One of my high school teachers always sought to set students' expectations low so that when we did well, we'd feel so much better about ourselves. Maybe that's what the producers of Pirates of the Caribbean were thinking when they made the last two films of the series. Part 2 was just so bad and boring, I fell asleep. And I snore too so the sold-out crowd was probably none too happy. Fast forward to Part III, At World's End, and you know what, it ain't that bad. Maybe it's because the second one was dismal, they had nowhere to go but up. Or it could be it was genuinely good. Nah, that's not it.

The movie was still pulled in too many directions by characters who each had their own agenda to follow. At least putting everyone in the same general area for the last half of the film helped everything gel together for one final action-filled battle.

It was a few months overdue, but I finally bought my new laptop over the weekend. Kinda. I settled on a hp dv6000t from Costco online. It has the Core 2 Duo chip, which supposedly has some kind of high-pitched noise if the power settings are turned on in a certain way so hopefully my new system will have that problem fixed. It should be here in a week.

The Sharks lost again. Better luck next year. But the small factoid I discovered years ago lives on. No team that has beaten the Sharks in the playoffs has won the Stanley Cup. The Red Wings were eliminated by what looks like the final champion Anaheim.