80 days to go

Movie review

Kick-Ass the Movie

It was a slow start but the movie is pretty interesting. As those who know me will attest, I am way too impatient for slow start movies. My opinion is usually “I have a ton of other crap I could be watching that gets interesting sooner.” The way my buddy TJ sold me on the movie is that he had me watch this clip. That’s good parenting it is!

I think everyone should have a daughter like “Hit-Girl”. It was enough ‘girl empowerment’ that I thought Joss Whedon had written it. Though I wouldn’t go with the capes thing. I was impressed that they knew about the AFID tags from stun guns. Most people don’t. On the movie itself, it really had some very slow points but the high points made it viewable. Good (though strange) climax at the end. Overall, I’d give the movie a solid 8/10. And it looks as if they are already working on part two. Personally, I’d rather just have a movie about hit girl. The ‘main character’ (Kick-Ass) is way too wimpy and Hit-Girl pretty much stole the show. We’ll see how they do on their next movie.



Things I’m going to need to pick up when I get to England:

Sore throat spray (damned airport security – mine is six ounces – way past one)
Small knife or multi-tool (clearly I might be tempted to hijack the plane if allowed to bring one)
Small bottle of hand soap (again, over the one ounce permitted – I will use this to wash both myself and clothing)



On packing

Pete had put into the comments about packing things into plastic bags. I might see if I can find some very large zip lock bags to put things into. Not sure if I want to have all of my clothing in them though – yes it’s very nice and neat but I’m thinking about airport security having a field day unpacking each and every little baggie. Plus, I’m just not that together on the trip. I might see if I can get hold of a couple large garbage bags. Sometimes you just want one to put the entire case/backpack or your dirty clothing in.




On what to do with my worldly possessions

I was chatting with a buddy of mine over skype and he expressed an interest in my remaining gaming stuff. I’d had a friend sell a good deal of it via e-bay awhile ago when I was hurting for cash. I couldn’t bear to part with the Cthulhu stuff but now it is sitting in boxes around my place. I’m not sure if it would ever get used again. I’ve got copies of the books and the modules I’ve made from…other sources…in soft copy so I’m thinking that the books themselves might be totally superfluous. For him to get here I think he mentioned it was an eight hour round trip. If I can stand living out of a bag while wandering the world, perhaps I can have him come down here, grab the boxes of books, take me to his house for a day or two (however long his wife can stand) then drop me off at the Washington DC airport. I’m betting if I helped pay for gas it might just work. I could have a plane ticket waiting for me at the counter to whisk me off to somewhere the heck else.

That pretty much leaves my computer. It’s not a grand design and is probably now worth less than the $400 (plus two monitors) that I paid for it, but I’m sure someone would consider it an upgrade. If I do go with the ‘jettison’ plan, I’d need a laptop with wireless. I’m not sure what kind to get or if the wireless differs around the world. I’m also wondering whether I should look at anything ‘ruggedized’ or try to find a case that is. Weight would be a concern but having a laptop that didn’t get destroyed quickly would be nice as well.