Toy Story 3

It is wonderful movie. I greatly enjoyed it and I am glad that Pixar is continuing to outdo themselves each time.

FlashForward Cancelled

I just learned that FlashForward is canceled. Pity I really liked the show. I liked the concept the mystery and the race against time. It had good ensemble cast and it was unfolding quite well.

Iron Man 2

More of the same; still it is nice action movie.
I was a bit disappointed by her resignation as CEO at the end, but I guess that Mr. Stark needed his company back.

The Revolution Business

"Merchant's War" and "The Revolution Business" continue Storss' Merchant Princes series. I had some reservations when started reading the first book of the series. For some reason I thought that the medieval and modern would not mesh well together.

I should have known better :)

A mental note to myself: Never judge a book by the cover and never doubt Charles Storss' mastery ever again.

The story actually benefits from the stark contrast between the cultural and technological differences of those worlds. A gentle reminder that most of the ordinary folks during the medieval ages were bound to a piece of land to serve their master; with no choice or control over their lives. Only limited few actually were actually free and there was almost no social mobility. Most of the population was submerged in poverty and misery that is impossible to imagine in the developed world this days.

Not to mention the lack of clean water, sanitation, basic medical care and etc.

The Black Death which killed about 50% of the European population 14th century is preventable and treatable bacterial disease.

In short it is no fairy tale.

Kick-Ass

It is quite funny and quite violent movie. I find it amusing that they censured the name on the movie tickets to "Kick-A**"! It is also strange that some people are more roiled by the fact that 11 year old is swearing on screen than her act slicing and dicing bunch of baddies and being exploited by her father and etc.

How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon is quite delightful animated movie. It is quite classical story for how people fear the things that they don't know and how with the knowledge come understanding. Pretty much all vikings in the village are too pre-occupied with killing dragons; their explanation is that we do it because we did it before. One of them has time to think about it and figure the things out. Finds a dragon helps it and studies it also discovers that trust goes both ways.

Stross' Merchant Prince Series

Finished "Hidden Family" and "Clan Corporate". The story is definitely picking-up. I was thinking about more then one worlds; voila second locket. Then about actually transferring inventions and manufacturing those locally; checked. It is actually quite amazing how much time and effort those simple everyday things took to invent. The now ubiquitous zipper; it took 20 years from the initial clumsy idea to perfection. Or the paper clip; or electricity and light bulbs and etc, etc.

Also there were plenty of surprises and nice plot twists. It is pleasure to read.