Random Things

Favorite new website: StillTasty.com - As its name suggests, it is a searchable database of shelflife for all kinds of stuff. So far, I've only looked up black beans, but just knowing that it exists makes me a very happy girl.
Thoughts on Inception: I definitely liked it. I don't know that it will go on my list of favorite movies, but I am glad that I saw it. Definitely an originality factor to it. I could have done without some of the gunfire. Ok, so I realize that there's some mass appeal, male audience drawing power with guns and explosions. However, I'm not sure that all of that was really all that integral to the heart of the story. Also, fewer gunshots would have meant fewer minutes spent watching the movie through the crevices of my fingers. Just sayin'. I also thought that a few points were belabored. Some things maybe weren't quite clear enough (though the ambiguity is definitely part of the intrigue), but then other things repeatedly hit the audience over the head. And, of course, no commentary from Hyla would be complete without something about the soundtrack. They definitely chose one emotion and carried it through the whole film. At different points, I kept thinking, "If the music was lighter here, this whole scene would be light." But, truthfully, there was almost no reprieve from the pulsating intensity... if I was recording that score, I think my stress levels would be through the roof at the end of every session. It's just an awful lot of very similar, intense music. Once I saw at the end that Hans Zimmer wrote the score, though, it made a lot more sense.
National-Hyla-relearns-the-flute-month: August will be this month for me. I'm planning to spend the first week just doing tone and technical exercises. That way I won't feel so "flabby" when I actually start reading music again. It's been a long time since I've read much music. I'm hoping that after a month-long action plan, I'll be ready to consider playing in public again at some point.