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Movie: Shall We Dance? (1996 Japanese Version)
This story is more believable in the context of Japanese culture, which makes it more enjoyable and meaningful to me. Even the comedic characters seem possible, which the American version didn’t pull off. The one strength I grant to the American movie, though, is that it gives more attention to the impact of the main…
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Shelf Road / Cactus Cliff
We’re treated to another day of gorgeous sun, with just a little bite in the wind this time. We figure out the hike from the Bank campground to Cactus Cliff, a worthwhile outing in itself. There are more climbers on the rock today, but we still find things to climb. I try an onsight of…
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Shelf Road / Cactus Cliffs
We don’t get on the rock at Cactus Cliff until the afternoon, but the perfect weather holds for us. The book we have makes it look like Shelf Road is dominated by 5.11 and 5.12 routes, but we find a couple of good easier climbs. It looks like a lot of newer routes have been…
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Movie: Gunner Palace
Initially I thought this documentary featured the same palace Ann’s brother Randy, an army Lieutenant, had written to us about, but I think it’s a different Hussein family palace. I don’t regret the choice, though. This film mostly gives a voice to soldiers on the ground near Baghdad, letting them talk (or sing, or rap)…
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Live Music: CSO and Natasha Paremski
Eighteen-year-old pianist Natasha Paremski stole this show with her performance of Tschaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, as is clear from the Rocky Mountain News review. Jeffrey Kahane surprised me at this performance by conducting without a word, and I realized that I was anticipating the long or short lecture he’s given at the past few…
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Castlewood Canyon
The air is cold and the sky threatening, so we decide to head for a lower destination. Castlewood Canyon is southeast of Denver on Cherry Creek. We’re surprised at the amount of snow there, but it’s a pretty place and the sun comes out to warm us up. The rock cliffs in the canyon are…
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Movie: Strangers On A Train (1951)
I had an adverse initial reaction to the hokey, contrived plot and annoying soundtrack of this film, but eventually it won me over. There’s classic Hitchcock suspense-building, and many memorable little touches. The old amusement park scenes are just great. The message here never loses that contrived feel, if anything the movie gets more wrapped…
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Movie: Schindler’s List (1993)
I’m not sure that it’s even worth critiquing movies dealing with genocide. No matter how intense, I doubt any movie will make a person living a comfortable life know what it’s like to be corralled and slaughtered. It’s easy to condemn the perpetrators of crimes in a movie, and in history, but none of us…
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Geo Mashup Plugin 0.2 Beta
It looks like my plugin is going to work on at least some other systems, so I’ve added a few features, fixed some problems, written a little more documentation, and released a beta version: Geo Mashup Plugin 0.2 Beta You can play with some of the improvements on the hobomap.
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Live Music: Janet Landreth
I’ll never be a music critic, I’m just too amazed by nearly every performance I see. This was a CSU faculty recital that Ann, Carol (Ann’s mom), our friend Alan, and I attended after a huge dinner together. Dr. Landreth clearly put a lot of herself into the program, with readings accompanying the pieces in…