Did the usual Saturday morning movie thing. I saw I, Robot and while it had some excellent action, it lacked originality.  The characters felt like lame copies from other movies and stories. Watch Chi McBride take Smith's badge from him and do the whole "you are a loose canon-take a vacation-and stay off this case" routine. Or Smith getting chummy with Bridget Moynahan similar to the way he and Linda Fiorentino did in Men in Black. It is interesting to note that in most movies the cliche is that they kiss or screw during the hate/love relationship. It is always refreshing when they skip that tired and unrealistic crap and stick with ending it with mutual respect for overcoming whatever problem exists in the movie. Yet it's interesting too that race may play a role in skipping the cliche. Watch the Pelican Brief and then read the book to see what I mean.    Other than a few robots and some futuristic cars, it lacked any sense of taking place in the year 2035. People dress nearly the same as they do today.  Watch any old movie that is set in their present day and you can tell what decade it takes place. Hell the Bill Gates-ish CEO is still wearing a tie. Everyone who has seen a movie set in the future knows that mans progress is based on the abolition of wearing ties.      Overall the story just didn't make much sense.  Hell they go for a cheap joke where Smith is given coffee during his interview with Bruce Greenwood, when he says "sugar?" and ha ha ha Greenwood thinks he is calling him Sugar. But oh no what he really meant was do you have any sugar for the coffee. Oh my how original and hilarious. Yet what's this they pan to Smith pouring scoops of sugar into his coffee cup. A coffee cup that was right next to the sugar bowl on the serving tray from which he poured his own coffee.  Little things like that bug me. A homicide detective who doesn't notice a bowl of sugar right in front of him. And he wasn't doing the whole Columbo dopey detective routine. The director just did it for a cheap laugh. Though I don't think anyone did laugh.       The best part of the movie was seeing the preview for the movie Ray about the life of Ray Charles.        Save yourself the money and skip this movie, wait until it's on cable otherwise you will feel the way I do, I Robbed.

I have been engrossed reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett and have not spent much time doing anything else. My sleep time has gone down to about 3-4 hours a night now. This past weekend my sister and her fiance were in town and we spent Saturday in Manhattan Beach at my cousin's house. Her husband had mentioned the book at Easter and insisted I read it. So I took it and haven't wanted to put it down since. I usually get this way with good fiction. I used to go through this in high school when I checked out every book by Robert Ludlum. Then in college I discovered Dean Koontz and ended up buying everyone of his books. Even the crappy ones.
I may have to go back and get the Bourne series from Ludlum. I was disappointed in the new direction the movies have taken with the Bourne Identity and the Bourne Supremacy. If you read those books and then see the movie you will understand what I mean.

I should have a million things to say about the 9/11 commission's report and this new idea about suspending elections in case of a terrorist attack. But hell most people know what I would say about these things.
So back to my book.