: Eragon

I haven’t read the book, and have no plans to either. The story behind Eragon is a pretty standard one among the fantasy genre, and as a result isn’t terribly original. The dragon characteristics are pretty much taken from Anne McAffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series (although I did think feathers on a dragon was a little odd), and there are other familiar elements to the story. Plot and character wise, it’s pretty cookbook. CGI work on the dragon was well done. Monsters and goons could have been done better. You get the impression that most of the FX budget went to the CGI effects, leaving not much for goon costumes and makeup. Jeremy Irons puts in a good performance, and John Malkovich is pretty good as the villain.

Kids will probably enjoy this movie more than adults, particularly if they’re fans of the book and can overlook the parts of the book that were probably left out of the movie.
3 stars out of 5.

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Irish pub invaded by bloggers!

Maybe I should save that title for Monday’s post…

Looks like there will be a pretty good turnout for tomorrow’s blogger gathering at Madra Rua. I’ve never been there before, but I’m told it’s pretty good. I’m counting on a decently poured Guiness tomorrow. Looking forward to meeting up with everyone again.

In the meantime, there is plenty for me to do this weekend. Stuff to do in the garage, dog class for Simba, revisions to make on the paper I submitted among other things. There’s also some blogging I need to catch up on too.

Definitely more later.

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Budding claymation animators

My sister sent me this link to a claymation video my 11 year old neice worked on for a school project. Not bad for a couple of 11 year olds.

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Happy birthday to me!

Today being my birthday, I decided to spoil myself and take the day off. After dropping the wife off at school, the dogs and I spent the morning together hanging out at the dog park, visiting Dolittles for a new bag of food and some treats, and then checking out the new Palmetto Paws/Good Dog Bakery for more treats and to visit.

After picking up the wife after her classes, we went back to the dog park to let the dogs run around some more and then headed back home.

Thanks to a ThinkGeek Christimas/birthday gift certificate from my brother, the stuff I bought with it also arrived today so I even got to open a birthday present 🙂 (not that it was much of a surprise or anything). More geeky fun things to enjoy.

To go along with the mug that reminds me to RTFM (bought that last year), I got the vi mug to remind me of all the commands I’m always RTFM‘ing for. A HAL 9000 memory unit will let me carry more stuff around (wish I could plug it into my brain). This spiffy Power shirt should make sure nobody gets offended by my pasty white torso. Just so the wife doesn’t feel left out, I got her a caffeine mug so she can keep her tea warm while she’s in class.

It’s been a pretty good day so far. I think I’ll go putter around some more.

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Clever Canucks

I was listening to CBC Radio and heard there’s a show coming on tonight called The Greatest Canadian Inventions. It would be cool to watch if only I had access to CBC, but alas, I’ll have to settle for checking out the list of 50 great Canadian inventions on the website. There are quite a few items that I never would have guessed were invented by Canadians. For example:

  • The electron microscope, developed at U of T
  • The electric wheelchair
  • The caulk gun
  • The electric oven
  • Every fighter pilot’s favourite accessory, the G-suit
  • Instant mashed potatoes
  • The light bulb was invented by a pair of Canadians, who then sold the patent to Edison
  • Zippers

Check out the list. Lots of neat interesting facts.