Thoughts from the Ass End of the Night, Vacation End Edition

I can blame the sinus medicine, I think. The real junk that you have to give your drivers license and thumb print and saliva sample to buy at the CVS will mess with my sleep if I take it took much. There's an odd sureness that falls over you when you wake up at 3:45. "I'm not going back to sleep." And, I didn't. Wandered out to see who finished up well at the Oscars after I tapped out somewhere around the time not long after Best Supporting Actress. Thinking the whole time, as I checked, I could have just stayed up to watch if I'd known I was just going to pull four hours of sleep, anyway.

Was glad to see Hurt Locker get the attention that it did. It's a very cool flick. Wandered up to Knoxville (during my last vacation week, back in the fall, if I'm not mistaken) to see. Wonderfully put together movie.

Was also happy to know that Jeff Bridges won for Crazy Heart (though, thanks in part to some good writing from a couple of folks) I could have cheered equally as hard for Jeremy Renner, should he have won.

So, here I sit at 4:40. The vacation's over. Will have to wander back into Botardland in a couple of hours. I'm pleased with the vacation as a whole. I needed to get some writing done, as there's an opportunity at hand I want to give my all for. I think I've finished up a draft on a novel. I'm in the can't see the forest for the trees stage of things, still. We'll know soon, I suppose.

I still found time to wander out to a couple of movies over the vacation week. I went to see The Crazies, which I liked. Couple of nice, creepy moments, which is basically what you pay for.

Also found myself up in Knoxville with a couple hours to kill on Friday, and went ahead to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie. I gave it a middling thumbs up, though 48 hours has taken the emotional high off of that, even. It's a storybook of a movie, with no interesting character development. It's a movie that's utilizing the new tools of a medium. And with apologies to Mr. Ian Malcolm, it's not unlike a kid with a gun. The filmmakers are so excited that they're at the state of the art, they don't bother to throw in a decent story. Alice in Wonderland's a lot like Avatar. It's an extremely pretty movie (like Avatar), and it shows some promise early on (like Avatar), but quickly degenerates into a uninspired chosen-warrior story that we've all seen time and time again (like Avatar). And while I'd never have thought that Alice would turn into that story, that doesn't really qualify as good storytelling.

Anyway. It's now sniffing at 5 Ay Em, and I probably need to start going though the motions of getting ready for work. Wish me luck, as I wander back toward the equilibrium state of Working like a Botard....