When in the US...

I struck up a conversation with a co-worker the other day who I found out had immigrated from Iran when he was 18. He literally escaped the country on camel-back riding for several days (actually, the traveling was all done at night) through a sand-storm with human smugglers to make it out of Iran several years after the Islamic Revolution.

There's a lot more to the story I heard but the highlight for me was hearing how he learned English. After working all day (and most of the evening) he would come home and watch late-night TV. His favorite and most helpful show in learning English: "The Honeymooners." To this day he loves the show and can't get enough of it.

"Die Hard"

Katie and I saw "Live Free or Die Hard" last night and it is the best completely non-redeeming movie I've seen in a while. This is pure summer-blockbuster, mindless-action, entertaining (at least for guys) kind of movie. It is unrealistic, violent, humorous, not too long, and worth seeing in a simple escapist kind of way. I haven't seen any of the other movies in the series and would now like to; I'm hoping they will be just as good. There are a lot of movies out there that try to be good action movies and fail miserably. This is not one of those movies and is more on the order of the "Indiana Jones" films; just with slightly less plot.

On principle, I would never give more than four stars to an action movie. This film has earned all four in my book.