Xombie: Dead On Arrival

Another movie I watched yesterday. A strange little movie running 50 minutes and divided into ten 5-minute chapters. So looked it up and originally it was a Flash cartoon on the web. Xombie: DOA is the second of a trilogy (so far) of Xombie stories.

Nice little tale. The animation is not exactly artistic but the backgrounds are good at establishing atmosphere and mood. In fact the background animation reminded me a lot of how Samurai Jack looks.

The story is a post-zombie apocalypse tale about a little girl named Zoe who washes ashore on a beach (according to the website, near the ruins of Washington D.C. but I couldn't tell that from the movie). She can't remember anything but her name. She hears music playing in the distance and follows the sound until she reaches a cemetery where she is beset upon by a horde of zombies. She is rescued by a "good" zombie, or xombie called Dirge who uses a shovel like a sword. He also uses a long chain for a weapon sometimes. Dirge was the one listening to the music, in his home (which is a small tomb or mausoleum?). He decides to take her to the nearest settlement of living humans, which is the only place she can be relatively safe. Dirge is accompanied by a zombie (or xombie) dog named Cerberus who was once a police dog and still retains his training and develops an affection for Zoe. They run into another xombie named Nephthys who was a museum exhibit: an Egyptian mummy who was mummified with her organs still intact (leading her to assume in her previous life she was not Egyptian royalty, but probably a servant), and she helps them on their journey to the human city. She tells Dirge that they are both what are called "variants," that is, zombies whose brains did not completely die before the zombie virus reanimated their bodies. This is why they retain their humanity to some extent and are not simply mindless zombies like that vast majority of undead. She is accompanied by a zombie velociraptor (how's that for an unstoppable monster?) named Chimaera, which she can't completely control, and she is armed with a scythe.

I liked it. The official website link is below. Also, there's a Dirge action figure that is not available yet but can be pre-ordered. According to the website, Dreamworks is interested in turning the story into a real movie, which will be pretty cool in my opinion.

Xombie Online

H.P. Lovecraft is a friend of mine...

via Lovecraft eZine

This is interesting

Statcounter recently upgraded their service so that it provides a little more information, among other things. Now it shows your Google page rank, if it's high enough. I have one page that shows a rank of 14, so I'm not sure how far down it goes. I have several pages over at The Briar Files which are #1. For example, Google "delayed gratification technique" or "albert king pipe." Pretty neat.

In Search of Lovecraft (2008)

Spoilers appear below. If it's possible to spoil a movie like this.

So I watched this movie today. Apparently, at first, they intended it to be in that style where they're filming a documentary, a lot like REC/Quarantine or The Blair Witch Project. It's the story of a rookie reporter named Rebecca Marsh (Marsh, that is), her camera man Mike, and their intern, a high school girl named Amber. Rebecca fills the role as the driven, career-obsessed reporter. Mike is a camera man who compulsively films everything--everything, including Rebecca waking up in her apartment--I mean, seriously, after 30 minutes I would not have been surprised if he had walked in on her while she was sitting on the toilet. Also Mike served in combat in Iraq and is apparently suffering from PTSD or something. Anyway, he's haunted. Not to belittle anyone who actually has PTSD--not in any way. It's just that our "Mike" was such a terrible actor that I just couldn't believe him. He looked more like some kind of poseur who only acted (cough) "haunted" to pick up chicks.

Amber was the comic relief, the young girl who only wanted to have fun and had a sweet, bubbly personality. This was so you would feel real bad when she was the first one to be carried away to her screaming doom.

So Rebecca is assigned what she considers a fluff piece for Halloween, and she goes to this big Halloween thing--I don't know, it was outside and she remarked to her editor-in-chief that about 300,000 people were there. Anyway it was this big Halloween thing and she was asking the people questions about their costumes, what they liked about the season and so forth, and someone mentioned H.P. Lovecraft. So she asked some other people there about Lovecraft and got a variety of answers, only a few of which included actual usable information.

She complains to her boss that she should be doing something more valid, but he tells her that before she can do that, she has to be able to make a minor story such as this "great." So she starts doing further investigation on Lovecraft and runs into a professor who tells her that there are some people who think it's all real. He points her to an "expert on the occult" named Dr. D'Souza who clues her into activity that points to an actual existence of an actual cult.

Somewhere along in here Rebecca and Mike discover the records of a pair of anthropologists (a man and a woman) from the 1930s who claimed to have uncovered cult activity, and they somehow manage to find some old film footage that these two shot during their investigations. The film footage of course shows that it's all real. Later on some of this footage somehow shows the woman anthropologist has become a devotee of Nyarlathotep and she kills her partner.

After about 45 minutes they abandoned their documentary style, apparently having run out of excuses for Mike to constantly keep his camera rolling, and it became a normal movie. Well, not normal...it's still pretty stupid but I mean normal movie style.

Dr. D'Souza warns them that their lives are in danger if they keep investigating, but Rebecca is so obsessed with her big story and inspired by the old film footage she found that she ignores him. So she, Mike and Amber go out to meet Dr. D'Souza at some old house that he has set aside for fighting unspeakable horrors from beyond mortal ken, but they get lost. While they're sitting in their car checking a map, they're attacked by something with big wings that makes a big wing flapping sound.

At this point there is what I consider the funniest part of the movie. The thing with big wings is shaking their car around, but their effects for it are transparently lame. They are obviously just wobbling themselves back and forth to attempt to create the illusion of their car rocking. It becomes even more obvious when the camera switches angles to show Mike and Amber sitting perfectly still but Rebecca continuing to rock back and forth like mad.

So the thing with big wings smashed through the back windshield and seizes Amber. She disappears into the sky and that's the end of her.

Later Mike and Rebecca are talking to Dr. D'Souza in a public place during daylight (the only way they can be safe, for now) and some spastic weirdo homeless guy comes up and shoves a bloody package into Rebecca's hand. It turns out that it's Amber's ear. They know it's hers because her ear ring is still attached to it. I screamed right out loud. Really, I did.

Mike and Rebecca do eventually find the house where Dr. D'Souza is. It had previously belonged to some cult members and they had allegedly done some vile, unspeakable things there. Also, Dr. D'Souza had enlisted the aid of a witch (good, apparently) named Keja to help them fight the cultists and their monsters or whatever.

By the way, the woman who played Keja is named Rachael Robbins and I thought she was unusually good-looking for a movie of this caliber. Rebecca (Renee Sweet) is also attractive, but in a more normal girl-in-the-next-cubicle kind of way. Turns out Robbins has appeared in Playboy.

Well, Keja tries to do a Tarot card reading of Rebecca to determine her past lives, but all the cards suddenly start turning black as she flips them over, which was one of the things I thought was actually kind of cool about this movie. But then she was using a Rider-Waite deck, which is so passé.

Somewhere around in here we learn that Mike is carrying a gun--a semi-auto pistol of some sort, which he plans on using to "banish the evil." D'Souza tells him it won't do him any good, but he won't listen. Apparently all one has to do to banish the demons or whatever is to trace a pentagram (Elder Sign) in the air with one's finger.

Also they're looking for a rock of some sort, which is supposed to be key in summoning Nyarlathotep's avatar The Haunter of the Dark, so I guess they're talking about the shining trapezohedron. If they can get the rock, they can stop Nyarlathotep's coming, I think.

Another thing that would have made me say "you can't do that" if anyone else had been around to hear me, was that the old house they were in didn't have any electricity, but they still managed to watch more of the old film footage because Mike was somehow able to run a 110-volt AC projector from his 12-volt DC car battery. Yes, I know it's possible if you have a transverter, but there was no indication of that. Mike just said, "I was able to wire it up to the car battery." But I guess in a world where Nyarlathotep is actually real, you can run projectors from car batteries.

Then suddenly Keja, or what appears to be Keja, comes to D'Souza dressed only in her bra and panties (the high point of the movie) and seems to attempt a seduction. He realizes something isn't right, traces a star in the air with his finger, and she (or it) vanishes.

They go to sleep and there's this acid-trip montage. When they wake up, D'Souza is sitting dead in his easy chair for some reason. Then a "dimensional hound" comes out of the door (not through the door, but out of the actual door itself) and tries to eat them, but Keja traces a pentagram in the air with her finger and says something, I think it must have been ancient Sumerian for "bad dog!" and it disappears. Keja tells them that dimensional hounds exist in another plane of existence (or something like that) and can enter our dimension only through spaces that are not curved (i.e., flat). This completely ruined the movie for me. Everyone knows that a Hound of Tindalos can enter our dimension only through corners, not flat walls or doors. However, this bit of special effects was really cool in my opinion and probably constituted 80% of their budget all on its own.

Then a zombie D'Souza appears and Mike puts him down with a double-tap. Then Mike goes away to sulk, leaving Rebecca and Keja alone for some l*sb**n witch sex.

Just kidding. That didn't happen, although I would not have been particularly surprised if it had. Rebecca and Keja talk about Lovecraft mythos stuff for a while, while Mike goes into another room to sulk and brood. Rebecca eventually goes after him only to see him kill himself with a shot to the head.

So some indeterminate time passes and Keja starts making a magic circle to protect her and Rebecca from the monsters. She does some kind of occult tai-chi or possibly some kind of interpretive dance and the circle is complete. Then zombie D'Souza (who apparently only went to sleep for a few hours when he got shot before) and zombie Amber come for them, but Keja makes a star in the air with her finger and they disappear. Then some old boyfriend or something of Rebecca's appears and tries to talk her out of the circle. I'm not sure, but I think this was actually supposed to be Nyarlathotep himself. Keja makes him go away by drawing a star in the air with her finger.

Let's see...I think I'm getting out of sequence here but it doesn't really matter. In fact, I think that may give you a better feel for what it was like to actually watch the movie. Zombie Mike also comes for them while they're in their circle, so Keja tells Rebecca to "take this sword..." Wait. Where did a sword come from? I can only assume Keja had it concealed in her cleavage, but that's only a guess. She tells Rebecca to use it to banish the monsters by--in case you haven't figured it out already--tracing a pentagram in the air with it and saying some secret word which she only whispers in Rebecca's ear so we can't hear it. We never hear it. Rebecca never uses it. She cuts off zombie Mike's forearm with the sword, he collapses just outside the circle, and she realizes some blueprints are still in his back pocket. Rebecca retrieves the blueprints but unfortunately breaks the circle in doing so. A tentacle comes out of the darkness and grabs Keja, dragging her screaming away to her doom. The tentacle was another bit of special effects that probably took up the other 20% of their budget.

Rebecca looks at the blueprints and suddenly somehow realizes where the rock is. Remember the rock? So she runs away to get it. She finds it quite quickly, even though she had to travel all the way back to the city and stuff. This really bright light shines in her face and the scene ends.

Rebecca wakes up in an asylum, wearing a straitjacket with one eye bandaged. Two orderlies are standing over her talking about what a shame it is for such a good-looking young woman to have gone totally nuts like this, and that she had tried to claw her own eyes out. Then one mentions that she is also pregnant. Rebecca, although gagged, attempts to scream, and that's the end.

I probably missed some details, but I think that pretty much covers it. Terrible movie. Not really bad enough to be good except in certain parts. Horrible acting, jarring discontinuities, and occasional rote regurgitation of random Lovecraftian phrases.

You can stream this movie from Netflix or get it from Amazon, although I don't know why you'd want to. It took me two days to watch the whole thing, and after 30 minutes I kept checking to see how much time was left before I would find the sweet peace of oblivion. If you watch it, roll percentile dice against INTx5 and permanently lose 1d4 INT if you fail. Fortunately, I succeeded. I think.

Computer stuff

Had a minor computer problem. The fan in my laptop finally died completely, so I went so far as to take it apart to try and remove the old fan--but couldn't, and couldn't figure out how to get the frame of the computer apart enough to get to the screws on the fan. I did get the heat sink out and cleaned all the dust out of it, also cleaned the dust out of the vents.

So I took the old machine to Altex this morning for a consultation. They said it would cost me $120 for parts & labor for them to do it, so one of them suggested a cooling bed, which I had never heard of, but it cost me only $20. It sits under the laptop with two movable fans so you just blow air on the outside of the computer to keep it cool--you position the fans wherever you want depending on where your computer's hot spots are. Since I always just use it for a desktop anyway, it was a good solution. I've already run some very intensive stuff (malware & adware scans with Malwarebytes and Spybot S&D) and it survived without shutting itself down due to overheating. I'll have to get used to the new positioning of the computer, but it looks like I'll be able to keep this one going for a while yet. Also now that the old fan is completely dead, it's much quieter. I can't even hear the cooling bed running, and it has two fans on it.

I also had them look up exactly what kind of RAM I can put into this one for an upgrade (DDR333 SODIMM), but I didn't do that yet.

Choose your Flag Day

Flag Day at Google

Flag Day at Bing

Long overdue answers

I was just checking my Statcounter stats and was reminded of an old post that I never fully answered. The post was a movie quotes meme. There were three quotes that no one ever answered, and apparently I forgot to ever provide the answers. So here they are.

"I think the end of the world just came for that bag of Fritos I had in my pants pocket."
Captain Cutshaw from The Ninth Configuration

"Don't make me take off my sunglasses!"
The big bouncer guy from Bringing Out the Dead

"He used to bring beautiful women here... eat fine meals, drink fine wine, listen to music... but it always ended with screaming."
Crawford Tillinghast from From Beyond

And possibly how to contact Nergal

New York Times:

Ninety years in the making, the 21-volume dictionary of the language of ancient Mesopotamia and its Babylonian and Assyrian dialects, unspoken for 2,000 years but preserved on clay tablets and in stone inscriptions deciphered over the last two centuries, has finally been completed by scholars at the University of Chicago.

This was the language that Sargon the Great, king of Akkad in the 24th century B.C., spoke to command what is reputed to be the world’s first empire, and that Hammurabi used around 1700 B.C. to proclaim the first known code of laws. It was the vocabulary of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first masterpiece of world literature. Nebuchadnezzar II presumably called on these words to soothe his wife, homesick for her native land, with the promise of cultivating the wondrous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

On all levels, this was the language of enterprise, the irrigation of lands and shipments of cultivated grain, and of fate foretold. Medical texts in Babylonia gave explicit instructions as to how to read a sheep’s liver to divine the future.

The full hardcopy set will cost you close to $2,000, but you can download pdfs of the whole thing for free: Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.

Don't let it bother you...

I never really knew what to do with a d12 either.

This & that

It has been a pleasant weekend of staying inside and enjoying the air conditioning and doing little else. Today I did some research on a song that has interested me for a while and which I knew had been covered by multiple artists. So I went to the trouble of audio-ripping all the YouTube videos I could find so I could compare the different versions. I'm going to eventually do a blog post on it, but I'm thinking of trying an audio blog post rather than a written one. So it will take a little more production work, since I'll have to write it first and then create the audio version, which will involve recording my own voice and editing everything into an audio file. Still, I think it will be fun and something new to do.

I just found out today that Netflix now has the old Incredible Hulk TV series with Bill Bixby, which brightened my day. I've also been using Netflix to watch the series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I never watched a single one of those when it was extant. So I've been enjoying that.

I'm off almost all this coming week--except for Monday. I took it off so I could take my son to a Cub Scout day camp in Floresville Tuesday through Friday. I won't be staying there all day, just dropping him off and picking him up. He went last year also, so I know he'll be okay without me. The camp is good for getting some of their more difficult belt loops/pins that require more organization, such as swimming, BB gun shooting and archery.

So...one day of work and I'm on vacation for several days. Nice.

I haven't squealed on anyone yet for violating water restrictions, but I'm getting close. I'm getting especially annoyed by people who keep washing their driveways and stupid stuff like that. The water company is going to pull water from one of their reserves to try and stave stage 3 off as long as possible, but it's coming, folks. If you want to know what's coming up in stage 3 just click here. There is also a stage 4, but it's going to have to get pretty bad for that to happen.

If you want to see some current and historic aquifer stats click here. The aquifer is still about 30 feet above the record low from 1956. I'm glad my water comes from a different aquifer.

Also, it's hurricane season again, and if you're interested (like me) in tracking hurricanes, I found a good website for it. Just go to Stormpulse. Unfortunately, it looks like we're going to need a few bad storms to climb out of this drought.

Request for information

On the Eagles Live album from 1980, in the chatter/intro before they sing "Seven Bridges Road," they say the name of the man who taught them the song. Something like "our friend so-and-so taught us this song..." Whose name do they say?

I used to have this on cassette but the tape broke a long time ago and I can't remember who it was. Was it Steve Young (the writer of the song) or someone else?

So if you can supply me with this information, please leave a comment and I'll be much obliged.

Bernstein, the motorcycle rider

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), the famous conductor, composer and pianist.

Arriving at an airport one day, Bernstein was asked by a photographer if he would mind posing for a picture astride a motorcycle. Bernstein objected. "I don't ride a motorcycle," he said. "It would be phony." The photographer tried to persuade him. He showed him the controls, explaining briefly how to operate them. "I'm sure you could ride it if you tried," he said encouragingly. Bernstein climbed onto the machine and, to the horror of his colleagues, shot off at top speed across the airfield. After a few other maneuvers he returned, grinning broadly. "Now you can take your picture," he announced. "I'm a motorcycle rider."

Here's another one that I also thought was funny.

Bernstein's father was criticized for not having given his talented son more encouragement when he was a child. He protested: "How was I to know he would grow up to be Leonard Bernstein?"

Cool picture I just found

Well, who knows how I end up doing these things, but I just checked Google Images for a photo of Theodore Sturgeon, since I had never seen a picture of him.

I have not read much of his stuff, but the little I have read--many years ago, now--deeply impressed me. I found his story "The Cosmic Rape" to be especially haunting.

So anyway, I did a search for his name and here's the first picture that came up.

Nice.

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown

This morning I watched this documentary, made in 2008. Commentary provided by such well-known authors and movie-makers as Ramsey Campbell, John Carpenter, Neil Gaiman, Stuart Gordon, Robert M. Price, Peter Straub and Guillermo del Toro, along with HPL biographer S.T. Joshi.

Running 90 minutes, it serves as a good introduction to Lovecraft for those unfamiliar with him, and a biography of his life for those familiar only with his stories. It also covers the circumstances of his life and experiences during the creations of some of his more major stories.

Five stars.

I watched it on SnagFilms, which is a free channel provided by the Roku streaming device. It's also available on DVD from Amazon.com (see below), or it can be purchased for viewing from Amazon Instant Video, or you can watch it for free online at the SnagFilms website, just click Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown.

Album update

Eagles: Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (1982)

James Young: City Slicker (1985)

I actually finished converting two records yesterday. I hadn't done any of this work in a long time, so I picked out two that were in good shape and wouldn't require much work, and two that were relatively close to being finished anyway.

Nothing really special here. I did the Eagles record so I'd have an option in case my Hotel California record has some problems. Also it has four tracks from The Long Run on it, and I don't have an probably will never get that one. And finally because it has "Seven Bridges Road" on it and I did want their version of that song. Someday I intend to get hold of all the covers of that song I can find and comparing them all, just for fun. I think I got this record as part of of the introductory offer for some record club back in the 80s because they didn't really have anything else I wanted.

The James Young record I bought at Hastings in Seguin as a new release because back then I was still a fairly big fan of Styx and I wanted to hear his "solo" work. I never heard anything from it on the radio and I guess there weren't any real hits from it. Nothing on it that sounds like it could have been a radio hit, to me. It has a couple of songs that will go on my big general favorites list, but nothing really great.

I've done a lot of free sampler downloading from Amazon lately and I took a break from building the big playlist to give them a trial listen. So far the only one that had anything I really liked was an EP from Dan Mangan called Robots vs. Indie Queens, especially the song "Robots." Also somewhat interesting is a collection from the industrial group Iszoloscope called beyond within and so on. But then I sometimes am in the mood for industrial and I realize that's probably not the thing of most readers of this blog.

There have been a few other downloads I'll probably get around to mentioning, but I want to listen to them more first.

A trip around our solar system

In pictures.

A man and his cat

H.P. Lovecraft, in case you don't recognize him.

via If Charlie Parker was a Gunslinger

Wingsuit flying

A special suit that allows one to move 2 1/2 feet forward for every one foot of falling. I wish they had included his landing. A parachute is deployed for that.

Crazy.

I think of you, and let it go...(#2)

I was poking around YouTube looking up some old videos when I came across this. The poster said it was a 2009 re-release, but it sounds French to me, which according to Wikipedia would make it a 2002 re-release. Anyway, it's definitely a new version and in my opinion Ms. Kerner is even hotter at 50 years old than she was at 20. I think her voice has improved, as well.

Images of Saturn from the Cassini probe

CASSINI MISSION from Chris Abbas on Vimeo.

The future of computer storage

At Physorg.com.

To store data, the PCM memory chips switch the alloy between a crystalline and amorphous state based on the application of heat through an electrical current. To read the data, the chips use a smaller current to determine which state the chalcogenide is in.

[...]

"We've found that you can build a much faster storage device, but in order to really make use of it, you have to change the software that manages it as well. Storage systems have evolved over the last 40 years to cater to disks, and disks are very, very slow," said Swanson. "Designing storage systems that can fully leverage technologies like PCM requires rethinking almost every aspect of how a computer system's software manages and accesses storage. Moneta gives us a window into the future of what computer storage systems are going to look like, and gives us the opportunity now to rethink how we design computer systems in response."

A new technology that is much faster than conventional hard drives and flash memory. Interesting.

Paying for advertising

Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923). French actress.

Clergymen across the United States...denounced Sarah Bernhardt from their pulpits as the "whore of Babylon," thereby ensuring massive attendance at her performances. The Episcopalian bishop of Chicago having delivered a particularly effective piece of publicity, Bernhardt arranged for her agent to send him a note and a bank draft. "Your Excellency," the note read, "I am accustomed, when I bring an attraction to your town, to spend $400 on advertising. As you have done half the advertising for me, I herewith enclose $200 for your parish."

UPS is pronounced "oops"

Check out the weekly Friday picture-post at The Daily WTF. Not the whole thing, just the first entry.

Not really related, but today after I finished my assignment I went by the Exxon at I10 & Hildebrand for a 99-cent 44-ounce Dr. Pepper. While attempting to pay for it, a UPS dude suddenly asked me if I was a meter reader. I told him yes. So he started talking.

I would like to say here that I am uncomfortable with and distrustful of people who talk too fast. I'm sure it's just the way they grew up or something, but people who speak too quickly (a subjective qualification, I admit) make me think they're trying to pull something over on me. Also I have a hard time sorting through their words to find their real meaning. This UPS driver was speaking far too quickly. At first I misunderstood him--he was saying something about the water restrictions and that he'd gotten busted for watering wrong or something. I told him that as far as reporting water violations went, I was no different than anyone else. I could call it in, but it would just be some guy calling some regular old line to narc on someone--I didn't have a special line to call that gave me added authority because I was an employee of the company.

But alas, I had misunderstood. He tried again, and this time I got it. He had a "vindictive neighbor" (he used this phrase several times) who had squealed on him--except that he hadn't actually violated the restrictions--his neighbor just wanted to jerk him around. His question was, did I have access to a computer from which I could look up the report and find out who had squealed on him.

Heh. No. I'm pretty sure there is no such thing, anyway. But wow, where was his head at that he thought he could talk me into divulging such information just because he said it was a bogus report‽

My conclusion: this guy was a whack-job. Also he had parked his van so that my truck and 3 other cars were blocked in until he left. A strange encounter.

An appreciation for art

Tristan Bernard (1866-1947), French dramatist and novelist.

Bernard once won a newspaper competition by providing the best answer to the question: "If a fire broke out in the Louvre and you could save only one painting, which one would it be?" His reply was, "The one nearest the exit."

Playlist progress

Wow, there were a lot of J's. Finally up to the K's now, with k.d. lang.

Something I've thought about doing

Organizing your record collection with a spreadsheet.

In the late 80s, before I had my first computer, I created an index card catalog of my whole collection. At the time, it took up two of those little index card boxes. Back then I also had the physical collection itself quite organized, like this.

1. Male solo artists (alphabetically)

2. Female solo artists (alphabetically)

3. Groups (alphabetically)

4. Classical (not really sorted because most had multiple composers per record)

5. Odd stuff that didn't fit anywhere else (not really sorted, either)

It isn't organized very well anymore because first moving it from my dad's house and then eventually moving it from our old house to our new house pretty much wiped out the organization, and I just never have felt like fixing it. It would be a pretty big job.

I never bothered sorting by genre because I don't really think about that. For me there are really only two genres: stuff I like and stuff I don't like.

Not many details, but I thought this was interesting

German police are training vultures to find human remains. Quote: "The first bird, Sherlock, is currently being trained to love the putrid smell of dead human flesh."

Possibly also useful for hunting down stray zombies.

This is almost totally appropriate

Cor blimey, I taste like Tea. I am a subtle flavour, quiet and polite, gentle, almost ambient. My presence in crowds will often go unnoticed. Best not to spill me on your clothes though, I can leave a nasty stain. What Flavour Are You?

Seen at A Trainwreck in Maxwell. I say "almost" because the er..."Britishness" of the graphic infers hot tea, which I don't like. Iced tea is my standard drink.

Never thought I'd see a video of this

Johnny Horton - The Battle of New Orleans. The part about the 'gator is pretty funny.

Interrobang

‽

How 'bout that. It works.

Hornswoggle?

From the hot word:

Wayne State University’s Word Warriors have released their top ten words to revive in 2011 . Starting in 2009, the Wayne State Word Warriors have highlighted obscure English words to bring back into common usage. Citing the vast vocabulary available in English – the biggest in the world, in fact — the Word Warriors contend that the depth and elasticity of the language is often disgarded for the quick, easy and accessible word. “Too often we limit ourselves to words that are momentarily popular or broadly applicable, and so rob ourselves of English’s inherent beauty and agility.”

Click to see the list. I remember using "paroxysm" once and the guy I was talking to thought I had made it up. So I explained it. He still didn't believe me until he went and looked it up in a dictionary.

I do actually use schadenfreude on occasion, because I enjoy engaging in it so often.

P.S. The opposite of shadenfreude is "sour grapes." Those Germans have a word for everything.

The strange case of Rudolf Hess

I'm sure most readers of this blog are big enough WW2 history buffs to be aware of one of the weirder occurrences of the war: when Rudolf Hess parachuted into England to supposedly try and make peace with Winston Churchill.

Now documents have come to light that show Hitler was in on it. At the Daily Mail.

Learning Latin: look where it got me

Robert Charles Bentley (1889-1945), American humorist, editor of Vanity Fair, drama critic, published fifteen volumes of his collected humorous essays. Also an actor. This guy was very funny. Unfortunately in later years he succumbed to alcoholism.

Passing Ulysses S. Grant's tomb in New York, Benchley was seen to be scribbling something on the back of an envelope, which he slipped under the door of the monument. The note read: "Please leave 2 quarts Grade A and 1 pint whipping cream. U.S.G."

*****

A scene in one of Benchley's movie shorts required that he be strung up in a mess of telephone wires above a street. While waiting for the final camera, he said to his wife, Gertrude, "Remember how good at Latin I was in school?"

"Yes."

"Well, look where it got me."

The horror!

At Oddee.

If I ever walked into a house like the one in picture #1, I would run screaming. Anyone who tried to stop me would be shot dead and I would mindlessly stomp their bleeding body in my mad escape.

So, you know, if your house looks like that, never invite me in. Fair warning.

Over the wall

An interesting photo appropriate for the day at If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger.

Glad I could help

Click to enlarge.

Cool video, great song

A little too much Moby and not enough Heather Graham, but still pretty good.

This & that

Just wanted to mention another interesting audio source: HPPodcraft.com. This one provides podcasts reading and discussing Lovecraft stories. Back in the olden days I used to participate in semi-organized IRC discussions of Lovecraft stories. It was quite interesting and fun.

Today I finished downloading all the free audio books available at Lovecraft eZine, then downloaded the first 20 episodes of podcasts from HPPodcraft.com. I have enough on the Fuze to keep me listening to Lovecraft on the drive home for weeks to come. So far HPPodcraft has 78 episodes, so there's a lot more still to download and listen to.

I have also been building the playlist as fast as I can today. I'm now up to Jeff Beck.

Last night I finally watched a movie that I probably should have seen a long time ago: The Naked Gun. Funny. Also I should note that Netflix now has available for streaming: The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show, The Best of Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and....Invader Zim!!!

Maurice Barrymore on America

Maurice Barrymore (1847-1905), born in England but later moved to the United States where he became an actor, and sired a family of actors (John, Lionel and Ethel). Great-grandfather of Drew Barrymore.

An English friend once scoffed at Maurice Barrymore's enthusiasm for his adopted country. "Why," he said, "we could go over to America and beat the daylights out of it any day."

"Again?" inquired Maurice.

J.M. Barrie's acting advice

Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937), author of Peter Pan and other plays.

While producing one of his own plays, Barrie was approached by an inexperienced member of the cast. Although his part was a very minor one, the young actor, anxious to give it the right interpretation, sought Barrie's advice. Sir James gave the matter some thought. "I am glad you have asked me," he finally replied. "I should like you to convey when you are acting it that the man you portray has a brother in Shropshire who drinks port."

Playlist progress

I skipped, or I should say--scanned through the "H's" pretty fast, since most of it I was very familiar with. Now up to Ian Matthews.

Got sidetracked...

Haven't made any more progress on the favorites playlist. I got sidetracked listening to the new Moby album.

Free-Floating Planets

Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Astronomers, including a NASA-funded team member, have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds were probably ejected from developing planetary systems.

The discovery is based on a joint Japan-New Zealand survey that scanned the center of the Milky Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had gone undetected until now. The newfound planets are located at an average approximate distance of 10,000 to 20,000 light-years from Earth.

"Although free-floating planets have been predicted, they finally have been detected, holding major implications for planetary formation and evolution models," said Mario Perez, exoplanet program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Eldritch.

Much more interesting than I expected, although somewhat repetitious

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

Researchers with the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity want to build a repository of metaphors.

General favorites playlist progress update

Now on Hawkwind. 6 1/2 hours worth just of Hawkwind songs.

Ethan Allen: I'm off, boys...

Ethan Allen, of course, a prominent figure during the American Revolutionary War, who lived from 1738-89.

Ethan Allen with a group of associates attended a Sunday service led by a stern Calvinist preacher. He took as his text "Many shall strive to enter in, but shall not be able." God's grace was sufficient, observed the preacher, to include one person in ten, but not one in twenty would endeavor to avail himself of the offered salvation. Furthermore, not one man in fifty was really the object of God's solicitude, and not one in eighty--here Allen seized his hat and left the pew, saying, "I'm off, boys. Any one of you can take my chance."

It's time to make a peanut butter sandwich and kill them all

Heh. A "thrill-com pilot" called The Ward. Click to view. Via HPPodcraft.com.

Lovecraftian humor? Yes, I guess so.

Pound vs. Abercrombie

I have read somewhere the bumper sticker wisdom: "Stupidity carried beyond a certain point becomes a public menace." In fact I'm pretty sure I've at least seen it on a t-shirt. Well, here's...the rest of the story.

Lascelles Abercrombie was a British poet and critic and professor of English literature at Leeds and London universities, who lived from 1881-1938. Ezra Pound was Ezra Pound.

Abercrombie had expressed an opinion with which the poet Ezra Pound violently disagreed. "Dear Mr. Abercrombie," wrote Pound. "Stupidity carried beyond a certain point becomes a public menace. I hereby challenge you to a duel, to be fought at the earliest moment that is suited to your convenience..." Abercrombie was rather disturbed by the challenge, knowing of Pound's skill at fencing, but then he remembered with relief that the choice of weapons lay with the party challenged. "May I suggest," he replied, "that we bombard each other with unsold copies of our own books?" Pound, having far more "weapons" than his opponent, immediately withdrew the challenge.

No fun with playlists

I have not been doing any work on the records-to-mp3 conversions lately. I have, rather, been really working on building the big general favorites list. I am provisionally up to "G," provisionally because when I get to the "various artists" directory there are files that will be going everywhere. Anyway, right now I'm on GTR.

I'm not listening to every single track, either, because I do want to finish the list in my lifetime. Most of them I can just look at the directory and immediately pick out the ones I want. Others, however, require a further listening for decisions to be made.

While in this process, I have also been creating a playlist of "rock instrumentals." Of course, all these tracks will be ones that I personally have in my own collection, not some sort of universal list.

I would also like to create a playlist of rock/pop songs that include a saxophone part. I have already put a few tracks into this list but I'll need to go back over the beginning of the list again to see what's what. I don't remember every track that uses a saxophone.

I have designed my directory structure with the first name first. So, for example, George Harrison is George Harrison and not Harrison, George, which puts him into the "G" list. The only exception I make to this rule is with groups beginning with "the." So, for example, The Doors is listed as Doors, The.

Not that any of this matters to anyone but I couldn't think of anything else to post about today.

Made this one myself

Frank Lloyd Wright and Rex Stout

In 1930 novelist Rex Stout built a fourteen-room house, with his own hands, on a hilltop in Danbury, Connecticut. Later he invited Frank Lloyd Wright out to see it and waited patiently for his evaluation. Wright examined it carefully and then said, "A superb spot. Someone should build a house here."

Call me, Debbie!

We had a crossover/campout last night for the Cub Scouts. My son is now a Webelos. What is the plural of "Webelos" anyway?

We got rained on a little this morning, and I was pleased and surprised that the Walmart tent kept the wet out. I was also surprised that my back didn't hurt this morning. Apparently sleeping on the ground is better for my back than those bunks on the U.S.S. Lexington.

Well, the day is almost over and I'm so disappointed that Debbie Harry didn't come for me.

Apparently the human brain is a lot like cookie dough...

Thanks to this article at Cracked.com, I have just seen what might have become the most awesome half-hour sitcom in the history of television.

I had never heard of this show before, but it was a unaired pilot that never got any further than the first episode. It's like The Six Million Dollar Man meets The X-Files meets Knight Rider meets The Incredible Hulk. I'm talking about Heat Vision and Jack. Starring Jack Black as rogue astronaut Jack Austin and Owen Wilson as the voice of his sentient motorcycle, Heat Vision.

Very funny and inventive, lots of in-jokes referring to other TV shows and certain TV tropes. Fortunately, the episode lives on in cyberspace and you can view it on YouTube.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

More fodder for the mp3 player

Old Time Radio Fans. Free downloads, a lot of them.

An anecdote I can empathize with

Evelyn Waugh, British novelist, who lived from 1903-66. Waugh was male, by the way. He converted to Catholicism in 1930. This was told by Joseph Epstein (an American essayist).

"Once, when he had behaved with particular rudeness to a young French intellectual at a dinner party in Paris at the home of Nancy Mitford, Miss Mitford, angry at his social brutality, asked him how he could behave so meanly and yet consider himself a believing and practicing Catholic. 'You have no idea,' Waugh returned, 'how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.'"

The infamous Mission Road route

Click to enlarge a little.

This is probably not of much interest to anyone but today I figured out what was going on in this area and it made me utter a mild exclamation. I believe my exact words were, "Holy cow!"

This is an area that I motor (as a verb; it means "to read meters while driving from one meter to the next, rather than walking"), and which I did today. There has been a massive amount of construction in this area for the past several months. Concepción Park has, or had, three meters, two of which are not really pertinent to this post but as a by-the-way are accessible from E. Theo near the swimming pool (the rectangular thing inside the bend of E. Theo). The pink dot is where a large meter is, or was, inside a vault. It rarely showed any consumption. However, because of all the construction, today was the first time in 3-4 months that I was able to go inside and try to find it. This is an old map; everything there now looks completely different. It was so changed that all I could do was park in the general area and walk around dumbly looking for any signs of the old vault. One of the construction workers asked if he could help me; I told him I was looking for a water meter that used to be there--it had been in a big vault. He looked at a co-worker and asked, "Hey, was there a meter in that vault we buried?" I started laughing, and then they both started laughing. So this is another "lost" meter that I'm sure will remain on the route for months, perhaps years to come, until someone figures out that it isn't there anymore. I'm pretty sure it was removed before they buried the vault; unfortunately, the people who remove meters never seem to tell the rest of the company about it.

Anyhow, there is now a new street in this place. It begins where that red dot is on Mission Road and (it's still closed so I don't know exactly how it runs) comes out where that other red dot is on E. Theo. The old E. Theo (from Mission Road) now dead-ends about where the blue dot is and there is no longer a street between there and the bridge. I don't know what the name of this new street is going to be. Will it be E. Theo? Will we have two roughly parallel streets that are both called E. Theo? Or will it suddenly change names as it comes across the river bridge and become something else? Will the old E. Theo-from-Mission Road be reconnected to the the old E. Theo/unnamed new street? Who knows?

As another by-the-way, that area that I circled in green is the big Mission Road Pump Station. There used to be 4 meters in there. One of them went to a small house. I was told that that house was once used by a full-time security guard who lived on the premises, but it hadn't been used in a long, long time. Anyway a couple of years ago they moved the house out and removed the meter. It took about 6 months (or more) for them to eventually take that meter off our route.

The pump station has also been undergoing extensive construction. The last time I went in there, I don't know how long now, probably about a year, all three of the remaining meters had been removed. Because of the construction, I haven't been inside there since, but of course those 3 meters are still on the route and I don't know if they'll ever disappear or if they plan on them being eventually put back in the ground.

So anyway, I don't think you are technically supposed to cross the bridge there at E. Theo right now because the new street is still officially closed; however, I think it is passable. I'm just not going to try it because I'm sure someone would complain about it.

This route has been a constant source of confusion and entertainment since I started doing it. It was one of the few routes I was assigned to when I was first hired that I still do every month. Never a month has gone by that I didn't have a mysteriously disappeared meter (or in a few cases, a mysteriously appeared meter). I know it now so well that I don't even think about it anymore, but as I told a co-worker today, if they ever threw somebody onto this route cold he would be completely screwed.

Dante

I recently finished re-reading a collection of anecdotes. Some of them struck as especially funny or interesting. I may post a few more of these in the future. Here's one that cracked me up.

Lope Félix de Vega Carpio was a Spanish playwright who lived from 1562-1635.

On his deathbed in 1635, Vega asked how much time he had left. Assured that his death was at hand, he murmured, "All right, then, I'll say it: Dante makes me sick."

Official documents

Hey folks, here are the official fliers regarding Stage 1 & 2 water restrictions in S.A. if you are interested. Straight from the mouse's horth.

Don't have any info on Stage 3 yet.

The Useless Information Podcast

One of the many internet thingies that passed me by while I languished in the dial-up zone was the podcast. A few days ago someone on FB mentioned a podcast, and it reminded me: Hey! I can download podcasts now!

So I went to the site mentioned and have now become a fan of The Useless Information Podcast. I've listened to several so far, and so far the only topic I already knew about was the bat bomb project of WW2.

Quite entertaining and informative. Really helps pass the time on the drive home.

Funny and scary

5 Superhero Movies You Won't Believe Almost Got Made | Cracked.com

"Hollywood's high, high standards." Heh.

YouTube update

My first-ever upload to YouTube, the H.R. Pufnstuf theme song, has now broken 1,000 views. So I thought it would be a good time to list my top 10 YouTube uploads again. Actually I think I only did the top 5 last time but I'll go ahead and do 10.

1. H.R. Pufnstuf theme song - 1,006

The first upload and the clear winner by a huge margin.

2. Kathy Dalton - I Need You Tonight - 351

Holding a solid second place for a long time now. This one has the most "likes" (with 4).

3. H.R. Pufnstuf theme song (reprise) - 245

The shorter, ending theme version of the song. This and the following two were neck-and-neck-and-neck for a long time, sometimes switching places in the list until they seem to have conclusively sorted themselves out a couple of weeks ago.

4. H.R. Pufnstuf - Ice Cold Lemonade - 205

5. H.R. Pufnstuf - End of the Road - 190

6. H.R. Pufnstuf - Pronouns - 130

7. Kathy Dalton - Pour Your Wine - 109

This one seems to be "trending" upward and should slowly move up the list.

8. H.R. Pufnstuf - Oranges, Smoranges - 97

9. First Quest: The Music - The Quest Begins - 90

I guess this one is moving up the list because everyone wants to hear something from this album, so they pick the first track. After they hear it, they don't want to hear any more.

10. Kathy Dalton - Ride Ride Ride - 84

I've noticed that some of my uploads just won't appear in YouTube searches. If I ever figure out why and can fix it, I expect this list to change quite drastically.

Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard's legal battle to keep files secret 120 years after killings

Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard's legal battle to keep files secret 120 years after killings | Mail Online

Of course this immediately makes me think that there's a really good reason, such as: some prominent person who is alive today would be embarrassed by the information in these documents.

Lovecraft audio books

Thought I should mention this source for audio books (or stories) of H.P. Lovecraft: Lovecraft eZine. Some are straight, no-frills readings, others are dramatized. Almost all are free, with some links to other sources that require purchase. I listened to The Call of Cthulhu while driving home last week (90 minutes long--took two days), and it was very weird to hear many of those mythos-words spoken aloud.

The same person who does the Lovecraft eZine also has a blog called Autumn Radio, another source for non-Lovecraft audio books of sci-fi and horror. So check it out, too.

Advanced System Care tip regarding NoInstrumentation (no Most Frequently Used list)

This post is because I know I get a lot of Google hits for various posts and this is something I couldn't find myself. So maybe it will help someone.

This is for anyone who is using the Advanced System Care software for computer maintenance: if you've upgraded to version 4, you've run a "deep care" and all your most frequently used software list (from the start menu) has disappeared.

It's easy enough to find how to set your registry entry back to get the MFU back. Just Google it.

My problem was, I couldn't find anywhere how to prevent Advanced System Care from doing this in the first place. I first assumed it was the registry optimizer because it's a registry entry, so I pored through several hundred registry problems after running "scan only" and it wasn't in there. Next I took a wild stab that it was part of system security since it sort of had something to do with history. No luck there, either. So here we go.

First, follow the instructions that you can find pretty much anywhere to set your NoInstrumentation setting back to bring back the MFU list. This will cause ASC to find an "error" again. Go to "deep care," uncheck everything except "system optimization" and run "scan only." There will be a registry entry with a registry value of NoInstrumentation. First uncheck it so that it doesn't keep setting the entry to their "recommended" setting, then right click on it and select "ignore" so it ignores it from then on.

I guess maybe getting rid of the MFU list can make somebody's computer somewhere run faster, but to me having no MFU is just a big pain in the @ss.

Traditional Gospel Hymns (free sampler)

Just wanted to mention this collection which has proven somewhat interesting. Fifteen tracks, 8 of which are a capella and the other 7 instrumental. Well, I'm not a big fan of instrumental-only gospel music because it seems like kind of a waste of time and something of an oxymoron.

However, check it out, especially the a capella tracks which are all by a group listed only as "Savae." This is actually the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble. Their tracks on this sampler comprise about half of their 2007 album Revival Tonight!

This is so awesome

UPDATE: When I originally posted this, the collection was being sold for $1.99. It's higher now.

This reminds me of something

Back during my previous job, when I was a contractor reading electric & gas meters, I was working a route that went down Hildebrand--a route that I did several times--and got to this one house that had both meters in the back but they couldn't be seen from behind the house because of all the stuff in the back yard. So I had to go around front and rattle the gate. The house had a gate, which was locked, and I didn't plan on climbing a locked gate if I could get someone's attention first.

So I rattled the gate, and I heard a creaky old voice shout, "Whad'ya want?!" So I answered back that I was there to read her gas & electric meters. "Oh, okay," she said, "be right out."

She came out an unlocked the gate, and said, "I thought you were one of those damn missionaries again." She was a tiny old lady who could have been any age between 85 and 200 for all I know. She led me into her back yard, which as I said, was full of stuff. I keep italicizing that word to emphasize that there was a lot of stuff. There were potted plants everywhere, both on the ground and hanging from tree limbs and ornamental pot hangers. There were all kinds of weird outdoor knick-knacks and rustic objet d'arts everywhere, both sitting and hanging like the potted plants. And as I had said, she was tiny. She couldn't have cleared 5 feet. She must have lived there alone for a long time because all the hanging objects in her back yard were hung low-altitude for short people. I had to keep dodging and ducking to work my way through there. The whole time she was rattling on about this & that, the way old lonely people do to unexpected and not unwelcome company (I run into this kind of thing a lot, though not as much anymore since I no longer have to go into people's yards).

She said one thing that I thought was interesting and which stuck with me, for some reason. As she was walking me back to her front gate, she looked at the thin strip of her almost non-existent front yard and said, "You know, when I first moved here, that street out there wasn't nothin' but a cow trail. But they kept widenin' it, and every time they did, they took a little bit more of my front yard. And now there ain't hardly nothin' left."

From San Antonio Remembers:

1908
Cow Street is renamed to Carey Avenue (later Hildebrand in 1928.)

A brief comment on parmesan cheese

Nice. My wife's place of employment has an employee meeting today. All the employees there, in order to make their meetings slightly less onerous, have taken up the tradition of bringing food and having a sort of mini-potluck on Meeting Day. I kind of wish they'd have more meetings, because every time they do, my wife makes her stuffed half-jalapeños.

I don't know what they're really called. But she cuts the peppers in half, scoops out the insides and fills the hull with sour cream, parmesan cheese and pan sausage. They're really delicious.

I say this because I wanted to make a brief comment about parmesan cheese. I had always thought I didn't like it. Until, that is, she began making these things and had to buy some real parmesan to do it. That is, parmesan that comes in a big block and requires grating. That stuff is excellent. I don't know who came up with the idea that something called "parmesan" should be powdered, sold in shaker containers and apparently flavored with skunk scent, but they should be severely punished. Nastiest stuff I've ever tried to flavor food with.

In case you've never had actual parmesan, you should. But then of course you'll never want to eat that powdered cr*p again.

That had to hurt

Came across this today in the Wetmore/Ridge Country area. Ouch. Click to enlarge, as usual.

WoodSongs podcasts

I discovered last night that WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour has free podcasts, either video or audio-only. Just click here for the subscription links.

Cthalvin

At Dork Tower.

Rhonda Vincent and The Rage: Taken (2010, CD)

Uh...now where was I? Oh yeah...

As I said before, this was one my dad & stepmom asked me to get for them, since I have a reputation in my family as "the guy who knows how to find and get things." Since the switch to digital TV, my dad has been watching a show on one of the alternate KLRN channels called WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour. I don't have my TV hooked up to a regular antenna to pick up this channel, but I may have to do that just so I can watch this program. They discovered Vincent when she performed on this program.

When I looked her up and saw that she is a contemporary female bluegrass artist, I knew I would like her stuff too, so I ripped the CD for my own collection before passing it along to my dad. Rhonda Vincent is a singer and songwriter who also plays fiddle, guitar and mandolin. Her backing band, The Rage, all play traditional bluegrass instruments and some of them also provide backing vocals.

I don't know if any of these songs are old bluegrass numbers; I'm familiar with only one track. But heck, it's bluegrass with a female lead and sweet vocal harmonies so how can you lose?

The only track I was already familiar with is "Back On My Mind," which was a hit for Ronnie Milsap back in 1979 and continued to be played on some country stations well into the 80s. P.S. Back in those days I was a big Ronnie Milsap fan.

The only track I didn't particularly care for is the last one, which sounds like it was being sung by a couple of children. It's very sweet and all that, just not really my thing, and it's not really bluegrass.

Anyway, great album. Available on CD or mp3 download at Amazon, which has samples of all the tracks.

UPDATE: You can listen to Rhonda Vincent's appearance on WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour by clicking on the WoodSongs Archive Showlist. Just go down the list and look for her--she's been on there several times. Both video and audio-only podcasts available.

Nice...

This just turned up on the radar: X5 Free Classical Sampler: Gregorian Chants.

Not very big, only 5 tracks for about 20 minutes of music. Also, Gregorian chants are most certainly pre-classical (pre-baroque for that matter) but still, free Gregorian chants!

I'm tellin' ya, X5 is a label to watch out for.

A couple more movies

I forgot to mention these because I didn't like them so much and I was still kind of buzzing from seeing the two that I really liked.

Well, Netflix does have some badfilms, for example Redneck Zombies which is one of my favorites, and it looks like they also have just about everything Troma ever did. By the way, I watched the original The Toxic Avenger a few weeks ago, the first time I've seen it since it was released to video in the 80s. It's still just as great and stupid as ever (I forgot to rate it; I think I'll give it 4 stars). One of the movies I recently tried to watch was called Zombiethon. Here's the storyline from imdb: "A compilation of trailers and previews from films having to do with zombies."

I don't know why I ever bothered to add this one my instant queue. I watched about 5 minutes of it and gave up. Gave it 1 star ("Hated it!") So I guess if you want a random collection of scenes of zombie gore, this is for you. If you like to watch something with a bit of a plot, or at least some slight indication of coherence, then it's not for you.

The other one was The Lost Boys: The Tribe. This was a 2008 sequel to the original. Corey Feldman reprises his role as Edgar Frog, who now lives in a tiny trailer and shapes surf boards for a living. Of course, he's still a vampire hunter. The other Corey (Haim), turns up only in a stinger added on to the end after the first bit of credits roll, and I'll not say more about that in case you want to see it sometime. So anyway, this older-teenage guy and his younger-teenage sister move to town to live in an old house on their aunt's place because their parents have both died. And...it's about the same as the first movie. The girl gets turned into one of those half-vampires like the guy did in the original and her brother teams up with Edgar to save her. Not nearly as good as the original, in my opinion. I gave it a "meh" rating of 3 stars, mostly for nostalgia's sake. I haven't yet watched the the next sequel, The Lost Boys: The Thirst of 2010, but it's in my queue. I don't expect a whole lot from it, either.

P.S. Netflix now has another favorite badfilm: Shriek of the Mutilated. I checked on this one last year and they didn't have it yet at that time. They also now have The Legend of Bigfoot, which I remember seeing in the theater when I was a kid. Sweet.

The day

Today was quite tedious. You see, someone at my place of employment got a bug up their a** and decided everyone in my department had to take a driver's safety course.

Regardless of past driving record. Regardless of anything, actually.

So last Saturday almost all the department got paid a full day of OT to go to the class, which my employer of course paid for. They sprang this decision on us without much notice, and a few of us already had plans for last Saturday, of which I was one (the Lexington overnight trip).

So today I took the course online, and man that was just hideously boring. Of course I get reimbursed for the cost when I bring the receipt & paperwork in.

So...about 30 people get a day of OT and a free driver's safety course, about 5 others just get a free driver's safety course. Just one of the small ways your ***** company spends your money.

Have a nice day!

How blissfully ignorant I would yet remain, had I not found this job...

You'll probably have to click to enlarge to read it.

The upside-down part in script says "NOVELTY."

Nice visit

Heh...

UPDATE: I would like to say something about this. I am not a fan of either of them. In fact, I don't think it would be inaccurate to call me an anti-fan. However, the Biebling is obviously talented. He can sing perfectly well without using auto-tune and he is proficient with several different instruments. Becky Black wanting to duet with him would be like me wanting to form a tennis doubles team with one of the Williams sisters* because I'm so good at Wii tennis.

*Preferably Serena.

Someday my son is going to think I was the smartest guy in the world

We were talking about computers several months ago, and I told him by the time he grew up--or maybe sooner--computers would be just like this.

These just in...

I'll undoubtedly say more about these later, but for now...

I put off buying that Kate Bush album for far too long. I was planning on ordering a different album with it (to get free shipping for an order of more than $25), but my dad called me the other day and asked me to get that other album for him, and he'd reimburse me for it. Of course it's already ripped and all the covers & booklet have been scanned for my own collection. My dad and I still come together musically on old-time country and bluegrass. Rhonda Vincent is a bluegrass musician.

Bonus...the back of the CD booklet.

I hate to say this

But today I started using Chrome. Firefox has become so bloated and stodgy I just can't use it for more than 3-4 minutes before it seizes everything up. I don't know what's wrong with it, but for now Chrome seems to be working the way Firefox used to.

Beliefs and unbeliefs

One woman told me last Christmas that she did not believe either in Hell or in ghosts. Hell was an invention got up by the priest to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to go "trapsin' about the earth" at their own free will; "but there are faeries and little leprechauns, and water-horses, and fallen angels." I have met also a man with a Mohawk Indian tattooed upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs. No matter what one doubts, one never doubts the faeries, for, as the man with the Mohawk Indian on his arm said, "they stand to reason."

--W.B. Yeats

from "Belief and Unbelief"

The Celtic Twilight

I read (most of) this book many years ago--1997 I must assume since that's when that gasoline receipt was dated that I found in it--and recently decided to re-read it. I think I might have to hunt down a copy of that Katharine Briggs book, too.

A couple of movies

I had today scheduled off so I could rest & recuperate from the weekend, and I had planned on just sitting around watching movies all day--the kind of movies I probably wouldn't watch with the kids around.

Well, I did do that, but with Netflix going at full blast I also caught up on a bunch of TV shows that I like but don't want to sit through commercials. Spoilers might possibly follow but I'll try not to give away too much.

So one of them was Wristcutters, an indie film made for only(!) a million dollars, released 2006. Wikipedia calls it a "comedy-fantasy-romance." It's about this guy named Zia who kills himself by slitting his wrists because his girlfriend had just dumped him...by the way, a good indicator of the kind of comedy in this movie is, before Zia kills himself he completely cleans up his messy apartment until it's sparkling. Then as he is lying on the floor bleeding to death, the last thing he sees is a big dust bunny he missed. So anyway, Zia goes to a sort of Limbo that is neither Heaven nor Hell which is reserved for people who have committed suicide. There he meets up with a Russian emigré named Eugene: a really bad rock musician who killed himself by electrocuting himself with his own guitar; and a girl named Mikal who died accidentally from an overdose. Mikal is convinced that she shouldn't be there because her death was accidental. Zia runs into someone he knew from before he died who tells him that his ex-girlfriend also committed suicide about a month after he did. So he goes on a road trip trying to find her, accompanied by Mikal, who is trying to find the "people in charge" so she can go back to her real life, and Eugene.

City scenes were filmed around L.A., but most of the scenes were shot in the bleak wilderness areas of (apparently) the American southwest. Life in their new world is about the same as it was in the living world, but bleaker. There are no stars, and no one ever smiles. Eventually Zia finds his ex but realizes that she is kind of a whackjob and he's no longer interested in her, having fallen in love with Mikal.

It had a cool soundtrack, with one song by Tom Waits who also played another of the main characters. I did enjoy the humor and laughed out loud a couple of times (like at the dust bunny). I guess that's all I should say about it except: happy ending. Since Netflix keeps track of your viewing and rating history to provide recommendations, I decided to start rating movies. I gave this one 4 stars. Netflix average rating: 3.7.

The other movie was Dead Snow, from 2009. I heard about this one a long time ago and in fact had added it to my queue when I first subscribed to Netflix, but kept bumping it down the list to keep getting more family-friendly DVDs. When I finally got high-speed internet I saw that it was available for streaming.

Dead Snow is a Norwegian comedy-horror movie about Nazi zombies. These are not American-style zombies, which are assumed to be caused by some kind of pathogen and which is actually a highly contagious disease, but instead are zombies created by some kind of mostly unexplained evil satanic Nazi magic. The explanation, of sorts, is given by a mysterious stranger that reminded me of that scene from Jaws--you know the one. One of the big things I really liked about this movie was that, instead of hiding in a house and boarding up the windows until they're all dead, well...

Actually when they first discovered something monstrous was outside killing their friends, they did board up the house. But as soon as they discovered it was Nazi zombies, they immediately loaded up with everything they could find to use as weapons and began killing the sh*t out of them. The Norwegians really hate Nazis. The fact that these were Nazi zombies didn't really mean much to them.

So, with apologies to Joe Bob Briggs, there was shotgun fu, chainsaw fu. snowmobile fu, tree limb fu, sledge hammer fu, hatchet and axe fu, fire fu, (snowmobile-mounted) machine gun fu and even avalanche fu. One of the characters was a movie nerd, and kept quoting various American movies, which was funny because the whole movie was in Norwegian with subtitles and this guy would suddenly spout off something from some American movie, like "yippie-ki-yay motherf*ckers" and "Fortune and glory, kid...fortune and glory." Also one guy got a bad wound on his throat, so he sewed himself up with a fish hook and some monofilament (reminded me of that scene in Roadhouse) and then finished the job by wrapping duct tape around his throat to hold himself together. Another funny scene had another guy cursing Nokia (which is a Finnish company) for his cell phone's battery going dead at a critical moment.

I had originally given this one 4 stars, but in writing this up and still laughing about it, I changed it to 5 stars. A great zombie movie that I would consider non-traditional compared to most American zombie flicks. Apparently most Netflixers don't get this kind of humor and their average rating is only 3.4.

Well, no happy ending in this one, but I'm not sure you can have a happy ending in any zombie movie. I guess Zombieland comes closest to that, which by the way I watched some time ago and also enjoyed.

I'll be in my bunk

Not a good pic, but it's one of the few I tried to take with my phone--I took more with a real camera which will have to wait until I get the roll developed, but anyway, that shelf on the right was my berth.

My only complaint is that my back hurt a little in the morning, but I walked it off as soon as I got up. This weekend my son and I went on a "live aboard" exercise on the U.S.S. Lexington with his Cub Scout pack. This was my third time on the Lexington (his second), the second time in two years (my first time was in the early 90s), but our first time spending the night there. It was fun, and other than having a mattress without extra lumbar support, I actually liked the bunk. I think next time--if there is a next time--I'll take on one the floor so I can get out during the night without worrying about stepping on someone. I woke up at 5:30 this morning and laid there waiting until 6:45 for reveille.

Our berth was on the starboard side of the foc'sle (that's how they abbreviated it on the signs--I'm not sure if that's a completely correct spelling), that is, to the right of the theater.

I overheard someone from another group asking his pals what a "foc'sle" was, so I broke in and told him. Ye gads, man, I thought, didn't you ever read any pirate stories when you were a kid?

Anyway, they fed us supper and breakfast and we got to wander around all over the ship after dark when all the touristas had been run off, so it was pretty cool.

No ghosts. None that I could see, anyway.

Item found in a book

Sunrise from the U.S.S. Lexington

My son and I were part of a "live aboard" event for Boy Scouts and spent last night on the Lexington. Here's a couple of phone pix of the sunrise about 7:15 this morning.