"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.' "
Charlie Brown

Holla back, from da Kat unda da Kangol cap! What started as a rather boring week last week turned pretty cool after all. No thanks to certain friends of mine, I finally went to the movies by myself. In fact, the trip to the MacWorld Expo was a solo flight when I think about it. Wow, I feel so proud of myself, no longer needing company to have a good time!

Ok, what happened? In what was supposed to be a Friday night trip to the movies with some buddies, I ended up not only going to the MacWorld Expo by myself, I also went to the movies last Saturday on my own as well(sad, ain't it?) Saw Bad Boys II and Johnny English, which are both cool flicks. Then I went to see Terminator 3 the next day, and that was awesome too!

First up, my first trip to the MacWorld Expo, despite the fact it felt pretty small at the Javits Center, was cool. It was a challenge resisting the urge to buy all the cool Mac gadgets they were offering me. But aside from that, the G5 unveiling was awesome. But I must admit to you, that machine has got to be right now the most ridiculously, unnecessarily, most powerful computer I've seen; I got the 17" tiBook was something, but this one takes the cake! After an hour or so of walking around and checking out stuff, I ended up leaving with a clear iPod case, which displays the beauty of my 2nd-gen device while protecting it. I thought that'd be a cool way to celebrate 7 months of its existence in my life. Right now, with 743MB left, I have 1986 songs (that's 1986 down, 14 to go)...

Wining Queen
Elephant Man
Riddim Driven: Nine Night Riddim

And yes, my photos from the trip to expo are available here.

Second: Bad Boys II. For two and a half hours, there were times I felt that this wasn't the movie I paid $7 to watch. The first car chase in the movie reminded me a little of the chase in Matrix Reloaded. The hummer chase through the shantytown was a total and direct ripoff of Jackie Chan's Police Story, which happens to be one of the best cop films of all time (I'm sure Jackie was very flattered.) The whole idea of Lowry & Burnett rifting apart and eventually staying partners in the end is oh too similar to Riggs & Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon 3. Even the plot of two Miami cops heading to Cuba as two fish that are in too deep is another ripoff; this time from the Miami Vice episode Calderon's Return. In fact, the similarities between this movie's bad guy and Orlando Calderon are striking. Just imagine a 2 1/2 hour episode of Miami Vice, that's all.
I keep mentioning the length of this movie; but while it was a tad bit long, they made up for that time with a lot of action. So I forgive them for that one. Gabrielle Union was pretty good in this film as well. Also, the rats thing was in fact very funny. A man with so much money, it can breed rats; that was a pretty hilarious concept. Add that to the exchanges between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, especially the part where Lawrence downs some pills of ecstasy, and you have a very entertaining film. It sure could have been good without the dead body count, and the very graphic scenes of rats reproducing and brains literally being forced out one's body; but it was still one good flick nonetheless. It will get a 9 out of 10 from me; even though with all the dead body and cars being tossed around, the film was 2 1/2 hours long.

A trip to Wendy's and an hour later, I went back to United Artists theater to watch Rowan Atkinson's Johnny English. Now, I was not into Bean as much as I was into Blackadder and The Not Nine O Clock News; in fact, I was more a Blackadder fan than anything else. So going into the movie, I expected a little Baldrick, I have a cunning plan humor. But, for the first half of the film, while it was laughable, it was not as humorous as I wanted it to be.
I don't know whether John Malcohvich's portrayal of a frenchman was supposed to be accurate or humorous in itself, but that damn accent had me laughing the entire time; in fact, as the rest of the audience eventually found out what I was laughing at, they realised that it (the fake French accent) must have meant to be funny, and started to crack up as well! And I don't know what happened, but from the "car chase" with Johnny English's Astor Martin hanging from a tow truck, 'til the end of the movie, the movie became really, really hilarious. Images of English and his partner breaking into the bad guy's lair through the crapper had me going for hours it seemed. Oh yeah, Natalie Imbruglia wasn't bad either.
All in all, the film is very funny; it may have a slow start, but it does have a good finish. And give Robbie Williams' A Man For All Seasons a listen. It gets a 9 out of 10 as well.

The next day (being Sunday), my brother and I went to see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. More action, more drama, and lots of stuff blowing up; typical of the Terminator films. I can honestly say that the absence of Linda Hamilton and director James Cameron did not bring down this film at all. In fact, it actually has kept true to the Terminator continuum. In the human/machine war of the future, a human sends a terminator to the past to make certain that the John Connor and some woman named Brewster (Claire Danes) survives Judgment Day to fight the machines. And that female Terminator was just da bomb!
In any case, the film gets a 10 out of 10 from me; for action, continuity, and restoring my faith in Arnold after Jingle All The Way...

Uh-Oh. The skies just got darker, and it's after 2PM. I'll post some more stuff later...