On May 25th, Me and Laura both went skydiving!!! We went to Carolina Sky Sports in Louisburg. It was totally awesome! It was a fulfillment of a childhood promise to myself that I would do that sometime in my life. The deed is done and we both had an outstanding day. The pictures are online. I also had a video shot of my jump!

I watched King Kong on DVD today. I wasn’t exactly thrilled. My main problem with this is that the 3 hour/8 minute runtime is way, way too long. At least an hour of the movie could have been cut out. Far too many scenes drag on for considerable periods without any action or dialogue.

I should say that I am not all that familiar with the original movie, and the whole story to me seemed dumb. I don’t know what would possess someone to do a remake of this movie in the first place.

The special effects were done really well, I’ll grant the movie-makers that. Three hours of special effects couldn’t have been easy (or cheap) to achieve. Everything looked very realistic, especially Kong himself. My problem with movies like this that are shot on green screens for so many scenes, is that blowing hair tends to show the signs of the foreground not blending into the background well. That gives it a fake sort of artificial feel throughout the whole film.

Past some cool effects and good sound, there isn’t much that I liked about the movie. The background music sounded very depressing during the length of the movie, which to me was a real downer. It felt like the filmmakers were trying to beat into us some sense of morality and emotion the whole time. This gave the movie a very PG-rated sort of feel to it, which got on my nerves. I don’t think this was their intention, but it is how I perceived it. As for the plot, I cannot figure out why the woman was so drawn to Kong anyway. It is as if a few hours into being around him, she wants to stay and is perfectly calm. That I didn’t understand. I also didn’t understand how she was in the middle of the jungle for so long and still didn’t have a speck of dirt on her body. She looked freshly showered most of the time, especially in the face. But that is a technicality, and not a big deal.

The movie felt very slow moving to me. The storyline simply took to long to get the story across. And the parts of the movie that were meant to be moving, weren’t incredibly moving to me. I must admit that I fell asleep for a small period of time during it, but it would still not have changed my mind had I seen those missing scenes.

I was debating whether this topic should be posted to my blog, or send it to my hate list. I can’t decide my level of dissatisfaction with this idea. I don’t exactly think that I hate it, so I’ll just mention it here.

I’m talking about the movie studio logos that appear just before the movie starts. Often now, there are two, three, or even more back-to-back. They are all animated, and get more complex by the day. I swear that over time, these animated shorts have gotten longer and longer. The reason it gets annoying is that you can’t tell what is actually the opening scene of the film and what is just another weird sequence of scenery and events that ends with the name of the production company.

If it is a traditional studio, such as Universal or Paramount, you already know what you are watching when the logo begins. Actually, when they first began making them animated many years ago, I welcomed the change. But today, too many companies get credit now for having their hand in the film. It has become a burden to sit through this before I start watching a movie. Let’s hope that the situation doesn’t get even more out of hand in the future.

I have gotten to the point where I don’t like anything tasting or smelling of orange. The fragrance has been ruined. Too many cleaning products and air fresheners have orange scent. As soon as I smell the odor of orange, my immediate reaction is that is smells like chemicals. It smells just like all of the cleaning products that I have ever used that had an orange scent.

I especially hate orange flavorings in cooking. Meals that have orange-flavored beef or chicken are absolutely horrible. I don’t believe that I ever liked that kind of thing, but even more so today, it smells like somebody sprayed the food with 409.

With the exception of real oranges and orange juice, everything else orange should be abolished.

Do you ever see these cheesy magazine ads for computer equipment or electronics that are made by companies like Cybertron or CyberPower? How lame. Why would anybody want to buy these products? How can you have any confidence in something that has such a cheesy name? If they didn’t put any effort in forming their company, what makes you think that the stuff they are selling is worth anything either?

The next time you see an ad for a “Cyber” anything, be sure to laugh and think of me…because you heard it here.

Laura graduated from NCSU on May 13, 2006. In the photo below, I shot her graduating class at the RBC Center in Raleigh.

First off, I’ll tell you that Saw II is an absolutely must-see movie. I thought it was outstanding! I quite enjoyed the first movie as well, though a lot of people that I talked to actually didn’t like the first one. Everybody seems to agree that Cary Elwes should not have been cast in that movie. He has done too many silly movies to be taken seriously as an actor. That said, I can’t imagine anyone not loving the second movie, unless this kind of thriller isn’t to your liking in the first place.

If you like thrillers, you absolutely must see this movie. It is by far better than the first one. You don’t have to see the first one to understand everything in the second, though there is a tie-in to the first film at one point in the movie. The cast is good and the dialogue is great, and the plot is completely twisted. It is very important to watch the whole movie in one sitting without any distractions. Many of the incredible details may pass you by if you don’t pay attention.

Rent it right now! I am very serious. You won’t be sorry.