I Want a Rolling Robot
Wednesday I had another check-up after my surgery earlier this year. I took the bus there, and as such got there early. I had breakfast at the cafe in the hospital. Bread with ham, pineapple, grilled cheesse and apple chutney. Very tasty 🙂 Then I headed for the clinic for the appointment. The scars look really nice, the nipple grafts look good. The left one is even responsive. The only thing that bugs me is that the end of the scar, under my arm, is pointing outwards. The doctor agreed and we decided to get that fixed. Luckily that’s a small job that can be done at the clinic with just some local anesthetic. Just have to wait a while for it to be scheduled.
I then went to work for a few hours after which I met up with Gert to go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I really enjoyed the movie. I’ve seen the other Star Wars movies once, years ago. I can’t remember everything anymore but I know enough to be aware of the general story. Plus, with Star Wars being so ingrained in pop culture, it’s hard to miss.
The new movie introduces new main characters while leaving some room for golden oldies to return. I like Rey and Finn and I love the new robot. I’m definitely keeping the BB-8 plushie from last year’s Nerd Block 🙂 The sequences with the golden oldies, Leia, Hand, Chewie, were charming and I hope we do see more of them in the next movies. I’m less impressed with Kylo, he seems too wimpy. But maybe he’ll grow into his boots. Other than that it was a fairly straight forward story with fun action sequences and good visuals.
Then yesterday Ingrid and I went to the Oosterpoort for a concert show by The Kik. We’d been talking about going to this, and then Ingrid gave me the ticket for my birthday. I’d not heard of them before, but the description of what they do sounded fun. They’re a band that plays music from and inspired by the fifties, sixties and seventies. They write their own stuff, but also cover existing songs from that time. The show wasn’t just a concert but a way of walking through their inspirations.
The stage was dressed with a handful of doors in the back, and a cabinet with vinyls at the front. They would pick a record from the cabinet and tell something about the artist or the song and then play a song by that artist, or something of themselves inspired by. Occasionally a doorbell would ring and there’d be a cutout of an artist behind one of the doors as an introduction to another song or bit of talking. It was an energetic and fun show, and I got to hear a new side of Dutch music.
Caligula is a play written by Albert Camus just before World War two. It tells the story of the cruel Roman Emperor Caligula. He loses his sister and lover Drusilla and cannot deal with this. After wandering in the fields for three days he returns with an absolutist world view. Unable to deal with the relativitiy of everything, and most notably, happiness, he enters a reign of terror.
Guess what day it was? Double feature movie day!
We followed it with Spectre. Now this was good. I’m not well versed in the Bond universe. I’ve seen Bond movies, and I’ve seen the first two Daniel Craig ones. I’ve not seen Skyfall so I didn’t understand all of the bits that referred back to the events of that.
It’s BlizzCon weekend!
The Last Witch Hunter is a fun but not particularly good movie. The visuals and effects are good, the action sequences are fun but the plot is meager and Vin Diesel doesn’t really impress here.
One of the shows for this year’s theater season was a performance by Irish folk singer-songwriter Luka Bloom. I’d mostly heard of him, instead of music by him but when I saw he was doing a show here, I was interested. So was Mom, so we went together last night.
After that, Luka came on stage. He played a full show with some older songs and some songs of his new album interspersed with anecdotes. I really enjoyed the whole thing. He’s of the same make as Boudewijn de Groot. His songs are melodious and the lyrics generally meaningful. The evening was a great success.
I hit the treasure trove yesterday and today! It’s been a while since I’d been to the thrift store in town so I decided to pay them a visit yesterday. I came home with seventeen books for just € 3,95.
Then today I went over to my Parent’s building. They put together a small autumn fair where local crafters could sell their wares. This was the second time they did something like this. I missed the first time, but I wanted to support them. It’s nice when there’s things like this in town. Plus, it places them more into the community at large.