My week

[vilakins]

Dinner
On Monday night I went to the Orbit Restaurant at the top of the Sky Tower. The view is quite lovely on a clear winter's night and the food is amazing. They've added an unnerving feature to the lifts since I was last there though--besides the glass walls from which you can see the cityscape drop away, they've now got a glass panel in the floor. OK, it's 38cm thick and stronger than concrete but I got as far away from it as I could and refused to look down. "It's like taking off in the space-shuttle!" Greg said gleefully. Orbit? Shuttles? I just hoped that if we got stuck no-one would try to throw me out.

Spiderman 2
Today I went to Spiderman 2. Poor Peter Parker, but I do love that the guy comes from a working-class background, lives in a cruddy apartment, has trouble being a superhero and holding down a job, can't pay his rent or his phone bill, and that he can't really help his own aunt keep her home. I suppose that's as realistic as superheroes get, and there were times my eyes got a bit misty. Otto Octavius was wonderful; it's odd to think the last time I saw Alfred Molina, he was a shy nerdy Welsh undertaker. The SFX were stunning and exhilarating, especially Doctor Octopus's augmentations, but I have some questions:

• Why are Peter's aunt and uncle old enough to be his grandparents?
  
• How did immersing a sustained fusion reaction in the water drown it?
  
• Why didn't the radiation from a small sun kill them?
  
• Why the hell do people take babies and toddlers to a film like this?
  
• Why do they still sell stuff in cellophane bags so loud they can drown out the soundtrack?

War classics
I was a very warlike little tomboy and loved the old B&W classics on afternoon TV. After the film I bought a boxed DVD set of four favourites:

• The Dam Busters
  
• The Colditz Story
  
• The Cruel Sea
  
• Ice Cold in Alex
  

Yay!