I'm WARM! I'm finally
warm!Heheheh. Yeah, it's seemed like it has been feeling unusually cold in the basement (where I sleep, and do the vast majority of my work) this year. And then, just last night, my dad made a discovery - apparently, my brother forgot to switch around the vents like he was supposed to. Y'see, the design of our house, while pretty, is somewhat less than efficient. So, when we have the A/C going in the summer, we close off all the vents to the basement and fully open the upstairs ones, so that things stay fairly balanced. In the winter, we switch that around, so the basement stays warm enough and the top floor doesn't get overheated. The switch-around is usually done by my brother and/or dad, because the vents downstairs are all on the ceiling, and kind of hard to get to. Only this year it... somehow didn't actually happen. Until last night. XD
So - today I was warm! Yay!
Also, we went to see The Hobbit in 3D for Nef's birthday. (Though not in the higher frame rate.) I wanted to see it that way, just because theaters are the only place you can really get that experience, but I wasn't expecting too much. I'm... not a big fan of 3D, generally, although it's sometimes very impressive with animated movies. Those glasses, though, particularly when you already wear normal glasses, just... blargh.
I was
very pleasantly surprised, though. For the first few minutes, I wondered a bit if we shouldn't have just opted for regular 2D instead. But wow... Yes, I'm glad we did see it. I think the CG - somewhat to my surprise - looked better that way. It really brought out the intense attention to detail in the costuming, and some of the sets, as well. (Both Nef and I, as it turned out, were somewhat mesmerized by the water in the foreground during certain shots of the White Council. *g*) And some scenes - particularly the scene with the stone giants, which I'd been pretty "meh" about previously - played to much better effect in the 3D. And the part at the end with the eagles was just gorgeous. And wooooow, that moment at the end when Smaug's eye pops open? O.O I think it might've been worth it to see it in 3D just for how awesome that was.
Even aside from the 3D, though, I did enjoy it more the second time around, as I'd expected from previous experiences. The overall tone seemed more internally consistent. Mostly, I think, because my brain didn't keep snagging on little surprises. And there were a number of small details that I noticed that just really pleased me. Among them: I'd thought the first time that there were a couple of dark-haired elves without helmets riding with Elrond who might've been the twins. But this time - do my eyes deceive me, or did I actually catch a glimpse of
Glorfindel there as well? :D Yeah, probably just wishful thinking. But I am such a huge Glorfindel fan.
So yeah, I'm pleased overall. I do see that some of the criticisms I've read from others are valid ones, either from a movie making perspective or from a book-fan perspective. And there
are things that bug me, too. But... I don't know.
( I shall now move on to pointless and probably confusing ramblings about movies and books. )At any rate - happy birthday to
nefhiriel! Love you lots, tithen muinthel-nin. ;)