wow, i've tried to write an intro to this post about 4 times, and this is the only one that sounds half-decent.
shame, i know. hahaha...
so i basically wasted my whole weekend sitting down... i rented a car, so spent a lot of time driving around, and
also crushed my movie jones, catching 7 movies over a 3-day span... that's 7 movies in the cinema. hahaha... and
you thought i was crazy before?
but first, big ups to matt, lyds,
and brian for hitting up 2 guys who know everything about everything,
the new blog my buddy viet and i do, where we just rant and rave about anything and everything.
while i'm talking about other ppl, lemme just mention the insanely long (well, for her) post by
angee on her blog, as well as the self-inflicted shame of
smileyct who didn't know that the yukon was a canadian
territory... or that there are 3 territories in total (northwest territories, yukon and nunavut)... for shame.
and i thought it was bad when christie (or christy or kristy or...), a girl i met at
ibc on sunday, hadn't heard of toronto. whoa! maybe
i would understand not knowing where it is, but not having heard of it? say what?
anyways, back to the movies... on thursday night, i went with chris and yvonne to watch
shrek 2, which was pretty darn funny. i didn't think it
was as good as the first one, but it was still pretty good.
on friday, i took off right after work and raced to hasselt to watch
honey,
the punisher, and
the butterfly effect... and then on
saturday, i watched the ladykillers,
dawn of the dead, and
eurotrip... phew. that's a lot, just to type,
let alone sit through.
well, i thought honey was alright, a little cheesy, and while
jessica alba was hot (as usual), didn't she look like she was
faking it horribly? i thought so. the punisher was alright too, though
john travolta reprising that bad-guy shtick from
broken arrow and
face-off is just plain bad. i heard
the ladykillers was supposed to be tom
hanks' funniest comedy... no way. big
was way funnier... even a league of their
own was funnier.
luckily, not all the movies i watched were so pedestrian. dawn of the dead was pretty good,
though not unlike 28 days later... i liked
earl haig alum sarah polley (wait, does that word mean that you
graduated or just attended?) as well as the reliable ving
rhames...
eurotrip also performed above expectations, playing off of stereotypes and the whole europe
trip experience... the part where the kid does... well, if you've seen it, you'll know what i'm talking about.
that part was just so funny. i couldn't stop laughing... actually, everyone else was laughing
so hard, i couldn't hear the dialogue in that part... canadian hottie
kristin kreuk has a small role in it too, for all you
smallville fans...
but the best movie, surprisingly, was the butterfly effect, with
ashton kutcher and
amy smart... i dunno, maybe cuz i didn't know anything about
it beforehand (this usually happens to me over here), but it was one of those movies that really made me think,
sorta like donnie darko or
21 grams... a lot of "what if?" questions
came to mind, though not like the ones viet and i ask each other... more like, reflections on your life and the
decisions you made...
anyways, that was the weekend. oh, and greece won euro 2004, 1-0 vs.
portugal... i'm sure my old high school buddies pat and kenny were partying it up big-time...
sorry for being so scarce... i'm just finding other things to do with my time, besides journalling the ins and
outs of my days... hope you don't mind...
the canadian national vimy memorial (aka vimy ridge)
on the weekend, chris, jason and i went to northern france to visit some
canadian war memorials from world war i
(the juno beach area from ww ii was too far), namely, the famous
vimy ridge memorial... it
was impressive and humbling. close friends will know how big a history buff i am, particularly when it comes to
seminal world events, such as wwi, so this was quite the experience...
headstones at canadian cemetery no. 2, vimy memorial
reading history in a textbook and actually seeing it with your own eyes are 2 different things... it wasn't like
i was magically transported back 90 years and relived the war, but in some small things, you could imagine what
it was like for the canadian soldiers... wading about in knee-high water, muddy trench life, full of disease...
i thought about what it was like, for young men, often around my age or a bit younger, to be thrust into the heat
of battle... i thought about what it was like, for whole nations to be turned on their heads, every living moment
spent thinking of war... it's not a pretty sight, but the sacrifice had to be made, and i, for one, am grateful
for those who did.
the beaumont-hamel
newfoundland memorial was also pretty nice, but i didn't take many pics there with my digicam... we stayed
in arras on friday night and wanted to stay in lille on saturday, but we couldn't find a cheap place to stay, so
we ended up just having dinner there and chilling out a bit before coming back after midnight.
all in all, a good weekend. click here for other pics from the trip.
another week, another wongoz.com post. at least the weather sorta picked up, although that's been a mixed
blessing too... all last week, actually, basically the whole summer so far, it was cold and rainy... overcast,
dreary, temps in the low 10s... and it was july! say what?
well, i dunno if it was coincidence, but angie came back from her month-long stint in georgia (again, the former
soviet republic, not the america state), and weather there was supposedly excellent... well, we had our first
day of summer on saturday, and yesterday was nice too, although both days there were also some crazy evening
rains, the kind that make you wonder if western germany had a monsoon season...
anyhoo, the weekend was pretty coolz. i saw mean
girls, starring the recently-turned-of-age lindsay
lohan, and spider-man 2, featuring the
do-they-really-pay-him-to-act tobey maguire and the
lovely-but-sorta-weird-looking kirsten dunst... all i gotta say
is the spidey movie was great.
also went to another of fritzi's orchestra concerts... they played a few selections, including mendelssohn's
classic wedding march from a
midsummer night's dream... jason and anup came along as well, and they both enjoyed it.
sunday was pretty standard, except that after church, i went with steffi to this dance ball thing on a rhein
river boat... it was like a dance party for the ppl who had taken dance lessons at the university, kinda like a
course-end thing for intra-mural stuff, i suppose... well, whatever. i didn't know jack, and it obviously
showed, cuz i was basically two-left-footing it the whole night... waltz? cha cha cha? disco fox? what?
anyhoo, today's been a long day, so i'm outtie.
7.31.2004 hola! apprendo espaņol!
well, i figure i should write at least one more entry this month... i've been trying to enjoy the summer, since
it came so late... better late than never!
katrin and me at the kawo 1 party
remember that party that i said i went to with jason, christof,
dalia and karoline last month? well, here are some pics that i took that night but haven't posted until now...
hahaha... my bad. i just had other pics to get to before those ones... you understand, right? well, just suck
it up and deal. i work at a leisurely pace... hahaha...
christof and jason... notice the jackets. it's mid-june!
anyways, if you notice in the pics, we're all wearing jackets. it's mid-june (actually, it's the night greece
defeated france in the euro cup semifinals. note my france jersey), and we needed to wear jackets... jason's
even wearing a leather jacket. it's that cold. mid-june! unreal. that's why i've been
maximizing my time in the sun the last couple weeks.
dalia and karoline
so what's been going on... hmmm... let's see. i've started a beginner's spanish course at this private school...
it's going pretty well... just need to remember all the vocab, but the grammar is pretty simple... a lot easier
than german, imho. the teacher is this girl from mexico, marta... she seems cool... we're gonna try to hang out
next week some time, cuz she wants to practice her english again...
what else... i joined a gym 2 days ago and i went to work out for the first time today... finally! it felt
really good to work out again. of course, being the lazy ass i am, i'm so out of shape, but hopefully things
will come around... i signed up cuz it was a really good deal... 200 euros for a year. i thought, i can spare
less than 17 euros a month to work out again... we'll see how well i stick with the program, heheh...
oh, cheryl, a friend of mine from western, and canice, her no-meat-eating,
no-alcohol-drinking, no-party-attending sister, came to visit for a couple days last week... it was great to have
them over and show them around the area... they don't strike me as typical touristy types so it was a bit of a
stuggle for me to figure out what to show them... but i think they had a good enough time, just chillin and all
that. a couple pics from their visit later...