When I was hip-deep in my English major lifestyle, a trusted teacher once told me that an effective title can help save a bad thesis statement. The notion is that if you are struggling to sum up your paper's goal/main point into one sentence (the thesis), you should work on having a catchy or detailed title to help share the argumentative load. The reason I bring up this example is because producers have just unveiled the title of the next Daniel Craig James Bond movie and, after reading it, I'm confused. I'll let you read it for yourself. Here are the titles of the last five James Bond movies.

GoldenEye
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World Is Not Enough
Die Another Day
Casino Royale

and now, Quantum of Solace



Okay, so 'Quantum' meaning an amount and 'Solace' being comfort from sadness, so the title is The Amount of Comfort or Dr. Wussypants: or How James Bond's new title makes him sound like a whiner. Perhaps my knee-jerk-to-the-groin response is too harsh. Maybe the title will look great on a poster. I have to admit that one of the strengths of Casino Royale's relaunch of Bond was making him human (with faults and feelings) rather than a cold war terminator with two settings (hump and kill). So perhaps a movie based on Bond's depression following the events of the previous installment, will add more layers to Bond's previously-shallow narrative. But.

It's still a little weird. Thoughts?

The last part of the title was really just me copping out on creating a full list. When writing (especially blogging) I have a habit of wanting to describe things in blocks of three. Perhaps its an unspoken commitment to ancient patterns, or maybe it's just me being anal, regardless I'm a tri kind of guy. Anyhow, I really only have two cuddly weather disasters to discuss. First, tornadoes. I've never seen a tornado outside of Hollywood depictions and it's not on my bucket list anyway. The reason I bring it up is because one touched down near my parent's house last week causing a path of destruction through my old neighborhood.



Looking at how close it came to ripping the roof off my old stomping grounds, I was hit with a combo of sadness and helplessness (and a smidge of coolness). Since when does Vancouver Washington have a tornado problem? Then, last night, my current stomping grounds (Pullman WA) was hit with a severe ice storm that laid a nifty blanket of ice across the Palouse. This morning, my 5-minute bus ride to campus took an hour because the bus couldn't get up a hill.

Is it just me, or does nature seem to have a grudge against the world lately? Severe weather in the English Channel sank a ship yesterday and several people froze to death in the Middle East after getting caught in a cold sap. I don't want to make the obvious connection that these severe weather patterns seem like something out of a Hollywood movie, but don't these examples seem like something out of a made-for-tv movie? While a rationalist may address these examples with a simple explanation (hey, it's winter), the extremist in me is left to watch the skies. Be wary gentle readers, weathermaggedon is upon us.

Hello all,

Since two people tried to answer my trivia question (which almost qualifies as a success), we're trying another one.

Match the now-famous actor to the movie they appeared in as a child.

Movies:
1. City Slickers
2. Mystic Pizza
3. Goonies
4. It (TV)
5. Bob Roberts
6. The Terminator
7. Critters 3
8. Back to the Future 2

Actors:
A. Jack Black
B. Elijah Wood
C. Jake Gyllenhaal
D. Seth Green
E. Bill Paxton
F. Josh Brolin
G. Matt Damon
H. Leonardo DiCaprio

Happy New Year everyone. I hope it was filled with holiday merriment and many warm furies (warm fuzzies x2). Personally, I got to spend some quality time with the folks and take in the holiday movie crop. And speaking of movies, to kick start the new year I wanted to offer a new feature to this here blog: Movie Trivia. Every so often I'm hit with the urge to re-watch old movies and put my Patflix collection to use. The other day I had such an urge and was taken aback by how many now-famous people intersected in this film. So, your trivia task: name the movie. Below are four hints to the film, record how many hints it took and post it in your response (if the hints didn't help and you're still curious, consult the responses or IMDB)

Hint 1: Luke Wilson, Heather Graham and Tori Spelling were featured in this late 90's sequel, but never interacted with the cast.

Hint 2: Vern from Stand By Me, Buffy, the law from Deadwood, and Mrs. Bluth-Funke also joined the cast.

Hint 3: None of the people from the hints were in the 1996 original.

Hint 4: It's the genre with the most maligned sequels.