Movie Review: District 9

"Alive in Joburg".

This video was the inspiration for the movie "District 9". The actor who plays the caucasian helicopter sniper in this short was the main character in the movie version.

The movie "District 9" starts much like this short film. It's a documentary format about the Wigus Incident. In 1982 an alien craft coasted to a stop over Johannesburg, South Africa. After sitting there doing nothing for 3 months we boarded it and found about a million sick aliens living in filth. They were transported to a slum below their ship. Now it's 2010. The slum is now a compound in which the aliens are held. We can't make their ship work. We can't make their weapons work. The locals live in fear of these creatures.

Wikus Van De Merwe is a happy but not bright looking man who has been given the job of moving the aliens to a new compound. The documentary follows his promotion, what we know about the aliens, and the serving of eviction notices to the slum dwellers. Along the way they find illegal weapons, illegal technology, and even illegal children.

Wikus also finds something that will ruin his life and make him wanted by every government, weapons corp, and gangster in South Africa and everywhere else as well. The only thing he can do is turn to the aliens for help.

By the end of the movie you come to seriously dislike your own species.

Slowly, the movie integrates more and more footage that isn't part of the documentary until the movie is almost all action/sci-fi. You walk out of the movie talking and thinking. Partially, you're wondering about a lot that came before and will come after the movie. You're also thinking about the underlying message about racism and apartheid, some of which you got from the short film above.

I will be getting this on DVD. I highly recommend this movie to pretty much anyone.

Book Review: Marsbound

Awhile back My Krodie introduced me to Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War" [my review]. I didn't know Haldeman's name before. Not long after I looked at a couple of new books that were sitting in my unread books pile. Both were books that had caught my attention in book stores at least three times so I bought them. Both were by Joe Haldeman and I hadn't noticed.

I'm really liking Haldeman's stuff. He's a sci-fi writer who has respect for, and tries to use reality based science in his work. When he departs from the solid science he admits it.

So I just finished reading "Marsbound". It breaks into three parts.

In the first part we follow a 19 year old woman as she and her family go to Mars. It tells of their selection, their trip to and then up the space elevator anchored near the Galapagos Islands, the voyage to Mars, life on Mars, and what a horrible bitch the colony director is.

In the second part the main character discovers another species living on Mars. They're not native to Mars. They don't know anything about their own technology. They have a disease that can be transmitted to young humans for some reason. (The author acknowledges that this should be impossible.)

In the third part a space station has been thrown together so that Earth humans and the Mars humans and aliens can interact without breaking quarantine. Don't want that disease getting loose on Earth after all. Here we find out about the alien's past, make contact with another alien species, and get good and shaken up in the last few chapters. I'd like to be more specific, but don't want to give away spoilers.

OK, one spoiler. I will say that I enjoyed the author starting making the director out to be a horrible person early on, making it look like he was going to turn her into a more human character with rationale behind her horribleness only to end up saying that was just the more central characters trying to assume that she had good reasons behind her nastiness. In the end she's just a Stalin wannabe.

I recommend the book for science fiction fans. If this isn't the kind of book you like then you won't like this book.

Friday Links: August 14

Cars that I would drive. [link]

How to mess with a cicada's head.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson talks about the asteroid Apophis. The satellite will pass Earth in 2029 within the orbit of our communication satellite. You'll also see why he's one of the most famous modern astronomers. You know around 2029 someone will make a disaster film called "Apophis".

In about 3 billion years the Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy will collide. An outside observer with a billion year life span would see something like this happen.

You may have heard about PZ Myers' (and some 200+ friends) visit to the Creation Museum. This is the museum that claims science backs up a literal translation of the Bible. Instead of posting about his trip I'm going to post John Scalzi's much more entertaining report of his visit two years ago. [link]

Republican myths about the pending health care bill. [link]

Just odd.

Physical interface for a hologram. [link]

A name your favorite quote thread. [link]

Follow up on the alien rock on Mars. [link]

This guy seemed not to like the G.I. Joe movie. [link]

Laurel and Hardy dance to The Gap Band.

Dating advice for atheists. (2 videos) [link]

Trailer for the latest movie from Terry Gilliam and, oddly enough, Heath Ledger.

AMC to make a TV series from the Walking Dead comic book. Issue one can be read here.

Spiderman musical canceled. Read how much they put into it here.

Game: Silent Conversation. A side scrolling game where the platforms are made from the text of a story. You need to at least play "The Nameless City" by H.P. Lovecraft. [link]

Corrupted coloring book art. [link]

Game: A crossword puzzle without clues. [link]

A Styrofoam planet spotted in a backward orbit. [link]

Sidewalk Economy: Free market in Baltimore. [link]

Mind control fungus. [link]
I think I saw this movie.

Picture from the meteor shower. [link]

Living bridges of India. [link]

Old pictures made from hundreds of soldiers. [link]

Kevin Smith recalls his days visiting strip clubs. [link]

Finally, a way to connect your iPod directly to the bones of your ear. [link]
...and help deaf people hear or something. Beats that Bluetooth earpiece all to hell.

You remember moving sidewalks in sci-fi stories? Here's why we don't have them. We tried them, but... [link]

You don't remember? Here. They made a radio broadcast of "The Roads Must Roll" for X-Minus One in 1954. [link]

Trailer for the movie "Legion." [link]
I may have to leave Yummy at home. This movie will freak her out.

Deep in the bowels of the house

Awhile back I mentioned I was doing work under the house. [link] I've been applying an insulating paint that I won't get into again here.

The nice thing about the underside of the house is that it's cool down there. A good place to be on a hot summer day. I'd been thinking about going under the house Monday, but I thought a nap seemed a better idea. A nap followed by a good night's sleep. So Tuesday I got myself psyched up and went under with a small bathroom trash can half filled with paint and a 3" wide brush. I still had the light run down there so all I had to do was crawl from the back of the house to the front of the house. About ten feet in you can switch from your belly to your hands and knees.

I spent just under two hours generously applying multi-ceramic paint to the underside of the living room floor. The house is about 13 feet wide and I covered the space between the first three floor joists. So, what, the first 4 feet or so?

I came back out with several artifacts left by previous residents. By that I mean rusty metal cups and ceramic pitchers and the like. I left behind several artifacts left by previous construction crews. By that I mean beer bottles.

I was also covered in dirt. I mean seriously disgusting. I could sell these pants for $150 in a popular clothing store.

I plan on going down once a week until it's done. I need it done before it gets cold and I've been slacking off.

The next day I came home expecting to be met at the door by a wave of cold air. Did I mention that after 3 years I've turned the AC on again? Yummy was planning some major housework but you don't really want to do that at the house's natural 82° and humid summer temperature.

My point is that I didn't get that wave of cold air. The house was 82° and the fans were blowing like mad. Out back the AC unit was off.

Ok, the odds are that I hit something down there. I try the trick that sometimes works. Shut it down for half an hour or so to give it a chance to rest. No dice. It wanted me back under the house. See, there's some rather thin wires that run from the general climate control center in the house out to the cooling unit outside. Something was likely wrong in there.

I couldn't find the flashlight so I grabbed my replica Sonic Screwdriver, a knife, and some electrical tape. Only about a foot under the house I found the problem. An electrical situation that would make most real electricians wanna slap the bejeezus out of whoever wired it up. These are thin wires twisted together, capped, and electrical tape applied 6 inches from the exposed wire. The wire had broken. So, Sonic Screwdriver gripped firmly in mouth, I removed the cap, stripped some wire, twisted the wires, and covered them in a copious amount of electrical tape. Now I'm the guy who needs to be slapped. There's no real danger, but the wire really needs to be contained in some protective metal tube so I can't kick it and rats can't eat it.

Next time my brother, the electrician, is unemployed I'll bring him out and get him to crawl in the muck.

P.S. My fix worked. The AC is on.

We can rebuild it. We have the pastries.

The Muffin Man gave me some advice for my next attempt at confectionery construction.


Cup cakes are very hard to work with. It is much easier to work with a horizontal sheetcake or to stack small (6") rounds. Using a Panettone pan (~4" round and 3" tall) would also work. Also, using a straight up box cake is too soft and fluffy try pound cake (from scratch) or using less water to hydrate the box cake makes a more sturdy stackable cake.

Black and gray is nearly impossible try talking to your local bakers to see if they have black cocoa. It can be more pure black than many colors otherwise just keep adding colors little by little to correct the tint (if purple add green, if brown add blue) or ask if they have a true black. You can keep using canned frosting but you often need to add more powdered sugar. Or make your own 7 minute icing or royal icing both are easier and more sturdy to use than canned. Anytime you use a pourable base coat it is easier to apply to a stand up statue. Don't make buttercream unless you have a pastry bag.

If you don't have the book "The Joy of Cooking" you should buy it. Great resource for everything food, especially the most updated. They retested the formulas in 2007.

You did great for a first try especially. "Late" baking isn't rocket science but of course physics actually works more directly in rocket science. Baking is all about the bubbles.

Hope you had fun and baking is always good you can eat the wrecks.

p.s. If colors don't work try very finely ground Oreo cookies (just the cookie) but they may have stopped using black cocoa it is very very expensive.

Absolute last resort for gray - in ages past before the FDA clamped down there was "carbon black". It is just what it sounds like but the makers wouldn't say where they got the carbon (probably coal) and it was outlawed. You can make it at home, all you need is very clean wood (tooth picks) or paper add a little fire bingo carbon black. A little goes along way. If you add so much you can taste, you added too much.


The Muffin Man developed cookies for Mrs. Fields, biscotti for Nonni's, Sara Lee's line of white bread tasting wheat bread, and is currently a product developer at Starbucks. The man knows of what he speaks.

Meteor shower

If you want to be up at some horrid hours you might want to find a place to watch the very dark sky tomorrow (Wednesday) morning between midnight and 5 a.m. That's the best time to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower. Tuesday night and Wednesday night are also supposed to be worthwhile. Just be sure to find somewhere far from the city lights.

The Saddest Dalek

Dalek cupcakes are an amazingly difficult confection to make. A quick Google image search [link] shows lots of really lame attempts. I now have a better understanding of why.

The subject came up recently and Yummy liked the idea. So, I decided to try to make a couple for our 11th month anniversary.

My plan was to make cupcakes, lop the top off one and flip the remainder over, trim the edges off another so at no point was it wider than the base, cement them together with frosting, frost it all gray, cut graham crackers into small rectangles to place around the base, frost them some other color, attach candy bumps to the graham
crackers, more candy bumps on the top, and a Pocky type candy for the eye stalk.

The cake we made is very spongy, but it cut rather well with a good sharp knife. When compared with a Dalek it was pretty squat. I cut the edges off a third cupcake, lopped off the curved top, and made that the middle section. The proportions were about right.

The black frosting dye turned out to be really deep purple. When mixed with white frosting we got a very purply color. While frosting the cupcakes the tower kept slowly leaning in one direction. It was gonna fall over soon. A stick of Pocky-like substance was jammed through the top to act as a spine. Anything that stuck up got cut off and frosted over.

If I did it again I'd frost them all separately and then stack them.

The frosting wasn't very friendly either. I needed something firmer or something. It wasn't fond of sticking to the cupcake but liked the spatula I was using. The Dalek had little sugary tendrils whipping about.

At this point I was happy with the proportions, but that's about it. We'd started late and it was getting later. I skipped the graham crackers and attached the candy eyes we picked up at a cake supply store directly to the bottom cupcake. One third of a stick of Pocky-like substance got stuck in his face for an eye stalk. Something narrower would be better. Something a mini-marshmallow could be stuck on. It got no weapon or suction cup arm.

It looked better than many I've seen, but still sucked. I learned a lot that could be used in later attempts.

As awful as it looked it still would have passed for a monster in the
original Dr Who.

Clinton picks up two asian chicks1

This would have been better has I posted it last week when I wrote it. Someone sait to me.

I find it odd that a former president went to Korea to negotiate the release of U.S. citizens... On what authority? He's not a government official anymore. Granted, they were released and that's great, and the talks supposedly went well, but... I don't know... It would be like me going out and representing my company on matters that I had no authority to speak on. Though... I don't know... I'm confused and don't know how I feel about that.

My response:
It's all diplomacy. The United States has no diplomatic ties with North Korea. North Korea...let me back up.

Back during the Clinton administration we, North Korea, Japan, China, South Korea, and... Russia? all worked out a deal. It's a bit blurry in my memory now, but I know North Korea was to abandon their nuclear program, I think America was providing fuel for their power plants, and the other countries were providing funding for all this. Something along those lines. Some will say that Bush broke this treaty so the nuclear program got restarted. In fact the other nations broke it first. We and N. Korea were the last ones out.

And, you probably heard that Carter visited N. Korea for some negotiations in the early 90's and Clinton was supposed to make another visit late in his term in office but that fell apart for some reason that eludes me.

So, now North Korea wants to strike a similar deal to what they had back then. They'll give up the nukes and the reactors if we'll come back to the negotiating table. We, and everyone else, say we'll talk if they lose the nukes. The Chairman of North Korea does want to talk and reestablish relations before handing the country over to his son. So he grabs a couple of reporters that work for a media outlet founded by former VP Gore. Gore was working to get his people released. The US government can't send anyone in to talk. But, we can get someone with clout, someone the Chairman has worked with and likes, to go over.

Sweden has diplomatic ties with North Korea. We can, and have, gone through them for unofficial contact between our countries. That's how Bill Clinton went in this time.

The reporters have been accused of crimes. They can't just drop the charges. However, Clinton can ask for amnesty which means guilty, but forgiven.

And Bill also passes along a message of thanks from Obama.

A lot of negotiations work along similar lines. How many times has Jimmy Carter gone out to negotiate without the government's OK? The leaders of the countries, and even their Secretary of States, don't do the negotiations themselves. Some lower level diplomats work out the early stuff and the higher ups talk, fine tune, and attend the signing ceremony.
You can see my favorite example at http://www.tragi-comix.com/tbp/archives/tbp476.html.




By setting this aside I had the time to realize something else. You know how people say that we're always fighting the last war? This means that each war is different, but the equipment and thinking used is best used in the previous war. You don't typically hear about the mounted cavalry in World War II. It's all about the tanks even though there were very few of them. We kept trying to fight in Iraq with planes despite their nigh uselessness against urban terrorists.

In North Korea we have Kim Jong-il who is trying to pretend that the Bush years never happened. Quite frankly, so is everyone else. Jong-il is going a bit further than the rest of us by trying to get a deal like he had before by talking to the people he had before.

Similarly, Bush spent his administration trying to pretend that the Clinton years never happened. He denied the terrorist right up until we got attacked and then fought the terrorists like he was trying to win in Vietnam. He behaved internationally like it was still the middle of the Cold War.

No real point to this last bit. Just an observation.

¹Headline stolen from Fark.

Friday Links: August 7

Man goes on vengeful rampage with 30 ton custom bulldozer. [link]
This'd make a good movie.

Remember, this CGI movie was done using 1980's technology. [link]

How to swing your arms on a diet. [link]

20 designs for vertical farms. [link]

Create your own scanner for your iPhone. [link]

A widget to monitor asteroids in our neighborhood. [link]

How to cook like your grandmother. [link]
In the case of mine you take your standard recipe and add and extra 5-10 minutes on the stove.

The Memory Palace. It's a podcast by a NPR reporter with an interest in historical anecdotes. I recommend Secret Kitty and The Brothers Booth if nothing else. [link]

I steal this as the official Sidewalk Economic Indicator. The hotness of your waitress is a sign of the health of the economy. [link]

10 facts about the penny. [link]

Some fool tried putting a fake ATM at a hacker convention. It lasted about naught point three seconds. [link]

Microsoft is slipping. [link]

Concept art for a Steampunk Mickey video game. [link]

Explanation of a rather entertaining binary star system. [link]

$8,000 make your own satellite kit. (price includes launch). [link]
Now I just need an excuse to have a satellite.

Rover finds alien¹ on Mars. [link]

I've been rather short on video this week. Certainly compared to last week, anyway.
Here's a 1 hour panel from Comic Con about science for good and evil in science fiction shows. The panel has writers and tech advisers from "Eureka", "Battlestar Galactica", and "Fringe".

Game: Lock 'n' Roll. Poker with dice. [link]

What's the purpose of punishment. Or, How to Prosecute the Loons? [link]

Proof that Biblical literalists still have some sense.

A rather dry video about some global warming denier getting owned.

An essay from an abortion provider. [link]

Kent Hovind's "Dinosaur Adventure Land" can be seized in part to pay his tax debts. Kent build the place to "prove" that dinosaurs and humans lived together. He's currently in prison for tax evasion. [link]

Game: Defense Fleet - move ships around to defend the planet. [link]

Game: Gobtron - Help the booger being eat the villagers before they kill it. [link]

Successful vulture breeding in captivity. [link]

Journalist to go to Mongolia in search of Shaihulud (a.k.a. acid-spitting Mongolian death worm). [link]

Robot with mad reflexes.

Obama received 30 death threats per day, but the Secret Service is starving. [link]

And finally, Orly Taitz, the leader of the "Birthers" (people who think Obama was born in Kenya) loses all credibility on MSNBC. [link]

¹rock

Sidewalk Economy

I picked up this beauty on the way home Tuesday. Yep, just sitting there by the sidewalk leaning on a tree. The guy who put it out was standing in his doorway. We both waved and exchanged big smiles. It's rare, but nice, when you get to see the person who takes what you've put out or that you get to thank the person who put something out.

It's a short table with legs that collapse so the whole thing folds flat. It was painted green, but it's worn off along the corners. We'll probably take it camping in September and then, if she doesn't want to keep it, Yummy can use it as an artifact in the Guerrilla Gardening scheme she's planning.

Heinamackafrau

I hate the cleaning woman.

It's not the cleaning woman herself so much as that damn cart she drags around with her. Meant to collect trash, that barrel carries around the sound of the Apocalypse. When the Vogon constructor fleet finally comes I'll have no idea because I just assumed that the cleaning woman coming. It drowns out my audio books. It drowns out conversation. It drowns out the heavy machinery operating outside my window. All work comes to a stop until she has passed.

I hate the cleaning woman.

Fanboys

I like to think I'm not your usual celebrity worshiping media consumer. In the times when I had cable I'd deprogram "E!" from my TV. TMZ and shows like that don't even get paused on. The magazines in the checkout aisle get ignored (unless the cover chick is particularly hot). I sat next to a woman on an airplane who was reading one of those celebrity mags. Finally, about an hour into the flight I had to ask who the woman on the cover was and why I should be interesting in her love life. Turns out she was on some reality show that I hadn't heard of.

My point is that I don't want to know about their life outside their media persona. I don't need to know that Tom Cruise is a jackass in real life. I'd rather not know about Mel Gibson's beliefs about the role of a woman in the house. I don't wanna know that Orson Scott Card (author of Ender's Game) is homophobic. This stuff can only serve to diminish their movies when the person and the character start to blur together. It was nice to meet Danny Glover but I regret finding out that he's a major prima donna.

I do have certain people that I get keyed up about. When I got my picture taken with Larry Niven and got him to sign my copy of "Ringworld" I was giddy. I was delighted that I got to sit and talk with Gerry Trudeau (creator of Doonesbury) for 15 minutes or so. I got Neil Gaiman to sign some stuff but don't need to know who he's dating.

This is all who I used to think I was. Most of it still applies. But I realized the other day that I do like to hear about the fanboy tendencies of some celebrities.

At one comic/sci-fi convention Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) walked by Larry Niven's table. They both got excited and shouted out "YOU'RE WIL/LARRY!" and asked each other for an autograph.

When Gene Wilder made an appearance on "Will & Grace" Eric McCormack (Will) had a minor fanboy freakout which Gene was happy to feed.

Stephen Fry says he was nervous about meeting Peter Cushing (who lives in Whitstable).

And I keep hearing stories about David Tennant (Dr Who #10) or Russell Davies (the man who brought Dr Who back to TV) seeing fan art and absolutely loving it. Not just a patronizing "wow, that's great, well done. Get lost." but taking it around to show other people involved in the show and get it autographed.

Dick Van Dyke took up 3D computer modeling as a hobby and has gotten good enough to have some of his stuff used on TV and in a movie.

I was watching a video of sci-fi author Joe Haldeman teaching a class about writing science fiction. In the audience I saw sci-fi writer Robert J. Sawyer taking notes.

This realization made me rethink my views on those shows and magazines. Oh, I'm still not gonna watch them or read them. Good lord, no. But I begin to understand their appeal. I had thought the appeal was in tearing down heroes. Smear their name, ruin their careers, and drag them down. Now I'm thinking it's more about finding something in common with them. We see our own flaws reflected in someone who we'd held up as a model. We have marriage troubles, but so do the rich and famous. We like to drink too much or have prejudices we don't admit to, but so does that model. For me it's seeing that the people that I get excited about also have things they get excited about. Often the same things that I get excited about.

I know that people do like to tear down heroes and live vicariously through these more glamorous people. Give me a couple minutes to try to think better of people.

Monday morning

I had several things this weekend that I wanted to write about. Now it's Monday morning, my mind is asking me why I'm not in bed, and I can't remember any of them. So, lets start free associating and see what I come up with.

Yummy finished painting the library for me. She's a much more experienced painter. She likes to paint with a roller while I find they have only two modes - drippy and empty. I spent a good long while with a foam brush applying the paint. I get no brush strokes and great control. On the other hand it takes awhile. The paint liked to go on very thin and required many layers to appear even. But it dried fast and had no fumes. You can ask the giant purple spider that's removing my appendix.

Later this week I'll be pushing my new desk up against said wall and hanging up the various pictures that Yummy has gotten me. Then my non-portable computer gets moved up on the desk, the cabinet that the computer is now on gets emptied and placed in the Sidewalk Marketplace.

Up in the library is a lamp that I finally started recovering. I found it on the sidewalk with holes burned in the lampshade. They were those flame shaped bulbs that run so incredibly hot. I'm pretty sure it was placed too close to the wall so the lampshade was pressed against the bulbs. The new lampshade probably isn't fireproof, but some compact fluorescent bulbs should work nicely. I was planning to put it back out on the Sidewalk Market, but with the cabinets gone I may decide to keep it.

Maybe not.

The Dog Days Sidewalk Sale was this past weekend. We went to the Studio Theatre's garage sale and picked up this owl candle holder. I already have one that I picked up because it looks just like ones my grandparents had. There was lots of other great stuff but we held back due to limitations in my budgets of money and space.

We also went in several old furniture stores that I'd been trying to take Yummy in for awhile. One is an old house with a long hallway that connects room after room dressed up to look like residences. The other is a building, a basement, an alley, and another building packed with furniture piled as high as safe (and then a bit) with narrow passages, lots of stuff that's completely unreachable, and the smell of your great grandmother's basement. I got some books that I've not seen in other used book stores. Yummy got a happy brain. We both got dehydrated.

I've introduced Yummy to Babylon 5. I'd been putting it off since I'd already gotten her hooked on Doctor Who and semi-hooked on Heroes (and Coupling and Spaced and Rough Science and...). By the end of episode 2 she was planning to dress me like Londo for Halloween.

Was any of that related to what I wanted to write? I dunno. Let's pick this up again tomorrow.

Friday Links: July 31

Sand artist in Russia. Looks like some kind of "Ruskies Got Talent" type show.

If you're gonna have a wedding rehearsal there better be something to rehearse.

10 Reasons I Know the Moon Landings Were Faked. [link]

Secretary of Energy telling the press why people should paint their roofs white. When I had my roof redone they painted it with a reflective silver stuff. It seems to work great.

Stem cells used to help restore site in partially blind patients.

Taxidermy nightmares. [link]

Where Do Piranhas Get Their Morality. An argument for the existence of right and wrong not needing a divine lawmaker.

Doctor's 1905 notes on the study of a head in the moments following decapitation. [link]

"Tron 2" teaser. [link]
Please don't suck.

Crows can identify us, but we can't identify them. A report and game can be found here. [link]

Sweet business card. [link]

How to make a knife handle from an antler. [link]

Alice in Wonderland trailer. [link]

Dear Cecil's most useless answer. [link]

Response to Fox News lies about Amsterdam.

Congressional Republicans - extremist loons or simply hostages of extremist loons?

A new Simon's Cat cartoon.

Great pictures of lightning from The Big Picture. [link]

Ghostbusters trailer circa 1954.

Free books online. Expired copyright stuff. [Bartleby] [Project Gutenberg]

Giant bubble made with dry ice. THE SUSPENSE!!!

How crafty do you feel? Think you could add a USB port to a laptop battery? [link]
I may have to try this.

How to deal with the schedules of programmers and other makers. As opposed to managers, I mean. [link]

It's a teenie house! [link

A recipe for crunch frog. [link]

Why the hell would I want a crunchy frog?

Transparent aluminum. [link]
This isn't the first time transparent aluminum has been made. You can also get it by compressing it with the kind of pressure commonly only found in the heart of stars.

Tree type confirmed

In May of 2008 I took a train down to Orlando, Florida to watch a Space Shuttle launch. [vacation slides] The next day I went to a place not far from there called The Enchanted Forest. It's a little nature preserve and hiking trail area. There I saw ant lions in the wild (as opposed to in the barn), an armadillo, and an orange tree that had wandered off from the orchard and got lost. The orange tree had lost an orange. And while it's illegal to take things from the nature preserve I still took the orange.

Back in DC, I opened up the orange and fished out the seeds. Lots of things came up in that pot. Most were recognizable but one thing wasn't so I didn't kill it. It wasn't necessarily the orange seed. I see lots of things come up that I don't recognize.

I moved the plant to a larger pot still not knowing for sure what it is.

Yesterday I noticed three thorns coming off of the trunk. A quick internet search indicates that store bought hybrids don't have thorns, but trees grown from seeds gathered from a hybrid often do have thorns. At long last I have some solid evidence that it's actually an orange tree.

There's also a root coming out the bottom of the pot. Time for another transplant. It's currently only about a foot tall.

Book Review: A Dirty Job

I've started going through the Christopher Moore books. I just finished reading "A Dirty Job".

The book is about Charlie Asher - beta male. The author really harps on about him being a beta male. Charlie's wife just had their first kid. Since Charlie wouldn't stop worrying and fretting they sent him home. Once in the car he decided his wife needed her favorite CD. When he brought it back up he found Death all dressed in green and hanging out in the wife's room. The wife was dead and Charlie wasn't supposed to be able to see Death. Since he could see death Charlie became a Death.

They didn't tell him this right away. Oh no. First he took his daughter home, had the funeral, noticed some names in his scheduler, went back to work in his thrift store, and killed some people. Finally, a book that explains his duties as one of the legion of Deaths gets delivered to the store. The goth girl on staff nabs it and reads it hoping that she's the one who became death.

As a Death it's your job to collect souls. See, not everyone is born with one. When you die or are near death your soul transfers into an object that's important to you. Deaths can tell which ones those are because they glow red. Charlie, like most Deaths, runs a used item store. It can be a thrift store, a pawn shop, a used book or music store... something like that. You put the glowing object on the "one only" shelf and wait for someone to come along. The right person will buy the object meant for them and the soul transfers into that body.

So when a name appears in his scheduler Charlie has only a set amount of time to recover that soul. If they don't then very bad things can happen. In this case a trio of Celtic warrior ... not gods, not witches... supernatural beings ... they eat the soul to become stronger so they can rise up and take over the world. Naturally, that's what they try to do over the course of the book.

Oh, and his daughter can kill people and pets by pointing at them and saying "KITTY!"

Take the Incarnations of Immortality book "On a Pale Horse" and have it written by Discworld author Terry Pratchett and you have this book. I've had lots of Christopher Moore books recommended to me over the years and I'm just now getting around to reading him. Now I'm passing the recommendation on to you.

Movie Review: The Hurt Locker

This was another movie that I'd heard nothing about. I was going through movie listings, saw an unfamiliar title, looked up the trailer and was hooked.

"The Hurt Locker" is the story of a bomb tech in Iraq. A platoon in Baghdad is reaching the end of it's deployment when their bomb tech dies. This new guy comes in and takes charge. Only, the thing about this guy is that he views himself like Tom Cruise in "Top Gun" (or anything else he's done, really). He's not a team player. He's a rogue. He's a fucking jackass is what he is. He's in it for the adrenaline rush. The thrill of almost dying and then not. It's a game of wits between him and the bomb maker.

The movie follows this guy and his platoon as he defuses several bombs and they watch the area for snipers or guys with mobile phones. The bomb tech's risks and unwillingness to give up put the lives of the others at risk.

As the movie goes on you start to see how he's cracked. His mind is falling apart bit by bit.

The trailer that you want to see is at link.

I liked the movie, but I don't feel the need to see it again. I won't get it on DVD.

Movie Review: Moon

The movie "Moon" has been horribly under promoted. It's sort of an independent film instead of a big budget mainstream film, but even so, it deserved something other than a sprinkling of posters.

Until recently the only thing I knew about it was what I saw in this poster. This tells us what exactly? It doesn't really even make you interested enough to Google it. But the only movie critic I trust, author John Scalzi, recommended the movie. So, I went.

You can see the trailer at link.

Earth has discovered a clean, nigh limitless power source using ³He for nuclear fusion. On the far side of the Moon is a mining station that provides Earth with ³He. It is staffed with one person - Zaphod BeeblebroxSam Bell. This station has four automated mining machines that look like huge harvesting combines. They merrily chew up the surface of the moon and spit what it doesn't like out the back. Sam Bell's three year contract has him going out when one is full, driving the rover inside the combine, get the canister of ³He, take it back to the station, and when he has a full load he launches it back to Earth.

Sam spends his free time building models, exercising, and watching the occasional broadcast from Earth. The lunar communication satellite appears to have broken so he can't chat with Earth in a timely manner. Everything has to bounce off of the Jupiter relay satellite. So you can imagine the delay. Mostly he talks to himself or to the station's AI, a large camera/monitor/cup holder combo that serves as a physical entity to talk in the direction of and to perform some tasks around base.

One day, near the end of his contract, Sam starts to see a woman where, clearly, none should be. In the station, out on the surface, etc. One time it causes him to stop paying attention and he crashes his rover into the back of one of the combines.

This is where the story really starts to get interesting.

Sam wakes up in the station's hospital. He undergoes a battery of physical and psychological tests. He sees the station's robot speaking to the board of directors on Earth in real time. The robot won't let him go outside to check on the damaged mining equipment. Finally he convinces the robot to let him go outside for other reasons. But a space suit is missing. So is one of the three rovers. He finds the missing rover still lodged in the back of the malfunctioning miner. He finds the missing suit inside the rover. He finds himself inside the suit [insert dramatic sound] STILL ALIVE!

This movie has shades of "2001: A Space Odyssey." The start white sets, the non-stop, back to back complete lack of action sequences, the monotone computer voice, and movie rich in story, but short in excitement. I went in expecting something very 2001-like, but the story turned out very different.

I highly recommend it to fans of quality sci-fi and who realize that "Armageddon" was an exciting movie, but otherwise complete dreck.

I'll most likely be getting this movie on DVD.

Booster rocket video

This is the video that was supposed to be on Friday Links under "Camera on the booster rockets from a Space Shuttle record their launch and fall back to Earth."

Oh, wait, there's some other guy

Late in the work day I realized that I've been approaching the Blackberry thing all wrong. See, I'm not Frodo Baggins, the phone is not the One Ring, and it's not my job to take it to Mt. Doom. See, there's this other person out there who is missing a phone. This person is trying to figure out how to get his missing phone back. How would said person do this? By calling it, of course. So my job is just to leave the thing on and charged.

Sure enough, on the way home I got a call from Mt Doom who gave me his address so I could take it over and drop it in his mail box.