Movie Review: Bridge to Terabithia

This movie snuck up on me. I didn't see a single review or trailer for it until the week of it's release.

It's Alice in Wonderland but with a boy as Alice and a girl as the White Rabbit.
Jesse is a quiet boy. He has no friends, he lives on a farm on the brink of total financial collapse in a poor part of the country, and when his own shoes fall apart he has to wear the discards of his older sisters. The family is poor in the pocketbook and poor in imagination.
Then a new girl moves in up the street. Her parents are writers who neglect her when they're in the middle of a writing jag. She's a free spirit who dresses how she likes, behaves how she likes, and lets her imagination run wild.
Jesse/Alice spurns her early attempts to make friends, but slowly gets pulled into her world despite his father telling him to straighten up and be sensible. They make up the fantasy world of Terabithia which they retreat into every day after school.

You'll hear me and most reviewers focus on the fantasy world but it's really a smaller part of the movie than we make it out to be. It's also about these two friendless kids finding each other, struggling with other kids and their families, and just getting through life.

While this is certainly more kid appropriate than "Pan's Labyrinth" you run the very real risk of having to deal with sobbing children.

Good movie, but not DVD worthy.

Movie Review: Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider is a superhero for the heavy metal crowd. Leather, flame, bones, chains, motorcycles - he's something you'd expect to see on a Guns & Roses album cover.

I have a few Ghost Rider comics that I collected way back when he was partnering with Blade and a few other heroes who hunted supernatural baddies. The stories didn't really deal with his origins much so I can't compare the comic to the movie. I can tell you that the movie seemed to be written to appeal to the NASCAR and tractor pull watching audience. This doesn't detract from the movie any more than having James Bond playing poker instead of baccarat detracted from "Casino Royale".

Probably the greatest power that Ghost Rider has is his Penance Stare. Hard to draw and hard to film, the Penance Stare is a great concept. Batman can get you locked up, Superman can kick your ass, but Ghost Rider makes you feel all the pain and suffering you've caused. It's the ultimate eye for an eye punishment.

I liked most of the movie and the special effects to generate Ghost Rider were pretty good. But Ghost Rider got some of the lamest lines you've ever heard. He was just painful to listen to. However, he does mercifully little talking.

Nicolas Cage is a fanboy. At one point, nearly a decade ago, he was up for the role of Superman for a version of Superman 5 that never happened. More on that at the end of this blog.
Anyway, the point I was getting to is that Nick Cage likes comic books. He named his son KalEl after the Kryptonian name for Superman. He's the executive producer for "The Dresden Files" and I heard about some similarly geeky project that he's pushing that I've forgotten.
I mention all of this because there's a lot of belief in the fanboy community that big name celebrities can't play superheroes. They can become big names later, but they have to start with nobodies. Christopher Reeve was a nobody before he became Superman. Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill before Star Wars and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine are also good examples. Then there was the disaster that was Ben Affleck as Daredevil, Halle Berry as Catwoman, Jessica Alba in The Fantastic Four, and Eric Bana as The Hulk. They forget that Michael Keaton and Christian Bale were both great Batmen, Tobey Maguire as Spiderman, Ron Perlman as Hellboy, and Patrick Stewart was born to be Professor X. Really, it's why is that actor in that part? If it's because that actor is hot at the moment then you're asking for a disaster. If it's because that actor is right then it's fine. There's really no doubt that Tom Cruise shouldn't be allowed on the set of the Iron Man movie, let alone be playing the title role. Oops, they've changed it to Robert Downey Jr. now. Hmmm. I can see him as Tony Stark, but I'm not sure about Iron Man.
Again, I'm getting off topic. Nicolas Cage does just fine as Johnny Blaze. I think it's the comic book geek in him that made it work. Often with comic book movies the secret of whether is succeeds or fails is based on how big a fanboy the director is. With X-Men 1 & 2, Superman 5, Spiderman 1-3, and Lord of the Rings 1-3 you have a fanboy director. With X-Men 3, Superman 3 & 4, Daredevil, Catwoman, and a host of others the movie failed because you had a studio trying to squeeze the popular comic book genre for some more money and getting directors who just didn't get the story or the characters.

Anyway, Ghost Rider is a good but not great movie. Kinda like the Blade movies. Good, but I don't need to have it right on hand for repeated viewings. Most importantly it didn't suck. Glad I saw it but I probably won't get it on DVD unless they come out with sequels that are better.

And here's the promised script to Superman V. Written by Kevin Smith.
http://www.supermanhomepage.com/movies/movies.php?topic=kevin-smith-script

Here's the story of how it was ruined.

Al Franken

You may have heard that Al Franken formally announced he's running for United States Senate. You really want to watch the video he made to tell why he's running. It's the best description of why liberals are liberal and why it seems to us that 100% of neocons, 99.44% of Republicans, and most Democrats seem to be out to hurt people.



Also available for Quicktime, RealAudio, and Windows Media Player at http://www.alfranken.com/page/content/videoMessage

Another blow to superstition

I'm from Kansas. I didn't leave specifically because of the Kansas School Board's idiotic view on teaching evolution in schools, but the fact that there's enough people that agree to get them elected means they're too backward for me. Sure, they accept freedom of religion there. You can be any kind of Christian you want.

Even though the Pope himself believes in evolution the battle rages on in Topeka. And while the battle is far from over the forces for clear thinking have won another battle.

http://www.theregister.com/2007/02/15/id_booted_out/

In short, the school board voted to remove the requirement that science teachers have to say that the core ideas of evolution are controversial in scientific circles.

Bumpersticker #4 - Science: It's about how, not who.

Snow day

How to work from home:

First you sleep until about quarter til 11.
Next answer a few emails so people know you're up and doing stuff.
Pop out to Starbucks for some breakfast.
Feed bird.
Flop on the couch with keyboard and mouse and do whatever it is you do until seven that night.
Finally get around to drinking that coffee from this morning.
Watch TV.
Sit up and read until you fall asleep.

That's a proper day's work.

Movie Review: Hannibal Rising

Happy Valenteen.

I haven't seen the TV show "Dexter" yet but someone is supposed to be putting them on DVD for me. "Dexter", so I'm told, is about a serial killer who only kills other killers. It's also very popular.
"Hannibal Rising" has a similar theme.

Hannibal Lecter is an interesting character. In his first appearance on screen he managed to completely freak people out without ever leaving his one little room. It wasn't until his 4th movie when we actually saw him kill anyone. We see him do some killing in this movie, but it's almost all killing we can approve of. He's a likable mass murderer.

A lot of people didn't like the Star Wars prequils. Episodes I and II just didn't have the oomph of the classic movies. Ok, so Anakin was a bit too Wesley Crusher and Jar Jar needed to have horrible things happen to him and, ok, someone else needed to take Lucas's story and write the screenplay and someone else needed to direct. Look, will you let me get to my point? Even with someone else working on Episodes I & II people still would have said they sucked. Episodes III, IV, V, and VI were the action movies. The back story is slow and short on lightsabres, but it helps to explain how a little boy got twisted into Darth Vader. You have to watch I & II with that in mind. Similarly, you have to watch "Hannibal Rising" with the understanding that you're watching how a little boy is twisted into someone who eats people.

I'm not going to tell you the story but I do recommend the movie whether you've seen the others or not.

Also, pick up a copy of the book "Silence of the Lambs". Preferably a big hardcover book. Wait for the sun to go down. Get a big comfy chair. Kill all the lights except for one right above you. Now read.

LOC sucks

One of the great things about DC is all the great talks and lectures going on for free.
One of the things that sucks about DC is all the great talks and lectures take place in the middle of the day when people have to work.

I mention this only because I just found out that one of my favorite authors, Robert J. Sawyer, is going to be speaking at the Library of Congress on 19 April...

at noon...

on a thursday.

Someone should explain the concept of a day job to these people.

Valenteen

I'm putting off that movie review another day because I need to discuss a new Dougintology holiday.

Valenteen is the working title. I don't like it. It sounds too much like a holiday for high school students.
Anyway, Valenteen is supposed to be to St. Valentine's Day what Halloween is to All Hallows Eve.
In both cases they take place the day before a holiday to honor saints. In both cases you're supposed to alter your normal appearance.

Here's how to celebrate. On February 13th (tomorrow) you skip all the morning preparation stuff. Guys don't shave, apply cologne, or use anything other than a hairbrush on their hair. Women don't apply makeup or perfume, hairbrush only, and wear comfortable clothes to work. By comfortable I mean you can skip the heels, the tight clothes, the revealing clothes, etc. Obviously if there's a dress code at work you have to obey that. But if you can wear slacks instead of skirts or blue jeans instead of slacks then do.

Why?
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. It's all about romance and candy and candles and dressing up for your significant other... and huge profits for the candy, card, and lingerie companies. We dress up a bit every day. If we fail to dress up for this one day, show our partners our real selves, it'll make all the work we do on Valentine's Day that much more impressive and hopefully make our partners appreciate the work we to every other day just a little bit more.
Plus guys are clueless dweebs who somehow miss all the signs and ads and candy sales that have been everywhere for the last month. This gives them one last 24 hour warning that they're supposed to have something planned for the 14th.

If you have suggestions for a better name for this holiday let me know.

You look like you've seen a ghost

I was on the way back from seeing the new Hannibal Lecter movie (review on Monday) and saw ... well, I shouldn't say it was the last thing I expected to see. In fact, I half expected this to happen once the weather warmed up a bit more. My source was hardly what I'd call reliable and the people to confirm it with are all in hiding from the cold. But anyway, there was the previously reported dead boy out playing football on the sidewalk.
Is it cold to say that I'm a little disappointed? I mean, I got a good story out of it. Plus he's gonna continue causing problems for me and other kids in the neighborhood.

Oh, well, a few more years and I'll be able to tell the story again, I'm sure.

Impending book

Kim Stanley Robinson's latest book is due out this month. It'll be the last of the Capitol Science Series of books. I'll repost book reviews for the first two books in the series:

In the first book, "Forty Signs of Rain", you spend most of the book wondering when the world is gonna end. When is the sky going to open up and wash us all away. There's a periodic chapter where they spell out in language most anyone can understand how the melting ice caps will cause the North Atlantic currents to screech to a halt or the action will move to some scientists who are noticing a sudden drop in the salinity of the water in some of their buoys but for the most part the actual action is slow. The main characters are a husband and wife who live in Bethesda, MD. She works at the National Science Foundation and you can tell from the description that the author really came to DC to follow the route she takes to work and got her breakfast and describes the office and statues in the courtyard. He's a scientist
working mostly raising his kid, but is also a part time advisor for some senator and advising him on environmental issues.
Late in the book there's a massive storm in DC. The ocean currents are pushing up the Chesapeake Bay and it's high tide and the storm hits and the water level comes up to lap at Abe Lincoln's feet at the Lincoln Memorial. If you've sat at Lincoln's feet and looked out and watched a thunderstorm roll in you get a better idea of how impressive that is. It describes the flooding of Rock Creek Park which runs from
near Lincoln clear up here to Walter Reed. It describes how they have to let the animals out of their cages in the zoo so they won't drown.

The second book, "50 Degrees Below", picks up right after the first. The bulk of the story focuses on Frank. Frank works for the National Science Foundation. Most people there work for a year and move on. Frank was scheduled to leave but was talked into staying at the end of the first book. But the guy he was subletting the apartment from came back, many of the homes around DC were ruined in the flood, so housing is so tight, and all his stuff is in storage, so he builds a tree house out in Rock Creek Park and lives there and in his office.
That's all well and good, but this is the winter where everything goes to hell. He's using his gear from expeditions to the Antarctic and at the worst of the winter he's still getting cold.
The storms around the world are dumping 50+ inches of snow in places and 70+ inches of rain in less than a day. A small island nation is flooded and the whole country relocates to their DC embassy.
Plus, Frank meets up with the strange woman in the elevator that convinced him to stay in the first book. She's a CIA spook in a bad marriage. She's been spying on Frank as well as a number of other people. Her abusive husband is uber-black ops and she keeps stealing beyond top secret information and feeding it to Frank. All leading to a confrontation near the end of the book.

The final book is "Sixty Days and Counting" and is expected to appear on shelves February 27.

Barn

Dad just retired a week or two back. He's gonna be a full time farmer and preacher's wife now. Besides hanging out at the Smallville barbershop and living vicariously through the customers there he's gonna try fixing up the farm. While he's done lots of work on the equipment over the years the buildings have been neglected. One of the many tasks we talked about was replacing one or both of the old hay barns. We don't keep cows or horses and one of the barns has been slowly sinking into the Earth due to the lack of a foundation. I've wanted to replace it for years so I'm probably a bit more enthused than he is.

Here's my preliminary sketch for one of the new barns. Since I didn't get to measure the exact dimensions are wrong. But it tells you how I'm thinking.


Instead of rebuilding the new barn the same way as the old barn we want to customize it for our needs. I'm using the old outline and just tweeking a few things.
The one story outcropping is a machine shop. It'll get the table saw and drill press and other related tools out of the garage. It also has plenty of space to pile up wood that we swear we're going to use someday.
I put a deck on top of the workshop because I thought it seemed appropriate. In another design I have the roof cover the deck and glass it in. This is so my uncle with the landscaping company can keep plants up there. A couple of discarded hot water tanks would store runoff from the roof to water the plants.
In this model the roof is sloped one way so it won't dump the water on the deck.
The main part of the building is a bit more than two stories tall. There's a huge sliding door so that tractors can drive in. If you're wondering what I mean by "tractor" so look here (http://dougintology.blogspot.com/2006/09/clarifying-detail.html)The size of the door depends on if we want a combine to be able to fit in there.
There's a smaller door in the big door so we won't have to move the whole thing to get people in and out.
Off to the left of the big door you'll see a strange little square. With all the vehicles around we have to change our own oil and buy it by the barrel. Barrels of oil are heavy. I want to be able to back the pickup up to that chute, pull out the old barrel, slide in the new one, and be done with it.
Inside the main barn area there's a loft on either side. They're to be high enough that someone riding one of the old cabless tractors would be able to drive under them and park without hitting their head.
A walkway connects the two lofts. A door goes from the walkway to the deck.
Along the middle of the ceiling, not the highest point in this case, is a track and pulley system. This allows us to lift big thing up and slide them onto the loft. Mind out, it'll probably be used more often to swing from loft to loft. Truth be told that's the only reason I'm putting it in.
Look up near the peak of the roof. There's small squares drawn there. That indicates entrances for barn owls. Grandma's barn has a huge one. I want some on this farm, too. I'd also like to add bat nests.
My brother is an electrician, licensed instead of like the rest of the family who can do it without the paper, can do up the lighting good and proper. There's a faucet in the neighboring barn so it shouldn't be TOO hard to run one hose into this barn.
There will be at least a foundation around the walls if not under the whole thing.
The old wood will be sold to help pay for the new barn.

If you think of anything that should be added or want to make an offer on the wood let me know.

Game Review: Psychonauts

I just finished playing the PS2 game "Psychonauts" last night. It's a good game.

You play a boy named Rasputin who has snuck away from the circus his family works for to go to a camp for psychics. Once at camp he discovers a plot to steal the brains from all the children and put them in battletanks to be used as weapons to take over the world.
As the game procedes your powers increase and you learn new skills. You have a door that allows you to enter people's minds for training, therapy for the person you're in, or combat. You have to clear cobwebs from their minds and remove their emotional baggage (weeping suitcases). Each mind has a different theme so it feels like you're playing a bunch of little games. Each character has a story and personality that may or may not get fleshed out but makes the overall story more interesting.

There are points in the game where you might get stuck, but dying is only a minor inconvenience.

I highly recommend this game for any age.

Movie Review: The Messengers

This was one of the better horror movies I've seen. By horror movie I mean a movie that is meant to be scary and IS scary. Slasher flicks don't qualify. They're not usually scary at all and rely on blood and pain imagery to get a reaction.
I wasn't expecting much from this movie, but when I saw that Sam Raimi was a producer I had some hope. Sam Raimi is the maker of the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness/Spiderman movies. While he wasn't writing or directing I knew he wouldn't let garbage out.

This movie drew from some of the best horror movies. You saw some camera angles and themes from The Shining, creatures from The Ring/The Grudge, scenes based off of The Birds and Poltergeist, and some other movies that I can't recall two days after the viewing. They manage to make a fairly scary movie without the use of much blood.

I've seen scarier, but this is definately in my top 20.

Ice skating

I don't know if I've mentioned "No Kidding" here before. It's a social group for people who don't have/want children.
Yesterday we went to the new ice skating place on the 8th floor of the Ballston Commons mall. The DC hockey team, The Capitals, practice there. It's new enough that the place is still pretty crowded.
I've never been ice skating before. Rollerskating, rollerblading, or just sliding on the ice, sure. But never balancing on strips of metal. One is much like the others. The blade was curved a bit so it liked to pivot under me more than I was comfortable with. Still, I got the hang of it fairly quick. While the floor was less crowded than a roller skating rink the crowd tended to move more uncontrollably back and forth than in roller skating so it seemed more crowded than it really was.
Plus, it was warmer than being outside, so all in all a good time was had.

Book Review: Fletch, Too

I've got three of the Fletch books. You remember the old Fletch movies starring Chevy Chase, right? "Fletch" and "Fletch Lives"? He was the basis for the wolf in the cartoon "Hoodwinked". Ok, fine.

Fletch is an investigative reporter. The books are humorous mysteries. Most are anyway. "Fletch" and "Fletch and the Widow Bradley" were both great books that I highly recommend. I really wish I could find my original reviews for you.

"Fletch, Too" is a bit different than the others. He gets married but after the ceremony he's handed a note from his father who his mother always said died in childbirth. Instead of a Colorado ski trip Fletch and his wife and his ski clothes go to Kenya where his Dad has been living all these years. It's not so much a mystery as it is a travelogue for Kenya.

"Fletch, Too" is not the book to start someone reading the series. But I recommend any book in the series.

Stay tuned for "Fletch Won" expected in 2007. Zach Braff from "Scrubs" is rumored to be playing the title role.

Take a moment to belittle the dead

I'm going to preface these next comments with a short description of how I relate to the dead. People who are dead can't hear you. They're beyond caring what you think about them. I'm not about to start saying some slimeball is great because s/he has snuffed it.
When Nixon died everyone suddenly started talking about what a great guy he was. If Watergate was mentioned it was in terms of how much Nixon did for their business. It wasn't dying that makes me think of Nixon fondly. It was looking at George Bush II in comparison that makes Nixon seem like such a great guy.
There was a bully at my school who died when he and his buddies got completely smashed and the pickup truck he was riding in the back of flipped over. Suddenly this guy was Jesus returned. Nobody remembered that he was violent and a bit deranged, had drunk himself into a stupor despite being in high school, and was all around a nasty person.

I mention all this because I found out yesterday that one of the neighbor kids died last weekend. Shot twice in the head.

I knew this kid. He was one of a group who comes by my house after school. They roam the streets like feral animals since their parents either don't care what they're up to or are still at work until late. I play UNO with them and bought Battleship just to keep them busy and maybe learn something in the process. We trade video games and movies and I loan them some of my graphic novels (reprints of comic books in a single bound collection) to work on their reading.

Last summer I was playing Battleship with a couple of the older kids (just entering high school) when the deceased snuck into my house and tried to make off with a Fantastic Four collection he wanted to read but I'd been denying him since I wasn't done reading it. I caught him, took it away, smacked him upside the head with it, and tossed him down the sidewalk. 10 minutes later his mom, cousin, and uncle were over trying to threaten me. That's a whole extra story. The point was that his parent had taught him that "No" means "wait until my back is turned" and rewarded his misbehavior by challenging the person who called him on it instead of punishing him.

He had his good qualities. The kid had leadership skills. He was personable. There was some curiosity in him that other area kids his age don't have. With some different parents and a better school system he could have made something of himself.

On the other hand, he used those leadership skills to get others into trouble. He was often an instigator for trouble. Otherwise well behaved kids would become hyper and loud and need a good smack when he came around. I know of one kid in particular who has a much brighter future without the deceased in the picture.

I expected this to happen to this kid, I just didn't expect it for another 4-5 years.

Buy this book

Larry Gonick is not a great artist. However, he's great at giving history lessons in cartoon form. I used to see his stuff in some of Grandpa's science magazines. It'd be just some half page or so cartoon explaining some scientific concept or other. When I saw "The Cartoon History of the Universe" in stores I had to have it. I didn't recognize the name, but once I opened it I recognized the artist. From there I just started collecting.

The Cartoon History of the Universe covers history from The Big Bang to Alexander the Great. It's the easiest to get your head around since mankind hadn't spread out too much and following the collective history is easier.

The Cartoon History of the Universe II covers what he calls the Springtime of China to the Fall of Rome.

The Cartoon History of the Universe III covers the rise of Arabia to the Renaissance. By now the world is a pretty big place and it requires a bit of skipping back and forth in time with a focus on a different area each time to tell the story. He does a decent job of keeping it all tied together but there's still a few points where you have to stop and review just to get it all straight.

Cartoon History of the United States covers American history from the early settlers until about 1991 when the book came out. I took this book to school and one of my teachers made photocopies of some sections to add to her lesson plans. She used it to explain Watergate.

AND NOW...
Cartoon History of the Modern World a.k.a. The Cartoon History of the Universe IV. This latest book covers everything from Columbus until the American Revolution. By the time you read this I shall have my own copy.

(correction: After hitting the book stores I realized that the books are fresher off the press than I thought. They're still shipping. But this weekend for sure.)

Tributes

Mom and I were talking about tributes not too long ago. See, Will Eisner died a few months back and as a tribute to his work DC Comics made a crossover between "Batman" and Eisner creation "The Spirit".
Mom was making the arguement that we do these tributes after they die because on some level we all believe in the afterlife and want them to know what a great person the deceased was. That didn't feel right to me. And now that I'm doing this mindless data entry stuff my mind gets to dwell on that sort of stuff and figure out what it didn't feel right.

Several recent entries have had to do with my mind trying to keep functioning under the abuse of data entry.

I'm going to say that we do tributes to keep the important people alive a bit longer. Batman creator Bob Kane died in 1998 and hadn't worked in comics since the 1960's. But he's effectively immortal as long as Batman goes on. As long as people keep reading "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Douglas Adams remains.
"The Spirit" had been out of print for years and largely forgotten. But Eisner's death brought it back for that crossover and, I'm told, they're bringing him back in his own regular comic. And the annual comic book awards are called Eisners. Until recently Will was even there to hand them out in person. Eisner will live on for decades.

We do tributes to keep a part of the people alive. It's not so much to honor them as it is our own inability to let go. And maybe a bit of recognition that the only immortality we're sure of is the contribution of our work on society.

It's a birdy!

I have the coolest parrot ever. You know how parrots mimic their owner's words and even their voice? Well they mimic their personalities, too. Gandolf is a total sci-fi nerd.

I got season two of the new Doctor Who on DVD. She bops along to the theme song.
She quotes from Battlestar Galactica (original version).
She shrieks at the pterodactyls in old Ray Harryhausen movies.
She loves the Indiana Jones movies.
She likes to watch me play the game "Thief".
And I have my comic books spread out all over the house while catching up on 5 years of bagging them. She hasn't taken a bite out of one of them. Everything else is fair game to her, but she won't eat the comics.

lousy building materials

It occurs to me that Rock and Roll is a pretty lame substance from which to construct a foundation. Any contractor who uses Rock and Roll to build your house is setting himself up for lawsuits. And if you were to actually build a city on Rock and Roll it would be a death trap waiting to happen. Some islanders living in mud huts would hear about what happened to your city and want to send disaster relief funds to you.

Evil tree

This is a really nasty tree that lives in the pasture back on the family farm. Some people call it a black locust, some call it a honey locust, but we all know what we're talking about when we call it a thorny locust. These trees are all over the pasture but this particular one is the worst. It's been named the Teddy Bear tree because it has so many thorns it looks fuzzy.
I don't know why blogspot insists on rotating the image. It's vertical in everything else.


This is a close up of the above tree.

Larger and more detailed versions of these photos can be viewed by clicking on the pictures.

Santa Claus

I believe in Santa Claus. I stopped believing years ago when my parents left a letter to Santa that had been mailed out sitting on the dining room table. But I recently saw "The Hogfather". You remember. I reviewed it recently. I didn't? But I could have sworn. Anyway, it's good. Download it from iTunes or wait to get the DVD this Easter.
At the end there's a bit about why it's important that kids believe in the Hogfather. I saw it in the book, but it didn't click quite as well then. Some books are better audio books, some are better read, some are better as movies. But I'm getting off my subject. It's like this...no... let me quote from the book.

---
A conversation between Susan and Death:

'You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable.'
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
'Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little-'
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
'So we can believe the big ones?'
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
'They're not the same at all!'
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET- Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
'Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point-'
MY POINT EXACTLY.
She tried to assemble her thoughts.
THERE IS A PLACE WHERE TWO GALAXIES HAVE BEEN COLLIDING FOR A MILLION YEARS, said Death, apropos of nothing. DON'T TRY TO TELL ME THAT'S RIGHT.
'Yes, but people don't think about that,' said Susan. Somewhere there was a bed...
CORRECT. STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE'S HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE THAT A... A BED IS A NORMAL THING. IT IS THE MOST AMAZING TALENT.
'Talent?'
OH, YES. A VERY SPECIAL KIND OF STUPIDITY. YOU THINK THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS INSIDE YOUR HEADS.
'You make us sound mad,' said Susan. A nice warm bed...
NO. YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME? said Death, helping her up on to Binky.
---

Now, you can have your Jesus, your Allah, your Vishnu, Ra, Buddha, Odin, and Zeus but in the end we know deep down they are no more real than Captain Kirk. That's right. None of those gods exist outside stories. Neither do truth, justice, fairness, mercy, duty, a chili place that can do a proper bowl of chili, or any sort of human rights. Hurricanes don't recognize the right to life. Tornadoes don't recognize any fairness in who they strike. It's the belief in these things that's important. We create the illusion of these ideals because we need them to Be. It's important that we believe in them so that we'll struggle to keep them safe.
Santa is "My First Belief System". You know, for kids. It's the first imaginary thing they believe in. It's practice so that someday they'll be able to believe in truth, justice, and the basic rights of all mankind.

Santa is the model for what we want our kids to become. Happy, generous, well fed, and with super powers.
We should all get our ideal body image from Santa instead of Barbie.
He threatens to withhold gifts from bad boys and girls, but he also shows nearly total forgiveness for their sins because he almost always comes through with the gifts in the end.
And since it's still acceptable not to believe in him nobody has yet killed in his name. How many other dieties can claim the same?

I know Santa isn't real, but I'm going to believe in him anyway.

W.A.K.A.

You've heard them. The old guys sitting around talking about their trick knees. Maybe it happened during a war or a football game or when they fell out of a tree, but something screwed up their knees and now changes in the weather cause them pain.

"There goes my trick knee again. Feels like it's gonna rain."

It occurred to me earlier today that there's so many leg and knee injuries here on base — there's a war on, you might have heard about it — that we have access to probably the largest collection of trick knees in recent history. If only there were some way to network those knees. In the cities we can use cellphone towers to track a phone with greater accuracy than with GPS satellites. The more towers there are the greater the accuracy. I think we need transmitters in these knees. As the soldiers spread out across the country their knees would record the pressure and fluid levels in the knee and transmit them back to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) computers which would use the collective readings to predict weather patterns. We'll call it the Wide Area Knee Array, or WAKA for short.

What?
Stop looking at me like that.

Meanwhile...

Over on my cartoon blog (http://dariavideos.blogspot.com/) I've just finished posting the Invader Zim cartoons. I've got about a week of the cartoon Clerks before I have to find something else.

I missed another DC Blogger Happy Hour. Last time it was because I showed up on time while nobody else did and it wasn't the kind of place I want to just hang out. This time I didn't know about it until it was over. Maybe next month.

I finally found a stash of my allergy meds. I hadn't seen any on the shelves since before Thanksgiving. I'd found some substitute that worked OK, but I was having some skin problems. My skin mostly cleared up after a couple days with the good stuff.
I'd found some online drugstore and asked if they had the inventory to supply me with a six month supply and if the government would think I was running a drug lab. I've no idea what I'd be using Tavist for other than using it to cut cocaine with.
"Aw, man, I am so stoned right now. And my sinuses have never been so clear."

I'll try to come up with a better post tomorrow.

What's wrong with this picture?

I wish I'd had my camera there. I was in Dupont Circle last weekend. There was the usual crowd of people milling about. Some homeless guy was roaming around talking to people. He seemed to be fairly sober. A couple of layers of clothes on topped with a zip up hoodie with stains. His hair was a disaster, he hadn't shaved in several days, his belongings were all piled up on a park bench, and he had a bluetooth earpiece around his right ear. Pretty high dollar item for someone who's supposed to be sleeping in doorways Mr. FBI Agent.

In the beginning

The basic story is that the serpent talked Eve into eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and she learned good and evil. I've long assumed that this is a standard Pandora's Box type myth where the diety says "watch this but don't open or eat it while I walk over here and turn my back". It's using reverse psychology to get the people to do something it isn't willing or able to do itself.

It occurred to me the other day that the fruit may have done exactly what the serpent said. Adam and Eve both developed intelligence on the level of God yet weren't smart enough to turn around and immediately eat from the Tree of Life before getting busted. The duo left Eden while discussing the impact an 8th dimensional drive would have on the relativistic effect of traveling at or near the speed of light or something similar that maybe half a dozen people can start theorizing about even now. They go off and have some kids who seem to have the mental capacity of slime molds with an extra chromosome pair compared to their parents.

Another idea is that humans weren't God's first attempt at intelligent species. A test was needed to prove the species was worth releasing from the lab into the general population. A lesser creation would be told "OY! You there! Hands off the pomegranates." and would say "OK" and leave the fruit alone. Like computers. Pretty spiffy but not much of a self-starter. No free will. Just data processors. These two, however, were told "Don't eat the pomegranates!" said "OK" and while God was explaining to the parrots "DON'T. EAT. THE. BOOK!" Eve grabbed herself a snack. God sees this and figures he's developed a good enough AI for the humans and sends them out into the world.

Movie Review: Descent

This was one of those movies that I had no interest in upon seeing the original trailers, but the trailers I saw AFTER the movie had left theaters made it look interesting. In this one case I should have listened to the original trailers.

A group of 20-something women gets together every few months to do some wilderness adventure event. In the beginning of the movie the event is whitewater rafting. The main event is cave exploring. But the woman leading the pack doesn't want to bother with the "tourist" spelunking areas and leads them into some unexplored caves. There's some suspenseful climbing events that eventually lead them to the land of the Golums. There's a race of sub-humans living down there that eat people. They look a bit like scarier versions of Golum from Lord of the Rings. They're pale, blind, vicious, carnivorous creatures that navigate by sound.

They eat the women.

Movie Review: Pan's Labyrinth

Do not take your kids to see this fairy tale. It focuses more on life in Franco's Spain. There's graphic murder and torture, a bloody pregnancy, and subtitles. This makes the unedited Grimm's Fairy Tales look positively Disneyish.
That said, as adults you'll enjoy this movie. Sure, there's a few scenes where you'll go "yeeeahhhch" and screw up your face but you can deal with those bits.

The story:
Way back when in a underground fairy land a princess dreamed about sun, sky, and grass. So she snuck up to the surface where the sun blinded her and took her memories. The King knew that her soul would be reborn in a new body and waited for her to return. The princess comes back in the body of a little girl whose mother has married to one of Franco's Generals. As the movie starts the girl and her mother are on the way to the General's camp where the mother is to give birth to the General's son.
In the woods surrounding the camp are rebels who are being supplied by members of the General's household staff. This makes up the bulk of the movie.

There's two ways to view this movie. One is where the girl finds the fairies, they tell her who she is and give her tasks to prove she's who they think she is.
The other is about a little girl who finds herself being sent to a horrible place with her evil stepfather who does horrible things all around her. She makes up this fantasy world that she can escape to.

Good movie but I haven't decided if I want to buy it when it comes out on DVD.

Movie Review: Idiocracy

You probably didn't hear about this movie when it was in theatres. There was no advertising done and it was only released in 7 markets nationwide. The only reason Fox released it at all is because they owed it to Mike Judge, the creator. He's made them a lot of money. Much the same reason they keep "The Simpsons" going despite the beating they give to Fox.

The story is that the US Army wants to keep it's best soldiers for wartime instead of wasting them in times of peace. So they develop a Top Secret cryogenics program to preserve them. It's tested on one average soldier and one hooker. They're supposed to be stored for a year, but the project head gets mixed up with the hooker's pimp and they both go to jail. The project is forgotten for 500 years until a garbage avalanche uncovers it. Due to bad television, Fox News, and the fact that only morons seem to breed the perfectly average soldier is now the smartest man in the world by a lot. He's given the task of figuring out how to fix the crop failures and dust storms. He's pretty intimidated by the task until he realizes they've replaced water - "like from toilets?" - with a Gatorade type product. But after the switch Gatorade sales drop so the computer lays off half the staff, which is a huge chunk of population. As punishment our hero must face off in the monster truck arena while driving a rice-burner.

It's now out on DVD. I'm glad I bought it.
This is really a great movie, but I'm still not having kids.

Dougmas jar takings

I finally got to counting up my Dougmas Jar. Total takings between Dec 1 and Jan 1 were $5.63. I'm not sure if that shows how much or how little I use cash.

I know some of the rest of you set up Dougmas Jars, too. What was your take?

Movie Review: Pulse

I saw the original Japanese version of this movie called Kairo. It was creepy but you really didn't have any idea what was going on. The American version isn't really creepy but you have a pretty good idea what's going on.
Significant parts of one became minor parts in another. Events depicted by cutting away and back were redone with elaborate special effects. The original takes the philosophy that we're all alone when we live and all alone after we die. The new one takes the approach that everyone, even the dead, have a drive to live.

Both movies tell the story about the dead using the internet to come into our world. Once you see the webcams of people committing suicide you're pretty much screwed. You're supposed to close off a room with red tape. In the original it seemed like whoever did that was summoning the ghosts but that could be part of my confusion because it was a way to protect yourself in the American version. Together they make for a decent movie but neither one by itself is worth a damn.

Book Review: The Ghost Brigades

"The Ghost Brigades" is the second book by sci-fi author John Scalzi.

"Old Man's War", the first book, is something like Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" but less preachy. It takes place in the distant future when mankind has taken to the stars and discovered that it's not alone and the aliens are not friendly. Lots of aliens, few habitable worlds, and they have to get their share while protecting their planets. The Colonial Defense Forces recruit soldiers from the 80 year old humans. Why they want the old people I'm keeping a secret. The book follows John Perry as he goes through training and deploys into various battles with aliens of every type.
It's in this book we learn about the elite forces within the CDF known as "Ghost Brigades"

"The Ghost Brigades" is not a direct sequel to the original. Only one character makes the transition between books. It's not necessary to read the first book to enjoy the second, but there's a few points where it would help. In this one we have a scientist who has turned traitor and joined with 3 alien races who are collaborating to attack Earth. One new member of the Ghost Brigades is given a treatment that should give him the traitor's memories. Instead of being immediately effective the treatment takes time to take effect. So the first half of the book is spent with him training and fighting while the second half is spent hunting down and dealing with the traitor.
Again, I'm leaving out a great deal.

Both are fabulous books that I highly recommend reading. John Scalzi is one of the few modern sci-fi writers who still pay attention to the science in their stories.

Movie Review: Happily N'Ever After

Another studio has jumped into the ever expanding world of digitally animated cartoons. I'm not sure who they are. They seemed German. Being unknown they have to put out something better than the established studios.

"Happily N'Ever After" is another animation in the fairy tale genre. I think it's better than Shrek because Shrek had too much humor based on topical events instead of the movie itself. It reminded me more of "Hoodwinked".

In a tower high above the palace there's a wizard and his two apprentices (sp?) who watch over all the fairy tales and maintain the balance of good and evil with scales. When the wizard goes golfing on the eve of the latest iteration of Cinderella's ball everything falls apart. Cinderella's wicked stepmother takes control of the tower and assorted items of power and takes control of the kingdom.
It's up to the apprentices, Cinderella, the kitchen boy, a pack of survivalist dwarves, a bumbling prince, to retake the tower from the Wicked Stepmother, Rumplestiltskin, wolves from various stories, a trio of witches, a giant, and some other baddies.

One of the better digital cartoons but I haven't decided if I want it on DVD yet.

Movie Review: Children of Men

18 years ago people stopped being able to have children. Chaos fell on the planet. Governments fell, terrorism became rampant, facism became the word of the day. But one girl became pregnant. She needs to be at a certain place at a certain time to meet a boat that will carry her to an island where scientists are working to find a cure or at least start a new stock of humanity to survive after the rest die off and the wars finally end. Clive Owen gets the job of helping her evade the government and the "freedom fighter" who want the kid as a rallying point for the revolution.

The movie is dark but with several lighthearted moments made more so in contrast to the darkness. They have no qualms about killing off characters that you've come to like.

It was a pretty good movie but I want to read the book. There was enough going on in the background that it seemed like there was a lot of story not being told.

I may or may not get it on DVD.

--------------
Also, coming out today on DVD
Barnyard (my review) and The Illusionist (my review)

trees

I've always liked this tree. It exists on the farm and was planted with a bunch of other cottonwoods lining a trail to an old homestead in the middle of the section.

what a tool

It's pushing 70 degrees so I decided to use the nice day to get some more sheets of plyboo cut. It took me a bit to figure out if the hardness of the wood fluxuates or if my blade was going bad. I think it's both. I have to replace the blade and then I'll take what I've cut upstairs to finish it. I may have enough to cover the back wall. If not it's close.

Movie Review: Night at the Museum

I'll go ahead and give you the bad news now. "Night at the Museum" is not the sequel to "A Night at the Opera". I didn't even see a Marx Brother reference.

Still, "Night at the Museum" would go nicely on your shelf right next to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". Both are silly movies that would give name recognition to historical figures so that teachers, or more likely The History Channel, can build on.

In short, there's an ancient Egyptian tablet in the museum that animates the dead after dark. Ben Stiller is the new night watchman, replacing three old men whose jobs are being cut. He has to deal with walking t-rex bones, a war between the old west and ancient roam dioramas, cavemen, mongols, wild animals from the african veldt, and a host of other characters. Most of the stuff you've seen in the trailers takes place in the first half hour. Instead of going downhill after that, like most movies do, they've simply gotten the introductions done and are getting the story started.

Good movie, glad I saw it, I probably won't get it on DVD.

FATS

We recently got to go check out the virtual weapons training program on base. It's there for soldiers with prosthetics or who whose limbs are recovering from injuries to practice their shooting.

Footage of a training simulation is projected on the wall. Good guys and bad guys skittering around all over the place. Players are given weapons (M16s, M4s, or 9mms) and fire at the screen. The weapons look and respond like real life counterparts. You have to work the safety, reload by ejecting the clip and pulling the ... thingy after slapping the clip into place, it's weighted properly and has realistic recoil. The guns fire infrared lasers at the screen. The hits are detected by a scanner mounted under the projector. On screen you see a red + for a hit, a green + for a near miss, or a little burst of dirt when you hit the ground.

The program has retrained a few hundred injured soldiers. Nearly all have shown significant improvement and the one guy who didn't really had a pretty good excuse. It's used in other places as regular training exercises.

The system is made by FATS Inc.

Dave & Busters totally needs one of these.

Parrot profanity

I mentioned some time back about how my bird loves the Thief games. No? I was sure I did. Anyway, it's the only game she pays attention to. In the third game, near the end, my character comes around the corner and we see The Gray Lady who has now abandoned her little old lady form and become a big pink glob launching fireballs and generally obliterating the city's finest.

I said "Holy..."
Gandolf said "...ass."

Not the word I would have used, but Gandolf knew some manner of profanity went there.
I thought this a fluke. It wasn't. I was just now sitting here watching something strange on YouTube... I forget what and I've already closed that window. All that I remember was that it was really strange. Look, that's beside the point. The point was that when it was done Gandolf turns to me and says "What the ass?"

Anyway, I've reached the conclusion that she's chosen that word for her all purpose profanity. You know, like how "dude" can mean almost anything.

Oh, wait, there was that moment at the end of the latest Hitman game when our contact person betrayed us and Gandolf yelled "BITCH!"

Nevermind.

AFK

Gone to the land of dial-up. Don't expect a new post until after New Years.

GET IT OUT

(have a holly jolly christmas)
it's in my head!
(It's the best time of)
Get it OUT!
(the year. I don't know)
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
(if there'll be snow)
LA LA LA! IT'S A SMALL WORLD
(but have a cup of cheer)
AFTER ALL
(have a holly)
>wham<
(jolly)
>wham<
(christmas. it's the best)
IT'S A SMALL FUCKING WORLD AFTER THE FUCK ALL!
(time of the year)
>wham< >wham< >wham<
(I)
>wham<
(don't)
>wham<
(know)
>crack<
(if there'll be snow)
>whump<
(buuut haaaavvve uhhh cuuuuup uuuuuuuuuuuhf cheeee.....)
[fade to unconscious]

"what's wrong with him, doctor?"
"judging from the severe bruising on his head and the crack in his
skull I'd say he had a christmas song stuck in his head. we get that a
lot this time of year. We're thinking naming the new wing after Burl Ives."

Solstice

I'm getting two conflicting reports about when the Winter Solstice is this year. One calendar says Dec 21 while another says Dec 22. I'm going with Dec 22 since it's the usual date. (Upon further research I find that whether it's the 21st or 22nd depends on what time zone you're in. For the East coast it's early on the 22nd. For the rest of the States it's the 21st.)

Winter Solstice, for those of you who slept through science class or attended DC public school, is the shortest day and longest night of the year...barring, of course, that time when you accidently swapped the Vivarin and Tylenol and couldn't blink until about 4:30 in the morning. The Earth's rotational axis tilted 23° 27 minutes from that of our sun. This means that during some parts of the year the north axis points at the sun and during some parts of the year the south axis points at the sun. The winter and summer solstices mark the extremes of this cycle. The Winter Solstice also marks the beginning of the Dougmas season.

The Solstice has been celebrated by various cultures going back for millenia. Whatever else it may have been, Stonehenge was a calendar for marking the various solstices and equinoxes. There's also the Newgrange mound in Ireland that just marks the Winter Solstice and predates Stonehenge by several centuries.

The Romans celebrated the solstice with the Saturnalia festival that lasted from Dec 17 to Dec 23. During this time they'd dedicate the temple to Saturn, the god of farming. They'd also decorate their homes with evergreen trees and wreaths, deck the halls with boughs of holly, and exchange gifts.

Other cultures use the solstice to celebrate the births of Egyptian Osiris, Greek Apollo and Bacchus, Chaldean Adonis, and Persian Mithra. All sun gods.
Germans built a stone altar to Hertha, or Bertha, goddess of domesticity and the home, during winter solstice.
The Norse had Odin, a big bearded man dressed in red who travelled through fire, who brought gifts to good children. He also brought along a demon to flog, punish, or even take bad children. This demon remains in eastern European celebrations in Santa's companion Krumpus.

The festival of Deus Sol Invictus ("the undefeated sun god") was celebrated on the day that the days start getting longer after the winter solstice. That day happens to be Dec 25. So it could be argued that they just went from celebrating the rebirth of the sun god to celebrating the rebirth of God's son.

In the 4th Century Rome was pretty well Christianized (probably not a word, but work with me here). While the death of Christ was celebrated at Easter (another co-oped holiday) his birth wasn't celebrated. Despite all evidence pointed to his birth in the spring Christian leaders chose Dec 25 to celebrate his birth.

So that's the reason for the season. This Christ guy is just some wanna be Johnny come lately. The season is about celebrating the return of the sun.

balloon

Check out my other blog at http://dariavideos.blogspot.com. It was started as a place to post old Daria cartoons but I've expanded it to be a general cartoon blog. I've just started going through Invader Zim. Next I'm thinking Clerks or Robot Chicken.
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I saw this balloon on Nov 25 as Dad and I started our drive to Kansas City so I could meet my ride back to DC.

Pre-color correction

Post-color correction

Now on DVD

Tuesday is new DVD day. You can see what's being released on IMDB (http://us.imdb.com/recommends/dvd).

I've seen three of the new releases. Follow the links to my reviews.
A Scanner Darkly
Lady in the Water
My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Warning: Religious blather

I don't usually address news in this blog. I figure there's about a zillion other sites you can check if you want that. But this news article is about one of the touchier religious subjects so, this being a blog about my religion of one I have to have an opinion.
The article in question talked about a group (2 or 7 depending on what you read) of Episcopal churches in Virginia splitting from the US Episcopal church and joining a church in Nigeria. The issue that is driving these parishes from the main church is the issue of homosexuality. See, back in November US Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was installed as the first woman to head an Anglican church. She supports V. Gene Robinson, a gay man elected bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

Now, you may not know this, but after years of controversial research scientist have been able to determine that gays may actually be human. This has come as a surprise to many people in Christian, Muslim, and various African groups I'll collectively refer to as "Other". Around the world, including America, there have been calls to have all homosexuals rounded up and imprisoned or executed. If you're having trouble finding people with these attitudes you can start by looking for people who think acknowledging that other religions have holidays around the Winter Solstice is an attack on Christianity. But with these recent findings of a common ancestor with you and me homosexual males and females have been able to demand and achieve equal rights. This has pissed off many people. People who, 150 years ago, would likely deny that blacks are also human.
Among the rights the gay community has gained is the previously mentioned right to become a bishop, the right to marry in a few European countries and an American state or two, and the right to serve in the military as long as they don't let anyone know they're gay. It's the issue of gay marriage that I want to address here.

Pretty much all arguements about preventing gays from marrying start with the phrase "The Bible says..." or "In Leviticus..." blah blah God says it's bad. Now, I could go into the history of the book of Leviticus and translation issues, the mutation of the Bible over the last couple millenia, the bigotry of the time reflected in the book, etc etc etc. But I won't. It's pretty clear that the issue is a religious one. Even the so-called scientific studies that talk about the impact on society, the raising of children, and what not are all written by groups with an interest one way or the other. These studies can't be relied on for answers.

Since this is clearly a religious issue I suggest that the government get out of the discussion. Get rid of marriage in a legal context. As far as the government is concerned marriage is just a legal matter to determine taxation, inheritance, and who makes medical decisions. So the government gives the legal documentation a new name and makes it available to any two people of legal age. Heck, allow it to be fine tuned. I may want my wife to inherit everything, but my best friend, sibling, or ex may have a better grasp of my own desires as far as medical care. The point is that since marriage is a legal thing to the government and a moral thing to the religious then only the religious should be dealing with the issue. Grandfather in everyone who is married already and give out Legal Partner status to new people. Then, if they really want to use the title "married" they can find a church to do it for them. Some churches will do it, others won't. Let them fight it out among the congregations, not the courts.

The Church of Dougintology takes the stand that any two people of consenting age who want to spend their lives together should be permitted to get married. The leadership has seen many same-sex couples raising intelligent, straight, well adjusted children in loving homes and has seen many different-sex couples raising illiterate, violent, thugs in homes that neglect them. By the numbers it appears that same-sex couples make better parents than different-sex couples. However, this is misleading because same-sex couples only have kids if they want them while different-sex couples usually have them because of a failure of birth control. But to the faithful the important thing is the love, not the genitals. Married couples are good for a stable economy no matter whats in their pants.

In short, if you're not the one getting married it's not your business who is.

Movie Review: Eragon

Eragon: A New Hope
Long, long ago in a galaxy not to far away...
Once upon a time there were dragons and the dragon riders. Together they kept the piece in the Old Republic. But the dragon riders grew arrogant in their power. They were betrayed and destroyed by one of their own, a young dragon rider by the name of Darth Galbatorix. King Galbatorix has ruled the world with a cruel hand for decades. But there is a legend which speaks of a new dragon rider who will rise up and destroy Galbatorix and bring balance to The Force.
Our movie opens with Darth Durza, Darth Galbatorix's right hand, chasing Princess Arya, who has stolen a precious object from the King. On the verge of being captured she sends this object off to keep it from being captured.
The object lands in the hands of a young farm boy named Eragon Skywalker. His mother and father missing he has been raised by his uncle. He knows of an old man, Obi-Brom Kenobi, who knows of this mysterious object and goes off in search of him. When he returns home the king's Stormtroopers have killed his family.
Together Obi-Brom and Eragon go off to return this object to the Rebel Alliance. But their quest is thrown in jeopardy when they're forced to make a detour into the lair of the Galbatorix's henchman, Darth Durza, to rescue the princess. In the process Obi-Brom gives his life to save Eragon.
Eragon and Arya escape and fly their dragon, the Saphira Falcon, to the rebel base. But they are tracked and the King sends his army to wipe out their stronghold. There's a dramatic air battle between Eragon Skywalker and Darth Durka in which the rebel base is saved and things are setup for the sequel.

The whole thing looks like it was a SciFi Channel production but they actually managed to get a script that doesn't completely suck.

Fudge

Reprinted from a previous entry:

This is one of the three recipies that I take around with me through my various moves. As Dougmas approaches fudge must be made. I should warn you that in some states they use this recipe to execute diabetics on death row.

Million $ Fudge
given to me by Janet Patterson

12 oz sweet choc.
12 oz semi-sweet choc.
4.5 cups sugar
1 large can evaporated milk
1.5 tbsp butter
1 pt marshmellow creme
2 cups of nuts
salt

Shave or cut the chocolate in pieces. Cook sugar, milk, and salt for 6 minutes at boiling. You will have to watch to keep from scorching milk.
Place chocolate, marshmellow creme, butter, and nuts in large bowl and pour boiling mixture over them. Beat until all are melted and mixture is thick enough to pour into a buttered pan. Cut into pieces - will stay soft for a long time.

From the Dougintology Aquisition Department

I've rented an SUV to drive home for Christmas. I've got an old family dining room table that is taking up too much space in my house and need something big enough to haul it back. One of the things I could rent to go with it is a GPS navigator. It costs an extra $9.99/day. So it's $100. No big deal. But for some reason my bill jumped by close to $150. At that price I decided I had all the excuse I needed to buy my own.

So I popped out and got me a TomTom One.

The most difficult thing to do was turn it on.

It has all the United States and Canadian maps stored on a single 1GB SD memory card. It can establish a bluetooth connection with your cellphone and download traffic and weather information.
The screen is smaller than the other GPS doo-dads I've played with. But the other GPS thingys have all been preinstalled in a Prius. So the 3.5" screen isn't bad.

Book Review: The Bear Went Over the Mountain

I just finished reading "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" by William Kotzwinkle.

The book starts with a university professor on sabbatical in the wilds of Maine. He's there to write a book. Ok, he goes off into the wilds to write a ripoff of a popular book. But his cabin burns down and destroys his only copy of the finished manuscript. So he rebuilds the cabin and writes another book that isn't a ripoff. Fearing another cabin fire, he keeps his only copy in a briefcase hidden at the base of a pine tree where the low hanging branches hide it. But a bear sees him hiding the final manuscript and, thinking it's food, investigates. He reads the book, thinks it's pretty good, dresses like a human, and takes it into New York to find a publisher.

Thinking him the new Hemingway, the publishers sign him with a generous contract and send him all over the country to promote his new book. He has to learn how to behave in the city, how to fight his instincts, and most of all not get discovered and tossed in a zoo.

Meanwhile, as the bear slowly overcomes his bearlike nature, the professor finds himself slowly taking on the features, instincts, and senses of a bear.

Near the end of the book the professor comes out of hibernation in the middle of winter to find that his book has become a number one bestseller. He goes off to sue the bear for his book back.

This is a fairly light read that won't tax you at all. The story is engaging enough that you won't want to put it down. It's funny enough that you'll spend most of the book stifling laughs if you're reading it in public. I highly recommend it.

Movie Review: Happy Feet

It's not necessary, but having seen "March of the Penguins" first will help you enjoy this movie.
Mumble is an emperor penguin. But instead of singing like the rest of the penguins he dances. Eventually (that word covers a LOT of movie) he's driven out the rest of the penguins because the elders say that his dancing is the cause of the fish famine. He and a bunch of regular black and white and hispanic penguins go off looking for the aliens (humans) who have been harvesting all the fish in the hopes that they can convince them to stop taking their fish.
Somehow (another half hour of movie in that word) he gets the humans to follow him back to the flock. The flock dances for the humans and the humans start to realize that their overfishing is causing a famine for the penguins. There's a montage where humans fight about what to do about it in the UN and suddenly there's plenty of fish to eat.

Frankly, I think the writers are giving humans more credit than they deserve. I hate the taste of fish, but the economics of providing fish for 6,561,323,592 people (Dec 5 estimate) who like fish is going to win out over some flightless water fowl who don't even vote.

Good soundtrack, good message, good movie, but I'm not getting it on DVD. I only needed to see it once.

Movie Review: The Fountain

The word "trippy" was made for this movie.
There's three intermixed stories in this movie and how they intermingle, or if they do at all, is left as an exercise for the viewer.

In the Garden of Eden there were two trees. The Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. We ate from the Tree of Knowledge and were banished while the Tree of Life was hidden in a Mayan temple.

Hugh Jackman serves in the court of Queen Isabella (Rachel Weisz). One of her priests discovered the Tree of Life while exploring New Spain. She sends Hugh to go get some sap from the tree so that she may banish death from Spain and she and he can live together forever.

Hugh Jackman is a doctor married to Rachel Weisz. She is dying from brain cancer. He's trying to find a cure. The most promising results are from a sample of a tree they found in Guatamala.
She's writing a book about the Mayans and how Isabella sent someone to find the Tree of Life. Their creation myth includes the creator's head become a nebula that they think is heaven.

Hugh Jackman is in a interstellar snow globe taking the Tree of Life... or maybe it's his wife... to a nebula where it will be reborn. He's haunted by visions of Rachel Weisz in the form of the doctor's wife and Queen Isabella.

Good movie but it's hard to figure out. Check the comments to see why or go see it yourself.







Comments:
The flashbacks and visions can lead one to think that these are the same people throughout history but that all gets screwed up when Hugh the Conquistador drinks the sap from the Tree of Life and gets consumed from the inside by flowers.

Movie Review: Stranger Than Fiction

I'm not a Will Ferrell fan. I think most of his work has the entertainment value of a good long fart and less imagination. There have been three times that I found him worthwhile at all.

Once was in this video.

Yes, George Bush really is that scared of horses.
I know he did George Bush impression on Saturday Night Live, too, but the ones that I've seen weren't as well written as this one.

The second time was playing the Hitler loving writer in the new version of "The Producers".

The third time was in the new movie "Stranger Than Fiction".

Cartoon taken from The Comic Critic.

The basic premise is that a novelist is writing a story but the person she's writing about really exists. As she writes the real person hears the novel as narration. In the end of the book she plans to kill him but hasn't figured out how yet. The real person makes some life changes trying to get out of the story. At the same time he's trying to figure out who is writing about him so he can get her to stop.

I won't be getting it on DVD, but it was a fairly good movie and didn't at all make me want to banish Will Ferrell to a nightclub in Arkansas.

New blog to suggest

Check out the blog "Indexed". The author illustrates silly ideas with charts and Venn diagrams.

Suffering

GPO (Government Printing Office) sprung three palettes of books on us. Normally we have a couple of days notice before they send us excess books so we can dress for the occasion. And then its a palette and a half or two. This time they sent us three full palettes.
So Ron and I set to it. Took us about an hour and a half to get though them all. Someone left a couple of carts out in the loading area so we used theirs instead of our smaller carts. At least when our carts are filled I can still push them. These wouldn't budge. It took Ron pulling and me pushing to overcome inertia, then I'd run ahead and open doors while Ron aimed for the door as best he could.
My office is the designated dumping area for the boxes of books. Luckily I don't need much besides my desk and computers.

I hurt. Tomorrow I'll hurt more.

Working with plyboo

Written Sunday as a running commentary:

I thought I'd be able to work with the plyboo in my kitchen. That's where it's been stored for the last few weeks. But I'd have to move out the refrigerator. The weather is only in the low to mid 40's so I drag the first piece out to the front yard.
When packing up the house before moving out my jigsaw and circulating saw were the first to get stored. Too bad the tool closet is the hardest part of the house to reach. But I got them out.
My original plan was to put ... ok, my original plan was to buy a collapsing table saw from Home Depot. But getting it home would only have been simple if I were to assemble it in the Home Depot parking lot. Otherwise it was a two person job. Then I'd need help picking up the sheets of wood to feed them through the saw. So I abandoned that idea in favor of either the circular saw or jigsaw.
I didn't want to use them at first because there's too much allowance for human error. The cuts wouldn't be straight. So I thought I'd buy a couple of clamps and clip on a piece of lumber to use as a guide. Too bad lumber doesn't come straight.

You know what does come straight? Plyboo. This is the first time I've been able to work with straight edges and right angles since buying the house. I measured 16" down each side, put on the T-square, drew lines and the lines actually met in the middle. That NEVER happens.

I made the first cut with the jigsaw. The bottom looks great, but the top DID splinter. I'm not sure splinter is the right word. The bamboo fibers did come loose from the sheet. I'll trim them up and see if the paint will hold them in place.
The first length that I cut off can be used as the guide for the next piece. Not the side that I cut. The other side is the edge and it's as straight as my perfectionist (on this project anyway) personality demands.

The second cut is really great. The top splintered again but the bottom looks as perfect as I expected. It doesn't come any straighter. The very end got a bit mangled, but I'm writing that up to not being supported properly. All the weight from the board is focussed on that spot and twists badly.

On the fourth cut the blade on my jigsaw bent.

The circular saw reduces splintering on top, but it gets pinched easier and the cut ends more messily than with the jigsaw.

The neighbor kids came by wanting to help. I let them measure a few things and sweep off the excess sawdust. It's amazing how someone can screw up a broom. When they asked to run the saw I just laughed.

After finishing up the second board I packed it in and went to catch a movie.

Heinlein's new book

Robert Heinlein has a new book out. The fact that he's been dead for 18 years has slowed down his production, but he has managed to eak out a couple of novels, some short stories, and some teleplays.
This one was an outline that was discovered shortly after the death of his wife. It was 8 pages long, single spaced, in 10pt font with extra notes on assorted notecards. When the existence of this outline was mentioned at a Toronto sci-fi convention someone suggested that the guy who wrote the forward for another of Heinlein's post-mortem books, a sci-fi writer named Spider Robinson who is often compared to Heinlein, finish the book. So a couple of months later Spider received 7 of the 8 pages of notes.
He went to his office and started trying to figure out how to end the story. He put on iTunes and started going through his entire MP3 collection for inspiration. A few days later it hit an old interview with Heinlein and he told Spider what he wanted.


Variable Star starts with a boy and girl dancing at their high school graduation dance. They're very much in love. He wants to become a musician and she wants to get married. But they can't, for lack of funds. It'll take him years to become successful enough to afford to raise a kid. That's when she admits that instead of an orphan she's really the daughter of the richest man in the galaxy. They can get married right away, but marrying into this family means he has to give up music and become a businessman. So he runs. He runs to the only place he can escape that family's influence. He hops on a colony ship and leaves the Solar System completely.

Oh, how much to tell? ...

About 6 years out (ship time. 13 years Earth time.) the sun (Earth's sun) explodes killing everyone in that star system and sending a wave of radiation out that will probably kill everyone on the colony worlds. The ship is travelling so close to C (the speed of light) that they'll get to their new planet with 6 years to spare to bury themselves deep enough to survive. There's only time to warn one other colony.

Yeah, that's enough. I've spoiled all I'm prepared to.

The point is that it's a really great book. You know how George Lucas can tell a good story, but can't write or direct worth beans? ...Star Wars is made better when someone else writes the script and directs? Heinlein is great, but I think having his story written by Spider makes for a better book than if Heinlein had written it himself.

Comics! (part 3)

Today I'm going to point you to some syndicated stuff that you probably don't see in your newspaper.

My Comics Page -- New Page
The official page for the Andrews McMeel Universal syndicate. Create an account for free and then select what comics you like. It puts them all together on one page. It also has archives running back for years. One of the better put together comic sites I've seen.

Comics.com Home Page
The United Feature Syndicate page. Not as well organized as MyComics, but it doesn't require membership.

The King Features Syndicate page is really awful. You're lucky if they update 3 days late and navigation is by dropdown menu. Luckily some of the papers they sell to have better sites. I'll just give you a couple of examples and let you browse on your own.
Sherman's Lagoon Comic Strip
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Zits

Comics! (part 2)

I'm just gonna start working my way down the list of other comics I read.

The Whiteboard, by Doc Nickel
A comic about a polar bear that runs a paintball shop.

Questionable Content: New comics every Monday through Friday
Despite the name it's pretty safe.

Rockwood: The first great online comic strip of the third millennium.
A comic about some guys living in a space station.

Something Positive - sixteen, clumsy and shy
Well, there's these people and they... just read it.

Penny Arcade
A comic about video games.

Real Life - The Online Comic ©1999-2004 Greg Dean
A comic about the author's life that has strayed a bit.

::Least I Could Do::
A good comic, but don't let your parents read it. They just wouldn't approve.
This one has had three different artists in it's time. As one becomes busy with his job and other projects they have to beg off and the writer has to find a new artist.

Nuklear Power - Home of 8-bit Theatre
This falls under the category of a "sprite" comic. It uses figure captured from old video games instead of requiring the artist to do much drawing. It uses long running stories instead of gag-a-day like the others I've posted so far.

Ctrl+Alt+Del - Tragically l337
Comic about video games.

PartiallyClips - Current Strip
Takes static images from other sources and gives them gags.

Two Lumps
Comic about 2 cats.

S U B U R B A N T R I B E
Comic about people who work in advertising. There are storylines, but they're shorter than most.

Rob and Elliot Comics
Comic about a couple of guys. It's developed in Illustrator instead of drawn by hand. There are several like this but I'm probably not going to point them all out.

The Robman Show
Eh.

Theater Hopper
A comic about movies.

goats: the comic strip | by jonathan rosenberg | new comics every monday through thursday
Used to be good, but now I'm waiting for this insanely long and not really interesting storyline to end.

GU Comics by: Woody Hearn
A comic about video games.

YIRMUMAH ONLINE.
A comic about some people who do some stuff.

Dndorks| Dungeons & Dorks WebComic
A comic about some Dungeons and Dragons players.

fragilegravity :: new strips mondays, wednesdays and fridays
Another comic

Newshounds
A comic about a woman who runs a TV station with her talking dogs.

Out There
A comic about a man and woman carpooling across the country. I have to assume this will change at some point.

Gamespy Gallery
Nodwick and Full Frontal Nerdity.
One is about a group of people you would expect to see as characters in a Dungeons and Dragons game. The other is about some guys playing Dungeons and Dragons type games.

::iLL WiLL PreSS:: HOME OF NEUROTICALLY YOURS, 4Y-RECORDS & MORE.
An animated comic that updates every other week. Some profanity. I don't really notice it, but the boss's kid did.

The Pet Professional by Jason Salsbury and Matt Kaufenberg
A comic about a hired assassin who specializes in animals.

Ok, I'm gonna call that good for today. Tomorrow I'll do syndicated stuff available online.

Comics! (part 1)

By request I'm going to be talking about and posting some of the online comics I read regularly. Today I'm gonna be focusing on the best stuff. Stuff that's funny and almost certainly won't send parents into shock.

User Friendly (http://www.userfriendly.org/)
This is a strip by a guy who works at an ISP about a bunch of guys who work at an ISP. He's making enough off this that he could quit his job and work on this full time, but he doesn't. O'Reilly Books, known for making programming books with animals on the cover, prints only one thing that isn't a programming book and that is the User Friendly collections. The art is nothing special, but the humor keeps the strip going.

Sluggy Freelance (http://www.sluggy.com/)
This strip has changed significantly over the years. It started with rather simple art and the standard gag-a-day strip. This is what is now known as the "Suicide Bikini Frisbee Days" for reasons that become obvious when you start working your way through the archives. Soon the stories became bigger and grander to become whole sagas. For one he even gave up being funny just to tell the story. Now it's all one saga running into the next while still managing to be funny most days.
He has managed to quit his day job and make this his full time business and the art reflects the extra time he can spend on it.

PVP Online (http://www.pvponline.com/)
This started as a gaming strip about a group of people working at a game magazine. While it's still technically about that the gaming side has slipped to allow broader appeal. This author has also quit his day job. He allows anyone to print his strip free of charge just as long as they also publish the source so readers come buy stuff from him.

Schlock Mercenary (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/)
This is a science fiction comic about a team of mercenaries. The author has recently quit his day job. His second book has recently come out. I got mine yesterday. Alas, the first book started several years into the strip so you'll need to read the archives to get caught up.

Kevin & Kell (http://www.kevinandkell.com/
Bill Holbrook is a comic producing machine. This is one of three strips that he does every single day. The other two are On The Fasttrack and Safe Havens.

Sheldon (http://www.sheldoncomics.com/)
This guy started off with an online comic and achieved what many of the online cartoonists yearn for. He became syndicated. But despite the quality of his art and humor he wasn't widely accepted. Newspapers are dying off and most papers don't have room for new strips. They'd prefer to run strips whose creators are long dead. So he left the syndicate realizing that they were taking a huge bite of his profits and those profits would be bigger on his own. So a few weeks ago he went back on his own.

Nukees (http://www.nukees.com/)
The art is simple but the comic is quality. This was originally a strip about the nuclear engineering department at a major California university. It still is, but they don't talk about it as much anymore. The author is one of the grandpappys of online comics. He helped get Keenspot up and running and makes guest appearances in many other strips.

And since I mentioned it...
Keenspot (http://quickkeen.keenspot.com/)
Not a comic so much as a place that hosts other cartoonists. Some are good, some are bad, some rely on cartoon nudity and profanity for readers. But going through the daily line up of more popular stuff in the Quickkeen lineup gives you a good idea of what's out there. Some update only on weekdays, some on M-W-F, some whenever they feel like it.

These are some of the better strips. Tomorrow I'll post some of the lesser stuff and then I'll get to some of the syndicated stuff online just to complete the roll.

Dougmas

Tis once again the Dougmas Season and I thought I'd remind you of what Dougmas is all about.

Dougmas is the time of year when we Dougintologists celebrate the birth of the Prophet Doug. Granted, Doug was born in May, but so was Jesus. May or June. Certainly not December. We're just jumping on the bandwagon of religions that have tried to make the ancient solstice celebrations their own. I'm just trying to help convert the heathen Jesus worshipers to the one true religion.

As Dougmas is new we're still getting a few traditions off the ground.
Here's a short list.

1) Instead of putting up trees in the house, either real or artificial, you should plant a Douglas Fir. Considering that the ground is likely frozen and hard to dig it is acceptable to wait until May 25, Towel Day, to plant your tree. The world needs all the trees it can get.

2) Doug preaches against giving money to religious charities. Most of the time religious charities require attending their church services as a prerequisite to being giving. Starting December 1st, put an empty jar near your front door (or wherever you empty your pockets). Instead of dumping your spare change into a Salvation Army bucket take it home and put it in the jar. On January 1st give the money, or a check for the equivalent amount, to a non-denominational charity or non-profit organization.

Doug's preferred charities include:
* Solar Electric Light Fund (http://self.org)
* Trees for the Future (http://treesftf.org/)

For Douglas Adams I include:
* Dian Fossey Gorilla Foundation (http://www.dianfossey.org/home/)
* Save the Rhino (http://www.savetherhino.org/)

3) Dougmas is not tied to a particular day. It's more of a season that I alter from year to year until I can figure out a good fit. Last year I used December 20 through December 31. I still like those dates even though I'm saying the Dougmas Jar should go out on December 1st.
The reason I'm making it a season is because there are so many holidays with roots in the winter solstice (Dec. 22). There are many families of mixed faiths that will fight over which holiday they'll gather on. Many people have to try to rush to celebrations at the homes of multiple parents and grandparents or have to decide between relatives in different states.
The point of Dougmas is to spend time with family and friends. If your family is getting together for Christmas then be there for that. If your family gets together for Hanukkah then be there for that. Ditto for Kwanza, the Winter Solstice, New Years, Agnostica, or just Saturday night. Don't rush around in the cold and snow and try to choke down several big turkey dinners. Spend the time with the family.
Of course, if you can't stand your family you can still use the old excuses as an escape strategy.

4) Gift exchanges are so common with the other holidays that it can't be ignored. If you work somewhere that requires someone works on Christmas then go ahead and work that day and collect the extra holiday pay. Then celebrate Dougmas after the 25th so that you can pawn unwanted gifts on others or take advantage of the after Christmas sales. Thriftyness is next to Dougliness.

If the subject of religion comes up while visiting family just remember Dougintology bumpersticker number 1. "I'm wrong and so are you." This should help ensure merrier Dougmas.