We had an amazingly lazy weekend over the past few days. We both were pretty exhausted from everything the past month – wife’s trip, anniversary, company visiting, holiday, etc – and decided to just relax as much as possible and enjoy some movies.
Our weekend movie marathon began with a discussion about an Independence Day movie – I have movies or shows for many other holidays (The Boondock Saints for St. Patrick’s Day, WKRP’s “Turkeys Away” episode for Thanksgiving, the Peanut’s Holiday Specials for all of them) but we never had a “ritual” movie for the 4th. That changed this year when I suggested “The Patriot,” which she hadn’t seen before – she loved it and now it is going to be one of our annual rituals to watch. We also watched Independence Day and the sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence – she hadn’t seen either, and I had only seen the original. The original held up pretty well but it was a bit of a mind blower that the groundbreaking at the time special effects and CGI can now be produced from a home PC with the right prompt in a chatbot.
Saturday we continued the movie marathon with other “classics” she hadn’t seen, starting with Total Recall and The Running Man then rounding the marathon off with the absolute classic, Time Bandits.
Sunday, preparing for existence in the real world once again, we started our Tolkein marathon in preparation for a Lord of the Rings themed wedding we are attending at the end of the month and watched the first two installments of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit Trilogy, An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug. We plan to continue this marathon until watching all six films, and fortunately this also lines up with my wife completing her latest reading of the series again.
Watching these, I did get some ideas for a costume to wear to the wedding – I’d like to come dressed as Nazgul and chase the ring bearer Gollum around hissing while he screams “my preciousss, MY PRECIOUSSSSSSSS” but I don’t think that would fly with the bride.
Interesting Tidbits
Space capsule carrying ashes of 166 people — and cannabis seeds — lost after crashing into Pacific Ocean – “The Exploration Company (TEC), a German start-up, launched the Nyx capsule’s “Mission Possible” on June 23. Its precious cargo included the remains of 166 people, whose ashes were sent into orbit through Celestis, a Texas-based space burial company.”
Trump’s Big Brother Bill Expands The U.S. Surveillance State – “The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned the program would endanger civil liberties by normalizing facial recognition as a checkpoint technology. The ACLU warned that once the government begins to collect biometrics from every person crossing the border, they will likely expand the practice to new places and for new purposes.”
Annexation Now: Likud ministers’ demand Netanyahu annex West Bank by end of the month – “All Likud government ministers on Wednesday evening called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, the biblical name for the West Bank, before the Knesset’s summer session ends and it adjourns near the end of the month.”
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