I’ve been watching a lot of movies during these past two weeks that Ras has been gone.  In order, this is what I’ve seen.  It’s the first time I’ve seen any of these movies, except for Pride and Prejudice (2005), which is one of my favorite movies.

1. Atonement *
2. Juno *
3. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
4. The Nines
5. Pride and Prejudice (2005)
6. Pride and Prejudice (1995)
7. Beowulf (2007)
8. Footloose
9. Fame  The DVD file was corrupt, I only watched part of the movie
10. Bee Movie
11. Blade Runner
12. Rocky Horror Picture Show  The DVD file was corrupt, I only watched part of the movie
13. There Will Be Blood *

* = Oscar nominations

I’m also trying to watch all five Oscar nominations for “Best Picture of the Year.”  I’ll finish off the list by watching Michael Clayton and No Country for Old Men by the end of this week.  What’s the best movie you’ve seen lately?

On Friday, Peter asked me what I had planned for the weekend.  “You guys are usually doing something or another, right?”  Yeah, that’s usually the case.  This past weekend, though, was 48 hours of pure, unadulterated lounging.  It involved sleeping in, strong coffee, internet surfing, movie watching, bacon pizza, wine sipping, nibbling on persimmons and chestnuts, and absolutely no housework at all.

Today at work, we were all talking about the new E-2 visa regulations.  In addition, it looks like we’ve hired a new teacher - a friend of Bart’s.  He’s from Kentucky and has a banjo!  During my children’s class today, I took the kids out to collect leaves.  It was nice to go for a walk in the fall weather and play with the kids as we threw dried leaves on each other and had a contest to find the biggest leaf.  We’ll be making these leaf wreaths this week.  It’s very easy and instructions can be found here.

The movies I watched this weekend:

• American Gangster - Good!  Can you believe Frank Lucas was clearing $1 million a day from selling heroin in the late 60s?  Very interesting story.
•  Hot Rod - Terrible.  I fell asleep for most of the movie.  When I did manage to wake up, I fell back asleep because it was so dumb.
• Shoot ‘Em Up - Good.  It was action packed and held my interest, but most of the scenes were just down right ridiculous.  Logic and laws of gravity were completely ignored.  Still, I think that was part of its appeal.

Here are some things I found interesting from this interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

TIME: Is Facebook’s popularity connected to its focus on authenticity? On your site, misrepresentation of your real self is a violation of company policy.

Zuckerberg: That’s the critical part of it. Our whole theory is that people have real connections in the world. People communicate most naturally and effectively with their friends and the people around them. What we figured is that if we could model what those connections were, [we could] provide that information to a set of applications through which people want to share information, photos or videos or events. But that only works if those relationships are real.

TIME: With more than 40 billion page views every month, Facebook is the sixth most trafficked site in the U.S., and the top photo-sharing site. What are your international expansion plans?

Zuckerberg: Right now a lot of our growth is happening internationally. We have more than 10% or 15% of the population of Canada on the site. The U.K. has a huge user base.

This month, I’ve been watching a lot of movies.  Two weeks ago, I added the “Flixster” application on Facebook, and am going to list and review all the movies I see from this year on.  So far, all 16 movies listed have been everything I’ve watched since arriving in Oregon for the summer.  The best so far were: Born into Brothels, Transformers, and Hard Candy.  The list of movies to see in the next two days include: Ghost World, Grave of the Fireflies, and The Devil Wears Prada.  At the end of the year, it’ll be interesting to see how many movies I’ve seen from the second half of 2007.  Yesterday, brother rented a Japanese movie that came out this week called, “Yo-Yo Girl Cop.”  Besides the funny title, I can’t decide whether I want to watch it or not.

Happy birthday America! It’s supposed to be 90 degrees (32 celsius), sunny, and not a cloud in the sky - perfect for all the picnics and barbecues going on today. I’m not sure of my plans for today, but I think it involves some housework. Hopefully I can get out tonight to see a firework show. In preparation, I’ve been reading some tips for firework taking.

Yesterday, the lens I rented for my camera arrived. I used Rentglass.com last year to rent a Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM. It was much cheaper than renting from Portland’s Pro Photo Supply, which charges $80 a week for that lens, while Rentglass charges $33 a week! This time I rented the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM for three weeks. When I DO buy a wide angle lens, it’ll probably end up costing me $600 or more, so I’m taking my time to try some lenses out.

The only problem with Rentglass, is that it’s on a first-come-first-serve basis. It wouldn’t be too bad, but they only have one of each lens, and they don’t give you an idea when the lenses will be returning. Right now, I’ve also got an order for a macro lens at Ziplens.com. At least with that site, you can put in your order and be the next person to get the lens when it comes in. My macro should be arriving in the middle of July. You HAVE TO LOOK at the kind of pictures you can take with this lens! Amazing. A macro lens would be a big splurge ($450), therefore, I want to rent the lens to take some nice photos that I can blow up and hang on my walls in Korea. Right now, the next lens I buy will probably be some kind of wide angle.

Yesterday was opening day for Transformers in America. I took advantage of opening day being on a Tuesday to see the movie before today’s crowds. The movie time listed was 10:50 am, but due to all the trailers, the movie itself didn’t start until 11:06. How was the movie? It was AWESOME! Granted, it won’t be up for any Oscars for acting, but it was just a FUN summer blockbuster. Lots of action and entertaining, especially for those of us that grew up watching the Transformers cartoons. I was disappointed Bumblebee wasn’t a VW bug, but Optimus Prime made up for that. Optimus Prime has such a great voice for a leader, and he’s so wise. At one point in the movie, I was thinking, “Witwicky, don’t you dare put that cube in Optimus Prime!” You have to see the movie to understand what I’m talking about. I don’t like watching movies twice, but would definitely see this one again - for the special effects alone.  As I heard one kid say on the way out of the theater, “That was tight!”

Read an interview with the voice of Optimus Prime, Peter Cullen.

Wow. The Metropolitician saw the first public screening of Transformers… in the WORLD! I’m jealous. He can’t give details, so there are no spoilers to be had in the post.

There’s a tad more about the screening at Korea Pop War.  Unfortunately, neither one of these bloggers are going to be there tonight to see Bumblebee.