On Wednesday last, V arose early to take Arlene, Ana, and her grandmother to the airport for their return flight to Iowa. It was fun having them around for a few weeks, even if i'm still trying to find those three 6's that i know are somewhere on Ana. Before their departure, Arlene and Veronica managed to finish the living room and prime the dining room. The plan there is to paint it a bright red, and add vertical 8 inch wide stripes of alternating high gloss and satin finish. So on Wednesday night V and i loaded up a couple of rollers and got to work. Now, in my limited experience with painting i've come to the conclusion that either a) my technique or b) red paint is seriously screwy. The paint just does not spread like it should, leaving areas of thin coverage as well as clumps in other spots. We put on a second coat a day later, this time using brushes instead of rollers as we suspected the rollers might be at fault, but the results remain less than perfect. An even coat is key for this room, as the gloss stripes will look lame if the color underneath is splotchy. I fear the answer may be the same as that for the deep red in our music room: paint, paint, and paint again.

My sister mentioned to me recently that her and her boyfriend had been playing arcade games on a PC emulator. That spurred my brain into remembering that i have a host of emulators installed on my "super Xbox". Lo and behold, i've got a staggering 2500 arcade games at my fingertips, as well as many many more NES, SNES, Genesis, and N64 games. I spent quite a while on Saturday revisiting Rolling Thunder, the classic side-scrolling shooter featuring a red turtlenecked hero gunning down hordes of enemies in multicolor Ku Klux Klan-style hoods. Veronica meanwhile has rediscovered Pepper II, an Amidar-type game where your hero encircles a set of rectangular areas in a maze while avoiding assorted baddies also roaming the course.

Despite that diversion, i was bored to tears on Saturday. I spent a while watching a series of shows on the History Channel entitled Breaking Vegas, chronicling a variety of gamblers and cheaters who have tried to make their fortune in Sin City. The first episode was the best, discussing the world's best "past poster" (a person who alters their bet after the result is in) and his team. I kept waiting for his downfall, only to learn at the end that he retired uncaught and now lives in the French Riviera. If only i had those kind of cajones. The second cheater was more my speed, an electronics whiz who gaffed a number of slot machines and then set his sights on winning a Keno jackpot by cracking its random number generator. And, as would probably happen to me should i ever try a life of crime, he was caught minutes after his triumph.

On Sunday V and i decided to get out of the house. We met up with Hilary and Jeff at the AMC in Santa Clara and headed in to see Batman Begins. What a great movie. Despite my previously discussed distaste for Christian Bale, he made a fine Bruce Wayne/Batman, representing the emotional tormet admirably. It was fantastic to see a complete depiction of the Batman legend, from Bruce Wayne's orphaning to his commitment to save a crime- and corruption-ridden Gotham City. Assorted thoughts from the film:

• I'm not so sure of Tim Burton's status as an elite director anymore. I was totally juiced for his version of Batman in 1989, and was mildly disappointed in the film. The visuals were great, but the tone of the Batman mythology just wasn't there. The followup, Batman Returns, was unadulterated crap. All style, no substance. Burton is known for his visual style from films like Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, but i'm not sold on his ability to tell a convincing story. Planet of the Apes, need i say any more? My prediction for his upcoming film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is that Burton will deliver his usual series of visually stunning images but won't generate the kind of emotional resonance that made the 1971 version (although Burton is quick to point out his film is a more faithful telling of the original Roald Dahl novel) Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory one of my favorite movies of all time.
• Christopher Nolan on the other hand delivers an engaging depiction of Bruce Wayne, from a young, privileged heir to a disenchanted orphan to a young man exploring the criminal mind to an exquisitely trained adult bent on pulling Gotham from its social and political mire. The Batman story is one that has undergone significant revision since its introduction by Bob Kane in 1939. I'm no comics expert, but i did have a penchant for Batman in high school and discovered that the story of how Bruce Wayne's parents met their end has been revamped at least three times. Not modified, but retold with new layers, motives, and characters added. In that respect i think the DC Comics superheroes have evolved more than their Marvel counterparts. This isn't to say that the Marvel superheroes aren't developed, what i mean is that the DC icons (or at least Batman) have been continually tweaked so their backgrounds suit the current flavor of the comic. Batman has gone from a mysterious hero to a corny, cartoony superdetective to a dark, shadowy, imposing enemy of the criminals to a declining and tormented figure (à la Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns). Spider Man on the other hand has a story that was told more or less chronologically, with minimal revision. I'll put it to my more comic-savvy counterparts, is this DC/Marvel comparison valid?
• The villains of the film, Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul are every bit the twisted psychological case studies of the comic as it left the corny 1950's/60's phase and entered a darker realm. I'd love to see Nolan make a sequel featuring a perverted and evil Joker to rid me of my memories of Jack Nicholson as a wisecracking, bumbling boob of a clown prince of crime.

Chelsea have yet to make any more additions to their squad, although rumors continue to swirl that we'll be acquiring Lyon's Michael Essien, Manchester City's Shaun Wright-Phillips, or even Brazilian sensation Ronaldinho or all-world striker Andriy Shevchenko soon. José Mourinho had a nice response this morning however: "Our rivals are the ones who'd better improve or we'll trounce them again just as we did last season". Watching highlights of mid-season Chelsea, revisiting the old Lampard-Duff-Robben magic, i'm tempted to agree. At any rate, it's almost time to settle things on the pitch and leave all this transfer market intrigue behind for a few months.

As suggested in my last post, i will indeed be leaving the OCF for my own domain in the near future. The name of said domain hasn't been decided as yet. Stormy Clouds may live on, or i may opt for a new moniker (and accept the redesign challenge that will entail). I was toying with domains featuring the word "transmission" last week, and was really keen on test-transmission.net (in homage to UK indie darlings Kasabian), until i learned that that URL was already home to Kasabian's official website. Doh. Lost-transmission.net? Broken-transmission.net? We'll see.