I am a big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, and a history buff. When the two things intersect, I am almost giddy with joy.

Wright designed houses for the rich, like Fallingwater, but his real interest was in designing houses for the less wealthy by using mass produced components. He believed all income classes deserved good architecture. In 1916, he designed and built some low income housing on Milwaukee's south side. Over the last century, various additions, including aluminum siding on one of the house, have obscured the buildings' pedigree. Now Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin has bought two of the houses and intends to restore them to their 1916 condition.

Once the restoration is complete, the two bedroom house will become a museum. And, if it is anything like the Pope-Lehigh house in Virginia (which I visited in 2001), will shed light on how people lived in 1916.

Hmmm. Safari on Windows. Satan must be looking for a really heavy coat about now, since Hell has frozen over. Here's Chris Pirillo's take on it.

http://live.pirillo.com/ / http://chris.pirillo.com/media/

I just watched "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and I have a few things to say. If you haven't seen the movie yet, GO AWAY!

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First, Why, oh why, must every superhero movie have several villains? These guys have rogues galleries, and we still have to watch two or three villains go against our heroes.

Second, Silver Surfer was cool. Although he lacked a little of the Stan Lee angst of the original, visually he was amazing.

Third, Doctor Doom was in the movie. Why? The original Galactus Trilogy didn't have Doom in it. It had the Fantastic Four fighting against an unstoppable foe that devours planets. Galactus in this movie was extremely interesting, and we should have spent more time with this unstoppable foe. But no, we get the second Galactus arc where Doom steals the Surfers cosmic powers. This movie wasn't "Rise of the Silver Surfer," it was "Doom almost lets the Earth Get Devoured."

Fourth, according to IMDB, "The Fantastic Four learn that they aren't the only super-powered beings in the universe when they square off against the powerful Silver Surfer and the planet-eating Galactus." Galactus was completely unlike the comic version, and more like V'Ger in Star Trek. But that's not a bad thing. In fact, it makes Galactus a little more implacable. Kinda like the Borg. Wait! They showed Galactus as a sphere in one scene. They also forgot to mention that the main foe was Doom. Galactus was only in the movie for ten fucking minutes! He should have been in it at the beginning of the third act, at least! They could have made the Doom stealing the Surfer's power Fantastic Four 3 or 4. And all it takes to destroy Galactus is his herald turning his powers against master? Who creates a herald capable of destroying themselves? As Galactus was blown away, I exclaimed, "That's fucking it?!" Galactus is blown out just like a candle on a birthday cake?

Fifth, the fight against Doom wasted another great FF villain: The Super Skrull. Johnny's fight against Cosmic Doom with all the FF's powers was awesome! But how will they win next time? One person wielded all the powers of the FF already. How do you top that?

To sum up: It's a good movie. It's a good movie to end the series on. Their most powerful foe was destroyed in five minutes. Only Doom will return. Feh.

On Vacation!

Beginning at 6 pm tonight, I will be on vacation. I'm taking a trip to Denver for the National Homebrewers Conference. I will blog about the conference over at Wort's Going On Here?, my homebrewing blog. I have a few posts lined up. Thanks to Chris Pirillo and bLaugh, the rest of the week is covered, and the first posts of next week are done.