My Aunt Chris drove me back into town from Mom's. We picked up Granny Mo & Andy and went to my favourite place in the whole world Genghis Khan Mongolian Grill. Grandma asked about my blog so I feel obliged to make a post. I have a backlog to go through and post this week but I figured I would start here.

I just watched episode 13 of Spartacus Blood and Sand. This show is fucking epic, you have to see it. Watch the trailer then get buy it through this handy Amazon link.


I really want to see a Jays game but I'm busted out for cash right now, I got into the sub-prime mortgages way too late. I gotta find a job, tomorrow.

Terminator 2:Judgement Day

What a shitty time of year for movies. Once you've seen all the December Blockbusters and caught up on all the Oscar nominated fare in January, February is just blah (Until Cop Out February 26th!). Dear John finally knocked Avatar from the top spot this weekend, but romantic shmaltz won't get me to the movies. Cineplex Odeon seems to have caught on and is running a "digital film festival" to put some asses back in seats and sell some popcorn. I think Cineplex is testing it's customers to see if they will pay to see older movies in digital projection.

Some people don't enjoy the theatrical experience, preferring to watch stuff at home. I love to see things up on the big screen, a TV just can't compare, probably because of my visual impairment.

The Bloor is a great place to see something you may have loved on VHS back in the day but may have never seen on the silver screen. Toronto has a few great repertory Cinemas, but Cineplex's foray into the Rep market should be seen as serious challenge. The rep cinemas are still using traditional film projectors, and how "good" the picture looks depends on the quality of the "print". Cineplex uses digital projectors and Terminator 2 looked better tonight than it would have 19 years ago (strange but true). Cineplex has the rep cinemas beat in terms of older special effects heavy movies. I saw Die Hard at the Bloor in December and I'm sure it will look better at the Cineplex presentation (But Die Hard is a Christmas movie so who wants to watch it in February?).

It was so fucking cool to see Terminator 2 with a crowd. Of course this movie still rocks. It looked so tight in digital. Edward Furlong delivers a classic performance and Linda Hamilton is fit like nobody's business. Best of all, the groundbreaking special effects still hold up almost 20 years later.

A word on Cameron's dialog, yeah, it's a little hammy, but so what? People love it. Also,
Will James Cameron even notice a residuals cheque for T2 under the pile of all that Avatar money?

The digital film fest concept is a good one. They have a few more movies I want to check out. I have wanted to see Speed again for a while now, and I was going to rent it, but now I can go see it on Tuesday night! Ghostbusters on Thursday should be cool as hell too, and of course no self respecting geek would miss Wrath of Kahn.

A Christmas Carol & a "personal injury at track level"

I went to Yonge/Eglington to meet Granny Mo, we missed each other the day before, one of us was late. So this time we had all the bugs worked out, except the movie wasn't playing at Silvercity anymore. I suggested we go to the AMC downtown, so we hopped on the TTC. On the way south, the train announced a "personal injury at track level at Dundas", and our train would stop at Bloor and head north. We got off at Bloor and I managed to navigate us through the throng of diverted passengers. We made it to the street corner and caught the first shuttle bus down.

Lots of police at Yonge/Dundas, and they were putting someone in an ambulance. I have tried to find some more information, but the TTC cloak of secrecy has been dropped over the whole situation. I found this at the National Post. It's shameful that we are kept in the dark, but the TTC doesn't want to talk about suicide. LET'S PRETEND NOTHING HAPPENED!

Besides all that crap, Granny and I had a great time at the movie.

Disney's A Christmas Carol is the classic holiday story told with the most modern computer animation available. Robert Zemeckis, director of my all time favourite Back to the Future 2 continues on his quest to push mo-cap and 3d forward, and it looks so much better than Polar Express (the people look a lot less wooden this time arround). Jim Carrey is fun, but nowhere near the top of his game. Go see it if you need some Christmas spirit.

We went back up to Eglington to meet Andy for dinner. The trains were running again. We had a nice meal at The Pickle Barrel, but it couldn't hold a candle to last Friday's dinner. We went to Genghis Khan's Mongolian Grill. That place was fantastic. I had so much fun, I'm still smiling about it. I can't wait to go back again.