Today I officially finished my Summer Session classes. I proceeded to celebrate by taking a nap on the couch for the rest of the afternoon. I will be in Portland Monday through Wednesday although I will be helping paint the house up there most of my free time. Also if anyone is going to be in town on Sunday evening wants a free BBQ dinner, Jerry's company piknik is an all around good time. I can only take one person so don't all answer at once.

Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is a very interesting movie and not good interesting either.
The movie lacks development for any of the characters. It fails to provide any real motivation for the characters as well. The characters are introduced in the beginning and remain static characatures of their "personalities" for the remainder of the film. Tom Cruise fails to transform himself at all in this movie which contributes largely to the inability of this movie to capture the audience. Dakota Fanning does a decent job - for a child - with a character that seems truely impossible to understand or empathize with.
Steven Spielberg failed most of all in creating an alien race that the audience would feel one way or another about. I am running out of picture space so I will sum up the rest. Nothing in this movie is developed or explained to satisfaction. There is no climax in the movie. The problems of the movie are resolved in the last five minutes with no build up and only a voice over before the credits to explain it.
Where and When to Watch: Hungover Sunday afternoon on TNT in 10 years...for the special effects.

As a footnote to the movie, I got a kick out of the fact that Spielberg nearly copied the Raptor-kitchen scene in Jurassic Park in this movie.

I downloaded a two disk jam session between Eric Clapton and Duane Allman in 1970. I am only through the first song but already this is proving to be my favorite album of all time. 950 MB of FLAC goodness.

Finally I will leave you with a YouTube clip I think is worth watching. In this case I feel very strongly about it. If you can get through the first 3:26 of this video, you will be treated to one of the most surreal experiences of your life...and you will probably learn something too.