I may or may not be slightly offline for a bit depending on my schedule during the last part of my vacation here and unfortunately, it looks like my blogging will suffer the most. Don’t worry, you’ll get by fine without me. I have faith in ya. But before I disappear for a few days, I just wanted to toss a few quick thoughts into the ether…

• Monster Squad. Nostalgia. Pure, simple, werewolf nut-kicking, fun-loving nostalgia… in a shiny DVD wrapper. I haven’t seen this movie in forever, and even though I have fond memories of it from my youthful days, I wonder what I’d think of it now. What if it doesn’t live up to the magical memories I have of it? I guess I’ll have to put the money down and find out. It’ll be a good excuse to kick back one night with extreme-buttered popcorn and chocolatey snacks.

• Cowboy abductions. From the writers of Children of Men and Iron Man, comes the script to the movie adaptation of the graphic novel, Cowboys & Aliens. What’s that? Haven’t seen even seen a trailer for Iron Man yet? Haven’t heard of Children of Men? Don’t sweat it, you’re definitely not alone. But hey, how could anyone mess up a cowboy story with aliens in it? Will they go all spaghetti Western? Will they run with a lovely dark comedy like Mars Attacks!? I don’t know. I didn’t even realize the graphic novel had finally been published back in December (and I have been keeping up with one of Platinum Studios other books, Hero By Night and still somehow missed the release of the GN). Guess I’ll need to check this book out now.

• Funtastic Four. I went in expecting a fun yet not too cerebrally-challenging flick and got my money’s worth out of the weekday matinee showing. Some cheesy bits, some corny lines here and there, but there was enough entertainment value to overcome all that. It probably won’t pull in any Oscar nods or rave reviews from the serious comic geeks, but for me, an entertaining movie is all I really need sometimes. Probably won’t make it back to the movies until the Transformers movie. Another one that looks fun. And considering my son’s eyes lit up when the trailer for it started before Shrek the Third, I don’t really think I have much of a choice with that particular movie (I was a proud geek parent when he recognized the Autobot emblem on the steering wheel at the beginning of the trailer).

• The young detective syndrome. Following more of the nostalgia trail, I’ll eventually check out the Nancy Drew movie. I remember growing up with my ink-smelling, papery friends… Nancy, those trouble-finding Hardy boys, and Encyclopedia Brown. When I was young, the library was my babysitter after school for a couple years, and those books all made my reading list (along with books on mythology, science, archeology, and psychic phenomenon). One of the nice side effects of a movie like Nancy Drew hitting theaters is the reruns of Nancy’s old TV show reappearing on TV for a little while.

I have more I’d like to ramble on about (that’s the theme of the blog after all), but I’ve glimpsed into the future where I see a very, long travel day ahead of me (and trust me, I’m not looking forward to eight hours in a car with a sunburn on my back from trying to eliminate my programmer’s tan too quickly).