My dropsy Colombian tetra died over the weekend.  I guess it wasn’t a surprise.  I think the dropsy glowlight tetra is still alive, although I haven’t really looked closely lately.

The angels had more eggs last week; they were opaque, and were gone in a day.  I wonder if they have just started on a breeding pattern and will continue doing so, even though – as seems likely – the conditions are no longer optimal for their development.  Shame; I was rather looking forward to having some angel babies actually surviving.

We finished the Blade trilogy last night – it was, of course, great (again).  Even Jessica Biel is quite good.  I love Kris Kristofferson’s hair.  And Wesley Snipes is just brilliant.  I am glad they didn’t go with the alternate ending though…

We are re-watching Blade.  It is too cool.  The opening sequence may well be one of the most dsigusting I have ever seen.  And Blade simply kicks Selene’s backside, with both hands behind his back.  =]

First there were eggs, looking fine.  Then the next day, when they go opaque.  Then… nothing.  No more eggs!  I think the angels have decided it’s too hard to be parents.

 Everyone else seems to be doing ok.  And, of course, the plant is going mad.

I finally, finally finished the biography of William I have been reading for weeks!  It’s not that it was that boring, it was just so detail-heavy that it took me forever.  By David Douglas, it’s from the ’60s I think, so I wonder if there are any parts of it that have been superceded with new research – I picked upa  few bits that disagreed with 1066:  Year of the Three Battles, so that was interesting.  It was something of a panegyric; he clearly thinks William is a hero.  There is almost no detail about the Harrowing of the North, which I was disappointed by.  There was also very little about his queen, Matilda.  Nonetheless, it was an entertaining and thought-provoking book, and I feel a bit more prepared to discuss the man with my kiddies.

Jim Henson’s Storyteller series is great.  I bought the Greek Myths series today:  Daedalus, Orpheus, Perseus, and Theseus.  Michael Gambon is great as the storyteller, and Brian Henson is funny as The Dog.  My favourite is Theseus, because he is a horrid character – broken promises litter the plot.  But Ariadne is glorious.  Medusa, too, in Perseus is captivating – she was great, and almost (but not quite) sympathetic.  I’m looking forward to using it with my kiddies.

We saw Aeon Flux on Friday, just because. 

I don’t know anything about the background of it, but it seems like it must be based on a book or a series, because the world was just too well realised for it not to be.  There were too many things that were just too out there for them to have been thought up just to put into a two-hour or so flick.  These things generally added to the film, rather than detracted… they’ve also made me want to go and chase it up.

Charlize Theron was pretty good, I thought.  Aeon was a moderately complex character, and she did it well.  I didn’t recognise the name Martin Csorza, but I certainly recognised him – having looked him up on IMDB, I’m not surprised:  Celeborn in LOTR, among others.  He too was great.

The world of the film was glorious.  The costumes were a bit weird, in some cases – J reckons that that’s part of what makes cinematic scifi scifi – but the buildings and the design were brilliant. 

The plot twists were magnificent, completely unexpected, and completely believable in the context.  It was a good movie, over all. 

 *edit* Turns out it’s based on an MTV series from the mid-90s.  Too bad there’s no book to find.

I lost another fish, while we were away.  It was very dead.  I think it was a glowlight tetra, but it was hard to be sure.  It wasn’t the drospy one, so that’s a bit annoying in some ways.  Ah well.

The weed is taking over the tank, again.

I finally saw Walk the Line on Monday.  As expected, there was fantastic music.  When I was in Adelaide, Mum was listening to the soundtrack, so I already knew that Joaquin Phoenix was a quite remarkable singer – even Reese Witherspoon was pretty good. 

 Johnny Cash really did have a crap life early on.  It’s interesting to think about whether Jack Cash really was as ‘good’ as Johnny obviously remembered him, but in the end it doesn’t really matter – if he remembered him like that, then that’s how it affected him.  Historical accuracy, in this instance, doesn’t really matter (did I really say that?).

The bro said, when he saw it, he expected Johnny to refuse the drugs when first offered, and he was quite disappointed when he did actually take them.  I guess you can rationalise it a bit by saying that in the 50s they didn’t really know so much about the effects of illicit drugs… but they were still illicit.  Anyway.  He took them.  They ruined his life for a while.  The whole story could be seen as a bit trite and even contrived, except that it’s true.

One of the really interesting sidelines, I thought, was the different people that he toured with:  Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis (who really came across as wild), Carl Perkins, Waylon Jennings, Roy Orbison… the line between ‘country’ and ‘rock’ at that stage really was infintesimal.  They were all coming out of the same milieu, the same influences, and much of their stuff really does sound alike.  This is my justification for liking Johnny Cash.  Not that I need one; he’s (his music is) just so cool.

I just went to a free lecture at Melbourne Uni, on the invention of money by the Greeks in the sixth century.  It was pretty interesting:  the lecturer was fairly engaging to listen to, which is always a bonus.  I wasn’t entirely convinced by what he said about the invention of money itself – it seemed a bit vague, although admittedly the guy did say that the details were all in his book (plug, plug – he did it in quite a self-effacing way, though).  The more interesting side of it was the connection between the development of philosophy and money at the same time, in the same place (and he would have talked about drama, in particular tragedy, too, if he hadn’t had all of his time taken up by philosophy).  He defined philosophy as the view that the universe is an understandable system governed by uniform, impersonal forces.  The early philosophers all seemed to think that the entire universe is made up of one substance, in different forms.  The lecturer said that this was a result of Miletus (where the philospohers lived) being a monetised society.  Money was the most powerful thing in a non-monarchical society; it was capable of being exchanged for anything, and everything could be exchanged for money; and it was impersonal.  Viola.  Philosophy as we understand it.  Pretty interesting idea.