Monday 19 May, 2003 at 2:19PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (2)

We had a pretty good weekend. Before I get into that, I better tell you why there's a picture of a Weasel dressed as The Grim Reaper here. A recently day in particular I was feeling pretty crap, to the point where the other Weasel (IceQueen) said my eyes looked dead. We started coming up with names, and then I accidentally said The Grim Weapel instead of the Grim Reaper ..shows how messed up my mind was, I was obviously thinking of a weasel at the time (not unusual). Anyway that set us both into fits of laughter as we imagined a little weasel walking up to someone and tapping them on the kneecap and saying in a little high pitched squeal, "Hey you! Yeah, you up there! I've come to take your soul. Lean over so I can hack at you with my sharp pointy scythe." ..the whole Grim Reaper thing loses its effect somewhat when it's cute and fuzzy and stands only a few inches tall. We decided to ..err ..actualize our visualizations, and there you have it: The Grim Weapel. Cute huh.

Back to the weekend. It was The Weasels Big Day Out yesterday (Sunday). It was a beautiful day, sunny but not too hot - tshirt and cargo trou type of weather. We headed to Central Park first and took a walk around while snapping copious amounts of photos. Weasels by a tree. Weasels on a rock. Weasels in front of a bridge. Weasels in front of a bush. Weasels weaseling. You get the idea. We headed to the zoo to see our otter cousins, but one was just chilling in the sun pretty much asleep and seeming a little down about something, the other otter we couldn't see anywhere. Maybe they had an argument? The polar bears were very kewl. One decided to take a swim while we viewed it through an underwater glass wall ..those bears are huge, I would not want to meet up with one in a dark alley ..not that you'd expect to find polar bears hanging out in dark alleys, but that's beside the point. Then again, this is New York, so it's not totally outside of the realms of possibility I suppose.

A bit of a walk around 5th Ave led us to the subway and a trip to downtown - Cortland St subway station. Yup, the one at the World Trade Towers site. I still get an uncomfortable feeling around there, and I'm not alone in that either. We headed a few blocks west and had dinner at Lilli's Noodle Shop and Grill. Sounds like some little greasy Chinese take out shop right? Well it ain't. It's actually a quite beautiful restaurant with a very oriental feel to it, and I don't mean red rice paper lanterns with tassels hanging all over the place. It was more of the light-stained wood, spacious, minimalist Japanese-type of thing. You could easily imagine the place being featured in an interior design magazine. The food was great and not overpriced as you would normally expect in Manhattan, the place was spotless (even the toilets were impressive) and I strongly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Manhattan. I'd maybe give it a 9 out of 10, which is about as high as I would ever go.

Our next mission was an evening movie. Have a guess what we saw ..of course: Matrix Reloaded. I have mixed feelings about the movie. The visual special effects and fight sequences were of course insanely superb. As with the original Matrix movie, these guys again raised the bar in that aspect. What really 'annoyed' me (if you can call it that) was the unexpected ending ..now I have to wait for Matrix Revolutions to come out to see what happens. I guess they're milking it for all they can. Expect it in about 6 months apparently.

There was of course the original Matrix crew dressed up like S&M Goths as usual (not that that's a bad thing), along with a number of new characters added in. The new characters could have been developed quite well, but for reasons unknown to me, just as you were getting familiar with them, they ceased to make any more appearances. Rather strange. There were a few parts such as the drunken dancing orgy scene in Zion that, although pretty kewl, seemed to drag on a bit and didn't quite make sense. I mean, if the last bastion of humanity had just been informed it has about 48 hours before suffering a major offensive from it's enemies, you'd think a big party would be the last thing they'd want to do, but they go for it anyway. Mr Smith is as kewl as ever, and the dreadlocked ethereal twins had some very kewl effects that reminded me of Predator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) ..but after seeming pretty much indestructible, all the sudden they were toast, and far too easily. Just didn't quite add up.

I think once I've seen Matrix Revolutions, Reloaded will fit more into place and seem a lot better as a part of a whole, rather than as it is at the moment - standing alone. If you're in no desperate rush to see it, I'd probably suggest waiting until the next one comes out and then watch them back-to-back. Of course seeing it on a big screen is a must. Thank you Weasling for a really good day *kiss*. Ok that's all for now, this post is getting too long.