At night when I’m home alone I like to watch a movie before heading to bed. Last night I watched Mrs. Winterbourne, which is a romantic comedy from the 90s. It was entertaining as a chick flick but mostly I just enjoyed watching Brendan Fraser.

My favorite movie for years (and still at the top of my favorites) was The Mummy, which starred Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz (with some seriously over plucked eyebrows. My only complaint about the movie is why couldn’t she have eyebrows? sorry, getting sidetracked.) So anyway I loved swashbuckling Brendan Fraser in all the mummy movies. (Ooooh! Another side note: Clark and I went on our first date to a spin-off mummy movie. The Scorpion King. It was awful. I think we laughed during the climactic scene when the main character pulled a flaming arrow out of his shoulder and then USED IT to kill his enemy. Totally epic.)

So I liked Brendan Fraser from the Mummy movies and then I saw Blast From the Past.

What a great movie, interesting but relateable and romantic without being slutty. IMBD gives this synopsis: Adam Weber is the child of an eccentric inventor and his wife. Following a bomb scare in the 1960s that locked the Webers in their bomb shelter for 35 years, Adam Weber must venture out into Los Angeles and obtain food and supplies for his family, and a non-mutant wife for himself. He meets Eve, who reluctantly agrees to help him out.

And it has Christopher Walken in it! I know you totally want to see it. And Brendan is so ernest as Adam Weber. Anyway, I haven’t seen any of Brendan Fraser’s newest movies although I have Inkheart in my netflix list. However I’ll always have a soft spot for him based on the above mentioned movies (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns–anything after that I won’t vouch for as I haven’t seen them and Blast from the Past)  that have given me so many hours of enjoyment.

That is my life onboard Enterprise in 3-section duty. It is why I’m tired all the time. Such impossible things are expected of me and in turn I expect such impossible things of my men. And we do it, every day, typically without error. We’re not in Afghanistan or Iraq and we don’t fly the jets which garner so much attention. We’re the forgotten operators deep in the classified and rarely mentioned power plants of carriers like Enterprise. Very intelligent, highly trained, and typically neglected.

In other news Tovah and I have an exciting announcement: we’re foster parents! Monday we were evaluated by the Virginia German Shepherd Rescue and found to be suitable foster parents. Barely an hour after Connie (the rescue employee) left, we received an e-mail that our home was already needed. Two days later Keri entered our lives. She was a stray and about to be put down at the local animal control shelter.

She’s quite a bit older and has arthritis and as such lacks the playfulness that gets most dogs adopted which is why she presumably lingered at the shelter for so long. She does however have a lot of love to give and is already a friendly and calm member of our home. Remmy is a little disappointed he doesn’t have another fountain of energy to play with but he’s getting over it. Tovah and I will provide her with a safe home, provide a little training, get some weight back on her, and ultimately have discretionary power over what “forever home” she ends up going to once an applicant is screened by the rescue. It is looking to be a fun adventure full of tail wags and happy dogs.

Not much going on. Tovah and I love the time we are able to get together, even if it isn’t much. Last night we went on a spur of the moment double date with some friends and saw the movie 9. Though it was amazing in its attention to detail surrounding character, prop, and setting design, the story was very predictable and left a lot to be desired, ultimately detracting from what could have been a much stronger movie. Continuing in the post-apocalypse genre I’m very excited for The Road next month. A gritty survival story about a man protecting his family after societal collapse? Count me in!

I could go on and on about the trials and triumphs of my life and work but it’s time for bed and another duty day awaits me in the morning.

The show follows Vorenus and Pullo as the fictional details of their lives weave in and out of history’s momentous events. They are two real men of Caesar’s Legio XIII whom are briefly mentioned in Caesar’s writings:

He (Vorenus) appears, along with Titus Pullo, in Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Book 5, Chapter 44. The episode describes the two as centurions, approaching the first ranks, who shared a bitter personal rivalry. It relates how Pullo charged the enemy (the Nervii) in the heat of battle. Pullo casts his javelin at one of the enemy from a short distance, but he is simultaneously pierced by a spear and surrounded by other Nervii preventing him from drawing his sword. At this moment, Lucius Vorenus, following Pullo from the fortifications, reached the site of the mêlée, engaging the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. After slaying one of the enemy and driving back the rest, Vorenus lost his footing on the irregular terrain. As the Nervii drew closer to him, Pullo came to his rescue. After slaying many of their opponents, the two retreated to the fortifications amidst roaring applause from their comrades in arms.

As title characters they appeal to me because I find aspects of my personality spread across Vorenus and Pullo. I suppose I also think of Nick and I as being akin to them in loyalty to each other and desire to adventure. After returning from Egypt Vorenus sets up shop as a butcher and slaps the henchman of a local thug. The thug, Erastes, comes to Vorenus’s house to announce that he and his men will kill Vorenus only after raping his wife and daughters. Without hesitation Pullo comes at Erastes’s back with a fist shank to only be told to hold by Vorenus. I suppose I have that sort fierce dedication to only Tovah and a couple of close friends.

Another thing I’ve found myself enjoying significantly is the language used in the show. Words long out of style are brought back and inflective devices used to make the speech sound genuinely foreign and old while being completely understandable. Additionally, the power dynamics between members of Rome’s senate and Marc Antony are fantastic with lines like Antony’s “I’ll enact these laws even should it kill me. *pause* Or anyone else for that matter.” So awesome.

And lastly, I suppose I hold a fascination with a time period where the people strong of will, character, and arm could do accomplish amazing things. These accomplishments are partially due to less effective means of murder. Allow me to explain: the strong characters, particularly Vorenus and Pullo, accomplish much of what they do because of their martial prowess. In short, any idiot can pull a trigger these days but despite the effectiveness of a dagger in the back it was a much riskier proposition to go about eliminating someone. If your target was good with his gladius (or even fists for that matter) you were in for a challenge. I suppose I see things as being more honorable in that regard. Criminal cowards rule the streets these days because even a fool can buy a gun.

In short, it’s a fantastic show which always spurs a lot of thought while being true to history. Highly recommended. HBO rocks.

My enjoyment of the film was tempered by a couple of things, notably story pacing, some things which remained unexplained when adapted to the screen from the source comic, and the absurdity of the costumes worn by the heroes. For such a gritty and noir setting the outfits worn by Silk Spectre, Ozymandias, and Night Owl were so….goofy. Other comic book flicks have had characters wear normal, albeit “cool” clothing, or else had justification for an outfit (Iron Man for example). Enough said on Watchmen. I enjoyed it enough to recommend you watch it and form your own opinion.

In other news work has began a downward spiral. Several watch officers have made large mistakes, ones bad enough it is tough to justify them due to fatigue or a lapse in judgement, and as a result we’re all getting hammered by senior supervision. The nuclear pain train continues.

I’m tremendously excited to pick up Remmy tomorrow and have the little guy for twenty four hours. For a couple of days I thought I wasn’t going to have to come in to the ship for Sunday duty but in the end was assigned a plant for Sunday. My biggest disappointment wasn’t not being home to play games, sleep, or be stress free. My disappointment came from the realization that I was being cheated of a day with Doodles.

Alas, I’m past my bed time but I wanted to get some thoughts out there. This Saturday I have a Crossfit related project I hope to tackle and photo document. We’ll see.