Burgenstrasse

"The castle road." It runs from Mannheim to Prague, although today we only traveled from Bad Wimpfen back to Heidelberg. This stretch runs along the Neckar. With a fresh dusting of snow, it was gorgeous.

New Year's Eve with friends

New Year's Eve was a little more low-key this year. Courtney and I went to our boss's house for dinner -- he and his wife are both young JAs and we really enjoy spending time with them. The most interesting part of the night was the fireworks. It wasn't your typical production, just the townies out having a good time. But it seemed like everyone had bought fireworks to set off. It was amateur hour for sure. The real surprise though, was the townies who brought out their handguns and gleefully fired them in the air. I hope the bullets landed harmlessly in one of the nearby vineyards.

Movie reviews have value.

Courtney and I saw "Law Abiding Citizen" today at the garrison theater. It was atrocious.

It was unnecessarily bloody and violent. It lacked thematic consistency. It reeked of cliche and absurdity at the same time, and I didn't even know that was possible. The only thing that I found more disturbing was the parents who brought their young children -- young enough to throw a minor temper tantrum during a particularly disturbing, gruesome murder.

I wish we had looked on Rotten Tomatoes before going. "Consensus: Unnecessarily violent and unflinchingly absurd, Law Abiding Citizen is plagued by subpar acting and a story that defies reason."

Sorry for the brief rant.