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My first Bruce Lee movie. That’s probably hard for some of you to believe, but there it is.

I’ll share some impressions and surprises from my experience watching the film.

1. The dubbing is as hilarious as the parodies make it out to be, which is funny because it’s actually an English language movie. They just had really terrible sound techs or something.

2. Bruce Lee was so fucking fast! I mean, I know that internationally he’s the most famous martial artist in history, but I still had no idea. There were scenes in the film where I thought they must have played with the film speed to make him look faster, but then they’d have a scene with people in the background to show that the film speed was normal. He really was that fast! Uncanny.

3. This film had so much humor, both of the intentional and unintentional variety. It was a perfect storm. I bet it would be a fun movie to watch high.

4. I knew Bruce Lee was an international film star, I knew he was a famous fight/martial arts choreographer, but I didn’t realize what sort of actor he was. Clearly this is tempered by the sort of film it was, this is a very particular genre that I can’t speak of in detail because my journey learning about it is just beginning. Still, this dude was the real deal. Just his facial expressions were enough to indicate that he was wildly intelligent. In a film where most of the dialogue was washed over because of the terrible dubbing, he was able to use eye rolls, random expressions, grins, and glares to make it quite clear to the audience that he was the smartest guy in the room and also a BAMF.

5. No other action star I’ve encountered approaches anything near the sheer animal magnetism of Lee’s personality. Even with all the dated aspects of the film, and there were many, he was still electric onscreen.

6. I’m excited for future Kung-Fu movies, if for no other reason than an excuse to have more exposure to Bruce Lee.

Game of Thrones is finally here! HBO appears to have done it again.

If the first episode is any indication, this show is going to be wonderful. Watching last night made me wish that all my favorite books were going to get their own HBO series, which makes me even more excited that American Gods is potentially on its way to my Home Box Office.

Good lord, I just wish I could have watched the whole series last night.

I look forward to checking in with people who haven’t read the books. I’m pretty sure the show was awesome either way, but I’m aware that for me so much of my joyous nerdgasm came from how brilliantly they were bringing Martin’s world to life. With a few fair exceptions, the casting is absolutely inspired. They made some small changes already to the story, which perhaps will lead to more. Still, the episode was perfect. Perfect, I tell you!

I’m hoping to watch it again tonight with Emily.

Five movies I watched this year, for the first time, that actually help me aspire to be a better person. Perhaps in very different ways, each of these films helped me see something beautiful in being human and helped me toward trying to be a more gracious and loving person.

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1. 127 Hours (or, for that matter, all Danny Boyle movies)

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2. Ponyo and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (or, for that matter, all Hayao Miyazaki movies)

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3. City of God

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4. Stalker

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5. The Bicycle Thief 

Stephen Colbert, as everyone now knows, is incredibly awesome.

He is more proof (as if we needed any) …

(couldn’t embed, so here is a link)

Proof. Awesome, awesome proof.

I suppose when you are tossed a big, fat meatball right down the middle of the plate in the form of “not intended to be a factual statement”, it is hard not to hit it out of the park. In this case Colbert absolutely demolished it. Oh, and then there’s the whole Walgreen’s thing. W. T. F. My goodness … do these people hear what comes out of their mouths??? But thank God for them, their stupidity, and thank God more for Stephen Colbert!

People use all sorts of odd search terms to find Roused to Mediocrity, but we finally have one search to rule them all.

Today, someone found the site using the search: ‘what does a girl butt feel like’

I still haven’t discovered what post they visited, but if they added us to their RSS feed, Welcome!!

There’s that huge space above the bed, we haven’t decided on anything to put there yet. Also, in the office we haven’t put anything on our trip map yet, so now it’s just a map of the US on the wall…

Then, we went about nesting, as I am prone to do. This is our place now. It’s certainly still in process, but we love our space.

To keep things a bit less overwhelming, we’ll go two rooms at a time.

So, back in October Emily and I moved into a new place. We promised the folks back on the East Coast before and after pictures of the move. Today, I decided to finally make good on that promise.

In general, here is how the place looked when we moved in:

As much as I might want to, I don’t have time to write detailed posts about all the books I’ve been reading this year, not even just the ones I loved. So, here are short bits about five books, with the hope I’ll do another five in the near future.

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1. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Michael Chabon

A detective story set in an alternate version of our world in which Israel dissolved after it’s creation post WWII, and the US government temporarily allotted a portion of Sitka, Alaska for Jewish settlement.

Out of the 26 books I’ve read so far in 2011, this has to be in the top three. As Chabon’s follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize winning effort in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, it’s more proof that Chabon is on a very short list of the greatest living writers.

I normally just show a picture of the cover, but I couldn’t resist a photo of Chabon and Gaiman together. There can’t be more talented best friends in the world.

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2. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

Another classic that I finally got around to reading. Hilarious, smart, and readable enough to consume the whole thing without putting the book down.

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3. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz

A beautifully written story of one Dominican family, set both in present day US and three generations in the DR, most notably under the terrible reign of El Jefe during the Trujillo era.

The voices of the narrators, especially the primary narrator, are wildly original. By the end of the novel I cared deeply about these characters. This is one everybody should read.

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4. The Forever War – Joe Haldeman

One of my favorite things, both as a story device, and as a part of actual reality, is the theory of relativity. The Forever War is about what war would be like if it was taking place all over a universe where light speed travel was possible. While back on earth centuries would pass, the soldiers would have lived only four years or so if they’d been traveling light speed during that time.

Haldeman does a really great job playing with all the potential actualities stemming from this light speed war taking place over countless generations of two species. It’s a really fun read.

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5. Graceling and Fire – Kristin Cashore

Young adult fantasy, the second book is actually a prequel set in the same fictional world with only one character who figures into Graceling. To make  a long story short, without spoilers, each book is about a young woman with extraordinary abilities, in a world where it is common for people to have abilities, but those who have them are feared and often hated.

I really enjoyed these books, the Fire even more than Graceling, and I can’t wait until the third book in the trilogy comes out this August.