Safety First

In the state where potholes in the streets are plentiful and the drivers and pedestrians behave like they want to cash in on a life insurance policy, I was shocked to learn this week that my Schnitzelwagen is not safe. But from the beginning, since my Illinois car insurance ran out, I finally switched my car registration to a MA license plates. As part of the registration, I had seven days to get my car through a safety inspection. No problem, I thought, I drove right to a garage to get that safety sticker. The guy took a look at my car for 10 seconds and said:'Your windshield is cracked, which is a safety hazard in this state'. Wow, I had this crack in the bottom right corner of my windshield for a couple of years now and never a problem. But, I needed the safety check, so I had the windshield replaced and passed the check. I must admit, when I get into my car now, I feel a lot safer... Actually, these safety checks aren't bad, I've seen a lot less junkers on the streets than in Illinois, for example.

Movie Reviews:
I went to this little quaint theatre in Beverly the other day. I meet with other movie enthusiasts and we watched 'Islander'. It's a movie about a lobster fisherman who lives on an island of Maine. Slow movie, but good characters and interesting stories.


I also saw 'Once', another indie movie that plays in Ireland. The story revolves around a sing-song writer that plays the streets of Dublin and meets a girl that is interested in music herself. It has a lot of great music in it and the movie is beautiful written and played by the main characters. It reminded me of other movies, like 'The Commitments' or 'Trainspotting'
Excellent movie all around. Solid 4 out of 5.

Three times a charme

I was in the mood for some light entertainment, so I decided to see a
movie. There are three movies out there right now that were perfect for
that and coincidental, each of them is the third installation of a series. Of course I am talking about Pirates 3, Shrek
3 and Ocean thirteen. I decided to go for the Ocean's franchise,
because it got the best reviews of them and I really like heist movies.
I didn't expect much, considering the previous one, Ocean's twelve,
pretty much sucked. When I came out of the theatre, I felt the movie
was better than 'twelve' but felt short to the first one 'Ocean's eleven'.
It's a fast paced movie, a cool setting in Vegas and
some neat technical gadgets. And that's pretty much it. The story was
bouncing all over the place and there was no real twist, you couldn't
see coming from 10 miles away. The acting was good, but there wasn't
much of an interesting dialog going on, mainly because of quick cuts
between scenes.
Maybe it's because I've seen so many heist movies, that
I can anticipate the story too much to really get surprised. Here is a
tip to Hollywood, make a movie were the good guy doesn't get the gold,
to keep me guessing the next time.
Overall, a solid 3 movie.