Last night I had a special treat. I was invited to play a game of Clue with some of my students. But this wasn't just any game of Clue; oh, no, it was a special, customized version they had made themselves to represent my college and the personalities there. The "rooms" on the game board were pictures of various buildings, the characters were professors (represented by a tiny, one-square-inch color photograph as a playing piece, plus larger color photographs on the laminated "Suspect" cards), and the weapons were things like "Textbooks of Torture," "Red Pen of Doom," and "Cafeteria Spoon." And, instead of the standard "Who killed Mr. Body?" we had to discover "Who killed Pastor Gangel?"

It was a lot of fun!

Q: Was I one of the selected professors to be made into a Clue character?
A: Yes, of course.

Q: Did I have fun playing myself?
A: No, of course not. I'm myself all the time. When I played Clue, I played Prof. Collier. Which was good, because I (or, rather, my Clue-character) turned out to be the killer. Sometimes it's good not to be me.

Over Spring Break, I rented a bunch of DVDs of movies that I hadn’t gotten to see the first time around:

Worth Multiple Viewings:

Luther -- This was an incredible movie. It's so nice to find a movie that is able to accurately convey complex theology. Admittedly, the Catholics come off looking pretty bad, but face it: at that time, they were pretty bad. Also, they stick to the early years of the Reformation, so some of the worse parts of Luther's later life never get screen time (so he comes off looking perhaps a little cleaner than he was in real life). Still, seeing a Christian story portrayed with Real Actors (Sir Peter Ustinov, Alfred Molina, etc.) was a treat. For anyone who gets interested in Luther from this film, I recommend Bainton's Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence -- The original is a classic of Anine, albeit rather esoteric and obscuranist. The sequel stands alone; everything you need to know about the first is recapped in the first five minutes. They use the most brilliantly beautiful computer graphics I've ever seen in animation, but avoid the trap of using photorealistic computer-animated humans (which can be eerie and unsettling, like in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within). Instead, they use traditional hand-drawn animation for the people. The result is something to behold. The plot and characters aren't shabby, either.

Worth a Single Viewing:

Flight of the Phoenix -- Really good. It wasn't the type of movie I liked, but it was very well done.

Warriors of Heaven and Earth -- A Chinese movie of medieval warriors and bandits and a caravan crossing the desert with a mysterious cargo. It's refreshing to see a movie like this that doesn't use the wire-fu of Crouching Tiger -- just good, well-choreographed combat scenes.

Not Really Worth Viewing:

Alien Vs. Predator -- It gets better once all the humans shut up and start dying.

Underworld -- I know roleplayers who can act better than this. The special effects weren't that great, either. Basically, if you've seen the trailer, you've seen everything worth watching in the film.

The Punisher -- Thomas Jane is a great Punisher. The problem was in the editing. It should have had a dark, edgy feel, like the old Tim Burton Batman, except with a more realistic hero. Instead, they undermine the dark, edgy feel with in several pivotal scenes by pointless comic relief. (Whose bright idea was it to have opera music for the background music in the Big, Punishing Fight Scene?)

Last week was Spring Break. It was wonderful. The weather was fantastic. The first Saturday all the students were gone, I went on a ramble through the woods and fields around the campus, exploring all the things I should have explored long ago but never got a chance to.

Last Saturday, the weekend before classes started back, I went to Alabama to help my sister move. She's been living in a basement apartment for the past few years, building her house piecemeal as she gets the money. We had hoped she would move in last fall, before the winter cold, but it just didn't happen.

The new house is beautiful. It has lots of large windows, and is situated on the top of a wooded hill miles from civilization. You can see miles and miles to the horizon all the way around. In fact, you can see Cheaha, the highest point in Alabama.

The move was a lot of work, but we had our Uncle Wallace to help. He recently retired to the area from his job as a professor of philosophy. His pickup was invaluable for moving the fridge and other furniture.

I had a good Spring Break. In between the two weekends, I read a good book and watched a lot of movies. What a great way to spend a week!

Yesterday afternoon, we were wrestling in the lobby of the guy's dorm. Next to the couch, someone had dropped a moon pie wrapper. When I stepped too close to it, I discovered it was swarming with ants. Gahh! I had to swat them all off my feet. This morning, my foot was red and itchy where they bit me.