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Nothing new, nothing new at all -- well, my bike helmet is new. Wish I had a thrilling tale of action-packed mishaps, but the fact is Rogue Leader fell over and landed on my old helmet. Bike helmet shopping is about the least fun thing for me thanks to my abnormally large cranium (need some place to keep that massive brain, you see). Trying to find one that doesn't look like a fish bowl on my head, at a reasonable price, is quite the challenge. Thankfully Giro is a company that doesn't think stylish and racy should be reserved for their top-line products.

So it's a movie review for y'all. A vampire movie, though no dreamy bedroom poster fodder here: I'm talking about the sleeper Swedish hit ( ::Let the Right One In:: )

The message of Let the Right One In seems to be it doesn't matter if you don't have a lot of friends, as long as at least one of them is a bloodsucking creature of the night. But it did have nice cinematography and the interesting backdrop of 80's Sweden. I would buy this before a single Twilight movie, which shouldn't surprise anyone.

~*~

I celebrated Memorial Day by taking a long, luxurious bike ride by myself. I went with Tery on Sunday, but her useless racing bike can't handle the off-road trails Rogue Leader is yearning for.

I thought I had found such a trail on Monday. I had taken the first off-road turn I came to, only to be thwarted by a sign warning that it was a wetlands preserve and bikes, horses, cars were off limits. Poop.

So I circled around to the other side where I found a trail of packed gravel. I didn't see any signs saying not to, so I took it. To my huge delight I discovered it led to a secluded babbling brook, surrounded by trees and meadows, all with a meandering path winding through them, perfect for my bike, and best of all hardly no one else around me.





My joy at finding this treasure of a bike route was cruelly stamped out, however, when I reached the other end, which turned out to be the entrance with the sign about no bikes, horses, yadda yadda. Which explained the look of disgust on a woman's face while she pointedly marched up to the sign to read it as I passed, despite the lettering being three inches high. Well, wouldn't you expect there to be a sign posted at all entrances to the trail? In my defense, I did pass one other couple also biking on it, so I wasn't the only one tricked. Stupid, stupid Cherry Creek Reservoir Park.

I'm afraid I'll have to go to the foothills to find a similar trail that does allow bikes. Except then it becomes this production, certainly not as convenient as peddling across the street, and I have no one to go with me with a bike that can handle it. Except maybe Ryan, but he can't bear to be away from John for more than a few hours.

~*~

Time for another review, not for a movie this time, but for movie extras. I'm speaking of course of the Blu-ray release of Alice in Wonderland, which I enjoyed so much more on disc than in the theater. I guess this also qualifies as "new" so disregard the opening statement of this post.

The Blu-ray looks gorgeous. The Hatter looks madder. The Bandersnatch looks more frumious. And Stayne looks more...Stayned. Despite having no commentary (for the best really; Burton gives awful commentaries. Keeps trailing off in mid-thought and spends huge portions of the film just watching in silence), the making-of featurettes were all very entertaining and gave me a much greater appreciation of all the work that went into the film. Although not a word about my Rickman -- a whole bit about the bakers who created the "Eat Me" cake that's seen for a total of three minutes on-screen, but not a word about Rickman. Bleah. At least Michael Sheen and Stephen Fry got the same shabby treatment.

Anyway, all sorts of interesting tidbits behind the cut about special effects, etc., for those who care. ( ::CUT:: )