More Adventures

Watched:

Johnny English: Reborn - I did really like the first Johnny English, I think Rowan Atkinson is great, partly because his goofy facial expressions remind me of someone I know and love. This movie was a little smarter, more clever than the first, a little less slapstick, and I definitely recommend it as well as the first Johnny English.

The Three Musketeers - Pretty fun, slightly over-the-top verging on cheesy, but overall a nice "popcorn movie." The colors seemed weird to me, probably because it's supposed to be 3-D. I did enjoy the movie, but I don't have a lot to say about it.

Read:

Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome) - Chronicles the goofy adventures of 3 friends in Victorian Britain, who decide to take a vacation and go boating on the Thames. The characters are similar to those of P. G. Wodehouse (who wrote the Jeeves and Wooster books), and the style of storytelling reminded me a lot of those and of "Cordelia Underwood," by Van Reid, which I love (and if you want to borrow any of them, I will lend them to you). The narrator goes back and forth between telling what is actually happening to them on the river, and telling a story about someone else that he was reminded of, and then sometimes he becomes quite poetical about the river, the scenery and the history of the villages. It was a pretty satisfying read. My favorite quote:

"We are but the veriest, sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach and diet it with care and judgement. Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own, and you will be a good citizen, a loving husband and a tender father - a noble, pious man."

And this book is full of all sorts of great little tidbits like that. I was laughing out loud on the Metro when I read this.

Heir Apparent (Vivian Vande Veld) - A fantasy/sci-fi young adult novel that is a quick, easy, and thoroughly enjoyable read. I have read a few books by this author and I always liked them a lot. They aren't very deep or philosophical or complex, but I don't always need deep, complex philosophy in the books I read. This one is about video games, and when I try to summarize the plot, it sounds dumb, so I'll just copy what the back of the book says: "In the virtual reality game Heir Apparent, there are way to many ways to get killed-and Giannine seems to be finding them all. Unless she can get the magic ring, find the stolen treasure, answer the dwarf's dumb riddles, impress the head-chopping statue, charm the army of ghosts, fend off the barbarians, and defeat the man-eating dragon, she'll never win. And if she doesn't win, she'll die for real this time." It was nice and fluffy and funny in all the right ways.