Why am I sad? Gibson's gone.
She's off to Florida, this time all by her lonesome. Sad! I wish I could go with her, but someone's got to take care of Lucas (her new turtle). That duty fell to me. Besides, the reason for Gibson's trip is twofold: first, to scout and possibly shoot some more for her documentary; second, to visit with family (her brother lives on Siesta Key, near Sarasota, and her parents are on their way to visit him, too). In either case, I'd be kinda in the way. I can make a good pack-mule for camera equipment, but I'm totally inexperienced with the technical aspects. Plus, I'd get in the way of family bonding times.
So, I'm left behind in Ithaca. At least the turtle's cute. That's something, I suppose.
This past weekend was the Ithaca Festival. Really fun festival, if you ask me. Never seen a parade so eclectic (the Volvo Ballet? Hybrid Hoedown? He-Man Chainsaw Marching Band?), there's great music from local bands, and even a locally-run circus: Circus Eccentrithaca (which did a neat show on "How Ithaca Got Its Weather"). Lots of fun. I adjusted Sunday's youth group meetings to meet there, so we could have fun dinner, listen to great music, watch the circus, and just generally enjoy the area we live in. Two kids showed up -- sisters. Seeing as how nobody else showed up, I sent them home. They were okay with that. They had homework, after all.
Then, I went over to the barbecue stand -- they have a killer pulled-pork barbecue -- only to find that all they were serving was beef. I gave up beef. Mad cow, you know.
Oh, well. The next booth had really yummy falafel and bachlava. :-)
So it's been a kind of rough couple days. One of the highlights, however, was that Gibson and I rented a movie, on the recommendation of one of the church secretaries: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I know it got pretty mixed reviews... and I can see why. Still, it was an entertaining flick. After watching some of the "making of" features, it's obvious that the makers really didn't care. They set out to make a movie look just like a comic book, and they certainly succeeded. The art was pretty cool, and I love how they did the coloration -- it's a sort of an homage to technicolor, which is really neat (side note: the "making of" feature explained that they did shoot in color, but decided to reduce it to black-and-white, then digitally overlay all the color. Neat!). In general, the story was kind of run-of-the-mill, and the acting isn't what I'd call spectacular, but the art was gorgeous! Worth a look, if only for the eye-candy.