Bryce Moore's Blog, page 249

Movie Review: Iron Man 3

Traipsed off to see Iron Man 3 last night. I approached the movie with no small amount of trepidation. Third movie in the series? New director? We all know what happened to Spider Man 3, and that was with the same everything. I've really enjoyed the first two Iron Man movies. Could it keep it up?



Yes, my friends. It could.



It's helped a ton by Robert Downey Jr. of course. He is Iron Man. The script is pretty tight, too. It's just a shade over 2 hours, which felt like just about the right length. Long enough to feel like it had some heft, but not so long that you just wanted it over. The plot was twisty enough to be surprising, but not convoluted. All good things.



The basics are simple: Iron Man can't sleep. Starting to suffer from some panic attacks. Fall out from the Avengers plot line. I liked that--making a super hero have normal problems. It felt true to life, in a super hero-y way. Add in Ben Kingsley's Mandarin character, who's using terrorism to scare the pants off the country. Iron Man vs Mandarin. Fight!



It's more complicated than that, of course, but that's enough to go on. I think this movie is a hair less good than the first Iron Man, but a much stronger showing than the second--which I also quite enjoyed. It's got the elements you now expect in an Iron Man flick: humor, action, explosions, awesome effects. Really, just another strong showing from Marvel. As I look back on what Marvel's done with their material vs what other people did with it, I'm amazed. Take a glance:



Pre-Marvel:

Daredevil

The Punisher

Ghost Rider

Elektra

Fantastic Four

Hulk

(Yes, you did have Spider-Man and the X-Men franchises, but still--there's a lot of dreck there.)

Post-Marvel:

Iron Man

Thor

Captain America

Avengers

The Incredible Hulk



Granted, Marvel hasn't been doing it for as long yet, but that's still some impressive lineup. Not every one was a home run in my opinion, but they were all doubles or triples at least. Go Marvel! (And go Disney for not getting in the way!)



Anyway. Three and a half stars from me. Highly recommended. I saw it in 3D and really was glad I did. Immersive. Spectacle. That's what you want for your extra money with a 3D movie.



Who else has seen it?

My Daughter Graduated!

Graduated from Preschool, that is. When we moved to Maine, Denisa and I soon heard about this awesome preschool program run at the high school. High schoolers get taught about early childhood education, and they get to practice on actual children. :-) It's twice a week for 2 hours, and costs all of $5/week. We signed TRC up as soon as he was eligible. He loved it, and DC has loved it, too.



They've had the chance to be taught by some of the high school science teachers. They've had some fun times, learned things, and played with far more glitter than should be legal in the state of Maine. Good times.



Today. DC was in her school play--a rendition of the Rainbow Fish. She was the Blue Fish, in case you were wondering. She had a blast, and was very proud of herself.



I've been surprised at how unsentimental DC can be. When TRC was graduating from preschool. he was kind of upset. He realized he wasn't going to be able to go back, and that made him sad. I asked DC what she thought, and she just sort of shrugged it all off. But that's very much in her character. She loves living in the moment, and looks forward all the time to whatever's on the horizon. The past is the past to her. She likes to reminisce. but not too much. I could learn a thing or two from her.



I suppose it also helps that she's still going to Pre-K twice a week, a class she loves even more than preschool.



In any case, congrats, DC! You were the best Blue Fish I've ever seen. :-)

Cape Elizabeth Author Fest--This Saturday!

Hey you.



Yeah, you!



What are you doing this Saturday from 2pm - 5pm? If you live an hour or two away from Portland, Maine, and you DIDN'T say "Going to the Cape Elizabeth Author Fest to see you, Bryce!" then you gave the wrong answer. I mean, come on. 30 authors and illustrators, all New England-based? It just doesn't get better than that, folks. Check out the lineup.



There's going to be readings, minglings, signings, and it's supposed to be kind of drippy weather anyway, isn't it? See? Even the weather wants you to go to this thing. And did I mention it's free? Well, the books aren't if you buy them there (yes, books will be on sale), but the signatures are. :-) And I'm sure you can bring your own copy to get signed. To make a real outing of it, check out the lighthouse before or after. Even if it's drippy.



Anyway. If you've been looking for a fun activity to while away your Saturday afternoon, come on by and say hi. I hope to see you there!

Diet Update: Week 11

Hmm. Week 11. It's been kind of rough lately, to be honest. The last week, I just haven't been getting much sleep. I keep waking up with nightmares that I'm drowning. I'll leave it to you Freudians or Jungs out there to interpret that, but it's made me much grouchier and disgruntled. When I get grouchy, I eat. Add to that a few free dinners, and you've got a recipe for disaster.



Just yesterday, I was up from last week's weigh-in. And then I ate cake for dessert yesterday evening. I was convinced I'd be up today, too. Somehow, I managed to clock in at 195.4. That means I'm down .4 pounds for the week, which has to be about the worst week I've had so far.



Still, the week before that, I was down 2.4 pounds, which means 2.8 for the two weeks. 1.4 on average--which is what I'm shooting for. Yay for averages? But I'll definitely have to stay focused if I'm going to keep on track this coming week. More free food headed my way. :-)



Then again, the whole reason I'm doing this diet is to feel better. In the past 11 weeks, I've gotten a tad sick once or twice, but on the whole, I've felt pretty great, physically speaking. Stressed now and then (or sleep-deprived), but the health thing seems to be working.



I'm getting very tired of not eating whatever the heck I want. Though I suppose I should really just accept that as a lifestyle change and not eat whatever I want all the time. Now and then is fine. What gets me over the longterm is when I consistently eat too much over months.



Bad, Bryce! Bad!



Anyway. Onward and downward!

Movie Review: Les Miserables

Les Mis came out whilst I was out gallivanting around Europe over the Christmas holidays. I had really been hyped to see it, but I missed it in theaters. Here I am, five months later, finally catching it. And I discovered it was a really hard movie for me to review.



I loved it, but there are a slew of disclaimers I feel I need to tack on. (First--a disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of the original musical. Not that I have Les Mis tattooed anywhere on my body or anything, but I really love the stage version. If you don't care for it, this likely isn't going to win you over.)



On the one hand, it's a pretty "faithful" screen version of the stage musical. A few songs got cut down in the prime of their life (Turning, Dog Eats Dog, Little People, Attack on Rue Plumet, etc.), but most of them are all there, more or less. It's a 2.5 hour movie, after all--not a 3.5 plus hour musical. I expected this. (Although I was irrationally irritated that they turned my favorite trio (Fantine, Eponine, and Valjean at the very end) into a Fantine/Valjean duet. Poor Eponine.)



At the same time, the movie wasn't really faithful at all. They made the decision to "act" the songs. Record them live on set. This was simultaneously one of the best things about the movie, and one of my biggest complaints about it. On the one hand, it made for some very moving numbers. I Dreamed a Dream is harrowing, for example. You can really feel the emotion of it by the way it was acted. But at the same time, it meant that all these musical numbers ended up not really being given justice, musically speaking. In other words, I felt like the acting came before the music. Great singing and all, but they weren't able to belt it out there like they do in typical musicals, and I really noticed the difference.



Does that make sense? I both liked the approach, and disliked it. Even days later, I'm still torn between the two.



Other complaints: the typical movie musical approach of putting Hollywood actors/actresses where they don't belong. Russell Crowe? I dig him as an actor, but Javert is a favorite character of mine, and I love his songs. Crowe just couldn't cut it. And don't get me started on "Snow White" Amanda Seyfried. Seriously. Anytime she opened her mouth to sing, I kept expecting little blue birds to fly through the air, and a wicked witch to show up with an apple. Blech. Even Hugh Jackman managed to disappoint me. He has a fine voice, but I thought it was too nasally for Valjean, especially when he went up against real singers. (Eponine and Marius really stood out to me. Hathaway also did a very good job.)



I really enjoyed the Master of the House number with Borat and Bonham-Carter. Very well done. I was also pleased to see how much the movie managed to put the events into better perspective. The time jumps. The character connections. That was all finely executed. However, because it was so finely executed, it highlighted the fact that the musical really jumps all over the place, time-wise. There are just nonsensical leaps that work fine on stage, because you know you're filling in the gaps. But when the gaps are more filled in, the remaining ones become more troublesome. And don't get me started on character development. Again--it works on stage. Once the material becomes more realistic, my expectations rise accordingly.



So like I said--a very hard movie to review. Even while I was watching it, I both enjoyed it and critiqued it at the same time. A fine example of both why movie musicals do and do not work. I could see it being used by either camp to defend their position.



3.5 stars out of 4. What did you think of it?

Bryce's Bio

I just had to type up a current brief bio for myself. I'll leave you to wonder why. It's nothing bad. Not losing or leaving my job. But some fairly major developments on the library side of my life. More information forthcoming, when I can share it. Probably end of next week or so.



Anyway, here's the bio:



Bryce Cundick received his MLS in Knowledge Management and Youth Services (dual emphasis) from Florida State University in 2007. He also has a Masters in English Literature from Brigham Young University. He has worked at The University of Maine of Farmington for the past five years as the Library Information Services Manager. Prior to that, he worked at Orem Public Library in Utah, as well as the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU. He has served on multiple committees and boards, most recently as Vice-Chair and then Chair of the Central Maine Library District Executive Board, and as a representative to the District Liaison Committee.

In addition to his career as a librarian, Bryce writes Young Adult fantasy novels under the pen name Bryce Moore. His first novel, Vodnik, came out in 2012 from Tu Books. He lives with his wife and three children in Western Maine.

Goals: Time is Finite. Efficiency is Not.

A friend of mine had an excellent blog post earlier this week about learning to play a new instrument and overcoming obstacles. In it, he mentioned a quote from a music instructor he'd had: "Air is finite. Efficiency is not." My friend extended that to time management, and I completely agree. It's something I come across all the time in my own life.



We're all given the same amount of time each day. What we do with that time is completely up to us, more or less. I'm not going to blog today about how *you* ought to be using your time. I hate it when people try to make that decision for me. No--today I'm looking at how *I* spend my time.



There are days when I feel like I get a ton done. I'm just super efficient, and I look at what I accomplished at the end of the day, and I'm just amazed. There are other days when I somehow let my time slip through my fingers. One minute I have the whole day, the next minute that day is over, and I've got nothing to show for it.



What makes the difference? For me, it's usually the planning I put into the day ahead of time. If I have a list and have thought through what needs to happen, I do a good job of getting the items on that list done. If I don't have a list, it's rare that I end up having much success that day.



Ironically, even on the days when my list seems overwhelmingly long, I almost always get all the things done on it that I set out to do. I suppose I should put a disclaimer on that statement. A lot of the time, I'll think something needs to be done as I'm planning my day, but then when I'm in the middle of the day, I decide that item wasn't essential, after all. I suppose that's a bit of a cop out. Couldn't I just make a long list, then sit down the next day and decide none of that needs to happen? I suppose so--but I make those decisions usually because I'm prioritizing. Even when nothing on my list gets done, I still end up getting more done in general because I made the effort of prioritizing. Does that make sense?



The last two weeks, I've gotten a lot done. I've gardened, dug ditches, gone fishing, finished writing almost half of a book, helped my wife have a baby, cooked dinners, cleaned the house, done some massive decluttering, lost around 5 pounds, gone to two Magic prereleases--it's a long list. I could keep going, but I think the point is made.



I was just looking back at all of it this morning, and I was really pleasantly surprised at how well everything's gone. (Of course, as soon as I write that, I automatically wonder what lies around the corner . . . )



I can't say enough about how much organization and goals have helped me in my life. I remember when I had just started my mission, back when I was 19. We had a lesson on goal setting, and I was seriously stumped. I had a long conversation with my teacher after class. Brueder Hahn was his name, I believe. I asked him how in the world goals could really be useful. I'd never set them for myself before, and they seemed like a total waste of time. He gave me a quote by Thomas S. Monson (now President of the Mormon church):

“When we deal in generalities, we shall never succeed. When we deal in specifics, we shall rarely have a failure. When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates.”

I respected the source of the quote, but I didn't really believe it. Goals seemed like hoops to jump through. A needless waste of time. Why spend all that effort setting goals if it's for something you're just going to do anyway?



It took me about a year as a missionary, but I finally saw the light when it comes to goals. It took me a while when I came home from my mission, but once again--I finally saw how well it would help me if I started setting them. Lists are the same way. They're my goals for the day.



Anyway. I don't know what else to say about this topic. It's just a sort of observation I made this morning, and I felt like sharing it with all of you. I know people who hate goals--they still think they're needless. And I can respect that. But for me? I can't think of living without them. They help me in every area of my life: work, family, writing, housework. You name it.



What are your thoughts on goals?

Children are Like Furbies

TRC and DC got Furbies for Christmas. You all know what Furbies are, right? Those little mechanical pets that talk gibberish and sometimes need to be locked in cabinets because they won't be quiet? Yeah. Those Furbies.



Children are like that.



Now before you call Protective Services on me, I don't mean to say that kids talk gibberish and need to be locked in cabinets. Uncle Vernon I'm not. No--it's just something that occurred to me as I was helping take care of MC the other day.



New Furbies are different than old Furbies, for one thing. With these new ones, they have personalities that change depending on what they encounter. One minute they might be mild-mannered little critters. The next, they suddenly become these zany creatures that like to do screwy things. And later they're just plain grouchy.



Kids are like that. And I don't just mean that they have mood swings.



Maybe I should just say what I mean, huh?



At first we just had one child. TRC. And our experience with raising children was limited to that one child. Other babies who behaved differently were strange. Odd. Their parents must have been doing something wrong. TRC didn't do that. We never had a problem with _______ with TRC, so by extension, the only children who did have a problem were the victims of poor parenting. (Yes. I judged parents. I was also 9 years younger. Cut me some slack.)



Then we had DC four years later.



We now had a girl version and a boy version, and we discovered they were very different. Right off the  bat. TRC had been a fountain of vomit for the first six months. You couldn't set him down without plenty of towels close by, because he was bound to erupt at any moment. He was a fairly light sleeper. He hated loud noises. DC? Hardly any vomit. Slept much better. Didn't mind the noise as much.



And the differences only became more clear the older the kids got. DC just adores cooking and cleaning and doing art projects. She could be set for hours with a single thing of watercolors. TRC loves taking things apart and finding out new things.



Denisa and I attributed these differences to the differences in gender. TRC was the boy model. DC was the girl model. Case closed.



Now we have MC.



And already, I can see that MC is very different from DC, despite the fact that they're both girls. I know that for parents of 6 kids or whatever, this is stating the obvious. But it's one thing to know something in theory--very different to see it in practice.



Case in point: we took MC to an activity at church on Sunday. With TRC and DC, this would have been kind of an ordeal. Both of them would wake up pretty easily, and once awake, they'd stay awake. MC was asleep when it was time to go. I picked her up, moved her to her car seat, got her buckled, drove to church, took her out.



Still asleep.



The girl likes to sleep way more than either of my other kids. She's gaining weight (more than a pound so far), and eating enough, but she sleeps sleeps sleeps. Last night she ate at 9pm, then again at 2am, and then at 7am. Five hour stretches? That's just crazy for a two week old. I keep waiting for her to just be way less fond of sleep. Maybe that's still coming.



But in the meantime, I'm just surprised at how different each child is. And if they're that different at birth, how different are they by the time they're in school? By the time they're adults?



I think it's easy to make assumptions about people. Assume that they think like you do, want the same things you do. That sort of thing. Looking at my three children?



I don't think you can make those kind of assumptions. And that's before you take different cultures, different religions, different races--all that other stuff into account.



Maybe children aren't the only Furbies running around.



Just a thought on this fine Wednesday . . .

Diet Update: Week 10

We've now made it to week 10. What is that--70 days of dieting? No wonder I'm getting tired of it. This was a strange week. MC's here now, and my routine is all shot to pieces. I've been eating food I don't normally eat, at times I don't normally eat it, and I haven't been able to be as good about weighing things as I'd like to be. Add in the stress of having a new baby, and you'd figure the situation would be ripe for some weight gain. I was planning on that, actually.



But because I was planning on that, I also ate less than I normally do. I exercised more. I was much more conscious about limiting things. And even with all of that, up until a few days ago, it looked like I would have lost about .6 pounds for the week. Not great, but nothing to sniff at, either.



Weight this morning? 195.8. That's 2.4 pounds lost since last week, making it my best week in a long time! My BMI is down to 25.1, meaning I'm .2 points away from officially being "normal" again. (I wonder if I can get that certified . . . )



I feel quite good, despite the fact that I haven't been sleeping well. The diet's doing what it's supposed to be doing, and I've been able to stick with it so far. I'm actually about 3 weeks ahead of schedule, give or take. So that's a good feeling.



Maybe this next week will catch up with me some. I'm not sure. But for now, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. I definitely feel like I've lost weight, and I suppose I should--I'm up to 18.2 pounds gone. 17.8 to go, which means I've passed the halfway mark, too. A bunch of great milestones. So does that mean I'll be done in 10 more weeks? July 9th? Seems like a ways away, but who knows . . .

Back to Work

I'm back at work starting this week. I can hardly believe it's been two weeks since Denisa and I were prepping for MC to arrive. Part of that is no doubt due to the fact that I'm still not sleeping well, and so I walk around in a sort of dazed stupor, pretending to be "with it," but really quite out of it when you get down to it. (There's a lot of "its" in that sentence. Sorry. My internal blog editor is busted right now.)



Coming back to work isn't optimal right now. There seems to be so much I need to catch up on at home, keeping things running as smoothly as possible. Then again, I'm not sure when an "optimal" time would be. I've taken about two weeks, and I'll work part time this week, but in the end, you need to keep your life moving, and a big part of my family's life rests on me going to work and making money. :-)



Anyway. I'm up to my eyeballs in work at the moment, so you're going to have to fend for yourselves today. But fear not, faithful readers. I'm not going to leave you stranded. Here's an awesome typing game I came across in my blog travels, shared for your entertainment in my absence.



Until tomorrow!



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