Month: September 2005

Video tapes are gone. Long live DVDs.

I have given away our VCR about two years ago. It was malfunctioning and wasn’t fun to watch anymore. But the legacy remained in our house in the form of about twenty video tapes. Those were all excellent movies that either I bought myself or was presented with by my close friends. “Snatch.”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Dogma” – films like these are jewels in anyone’s collection. I had no use for them though as I didn’t have any means of watching them.

Slowly, one by one, I got all these movies on DVDs and my collection was back to useful state. And those tapes were still laying around needless.

Today I gave them all away. I was going to do it sooner or later. I just couldn’t find anyone who I knew would have a VCR and would appreciate the films. Some of my friends have long switched to DVDs and DivX. Others have completely different movie tastes than I do. Yet another others already had their own collection that included either some or all of these films.

Dimitry and Lana passed by our place today after the trip to mountains. They confirmed that they didn’t have these movies, or if they had any they would be dubbed in Russian, which is not a good thing. Especially for the family that speaks English in its entirety. Their movie tastes are very close to mine. And so I was glad to present them with all my tapes.

I’ve emtpied the whole shelf that can now be used for storage of a new movie media – DVD.

Trip to Troodos

Waterfall

Best trips are usually spontaneous. No planning, no strategy – just a will to have some fun. My friend Dmitry and his wife Lana called me up today and said that they are about to leave on a trip to mountains and asked if I would join them. I did. It’s been a while since I went up there so I was glad I had a chance to go again.

We drove up to Platres and parked near the famous Psilo Dentro restaurant with a trout farm. Dmitry and Lana convinced me to take a walk to the waterfall. It shouldn’t have been any futher than a kilometer away, and the walk was supposed to improve our appetites. I’ve been numerous times to the Psilo Dentro restaurant, but I never went to the waterfall. Today I decided that it’s finally time to see it and be done with it. So I agreed.

The road turned out to be much tougher than I expected. It was long, heavily upstream and with lots of obstacles, like huge stones and waterstreams that had to be crossed via stepping stones. It would have been much easier if I didn’t have the camera to take care of.

Anyway, about 40 minutes later we finally reached our goal – a small waterfall. There was nothing particularly spectacular about it, but I made a few snaps anyway.

Quick return to the restaurant for an outstanding pork chop and beer. Now don’t get me wrong – I am all for grilled trout. Especially when it comes as fresh as it can possibly be. But Psilo Dentro pork chops are perfect. They are of the proper size and also juicy, and delicious.

On our way back to Limassol we had lots of laughs as Lana navigated us through the brief history of terrible Russian pop music. The tour ended with one of the tapes getting stack in the player with no hope of being removed, stopped or paused. It’ll play until the age of times. Or until Dimitry will get himself a new car.

I had a great time today. I should go again some time in the near future. I want to go together with Olga and Maxim. They need a good day out with some fresh air.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-09-11_Troodos

Wedding Crashers

Am I the only one to think that there are too many movies made recently with the word “Wedding” in their titles? Here is yet another one – “Wedding Crashers“.

Directed by: David Dobkin
Genres: Comedy, Romance
Cast: Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Christopher Walken, Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Jane Seymour, Ellen Albertini Dow, Keir O’Donnell, Bradley Cooper, Ron Canada, Henry Gibson, Dwight Yoakam, Rebecca De Mornay, David Conrad, Jennifer Alden
IMDB raintg: 7.4
My rating: 6.0 [rate 6.0]

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)Olga wanted to watch the Potter series, so I joined in for the “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets“. I’ve seen it before, but since I didn’t blog about it, it was a good idea to refresh the memory.

Directed by: Chris Columbus
Genres: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Mystery
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Richard Griffiths, Fiona Shaw, Harry Melling, Toby Jones, Jim Norton, Veronica Clifford, James Phelps, Oliver Phelps, Julie Walters, Bonnie Wright, Mark Williams, Chris Rankin
IMDB raintg: 7.3
My rating: 8.0 [rate 8.0]

Continue reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets