Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated
I hadn’t much time to update this blog. But yes, I’m still alive, and yes, I’m fine. Thankyouverymuch. While I certainly would have liked to write more, the reason for the lack of updates is a positive one: As of June 8th, 2006, I started on a new job as assistant on call for Credit Suisse in Aarau. It’s a challenge I gladly accept, one which demands a lot but also returns a lot. One other positive factor are my terms of employment. I’m employed ‘on call’, which gives me a flexible working schedule - an important factor, given the fact that I’m also attending the Aargauische Maturitätsschule für Erwachsene (AME) on Wednesday and Saturday.
It’s only natural I don’t have all that much time for my blog anymore. I do, however, want to continue with it. I’ll probably write fewer, shorter and less polished entries. Another idea I’ve tossed around with recently is the introduction of some weekly features like photo of the week, link of the week, fact of the week and so on. This would allow me to update the blog frequently without any pressure of having to come up with all-creative, all-exclusive and all-interesting stuff by my own.
To reanimate my blog for now, I’ve quickly finished some of the stuff I’ve started over the last few weeks and merged them into one, big entry:
Movie Review I: American Dreamz
Paul Weitz is a director who has a mixed record with me. I absolutely love In Good Company and About A Boy, but loathe American Pie (I spare you the Wikipedia link). And so on a nice Thursday evening I was eager to see on what end of the scale his new movie, American Dreamz, would end.
The idea is promising although barely very originally. The President of the United States (an obvious parody on George W. Bush) has a special kind of mid-life crisis - after winning his bid for reelection, he starts reading books and newspapers, and loses sight of other important stuff like meeting the press and listening to his Chief of Staff (a Dick Cheney/Karl Rove type), who is shocked by this new development.
The solution for the low approval ratings of the President seems easy - putting him as a guest judge on the most popular TV show of all times, American Dreamz (a mockery of American Idol - Note: Reading through Wikipedia’s entry actually reveals quite a few interesting and rather precise parallels between these two shows I wasn’t aware of earlier). Things are getting complicated when a would-be terrorist enters the show in order to commit suicide during the President’s appearance.
From there on, the movie basically follows three narrative plot lines, centering around the process of the show and presenting the lives of its main characters: the President of the United States of America, the Arab terrorist, the cynical host of American Dreamz and a young and overambitious wanna-be music star girl.
Unfortunately, the wide scoop of the movie means it can’t focus on just one or two topics. Thus the satire touches many interesting points, but doesn’t really go into any details. Despite some good and witty scenes, the whole movie just has too many loose ends and remains too tame for a satire (this can be seen when, for about five to ten minutes, the movie shows clips of miserably singing and dancing aspirants for American Dreamz. That’s what the real American Idol is for, gosh).
All in all, the movie was… nice. Unfortunately, for a movie which should have been a snappy and witty satire on the media and politics, this is hardly a compliment.
Movie Review II: Stesti - Something Like Happiness
Stesti is a movie from the Czech Republic which tells the story of a life far away from the shiny and beautiful picture tourists see when visiting the Czech capital Prague. Instead, the movie presents the rural, agrarian-industrial area, where daily life is hard and people live a life of quiet desperation; yet still rave about moments of luck and future dreams, swapping between optimism and melancholy seemingly seamless.
I don’t want to go too much into the story, for this is a movie you should see for yourself. Let me just add that the movie features some incredible wonderful cinematic shots of the Czech Republic and that the cast does an awesome job.
Yeah, I’m a sucker for these kind of movies, and I probably should have written a more elaborate review. Mea culpa.
Summer vacations: Czech Republic & Adventures
Travelling is something I love to do, and I always look forward to the next place I can visit. For this summer vacations, my favourite destinations would have been Lybia, Morocco or Uzbekistan. For one reason or another, I had to rule out each one of them - at least for this summer. Oh well, thankfully our world isn’t really short of interesting countries to see.
And so I’ve come up with the following nominees: Norway/Sweden, Portugal, Czech Republic and Albania. As you surely already have guessed, the Czech Republic won in the end. Bernhard, who will travel with me yet again, and I have already decided for a nice route (Prague & Around - Ceske Budejovice & Ceske Krumlov - Brno - Olomouc - Prague), and I just hope we can avoid the mass tourism crowds once we are outside of Prague itself.
Apart from that, I’ve bought some old adventure games over Ebay recently. They were a real bargain, and here’s my list so far: Syberia I + II, Omikron - The Nomad Soul, Beyond Good & Evil and Sam & Max Hit the Road. I’ll also try to buy Dreamfall, which is the successor of my favourite adventure of all times, The Longest Journey. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if it will run on my laptop. I don’t have time to play more than one of them. First of all, I’ve bought them a few weeks back when I didn’t have a job, so I don’t have that much time anymore. Secondly, I don’t want to sit in front of the computer all the time, so one game really is enough. And last but not least, my very own first adventure (really, rather Interactive Fiction) game, All That Remains, is also due this summer, and I sure as hell will try to meet that deadline.
I also might visit the Montreux Jazz Festival (wikipedia entry). However, it’s held in early July, a time when I don’t have vacations, so I could only go during the weekends of 8th/9th or 14th/15th July. As it is, the only concert I’m somewhat interested in on that date are Iggy Pop & The Stooges. And as the entry price is rather high I’ll probably miss on that one.
