Many things have been making me think about the past recently:
*Over the weekend Beth and I went to Portland for my friend Carrie's wedding - you can read Beth's reactions at her journal - which was fairly surreal. Seeing a friend I've known since elementary school get married... just requires a change of thinking about her. I guess it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that people will always be like you remember them, even if you've changed. It was nice to see a few of my friends, but made me realize how little we had kept in contact, especially since we had been so close through school.

*My grandfather died in May, and my dad and I have been talking more often since then (neither of us are good about communication), and discussing parts of family history that I never knew.

*Stephen Colbert had a Lego artist on his show last night, who presented him with a life-sized Lego Stephen. Beth and I talked for about half an hour afterwards about all the Lego stuff we used to have (or want) when we were little, and how many hours we would each spend laboriously following the instructions, then tearing it all apart and building something else entirely when we had finished.

*This morning I found another dead fish in my tank. I miss when I had a bunch of healthy fish :(

*Movies made from cartoons. I've refrained from posting a review of Transformers until I could see it again, which I did last week. Since they came out, I also saw the Simpsons Movie, and TMNT, but haven't gotten around to saying anything about them. I'll fix that now: TMNT: Meh. Fun to see the turtles hopping around roofops like real ninjas should, but the humans all look distractingly like unused characters from The Incredibles. Leo/Raph centric story ups the ANGST, but was done better in the first live action movie anyway. For nostalgia's sake, just watch those;but go ahead and check out the first season of the 2003 cartoon series - it balanced action, humor, and drama fairly well, plus it had much higher production value (i.e., animation and story writing) than the old series ever did.

The Simpsons Movie: I actually laughed out loud. I haven't watched a new Simpsons episode in about 4 years, but hearing the show was getting better again I decided to give the movie a shot and I wasn't disappointed. The story - Homer's mistake causes the EPA to put a dome over the town - was well done, and is easily watchable without having seen the show in a while. There was plenty of social and political satire, which was the real reason the show did well originally, but a few too many "look at Homer be stupid" gags for my taste. Fans of taking responsibility for your actions, doing the right thing, and Alaska will enjoy the movie as well. I wouldn't pay to see it in the theater (Homer has a great line regarding this), but it's well worth a rental for the crisp animation and viewing-with-friends potential. Maybe if Kristi & Tyler will rent it with us, Beth will actually give it a chance?

Transformers: Oh God! I got chills when Optimus transformed for the first time and we heard Peter Cullen's voice... I love this movie, I will watch it again and again - but I guarantee I'll be skipping through a lot of it when I do. Really, this is a Michael Bay film. The plot, the characters, even the gimmick of shapeshifting extraterrestrials are still just an excuse to blow stuff up. I'm having trouble making coherant thoughts, so expect a dedicated post sometime later in the week, when I can separate impressions from nitpicks.

Anyway, after a good dinner and conversation with friends, it's time to start thinking more about the future, and making it be what I want. The first thing I want? Bed.