Playing Games

I'm not sure how these go together, but today the public library had a video game tournament. It was good times though, and the kids seemed to like it.

This kid was my favorite. He went through a wide range of emotions in about five frames.

And in honor of Ken Ritchie's hand obsession, here's a tight shot of kids playing Guitar Hero.

Speaking of things that don't go together...

A couple of random movies came out this weekend that, sadly, I kind of want to see. It has nothing to do with content and everything to do with marketing. When I first heard of that "Freedom Writers" movie I thought it sounded stupid and predictable. Then I saw the trailer with that awesomely beautiful song "Breathe Me" by Australian singer Sia. It reminded me how much I love that song, and suddenly I'm thinking, 'maybe the movie won't be so bad.' That and "Children of Men," which uses Muse's "Map of the Problematique" in its trailers, are now both on my list of ways to waste my afternoons off.

It's not uncommon for me to go to a movie I have no interest in seeing just because of a well crafted trailer score. The only reason I saw "King Kong" last year was because they used Coldplay's "Fix You" in one of their trailers. I was in love with that song and the band at the time, and I was tricked into seeing Peter Jackson's self indulgent, three-hour bore of a movie. And I had no idea what the movie "Closer" was about when I went to see it in the theater a few years ago, but a trailer featuring Damien Rice's "The Blower's Daughter" made that detail irrelevant.

Anyway, save yourself the price of admission and just enjoy these songs.

Breathe Me.mp3 by Sia
Map of the Problematique.mp3 by Muse
Fix You.mp3 by Coldplay
The Blower's Daughter.mp3 by Damien Rice