Schedule for the week of July 28, 2008

Monday: Braves stat update
Tuesday: Full Braves recap
Later this week: The Diaper List (you’ll understand when I post it)

Obviously I haven’t had that much to say about anything recently.  This is partly due to some longer hours at work (because even I can’t make myself sit in front of a computer 24/7), but also due to me playing a lot of Xbox 360.  Fortunately, no one’s forcing me to post.  I do have thoughts on some things, though, so I’ll try to get a “notes”-style post in here to start the week.

• I have seen The Dark Knight and Wall-E recently and loved both.  Pixar has a free pass from me to make whatever kind of movie they want, and I will go see it after their tremendous success with movies like The Incredibles and Ratatouille.  I gave Wall-E 4.5 stars on Flixster, and my only criticism would be its simplicity, which makes it just a little bit difficult to feel for the characters.  That’s only a very slight criticism, though, and many who see it will view that as a selling point rather than a criticism.  I can understand that perspective.
• The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan has a similar pass after Memento, The Prestige, and Batman Begins, all of which rate among my top 25 or so favorite movies.  I was honestly kind of surprised he came back to direct a sequel (don’t geniuses tend to get bored with that kind of thing?), but I guess the money was too much to turn down.  He made the most of it, and you could argue that The Dark Knight was better than its predecessor.  Personally, I found the conclusion a little wearisome; like Lord of the Rings, it shouldn’t take so long to wrap up the story.  That didn’t hurt it too much, though.  Ledger’s Joker was worthy of the hype, and I still rated it 4.5 stars, the same rating I gave Batman Begins (and The Prestige, for that matter).
• Since I’m holding off on the Braves post for a day, let me just throw this out there: SELL NOW!!!
• Last weekend (the 19th) was our first big workday for finishing our basement, which we will be working on for the next few months.  We got most of the framing done, so getting the electrical work done will be the next big step.  As you can imagine, I’m planning to wire all kinds of stuff (since it will be my room), so I’m doing a little research on projectors and home theater systems at the moment.
• Below are some pictures of our work last weekend:

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

That’s about it for now.  I’ll have updated stats for you at some point tonight, although I will be working late, so it might be late tonight.  A full Braves post will be on the way tomorrow.