undercover brother felt like a blend of austin powers and i'm going to get you sucka with a touch of naked gun, along with elements from 70's movies like the split screen panels of action. it's campy fun and i had a good time laughing. eddie griffin has a manic energy much like chris tucker, but along with the energy, he also has that manic look to him as well. the outfits are outrageous but in a retrocool kind of way. could movies like these bring out a resurgence in 70's wear? only time will tell. although i haven't seen the new austin powers movie yet, i think undercover brother is the fresher of the two campy retrospy comedy. if you like these kind of movies, this one is a can't-miss. i'll be looking forward to the sequel!

after 8 hours of sleep i got up today to a breakfast that consisted of leftover barbecued meats from yesterday. i met alex wong at the fresh pond cinema, where we saw undercover brother. i got a blue raspberry slushy, $4.19, courtesy of sweet inflated movie theatre pricing. when we got to our screening room, there was nobody there yet, an empty theatre. i'm going to make a bold prediction and say that undercover brother will probably not be number one at the box office this weekend.

when i got home i was in the backyard looking for new insects to photograph when i saw the newly opened poppy flower. it was enormous, about the size of a grapefruit, much larger than last season, when the flowers were only about chestnut size. also different this year was the color, last year all the flowers were orange, this year, they're red. not sure why that happened, maybe it'll fade to orange after a while. they look more like tulips than the poppy flowers i'm use to.

as for insects, i came across a clutch of newly hatched ladybug larvae underneath a grape leaf. the three-lined potato beetles were out doing it in full force, everyone of them paired up like some sort of entomological version of an adolescent makeout party. i like three-lined potato beetles not because they're so sexually uninhibited but because they only eat the weedy nightshade plant. their larvae are a little disgusting when they hatch, because they have a voracious appetite for nightshade leaves and its always unsettling to be looking around the garden and find a swarm of potato beetle larvae. but they're doing me a good service, because without them, the nightshade would be more rampant. other insects i saw today was a small (3mm) red/black beetle and a green metallic bee.