Hurlshort

It wasn't really a humans versus na'vi movie. It was really just Jake Sully an family on the run, with a bit of Whale Wars thrown in. I imagine we will get the big Pandora World War once Cameron has established all of the biomes. There is an entire human city now that was barely covered in the movie, so that will play a part going forward.

I would say the same. Do you like whales and water more than trees and birds? That is the big change. As a parent with kids who don't listen, it was highly entertaining watching Jake Sully try and get his blue kids to listen to him. I'd probably say the character dynamics were better in the sequel.

Avatar 2 has a chance to passing the $2 billion mark. That will give James Cameron 3 out of the top 6 highest grossing movies of all time. Like Titanic and the first Avatar, it is driven by repeated viewings, making the opening weekend numbers much less important than the length of its run. Not a big surprise, but I know there was some doubt here as to whether it would succeed.

Apocalypse seems to have aged the worst out of the originals. It would be interesting to see a modern version of Xcom 3, with the futuristic setting. Although I also would be happy to see TFTD. Firaxis has already done a spinoff, so I would think they could do a deep sea one. Speaking of the classics, I think Xenonauts 2 is close to open beta. The game is already very solid in alpha.

I got a bit distracted by a Xenonauts playthrough. I just built my 3rd base and have the planet decently covered but I need more jets. The community mod basically floods you with saucers a couple times a month, so I struggle to keep up.

You are in for a treat.

I took my wife and daughter to see Beetlejuice at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco. It was fantastic. Then we went to a tapas restaurant in the back of a pawn shop. My daughter had to pawn her personal tajin shaker to get us in the door. It was a pretty great day in the city.

Bummer, it was pretty good.

I've been playing an MMO called Zwift. Bit of a weird game, I joined a group and finished the session drenched in sweat. I reached level 4 and unlocked a helmet though, so that was nice. I am using the Zwift Hub Trainer in my garage. Perfect for a rainy day.

That is a daily occurrence in 7th grade. What's a eunuch? What's circumcision?

I also just picked up this game on sale and plan on playing it over the break.

Tuna was ruined for me by some Portuguese fishermen neighbors. They would give us jars of tuna filets in olive oil. It was amazing, but now I can't touch the grocery canned stuff. We also moved and lost touch with the fishermen, so now my life is empty. We used to get fresh salmon that way too.

Man, 5 pounds of veal is like $100 today!

Santa is part of the Christmas spirit. My kids know at this point, but they enjoy the illusion as much as I do, so we keep it going. It probably helps that I never answer questions directly from my children. Every query is a chance to test their critical thinking skills.

This is usually when I introduce the concept of apocrypha storytelling in history to my classes. 😉 My favorite is the middle finger and English Longbowmen.

You don't need steriods to look like Cavill, particularly with nutrition and exercise.

Avatar - Titanic 2 My daughter was insistent that we see it opening weekend. I was pretty skeptical about the 3+ hour runtime, but I took the family out to a matinee. I wasn't sure where they were going to go with the story, (other than underwater), but I was pretty happy with it. If the first one was an attack on mining and deforestation, this was an attack on whaling. That being said, it was more about a small family trying to stay together and I thought that part was well done. It was also a visually stunning film. That is no surprise, but I did find myself grinning at the visuals a few times. I didn't really check my watch until about 2 hours in, so that was good. I wouldn't say it dragged on too much. I can also see how it is set up for the sequels now and I like the direction. But I enjoyed the first one, so if you didn't, then this will probably be torture for you. Which is a bummer because it is a beautiful film and seeing it in the theater was the right choice.

Finish? I thought the goal was just to build cool bases in the water and live your best life as an Underwater Ice Road Trucker.

Whelp, I finished my New Vegas run. I played through 2 of the DLC (Old World Blues, Dead Money) but when I went to play Honest Hearts, it started to crash frequently. I tried a few things that didn't work, so I decided to just skip the last 2 DLC and finish the game. I sided with the NCR this time (last time I went with Yes Man.) so it was nice to see that ending. I was actually hoping to finish more content, but the game was locking up too often. That being said, I still finished way more of the side quests than I did back when I originally played it. Now maybe I'll play Subnautica, since they just upgraded the habitat options and I can make my sprawling sea base better.

I'm not sure how you can have any expectations about the Barbie movie. I mean that in a good way. It seems to be fully embracing absurdity. Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie don't typically choose to do basic movies, so there had to have been something unique that convinced them to sign on for this. I think it is safe to say it won't be a kids movie. My daughter watched Barbie Island Princess on repeat for a couple years, so I'm not expecting that.

I'm not paying for her to go lick banana slugs in the Santa Cruz mountains. Actually I have no idea how I'm going to pay for any of this. But San Francisco State has the film production programs she wants, so I can figure that one out. Cal would require a decent Field Hockey scholarship, and she would best fit an engineering program there, given her construction aptitude. I do love the Cal campus though.

I went over my daughter's PSAT scores with her today. She has pretty serious dyslexia, and they didn't really do any accommodations for the PSAT, so she ended up with a 730 (out of 1600). It can be tough to be both supportive and honest in moments like that. She asked if that was a good score, and I said it is definitely a score. I told her she is probably going to need to get it up to 900 to get into San Francisco State. She asked what she needed to do if she wants to get into Berkeley. I told her she is going to need to sue someone. I couldn't help myself. Thankfully they actually dropped the SAT requirements for State Schools, so she doesn't really need to worry about it. She just needs to keep her GPA up and keep doing all of the extracurricular stuff she tends to thrive in.

That's what she said.

There is a great scene in the movie Timbuktu where they are arguing about French football and one guy claims they bought the World Cup from Brazil for a boatload of rice. I couldn't find it, but here is an excellent scene regardless. edit: We are watching this Friday in my classes.

I am much more worried about @Katphood and the protests in Iran.