Serenity now, please.
Watched Serenity last night, thought it was pretty impressive for a movie created after a canceled TV series. The blend of Chinese and old western-styled cowboy stuff really blended together in a way I've not seen before in the genre. The plot was darker than I expected, though because it didn't directly involve any of the main characters (or the movie-exclusive ones for that matter), I'm not sure it got as gritty or deep as you'd like them to go with the story. Sure, some personal history is exposed, and sure there's some personality/decision conflict, but there's not the kind of deep introspection or revelations I expected from the series. The spaceship, "Serenity" the Firefly class shuttle, is fabulous mix of creepy, metal, and "home". There's elements of the Aliens universe here, mixed with some of my faintest memories of Andromeda (no ship A.I. though, thank God.), the Normandy of Mass Effect, and, of course, Halo's many diversified modes of space travel and Forerunner architecture. Having a little cabin area for the crew to sit together around a table though, that really brought it all back to the days of pirates and train chasing. So all in all, this was worth seeing and I am glad I took the time last night to see it before returning it to the library.
This morning I read too many MINI Cooper recalls and complaints, which totally freaks me out. Apparently there's a high probability of my transmission going out upwards of 70,000 miles. I think I put a good chunk over the last couple years in the Honda, and that thing was well above 100,000 when I sold it–without any transmission problems. I think all it needed was something with the brakes to be replaced by an authorized Honda dealership. Regardless, even though the Cooper does so many things my Honda never did, I'm beginning to worry if it's eventually going to stop doing all the things my Honda never had a problem with. I should have brought coffee to work, or just a bottle of fresh water. Drinking out of a used bottle generally freaks me out, I think I heard somewhere that if you reuse a bottle the plastic becomes toxic. Though, more likely there's like freakish bacteria growing inside the water that's been left over the weekend. Oh, and I forgot to mention the strange conversation that took place last night at the library. Dad walked down the street with me to return it, and I have a strange "hold" item on my account, a music CD I'd returned last Monday. I recognized the woman working there that night (strangely, the security guard was gone already), and I told her she had taken care of me last week and that I returned two CDs to her, one with a broken case, and the problem. She responded, "Well, there's more than one African American working here you know."Not that she'd "know" I'm dating someone who is half "African American". When she checked up on my account she discovered that she was, in fact, the "African American" that checked out my new music and accidentally checked out this missing CD that is currently on my account. The whole ordeal really irritated me, and I hope she felt as guilty as she tried to make me feel in saying that I was so ignorant to the nuances in other races that there was no way that I could know for certain that she was herself. The entire time I've gone to the library, by the way, I've never learned any of the librarian's names. They've never been friendly with me unless there's other adults around, and they've never placed their ID tags in a place that I can see them. I guess I should have asked her upfront what her name was, but I was afraid that after her harsh judgment that asking wouldn't help my case (or me take out stuff from the library).I'm almost, just nearly, contemplating writing an email or letter to the head of the Chicago Public Library with a complaint. But I guess we're all human, and some of us forget that.
