March of the Penguins * * 1/2

Who? Themos
Where? Onboard a Boeing 757 from LAX to JFK

Also known as the Penguin Movie. Despite my fears this movie was not boring. It's just amazing what these birds can do to survive. Their main issue is that their feeding ground (near the sea) and their breeding ground (in the mainland, where the ice is more stable) are 70 miles apart. Hence they have to march often between the two grounds until their kids grow big and can survive on their own. A few shots in the movie, like the one where the harsch winter is torturing the animals (and the humans filming them!) are just great to watch. Thumbs up.

The new Firefox

Firefox 1.5 is out, finally. Some very nice extensions work for this version, so if you have Firefox, download immediately. If you don't, it's about time you switched from IE.

Las Vegas, Round 3

Third time in Vegas, third time the fun. Vegas is just awesome. Welcome to the strip:

The 3mile long strip hosts the best of vegas: all the nice hotels and entertainment are located there, and you can just walk up and down and watch the lights by the night which are just great. Food, shopping, casinos, people, everything is here.

Me, Panos and Stayros decided the day before that we should go there for a day trip (I just love these on-the-spot decisions!). We left LA at 4pm on Thanksgiving Saturday, and we got there by 8pm. We went straight to Bellagio, where we paid $40 and enjoyed the beautiful buffet there. The best thing is the seafood (not for me) and the meats with the desserts. At some point I had 5 animals on my plate: beef, pork, turkey, buffalo, chicken. Niam Niam...


Next, we headed for one of the best bars anywhere in the US, the Coyote Ugly. This lovely lady welcomed us and was asking for more girls to come to the dancing stage:



On the opposite side, her friend was also entairtaining the audience by dancing very nicely:




At 00:30 we left the bar and headed for Crazy Horse Too, a huge strip club at the Vegas strip row. I have to admit that most of the over 100 girls working there were way above average, and a couple of them were crem de la crem (τάδε έφη Σταύρος). By far the best gentlemen's club I've ever been.

Next time I visit Vegas, I will go to one of the shows there. As we were heading back to LA while watching the sunrise at 6am, I was thinking that Vegas offers first class entertainment. It may cost a little bit, but it's just great fun.

Syriana * * *

Who? Themos, Dimitri
Where? AMC @ Santa Monica


Syriana is a complicated movie. I only understood it after me and Dimitris discussed about it while going back to our places. It has too many characters, too many locations, too many politics regarding the oil companies. In a weird way, although the details sometimes are confusing, at the end you get a clear idea of what is going on in the plot. I think this movie will be like Traffic: it will get oscar nominations for actors and screenplay, but probably not for th ebest movie. It is not much fun for that.

Summer Movies

It may be far away, but I am looking forward to many movies the next summer:

Superman Returns [The trailer looks great]
The Da Vinci Code [Instant classic]
Cars [Pixar's newest film]
Pirates of the Caribbean [Keira! Yupi!]
.
.
.

And as the time approaches, there will definetely be more. I am looking forward. Very forward.