Gargoyles (TV movie, 1972)

Gargoyles was a made-for-TV horror movie from 1972.  I think I read somewhere once that it was the first horror movie ever to be made for TV.  I don't know if that's true or not, but anyway, since it was made for TV in 1972, that means it's pretty tame by modern standards.

However...consider:  my sister and I saw this movie in 1972, which means I was 8 years old and she was 4.  At the time, I thought it was the best movie I'd ever seen, and it gave my sister nightmares.  I hadn't seen it since that one time in 1972.  So when I saw that I could get the DVD from Netflix, I added it to my queue immediately.  The screen caps I've included here were a few that I took so I could put them on Facebook for my sister's benefit.  Her only reactions was, "Where did you get those?  That movie gave me nightmares!"  I was thinking about getting a more complete collection of screen caps but decided it was too much trouble, so there you are.

It's full of people I didn't recognize, or just barely recognized.  The main protagonist is played by Cornel Wilde, who was more of a leading man type early in his career but then became more of a character actor, turning up on things like this, Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote before he stopped acting in 1987, two years before his death.  He plays a professor of paleontology and anthropology who is going out into the desert in the southwest somewhere because of some vague tip/rumor that some guy out there has something strange to show him.  He's accompanied by his daughter, for some reason, played by Jennifer Salt, whose most prominent role was probably as Eunice Tate on Soap several years later.  In this movie she's mostly the screamer, who also displays several of those side-b00b shots that used to be so popular on TV.  Whatever happened to the side-b00b?  I kinda miss it.

Although we are never told exactly where in the southwest this is supposed to be happening (I don't think), I can tell you that it was filmed on location in Carlsbad Caverns National Park; Carlsbad, New Mexico; and Laredo, Texas.

Which may explain the Pearl beer.  I guess they had a big enough budget that they didn't have to settle for Texas Pride.  The above shot was just to get a glimpse of the beer can, but since he's here, I'll mention that this is Woody Chambliss, another character actor from Texas.  His first movie role was an uncredited appearance as the blacksmith in the original 3:10 to Yuma in 1957.  He turned up in a quite a few TV shows and movies (many of them westerns such as Gunsmoke and Have Gun, Will Travel).  He also had a part in Logan's Run and--get this--Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  According to imdb, he also somehow managed to appear in some movie called Riding Fast in 1988, seven years after he died.

So anyway, Uncle Willie--as Chambliss' character is called--has found a complete skeleton of something out in the desert which he wants to show the Professor, who believes it is a fake made up of various animal and human parts.  As they are in his barn arguing about the veracity of the skeleton, darkness falls, and instead of heading back to the house, Uncle Willie throws a bar across the inside of his barn door because, he says, it's not safe to be outside after dark.  So the Prof decides to humor him and begins interviewing him about the legends regarding these creatures, while the Prof's daughter tape records the interview.  Then suddenly the barn is attacked by several somethings which begin ripping through the wooden walls of the barn.  The obligatory kerosene lamp falls over and catches everything on fire.  A roof beam falls and kills Uncle Willie, the Prof and his daughter flee to their car with the tape recorder and the skull of the skeleton, and high-tail it for the nearest town.  Their car is attacked by these things, which damage their windshield and smash the car up pretty good but don't disable it.

Looking back now, I think one of the things that really appealed to me as an 8-year-old kid with an active imagination was that they refrain from clearly showing what the monsters are for a while, leaving my imagination to conjure up all sorts of horrors.  But that doesn't last long.  Pretty soon the gargoyles break into the Prof's motel room to get back the skull of their fellow, and, well, the shot just below is one of the few specific images I remembered from 40 years ago.  This guy slowly rises up and peaks over the foot of the Professor's bed.  Horror!

And a bunch of other stuff happens...you can watch it for yourself for the details.  Of course, the special effects of 1972 usually seem pretty comical to us now, but this movie won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup.  The gargoyles all have certain things in common:  leathery, reptilian skin, claws, and those creepy white eyes.  But other than that, there is a great variation in appearance.  Some have some hair on their bodies in various places, some have ridges or spikes on their backs and/or heads, they are different heights, some have bird-like beaks instead of mouths, some have horns, and a few have wings.  We learn from watching the movie that the ones with wings are "breeders," so apparently the non-winged ones are like sterile workers or something.

Here's a shot of the leader gargoyle walking around at the gas station.  You can see that he's a "winged breeder" and that he has some hair.  Another thing they did with the gargoyles was they filmed them in slight slow motion, which I think gave them a creepy, otherworldly appearance, as if they existed in a slightly different phase of time from humans.

Here's one of the workers with a bird-like beak like I mentioned.  This one is seen only in the egg cavern, rubbing eggs which are about to hatch.  The "rubbing" action on the eggs appears to encourage the hatchlings to break out, but that's just an assumption based on my imagination.

Here's a close-up of the leader gargoyle reading one of the Professor's books, which he stole from the Prof's motel room.  It's impossible to recognize him here, but you may know him better like this:

Or this:

Bernie Casey was a pro football player for the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams from 1961 to 1968, and appeared in his first movie role in Guns of the Magnificent Seven in 1969.  He's been in a buttload of movies since then, for example two of my favorites:  Revenge of the Nerds and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.  However, he doesn't do the voice of the leader gargoyle.  The voice is supplied by an uncredited actor named Vic Perrin.  Perrin did some acting earlier in his career, but most of what he did was voice acting, and anyone who watched superhero-themed cartoons during the 60s and 70s has heard his voice.  Here's one you should know well:  Vic Perrin was the voice of Dr. Zin from Jonny Quest.

Although I didn't get a screen shot of him, there's one other actor in this movie whose face I recognized right away, even though I didn't know his name:  Scott Glenn.  Another "that guy" character actor who is easily recognized by his squinty eyes, high cheekbones, and penchant for playing hardcases.  In this movie he plays a sort of outlaw dirt biker who turns good, and he was young enough to still have dark hair--later on, as he aged, his hair turned silver.

I usually have a pretty hard rule against movies being remade, because I think remakes are just Hollywood's way of admitting they are all creatively bankrupt, but I think this movie could stand a re-make.  It isn't long enough, and there isn't enough character development.  The only problem is, I'm sure it would be turned into some politically correct b.s. screed about intolerance and Islamophobia or some such.  Although the imdb entry says that the gargoyles "just want to be left alone," and this is suggested early in the movie, during the leader gargoyle's Villainous Summation near the end, he explicitly states that once all the eggs are hatched, he plans on wiping out humanity and replacing humans as the dominant race on Earth, so all that "just want to be left alone" stuff is pure nonsense.  I think they would have had a pretty hard time with wiping out humans anyway.  The gargoyles do have much greater strength than humans, but they can be killed just as easily as a human with conventional weapons such as shotguns and pistols.  Besides that, they reproduce only once every 600 years.

I guess I shouldn't say any more except that the movie does has a sort of open ending which could have led to a sequel.

It isn't nearly as scary now as it was when I was 8 years old, but I still enjoyed watching it.  I guess it was mostly nostalgia, so if you didn't see it as a kid, you might not enjoy it as much.

I guess I didn't close that lid securly last month

In an alley in the Inspiration Hills area.

Amanda Palmer - Ukulele Anthem

Updates

My wife finished--and passed--her course for becoming a Medical Aide today.  She still has to take the state certification exam on Tuesday before she's a real Med Aide.  I am quite relieved that she passed.  I had no doubt she knew everything she needed to, but when she was younger she would kind of freeze when taking tests and do badly because of it.  I think, with growing older, she has managed to grow out of that particular stress factor.

I am still making very slow but noticeable progress with the ukulele, and I'm happy to know that my musical ear hasn't gone bad.  I worked out two more songs today fairly quickly when I got home:  "Bird on a Wire" by Leonard Cohen and that old country song "Fraulein" by...somebody.  Who was it?  I don't know.  (Okay, Bobby Helms--I looked it up).  I don't know all the words to yet it but the music is just one of those three chord songs.  I want to be able to do it as a sort of family joke.*  Yesterday I worked out "Flowers on the Wall," too, which uses only four chords (I, IV, V and vi).  The Cohen song is also a four-chord song, but a little different in flavor:  I, ii, IV and V.  And this is probably going to sound weird, but I've been working on my own "cover" version:  a slowed-down, melancholic version of "Don't Stop Believing."  I think it sounds pretty good, but then I'm not an objective judge.

Right now I mainly focusing on changing smoothly from F to G and G to F, and also working on getting a smooth change into Em from pretty much everything.  There are a few chords that I don't know if I'll ever be able to play:  namely E and B♭.  Also B minor, which is almost the same finger positions as  B♭.  Until I can get a  B♭ down, I can't really play anything in the key of F, and of course not being able to do E makes it hard to play anything in A unless I can cheat by using an E7, which is pretty easy.  I need the B minor so I can play a vi chord in D.

I've already done a little research on tenor ukes.  I'm hoping I feel confident enough by the beginning of next year that I can justify buying one.  I've found a few that are supposed to be pretty good instruments for less than $200.  I think that, with the slightly larger size, some of the chords won't be quite so cramped.  The D chord especially I have trouble with just because of three fingers all squished together side by side, but I can still play it.

I think I'm going to go ahead and get some better strings pretty soon.

My next song project will be to see if there are any Stevie Nicks songs that I can play.  I'm thinking maybe "After the Glitter Fades" (from her Belladonna album) would fit the mold.  It has a very country-ish sound that would probably work with a lot of the other songs I'm trying to learn.  Trivia:  "After the Glitter Fades" was actually released on the country music charts.  I remember hearing it on KKYX several times way back when.  I thought it was kind of funny back then.  Yeah, I just looked it up and it's just a three-chord song.  I thought so.

*Okay, so here's the story.  My family has a tradition of holding summer reunions that started back in the 50s (several years before I was born).  In the olden days, and up until I was a young teenager, this involved camping.  As time went by we drifted more toward non-camping settings, but still someplace where we could all gather and have places to sleep on site for like 3 days and 2 nights.  We have also had the tradition of family members bringing musical instruments (usually that means guitars)** and having sing-alongs on those nights.  I guess it started with a great-uncle of mine who would open-tune his guitar and strum with it lying in his lap while chording it with the back of his pocket knife.  Later his son also brought his guitar (he played it in the traditional way), and a couple of my other cousins also played guitar well enough to get by in these little sing-along things.  Still later, when I was an older teenager, some other relative--I have no idea how I was related to him--brought his gear.  Now, this guy was I guess what you could call a semi-pro.  He didn't make a living playing music, but he did do paid gigs in country dance halls and so forth.  So, he actually had amplifiers and sang into a microphone.  By which I mean, he was loud, and his performance was hard to escape or ignore.  Myself and three of my cousins would get as far away from him as we could and play 42 late into the morning, but there was no getting out of earshot of him.  He wasn't bad--he was actually quite good--but the problem was, he kept playing "Fraulein" over and over.  I mean he would play it four or five times a night.  I guess he didn't have a very big repertoire.  We got so sick of hearing that d*** song and we took to calling him "The Fraulein Guy."  So I'm hoping to be able to bang it out at the next reunion just so I can see the looks on my cousins faces.  As years went by, the people who played guitar stopped coming to the reunions, or died, and nobody does it anymore.

**One year, an in-law of mine who plays sax brought his horn and a CD of backing music to play with, kind of like saxophone karaoke.  I sat there and listened to the whole thing and thoroughly enjoyed it, but he only did it that one time.

Good article at What If?

I really liked this post so I thought I'd share it.  (Albatross, you would probably be interested in this.)

Interplanetary Cessna at What If?

But I've never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive. The cold of Titan is just an engineering problem. With the right refitting, and the right heat sources, a Cessna 172 could fly on Titan—and so could we.

Yep.  I began reading the Greek myths at a very young age because our elementary library had some juvenile versions, and I think it was my second grade teacher who asked me about this.  I had asked her about the correct pronunciation of some of the names (DEE-da-lus?  DAY-da-lus?  EYE-ka-rus?  ICK-ah-rus?) and she asked me what I thought that story was teaching.  I told her, "That he should've used something better than wax to glue the feathers together."

Driveway chalk art

Pi*z*z*a

This interested me:  10 Totally Random Facts, part 2 at Today I Found Out.  Particularly, the one about calculating the volume of a pizza.

I think I related once before about a guy who called in to order a delivery back in the olden days when I worked at a pizza restaurant.  He asked me how much bigger a large was than a medium, so I told him a medium was 12 inches across and a large was 15 inches.  "Okay," he said, "but how much bigger is it?"  So I used the calculator we always had by the phones to add up prices with, and quickly calculated the different in area--I don't remember what it was now--and told him how much bigger the large was in square inches.  "So it's bigger?" He asked again.  "Yes," I told him, and he decided to order the large.  I wish I had remembered the formula for calculating the volume of a cylinder back then.  I could have really screwed with him:  "But if you order a large deep dish, it would be..."

That article is also interesting for the story of the Japanese soldier who kept fighting the war (WWII, that is) for 29 years after the war ended.  Just like that one guy on Gilligan's Island.

Very brief ukulele update

Still working on smooth transitions between chords, still have a ways to go.  But I can feel that the tips of my fretting fingers are toughening up.  I guess that's something.

A couple of Pat Benatar covers

As has already been made clear, I enjoy listening to cover versions of songs.  I'll often spend time on YouTube just finding as many different versions of some song as I can and listening to them all.  I also like listening to the Coverville podcast.  Last Thursday it was a Pat Benatar podcast in honor of her 60th birthday.  That's where I heard this jazzy version of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Isabel Rose that I really like.  That picture of her is terrible; her legs are obviously photoshopped, and badly.  She does lots of jazzy big-band covers of pop songs as well as more traditional jazz standards.  For example, you can find videos of her doing "Aquarius" which is kind of goofy but shows you lots of shots of her legs, and a live performance of her doing "I Need a New Drug" by Huey Lewis.  Anyway, I now prefer this one to Benatar's version.


And as long as I'm on the topic, Benatar's big hit "Shadows of the Night" was itself a cover. Here's the original.


So that was from 1980. Quite different from the Benatar cover, since Byron was a more Dylanesque singer-songwriter who punctuated his instrumental breaks with a harmonica. Benatar's 1982 version was actually an almost carbon-copy of a 1981 version by Rachel Sweet.


I think the big difference here is the record label. Pat Benatar was signed to a real label (Chrysalis), with a real budget, who could produce an album cover that made her look crazy-yet-sexy (an always killer combination), and who could produce a real video with actual actors in it (Judge Reinhold and Bill Paxton). Rachel Sweet's album cover (from Stiff Records, whoever they were), on the other hand, made her look like a homeless heroin junkie. Too bad. Google her or check Wikipedia to see much better photos of her (the mugshot isn't her, it's someone with the same name). Sweet's version of the song has a tenor sax solo for the instrumental break, instead of a guitar. She gets extra points for that in my book.

Trivia: Pat Benatar's "Shadows of the Night" was the second video to ever be played on MTV.

P.S.  This isn't meant to be a bash against Pat Benatar.  I still like her, and a few of her hits are on my big playlist.

X Minus 1

X Minus 1 was an old sci-fi radio show from the 1950s.  As I've said before, I like listening to old radio shows sometimes during my commute home in the afternoon, so I thought I'd give this one a try.  It's from the days of "vintage" sci-fi, of course, back when it was still safe for writers to speculate that Mars (or Venus) could be habitable by humans, and I still enjoy reading stories like that.  Anyway, so far I've listened to the first four plus the sixth one--the fifth one had a download problem and I've just re-downloaded it.  I've recognized two of the stories as chapters from The Martian Chronicles; the others were by authors I'd never heard of but were still good stories, and of course these are dramatized and not just a straight reading.  So if you're ever in the mood for such a thing, I recommend it.  Each one runs about 30 minutes.  Each show also includes information from the announcer on who acted in it and who wrote it.  It was produced by NBC, and the announcer is Don Pardo, although I must say that I did not recognize his voice just from having heard him on Saturday Night Live.

You can download a whole bunch of these shows at The Internet Archive, here.

I also found an old radio show version of The Foundation Trilogy, but I haven't listened to it yet.  It was a BBC Radio production, and the comments about it are, shall we say, "mixed."  But here's the link, if you're interested.

But definitely check out X Minus 1.

Another group to add to my list

I was looking up and listening to a bunch of different versions of "Scarborough Fair" the other day, and I came across this.  I like it.  The Gothard Sisters.

My Christmas-money gift

A ukulele.  I did some internet research on some uke discussion forums to find out what the best one would be that I could get for $100 or less, and the consensus was the Makala.  I got this one for $70, and it came with a gig bag and a pitch pipe, although I didn't really need the pitch pipe.  I read several recommendations to upgrade the strings on it, though, so I will probably do that eventually.

I've been practicing with it some every day, until my left hand gets tired and starts cramping, and I am happy to report that I can tell I am making progress with it, although I'm sure it will be a long time before I can claim to actually be able to play it.

Of course this is a soprano uke, the smallest one, but based on my progress with it so far, I can already foresee the day when I will be looking for a larger tenor uke.

Thanks to YouTube I've been able to find lots of great video lessons to watch and get some actual instruction with it.  I've also been busily hunting down the chords of songs that I want to build into my repertoire someday.  I already have the ability and quite a bit of experience from my past musical experience/education in figuring out chords by ear, so I've had to tweak a couple of them to get them to sound right, but still it's a lot easier when someone else has already done most of the work.  A couple of them I've had to completely transpose because they were pitched too far wrong for my voice, but that's no big deal, either.  Here's a list of songs I've hunted down and begun playing around with so far.

All My Tears (I'm most familiar with the Emmylou Harris version, but she didn't write it)
Blitzkrieg Bop (there is actually a ukulele tab for this available on the internet)
Boat on the River (an old Styx song from Cornerstone written by Tommy Shaw)
Cool Water (the old cowboy song most famously recorded by Sons of the Pioneers)
I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew (Tom T. Hall)
Orphan Girl (same as All My Tears)
Scarborough Fair (but more the traditional version than the famous Simon & Garfunkel version)
Streets of Laredo (another old cowboy song; I'm most familiar with the Don Edwards version)
That's How I Got to Memphis (Tom T. Hall)
Watermelon Wine (Tom T. Hall)
Whoopi Ti Yi Yo (same as Streets of Laredo)
Angel Band (an old folk/gospel song that has been covered by numerous bluegrass and country artists)
Good Ole Boys Like Me (Don Williams)
Rank Stranger (same as Angel Band)
Downbound Train (Springsteen)
The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore (Jean Ritchie, but covered by numerous country/folk artists)
Angel from Montgomery (John Prine, but also covered by Bonnie Raitt)
Hallelujah (by Leonard Cohen but covered by others, notably John Cale for the movie Shrek)

I've also been practicing 12-bar blues in A and 8-bar blues in C that I learned from a couple of videos.

So far, it has been a lot of work but also a lot of fun.  I hope someday to be able to claim that I can really play it.

Very metal

A couple of funny things

I just started watching a BBC4 show called The IT Crowd via Netflix streaming.  It's from the creators of Father Ted and Black Books.  I've seen both of those series also, and The IT Crowd is most definitely the funniest of the three.  It's about two socially awkward IT techs who work in the basement of a large corporation and their supervisor who managed to bluff her way into her position in spite of knowing nothing about information technology.  So it's sort of an office-humor kind of show, but it's also about the two tech nerds trying to interface with normal society.  One of the nerds was formerly on Garth Marengi's Darkplace, which I blogged about a few years ago when it was airing on Cartoon Network's adult swim block.  It just constantly cracks me up, and I highly recommend it.

The other thing was my daughter's joke the other day.  She likes puns.  I mean, she really likes them.  I don't hate puns, in fact, I enjoy them.  The only thing I don't like about them is that I rarely can come up with an original one myself.  So we were coming home, myself, my daughter and my son, when she began laughing and telling this joke.  She progressively laughed harder and harder so that she was barely able to finish it.  She said, "Why was...(gasp)...six...(choke)...afraid of...(laugh, gasp)...seven?"

My son and I both thought we'd heard this lame pun before, and he quickly answered, "Because seven eight nine."

My daughter, still laughing so hard she could hardly talk, said, "No...because...(gasp)...seven was...a...registered....six offender!"  And then she collapsed helplessly in a paroxysm of uncontrollable mirth.

It still makes me laugh, remembering it.  Not because it was especially funny, but because she was laughing so hard.  Thank goodness they both have a decent sense of humor.

Say it ain't so, Bob

Weekend/year-end update

Well, we didn't have any year-end celebrations here, although my son did pop some firecrackers with a friend down the road.  I, as usual, simply went to sleep.

Our Christmas was good this year, as it usually is.  I got my son the Lego set of "The Unexpected Party," which is basically just Bilbo's house.  I was pleased that when we were in Wal-Mart just before the big day, he saw it on the shelf and gave me a puppy-dog-eyes look.  By that time I had already bought it so I knew his day would be a good one.  He also got a couple of new Wii games.

My daughter picked out several room decor type items as a flea market several days before Christmas, and said that she didn't want anything else.  She got something else anyway--primarily, she got her ears pierced and a few pairs of earrings.

When my wife asked me what I wanted, I just said, how about a coffee grinder.  For some time now I've been wanting to try grinding my own coffee and becoming a coffee snob.  Later she told me that she had already gotten one for me before I even asked.

My wife's main gift was an electric pressure cooker.  She prefers practical gifts.

From parents and in-laws I received that most basic of gifts:  cold hard cash.  I was told by one of them that I had to spend it on something I wouldn't have bought for myself otherwise, so I did.  I ordered it last week and expect it to arrive this Friday.  I won't say what it is right now, but it will require that I spend less time at the computer and engage in something more productive.  If I make any decent progress with it, I'll talk about it again some other time.

We watched a couple of classic 80s movies recently.  My son had been bugging me that he wanted to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  I don't know where/how he heard of it, but I got the DVD from Netflix and he enjoyed it.  Then we watched another one that I consider a great--or at least, good--forgotten movie of the 80s:  My Science Project.  I think it was a lesser-known movie because it came out about the same time as Weird Science, which was more famous and sort of eclipsed it.  I remember discussing this back in the mid-80s with some friends and co-workers, and we all thought it was better than Weird Science.  Or we liked it more, anyway.  It didn't have any brat-packers in it, mostly it was little-known actors who became character actors later on, plus some people who were already "that guy"* character actors at the time (like Barry Corbin).  Also it had Dennis Hopper as the wacky science teacher.  My son's verdict was that he liked it, so that's all I need to know.

I was disappointed today when I found that Farscape had been removed from Netflix's streaming service, although the DVDs can still be rented.  I was right in the middle of watching it.  That was a show that I had watched back when it was on Sci-Fi, but I hadn't seen every episode.  I wish Netflix would say when a show is going to be removed ahead of time.  I've been cut off right in the middle of several different series' and it's always a bummer.  Such as Sanctuary, Dexter, Full Metal Panic, Third Rock from the Sun, News Radio, and that Conan series from the 90s.  To this day, every time I see Danny Woodburn, I exclaim, "Otli!"




*One of those people who, when you see him, you say, "oh, that guy."

Evidence that you shouldn't get music recommendations from sound therpists

Study Determines This Is the Most Relaxing Song* Ever

Because music is an art, not a science, and perception of it is entirely subjective.

There are five pieces here that I would consider "relaxing":  1, 2, 3, 4 and 10.  The Coldplay song is nice, mellow pop but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "relaxing."  I like the All Saints song but it is far too peppy to be anywhere close to "relaxing."  As for Barcelona and Adele?  They're crazy.  These songs are too emotionally fraught to be able to relax anyone, although I suppose the Adele song might relax a creepy stalker.  And finally, whoever put that Mozart piece on there must be utterly insane.  That thing sounds like someone scratching their fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

The most sleep-inducing album I have personally owned was The Caution Horses by Cowboy Junkies.  That's not a slam against it, because I think it's a good album.  I just never could listen to the whole thing without nodding off.  But then I also used to go to sleep listening to Deep Purple, so what do I know.

I probably have a couple hundred pieces--at least--on my hard drive that could blow most of this list out of the water.  Here's one that immediately came to mind.  I've had this piece on my "chill" playlist for years, and before that on a homemade mixtape that I often played late at night to relax after coming home from working in that pizza restaurant.**


*Wrong word.  In order to be a song, it must have words.  Many of these are instrumentals.

**A couple of weeks ago, I dreamed yet again that I was back working there.  Brer will know what I mean.

A Christmas song a day

Every day since December 1, I've been posting one per day on Facebook of what I call non-traditional pop Christmas songs.  Why?  Well, I don't play any of those stupid FB games, I don't follow astrology, and I don't do any of the other dumb things most FBers do  (sometimes I think Facebook is the last refuge for people who were too stupid to make it at AOL).

Anyway that makes 21 songs so far, and of course there are still a few days left before the season officially ends, so I'll update this later.  I'm not going to embed all these songs here because posts with several videos really bog down my old computer, but here are the links and you can click over if you're interested.

A few of these songs are taken from traditional Christmas songs, but they are significantly different from the usual boring, rote regurgitations of these songs.  So here they are in the order I posted them.  All YouTube links except where noted.

Over The Rhine - All I Ever Get for Christmas is Blue

Rosie Thomas - Christmas Don't Be Late

Joni Mitchell - River

Torero Band - Silent Night

The Pretenders - 2000 Miles  (NOTE:  the original link I used is giving me a "blocked in your country" notice now for some reason, but it was here)

Wayfarer - The Holly & The Ivy

Vince Guaraldi Trio - O Christmas Tree

Twisted Sister - I'll Be Home for Christmas

Cocteau Twins - Frosty the Snowman

Ronnie Fauss - Everybody Deserves a Merry Christmas (soundcloud link)

Ralph Stanley - I'm Going Home, It's Christmas Time

Bunch Of Believers - Room in Your Heart

The Pogues (feat. Kirsty MacColl) - Fairytale of New York

Dustin Kensrue - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Dr. Doofenshmirtz (Phineas & Ferb) - I Really Don't Hate Christmas

Caravan Of Thieves - I Don't Want Anything for Christmas

Rachel Platten - You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Heaven & Hell (Ronnie James Dio) - God Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen

Brave Combo - Must Be Santa

Meiko - Maybe Next Year

Matt Wertz - Snow Globe

Bob Walkenhorst - Christmas in Nashville

Hayes Carll - Grateful for Christmas

Dan Fogelberg - Same Auld Lang Syne

Robert Earl Keen - Merry Christmas from the Family

Kate Miller-Heidke - The Day After Christmas

So there they are.

Long file name problem with Amazon.com mp3 downloads

This is one of those rare posts in which I am relating some information that may be helpful because it caused me such a headache.

Recently I have downloaded some of Amazon.com's free mp3 albums that caused problems because either the directory or some of the filenames were too long for WinXP.  I was unable to play them, modify them, or even delete them.

The first was a London Symphony Orchestra version of Tommy (the rock opera by The Who).  This one is no longer available as an mp3 download--it was deleted almost as soon as I had finished downloading it--but you can see which album I'm talking about from this CD link.  In this case, the directory name was too long as written by Amazon Downloader and I couldn't open it, rename it, or delete it.  It appeared to delete, but actually it was only moved to the recycle bin and could not be permanently deleted from it.  Eventually I discovered that I could move it to my root directory and from there was able to permanently delete it.  I came across this solution by sifting through several Google hits on the topic.  Of course this means that this particular album is now lost to me, but hey, at least it was free.

Today I had two more problems with A Collection of the Most Relaxing Classical Music in the Universe and Beethoven Big Box.

Apparently someone at Amazon thinks the full information for all these various movements should create the filename, and often this is too much.  There were three tracks with filenames that were too long for Windows in the "Relaxing" collection.  I was able to fix these by opening the command prompt, viewing the 8.3 filenames by using the "dir /x" command and then copy them to a shorter filename with the old "copy" command.  From there I went back to Windows and renamed them to something descriptive enough but also short enough.  Of course, the full tagging information remained intact.

But when I tried this solution with the four tracks that had too-long filenames in the Beethoven collection, it crashed the command window and failed to copy the files.  So, after much more Googling, I came across this little (free) tool right here:  cutlongnames.  This tool truncated the names so that I could use the files.  So there you go. The only extra information I would add is that cutlongnames is not default-configured for mp3s, so you need to add the extension "*.mp3" to the configuration, and don't forget that the extensions on the list are separated by a semicolon.

I hope this helps someone eventually.  And you're welcome!

Julian Koster - Jingle Bells

Here is one that I did not post on FB. I present it as a special gift to you, my loyal readers. Enjoy.

It's not the Mayan Apocalypse

But it is my 9th blogiversary.  It's also Yule.  And so to celebrate, here's Fferyllt with "Yule."


That woman's voice still makes chills run up my spine, and I mean that in a good way.  Here is an English translation of the lyrics that I found at Spirit of Metal.

Strong oars crash to the waves,
Northern wind carries the ships,
Toward their home row grey-haired warriors,
Leaving strange lands far behind.

Grasping flock of ravens were circling
Under coverlet of night clouds,
Sleeping shore was covered, like with black wing,
With the shadows of the horrifying dragonheads.

Like a whirlwind we rode under crimson moon,
We didn't count slain enemies.
By our force we have taken the riches and glory
Of turned into dust strange shores!

In scabbards rests now icy steel,
Sky has changed its crimson color.
Passed out of sight flocks of black ravens,
The holds are crammed with wines and coins.

Winter sun shines through the clouds,
Throws its ray on snow-covered fjord,
Icy strong wind rips the sails
It brings our drakkars to the homeward shore.

Bound up wives with sons will meet us,
Troll will hide in mountain ravine,
With tongues of winter piles, reaching out to the sky,
The fest of Yule begins now!

Again fill be filled our bowls,
Foreign wines flow, like a river.
Drunkenness again will overcome our heads.
Gloomy singer, sing your song for us!

And through the centuries Scald's strings will sing
Songs of our bold victories.
But the Gods carve again the Runes of War for us,
Their Spirit in us will never cease!

Again the sunset is colored with crimson blood,
Again we will leave our home for long.
The world will be shaken with our power,
Again we go to march for glory!

And a horde of faceless cultists

I know I've posted a photo of this thing before, but I just had to say that every time I walk by here, Geronimo looks a little more perplexed, and Hecate looks a little more Gorgo Mormo-ish.

This was interesting to me

12 Letters That Didn't Make the Alphabet.

When I was a kid in school and had to take extensive lecture notes from one of the worst teachers I ever had--our 7th grade Texas history teacher--I made up right out of my head symbols pretty much identical to "that" and "eng" so I could (in theory) write notes faster.

I also used a numeral "2" with a slash through it for "to" or "too."

He wasn't one of the worst teachers I ever had just because I had to take lecture notes all year long.  He was one of the worst because he was ignorant and knew nothing about Texas history--getting all his information from some book he had taken from the high school library.  The first time I corrected one of his mistakes, he gave me extra points.  The second time he only grunted acknowledgement.  The third time he told me, "Shut up, Peschke."  After that I never spoke to him again.

Twice in one day

When I came across the first of these today, I made a screen cap of it and then thought, "is it really worth bothering to make a blog post about this?"  But before I got around to deleting the file, it happened again.  The first is from the Noisetrade website about an artist whose Christmas album I just downloaded.  Quite nice, too.

The second one, below, is from a humorous article at Mental Floss about outdated references in Golden Girls.

Now, we may discount these as mere typographical errors.  However, I have upon numerous occasions heard this same error spoken.  I have no idea if the caterer character actually said that or if it was an error on the part of the Mental Floss writer, but please, is it really so hard to understand the difference between "climatic" and "climactic?"

An almost-close call today

Today I was working that cycle 11 route which I have probably mentioned before as the worst foot route I have ever done, and which is my regular 11 so I do it almost every month (in the area of Harry Wurzbach and Rittiman).  Right now it isn't quite so bad, because we haven't had much rain in a while and it's the right time of year for all the overgrowth to be dying off anyway.  Plus, the cool weather today made it not too bad at all.  Oh yeah, I should mention this is an almost all-alley route.

I've seen all the many backyard dogs on this route many times, and know ahead of time where the really bad dogs are.  I got to one yard which holds two dogs:  an older one of undetermined breed which simply walks around quietly and watches me, and the other an extremely active and outgoing young boxer.

I've encountered hundreds of dogs and have developed the talent of being able to read a dog's hostility potential almost immediately, but sometimes I have found boxers are hard to read.  I have also noticed that many boxers do not bark until they are right on top of you.  I make it an iron-clad rule never to reach through or over a fence to pet any dog, because no matter how friendly a dog seems, it's just not worth the risk.  One wrong move and I could end up spending all day waiting to see a doctor at the company clinic, possibly being put on light duty until the injury heals, and maybe even having to suffer through rabies shots.

So I got to this one yard, and as usual, the boxer greeted me by jumping and running around, but he never barked. I said a few things to him, the usual things you might say to a friendly-seeming dog, but of course I did not reach over the fence to pet him.

I went on my way, and two or three houses farther along, I came to a new meter that had not yet been "reset" in the system, which means my handheld still had the information for the old meter in it.  When this happens, I have to reset it myself, which means I have to get the new meter's serial number and enter it.  So I had to kneel down and brush some dirt off to get a good look and make sure I was reading the serial number correctly.  It was when I was down on my knees trying to read the meter number that I suddenly felt two soft things shove into my back.

So in the space of about 1/100 of a second, I thought:  ohcrapsomeoneisbehindmewaitthosearen'thandshthey'repawsohf***thisiswherei'mgoingtodie!!!!!


And then I spun around to see this:

not the actual dog in question, but very similar

The friendly boxer from two houses back had jumped the fence and run up behind me, demanding attention.  He never barked the whole time.

So for the next several seconds I was a confused confusion of feeling relief, still shaking from the adrenaline surge, and trying to fend off a dog who was trying to lick me to death.

He followed me around for about 20 minutes.  There is a part of this route where there's a string of about 20 meters that are in front yards, and in that stretch there's this one little rat-dog always running loose that tries to nip my ankles.  Today, he just stayed in his own front yard because the boxer stood in the street staring at him.  I guess the rat-dog wasn't going to take any chances on braving a dog that technically could have snapped him in two with one bite.  So that was a plus.  Eventually the boxer got bored with following me around and I guess he went back home.

I greatly prefer dogs that bark.  That way I can tell where they are.  But if a dog isn't going to bark, I would rather it be like this boxer.

"The Shadow Out of Time" short video

A low-tech and I think sometimes unintentionally humorous but still good short video of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time."

Every time I saw one of those flying polyps jetting around it just cracked me up.  Watch and maybe you'll see what I saw.

Broodhollow

Just discovered this relatively new webcomic called Broodhollow.  A comic of "cosmic horror" with some bleak humor.  It's new enough that you can start at the beginning and catch up in just a few minutes.  So far there is nothing overtly Lovecraftian about it (which is a plus, in my opinion), but I can see the influences are there.  I just added it to my newsreader subscriptions.  So check it out if it sounds interesting to you.

Christmas songs from childhood

This is probably something that most people won't want to listen to, but I'm going to talk about it anyway.


This is a song I selected more or less at random.  It's from an album called Santa Claus is Coming to Town by a cheesy-sounding group called The Caroleers.  When I was a kid, someone gave this to us kids (my two sisters and I).  I don't remember it being a gift specific to any one of us.  I will conjecture that it came from one of our aunts or uncles.  Back then, we would all gather at my paternal grandparents' house for an early Christmas celebration; usually the Saturday before the actual holiday or sometime thereabouts.  So that first year we got it, we listened to the **** out of it in the days until Christmas actually arrived.

The next year, we did it again, except this time we had even more time to listen to it, beginning with the start of school break.

The next year, we did it again.

Etc., etc.

It must have driven my grandmother crazy.  (My maternal grandmother was our baby-sitter back then).

One strange thing is that I don't remember this being on an LP.  The thing given to us was a boxed set of 7-inch records, although I don't think they were singles.  I think they had two songs per side.  Now, I had gone looking for this stuff in the past.  The problem was, I couldn't remember who the group was, but I could remember the names of two songs:  "Who's That Up On the Roof?" and "Icicles, Holly, Red Berries and Snow."  The latter of those was my favorite from the whole collection, possibly because we never had any of those things at Christmastime or any other time--unless you counted unripened wild dew berries in the summer time.  The former of those two is a song that, I think, could absolutely drive some people nuts if they heard too much--one time probably being too much for some.  I remember being annoyed by it when I was a kid, but now I like it.  Although, I still acknowledge its potential for being incredibly annoying.

Well, this year I went looking for it again and this time discovered that the whole album has uploaded to YouTube by more than one person.  Furthermore, on December 1 of last year it was released as an mp3 download at Amazon.

I was listening to a podcast recently about memory, and one of the researchers they spoke with told how the more often you remember something, the less accurate your memory becomes, and you remember things more accurately if you recall it less.  This seems right to me, because I had remembered the "Icicles" song as being much slower and more atmospheric.  When I was a kid, and even later growing up, I would often replay this song in my head from memory as I was falling asleep during the Christmas season.  To digress a little:  I don't know how many people do this, or even how many can do it.  But I've always had a very good musical memory and often use it to help myself fall asleep by replaying a soothing piece of music in my mind to help me relax.*

Anyhow, on the off chance that this music was also a part of your childhood at Christmastime, you can listen to the whole thing on YouTube.  Here's a playlist.  And yes, I've already listened to the whole thing.  More than once.


*There was another song that I often put myself to sleep with by mentally "listening" to it.  It was a song about rain, and was something they played on Captain Kangaroo with a video showing various rainy scenes.  I'm still looking for it.  The only words I still remember went something like, "It's raining/Morning to night it's the same thing/Falling on my window pane."

If you're familiar with Laurence Sterne

You might get a kick out of this comic.

This Dilbert strip

Right here.  I once worked for a company that actually did that thing about the screen savers.  That was the same place where one of my managers eventually committed suicide.

So awesomely bad I must share

Just go here and read.

A question

Now that I think we can safely say it's the beginning of the Christmas season, I will probably begin watching all the different versions of A Christmas Carol that I can get my hands on.  So that leads me to a question for all my legions of readers.

What actor would you like to see portray Ebenezer Scrooge, who hasn't yet done so?  Male or female, because I don't personally have a problem with revisions starring a woman as Scrooge's character (as long as it isn't Whoopi Goldberg).

I'll wait to see if I get any comments, and then tell you who I'd like to see.

Obligatory Thanksgiving post (also one more)

Well, actually I don't think I usually do an obligatory Thanksgiving post, but here goes.  I'm thankful that I'm not living alone on Thanksgiving as well as all the other days of the year.  The way my life was going 20+ years ago, I foresaw becoming what in the olden days was called a "confirmed bachelor" and God only knows what my life would be like now if that had happened.  This is something I think about and am thankful for every day.

I'm thankful that I have a job that I don't absolutely hate on most days.  I ran into a few people this week who remarked that I had a great job, so it gave me the opportunity to consider it afresh.  One guy even said, "Man...you got it made...walking around, listening to your tunes..."  I had my phone in my pocket playing some music at the time.  Yeah, I thought, some days are like that:  I actually get paid to walk around listening to music.  Of course, some days are not like that, but on the whole, it's pretty good.  I'm also thankful that I get two paid days off for this holiday (also, two paid days for Christmas and two paid days for New Year).  I guess I'm also thankful that I get so much time off I can sell a little of it back to the company and get a little bonus at the end of the year.

I pecan-smoked a small--3 pound--turkey breast today, but unfortunately the bottom of the fire box on my smoker has rusted out so I couldn't control the heat as is my usual wont.  I'm going to have to figure out some way to repair my smoker.  Anyway, the turkey turned out great--my son gave it his "awesome" rating, so it was okay.  So my family sat around snacking on turkey and other food items all day while watching stuff on Netflix (did I say I'm thankful for Netflix?).

I've been re-watching The X-Files.  It has been so long since I've seen any of these that I've pretty much forgotten them.  Also, I had stopped watching it back in the old days, and I've never seen either movie or any of the shows after Mulder got replaced by the Terminator guy.  I was kind of bummed recently that Netflix lost streaming rights for Full Metal Panic, an anime series that I was right in the middle of.  My wife has been blazing through Burn Notice and In Plain Sight.

I'm thankful for YouTube.  Thanks to YouTube, I have been able to listen to playlists of albums by groups that I would never be able to hear otherwise, because I just can't afford to buy all those albums.  My musical tastes and experiences have been broadening dramatically since I got high-speed internet (which I'm also thankful for).

I should also thank you to Amazon, because today I got an electronic gift card in my email for $10.41.  So I redeemed it right away.


Rattlin' Bones is from  2008, and was the first of Kasey Chambers' duet albums with her husband Shane Nicholson.  Amazon's genre tag calls it "country," and I guess that's okay, I'm not going to change it anyway, but I would call it Americana.  So...thanks, Amazon!

Two more

Okay, so I got excited and decided to get a couple more that have been on my list for a long time.  Too long, really.  I first read about The Quebe Sisters Band in our monthly GVEC newsletter.  GVEC is my electricity--and more recently, internet--provider.  They publish a monthly newsletter on various topics, many of which have nothing to do with electrical or internet service.  A couple of years ago they had an article on the Quebe sisters.  I immediately tried to find their stuff, but it was pretty much unavailable except for a couple of used CDs that were listed at Amazon and which were pretty expensive; a logical thing to me since they were obscure and at the time their CDs were basically being printed on their own dime and were rare and hard to come by.

So time went by, and I kept checking.

Amazon now has both of their albums (so far) on either CD or mp3 download.  The band centers on three home-schooled sisters from Texas who, at the ages of 12, 10 and 7 heard some fiddling at a fiddle contest in Denton, Texas and decided to start taking fiddle lessons.  So their band features them on fiddles, with various other members and instruments backing them up, singing with sweet three-part harmonies.  So far they have mostly stuck with the western swing style of music, but they could easily branch off into more traditional country or even bluegrass without any problem.  Think Sons of the Pioneers but with women, with an occasional nod toward other things, like a western swing version of the jazz standard "Take the 'A' Train."  It was 14 years ago that they got the fiddle bug, so they are now all in their twenties.  Click the link above to see pictures of them and read all about them.  By the way, their last name is pronounced KWAY-bee.



The Lovell Sisters were another Americana band.  I got one of their tracks from this album as a free promotional download from Amazon some time ago.  I've been meaning to buy the album ever since.  Another band with three-part harmonies that leans toward folk/country/bluegrass.  They released only three albums as a trio.  Two of them have since continued on in a group called Larkin Poe.

So...that will have to hold me for a while, probably.

A couple of new albums

This one isn't quite good enough for Least Helpful, but it's close.

So today I sort of got a small bonus at work--not really a bonus--but anyway what I did was sell some unused personal time back to the company so I got a check for 16 hours.  A while back I reached my 5-year mark and as part of the reward for that I got a Visa gift card for $25.  So I figured I could afford to splurge on a couple of mp3 albums.


I have mentioned Kasey Chambers before as someone who I really like and will put everything I download by her on my big playlist with no hesitation.  Storybook is one of two albums she has released this year, in September.  The whole point of the album is that it consists entirely of cover versions by artists who influenced her.  Yeah, I thought it was worth italicizing that whole sentence.  If anyone wants to hear her original work, she has several other albums that are full of such songs.  P.S.  The mp3 version is $9.49.

I've also said before that I used to buy albums blind (or deaf), meaning that I just bought them because I thought they looked interesting.  I don't do that anymore, pretty much.  I mean, thanks to the internet, it's easy to research an album beforehand and get a very good idea of what you're getting into.  Also, pretty much everything Amazon sells has preview clips for every song.  So, I don't really understand how anyone could seriously make the above complaint.

Anyway, this is one of the albums I bought.  Covers ranging from Hank Williams to Cyndi Lauper.


The other one I got is Wreck and Ruin (mp3 version is $9.49), a duet album by Kasey Chambers and her husband Shane Nicholson.  Her second album release this year, from October.  Whereas Storybook tends to wander across the map from country to pop, Wreck and Ruin is more typical of her modern country/folk/Americana sound, that is, country music that will be played on stations that bill themselves as "Americana" but not on any common commercial country stations--at least none of any such stations in this area.

I might also mention that my daughter, who is a Swiftie, also wants all my Kasey Chambers songs to put on her iPod.  So thanks for helping me bridge the generation gap, Kasey!

I still need another 5 albums or so to get her full collection.

And what about that prison escapee in the turkey suit?

From the folks who brought us "Friday" and "My Jeans."


"We, we, we are gonna have a good time with the turkey..." WTF is she doing with that turkey leg?!

At least this kid can sing without auto-tune.  But still, beware of clicking the play button.  You will probably regret it.

UPDATE:  A ha!  Well...that explains it.

5 Music Videos that Justify the Existence of the Internet.  That first one about Die Hard might, in fact, do it all by itself.

Hot Wells Resort

Today I had a route that I do occasionally, and which I really hate because it's so hard, in the area of Hot Wells Blvd. and S. Presa.  At one point I came out on S. Presa and walked up the east side of the street, from which I could view the old Hot Wells Resort.  Here's a postcard of the resort in its heyday.  It's undated, but I think we can safely assume early 1900s.

My great-aunt (one of my grandmother's sisters) was still working as a caretaker at this place when I was a little kid, and I went there with my mother to visit her a couple of times before she passed away when I was 5 or 6 years old.

This photo was taken in 2000, and it's still accurate except for the people who now live there in a large Airstream camper which is parked off to the right.  When I was a kid and my aunt worked there, one of those wings had already been closed down--I don't know which one, except that it was also the one that was allegedly haunted, but as you can see, since that time in the late 60s there is no part of it that is now habitable.

I don't really have a point to make, just relaying some brief personal family history.  I will say that I wish I could get a close-up look at the ruins and take some photos.

The cross-eyed bear that you gave to me

A mondegreen supercut.

Gravity Falls

Gravity Falls animated gif series.

Just thought I'd take a moment to recommend this show.  It's on the Disney channel, which would usually mean it's full of stupid, but...

I don't how it happened, but this is a great show.  It's full of in-jokes for people who are fans of strange phenomena, and more in-jokes for adults who remember things from 30 years ago or so.  I don't know how a show like this ever ended up being aired on Disney, but man it's good.  I just love it.

It's about twins brother and sister named Dipper and Mabel who are spending time with their great uncle Stan, who they call Gruncle Stan.  Stan is a scheming, avaricious man who runs a tourist trap in a weird little forest town named Gravity Falls, nearby where lives Bigfoot, the lake has a lake monster, and every other weird thing you've ever heard of happens at one time or another, plus a few things you haven't heard of yet.  And the twins' arch-enemy is another kid who is a faith healer.     There's even a tome of hidden knowledge that plays a big part in the show.  Give it a watch sometime if you have a basic cable package.

A photo of downtown San Antonio

My wife, who is a CNA (certified nurse assistant), recently was awarded CNA of the Year for District 3 (whatever District 3 is, we're in it).  They put her up in a room on the 17th floor of the Grand Hyatt and had a big to-do for all the award presentations.  She took this photo from her window, and I thought it was pretty cool, so here it is.

A tiny cemetery

I found this article interesting:  The Smallest Graveyard in Manhattan (via Mental Floss).  I don't know if it would be appropriate to say I'm a "fan" of cemeteries, but I do find them interesting--perhaps even engrossing--and I really like taking photos of them.  This article also reminds me of a cemetery I just recently noticed.

From the first month that I was hired at my current job (more than 5 years ago now), I was put on the Dominion route.  Although I have been down this particular street many times since then, it was only a few months ago that I suddenly noticed there is a small family cemetery in the Dominion.  I have always wanted to get a closer look at it, and perhaps take some photos, but since I'm on the job every time I'm there I've always been reluctant to stop for long.  It's for the Toepperwein family; a name you've probably heard if you live in San Antonio.  There's some information about it here.

Samurai 7

I just thought I'd throw in a few thoughts about this show, since I haven't said much lately and don't have much else to say.  Cartoon Network started airing this several weeks ago during their Saturday night anime block.  I watched the first episode, then looked it up on Netflix and found that I had already added it to my streaming queue some time ago when I was browsing through the anime stuff, so I quit watching it on CN and just watched the whole series through on Netflix.

Samurai 7 is another take on the Seven Samurai story.  I must admit here that I've never seen the original movie.  I did record it a long time ago so I could watch it at any time, but the 3 3/4 hour length throws me.  There's no way I could sit through any movie that long all at once.  I still want to see it, but I'll have to go it in three or four shots.

Anyway, if you've at least seen The Magnificent Seven, then you know the basic plot.  A village of rice farmers are constantly getting robbed of their rice by bandits, so the villagers decide to send a team of their people out to try and hire some samurai to protect them--and the only thing they can pay the samurai with is all the rice they can eat.  They eventually find a team of seven samurai who are willing to take the job, mostly because they're just nice guys (except for one of them, possibly).  Like I said, I haven't seen the original movie, but the thing that sets this apart from The Magnificent Seven is that after the initial conflict of the samurai protecting the village, there begins a sort of cultural spill-over that eventually effects the entire country.

One thing that I like about it is that the samurai don't do all the fighting.  They spend a great deal of their preparation time teaching the villagers to fight--and that makes all the difference.  Also, the giant ballistae that the little steampunk-looking guy (far left) builds are just awesome.

And since this is anime, there are some twists.  The overall setting is that of feudal Japan, but there are science fiction elements (very advanced technology) and even some medium-level steampunkish elements all mixed in.  The series runs 26 episodes, but there is plenty of political intrigue and backstabbery throughout.

The sci-fi elements run toward mecha (giant "robot" fighting machines which are piloted by a human operator), but fortunately the mecha elements don't take over the story--if they had, I wouldn't have watched it.  Other "advanced" technology deals with a floating city which apparently runs on DC power (giant power cells), cloning, and various bits & pieces dealing with combat which are left over from a huge war that happened in their recent history.  The war is, by the way, briefly explained a couple of times so you can sort of understand how things got to be the way they are.

For example, the big red guy in the center of the graphic up there is a mechanized man.  He was someone who didn't have formal samurai training, but wanted to be able to fight effectively, so he had himself turned into this big mechanical thing.  How this was done is never explained, but apparently there is still a core of a human body inside this suit, because he still has to eat, but he has greatly enhanced strength over a normal human (see the sword he carries).  During times of extreme effort he'll blow a cloud of exhaust out of a pipe on the right side of his "helmet" (or head, I don't know).

The leader of the group (second from right above, in white) is an anti-hero worthy of a spaghetti western.  The others are a mixture of experienced and non-experienced samurai (and one samurai wanna-be--the young guy on the far right).  The blonde-haired guy wearing red is a sort of enigma who may be a good guy or may be something else.

I don't want to say anything else, lest I spoil it, but I will say that there are some heart-breaking deaths before the end.

So...the final word:  I think this is a good show.  I gave it four stars on Netflix--as a base of reference I gave Trigun and Bleach five stars.  A good story, and worth watching if you can.  You might be able to stream it from the Funimation website.

Here's the opening theme, because why not?  Actually the second opening.  There are two, but the first one was used for only the first few episodes, and this is a "clean" version (no credits to clutter it up).  They both use the same music.

I don't get it

Why would these be "inappropriate?"  Especially the grown-up Wednesday Addams model.  Yow!

(Most likely NSFW).

A couple of vintage book covers

Found these at My Ear-Trupet Has Been Struck By Lightning.

"I will just add that the people who bought this book based on its cover were among the most cruelly disappointed people in history."

Heh...no kidding.  If you saw the covers of the versions of these books that I own, you would be hard-pressed to believe they were the same books.

I might have to re-read that first one again.  I don't remember anything about a sarcastic beaver.

Shaun of the Dead

Just wanted to say that I finally got around to getting this DVD from Netflix.  I guess I was expecting it to be a lot funnier because so many thousands of people kept telling me how frikkin' hilarious it is.  It was funny enough and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't nearly what I expected.  As far as I'm concerned, Zombieland was much better.

Meeting follow-up

I think I acquitted myself well at the meeting today.  The only point I made that ran up against opposition was the one about showing us the customer name.  The main objection was, "but it's too haaaaarrrrdddd."  I found that some of my suggestions had already been addressed by the higher-ups.

The manager who was running the meeting started talking about how GPS should be incorporated into the new units, and for a few minutes he and I went off on a tangent talking about the potentials of using GPS in such a device.  Everyone else was stone silent; I don't think anyone else had ever used a GPS device and no one understood what we were talking about.

If you're a customer, you might be wondering if this is worth the money.  I guess that's up to you to decide, but...the old units are old and are having problems:  primary batteries that won't keep a charge, a back-up system that doesn't work on many of the units, and a contract with a company that can takes weeks to make a simple repair like replacing a broken screen.  Also, the recent addition of the other water company has introduced further logistical problems because they use a different make of handheld.  They want to get everyone on the same unit.  Also, any new contract will include a 3-year commitment to replacing worn-out batteries and broken screens for free.

If you're wondering why screens get broken, you should try doing this job and see how long you can go before you trip over a hidden obstacle and fall down.*  I've never broken the screen on mine, but one look at all the scratches on it would tell you that I've fallen down and dropped it many times.



*I think the worst offender is the "retracting" sprinkler head that no longer retracts.  Those things just kill me.  They're essentially invisible until you crash into one.

Got some good laughs out of this

People photographed with expressions of terror in a haunted house at Niagara Falls.

What have I gotten myself into

I volunteered for something a few weeks ago, completely against my policy of ever volunteering for anything.  I did it only because of the same reason I have ever (rarely) volunteered for anything:  I was afraid there weren't going to be any competent people involved.  This isn't a boast about myself; rather, it's an honest reflection of how I perceive the people around me.

So anyway, the company is planning on buying new handheld devices for us, to replace the old Datamatic Roadrunner.  I thought they were asking for volunteers to try out new devices.  Back when I was first hired, I was trained on the Roadrunner by a few people, but within a few days I had already figured out how to do a lot of stuff I was never told about.  It's a knack I have.  So I thought it would be fun to work with some different handhelds and figure them out.

Unfortunately, I have since learned that I will also be required to attend meetings.  So tomorrow I have to go to a meeting and bring some recommendations for the new device.  I've spent the last hour or so writing up the following, which I offer here just in case you aren't already bored enough.  You may notice a running theme which is explicitly summarized in the final point.

·         Multiple trouble codes:   We frequently encounter a situation in which two or more trouble codes could be used.  In these situations, the meter reader is required to use the trouble code which prevents him from receiving a processing error, which is not necessarily a trouble code that would generate a work order.  For example, a frequent occurrence is to have a meter that is vacant but shows consumption, and it has a service-side leak as well.  In this situation, the meter reader would be forced to enter a trouble code 82 to keep from receiving a processing error and then must “write out a card” for the leak.  Our current handheld device is capable of recording up to three trouble codes, but the system that receives the data is set up to catch only the first trouble code; the remainder are ignored.

·         Input of new meters:  When a new meter is found that is not yet on the Roadrunner, we are currently able to add the new meter in and properly sequence it, however, the system is not set up to catch these new meters.  It goes ignored, and we must “write out a card” on the new meter.  Adding new meters should be fully electronic.

·         Straight connections:  In relation to the previous point, the ability to add new meters could also be used to electronically add straight connections, rather than being required to “write out a card.”

·         Special messages/instructions:  Our current handheld device has the capability for the user to type in a “special message” on any given address/account.  However, the system is not set up to record and remember these special messages.  Such special messages would be invaluable for meter readers to leave each other specific instructions on how to approach and find difficult meters.

·         Customer information:  The handheld device that I used when working as a contractor for CPS had customer/account holder name available at the touch of a button.  This extra information was often very useful in finding business accounts which had no address displayed on the property.  Also, the Roadrunners that Alamo Heights currently uses have room on the display for the customer name to be displayed at the bottom of the screen.   Therefore, our current Roadrunner device also has this capability, however the system is not set up to give us this information.

·         Backlit keypad:  Our new unit should have a manually switchable backlit keypad.  Manually, in that there is no light sensor employed, but the user is able to turn the light on or off as conditions require.  Ideally, a timer would also be used in the backlight circuitry so that it automatically switches off within a certain period of time of no keys being pressed.  This would help prevent battery drain.

·         Adjustable contrast:  The display of our new unit should have a manually adjustable contrast that is controlled by the user.  This would be very useful in increasing readability based on lighting as well as sky and weather conditions.  Both the backlit keypad and adjustable contrast would help reduce input errors and improve accuracy.

·         Technical support:  We absolutely must have proper technical support for our new device.  As shown in several previous points, our current units are capable of more than how they are now used, but the system behind the units has never been set up to exploit these capabilities.  Exploring, adapting, and even changing the capabilities of the new unit should be an ongoing process as new needs arise and new situations are encountered in the future.

And here I'll just go off on a little rant.  A "processing error" is an "error" in which the meter is read correctly, and there will be no error on the customer's bill.  In fact, the customer will never know about it.  They are put there for the sole purpose of creating additional potential for someone like myself to make an error, because they do everything they can to make sure we get as many errors as possible, even when the "error" doesn't mean $#@!.  Probably the biggest offender here is the trouble code 82, which means "vacant meter shows consumption."  The computer already knows that a vacant meter is showing consumption, because it makes a kerchunking error noise and forces us to re-enter the read.  I'll also add here that the Alamo Heights Roadrunners don't even have a TC-82 because of why I already said.  If a meter is vacant, and you enter something higher than the previous read, that can only be because a vacant meter is showing consumption. If a vacant meter shows consumption, but also has a leak, in my opinion the leak is more important, but we can't enter the trouble code for a leak because if we do, we'll get an error for not putting a TC-82 on it.  So it continues to leak, and our only recourse is to "write up a card" on it and hope someone notices.  Usually, they don't.

This kind of dumbassery is standard operating procedure.

Fainting goats

Fainting goats.  Heh.  When I was a kid, a guy who was in the Air Force and stationed at Randolph, and who lived in Universal City bought the 50 acres behind my dad to use as a sort of "weekend getaway" place in the country.  He never built a house there, but he did build his own gun range, with benches at 25 feet (for pistol shooting), and at 50, 100 and 200 yards.  He gave us permission to use the place--we occasionally ran some of our cattle on it, and to hunt there if we wanted or to use the gun range.  So I grew up with this home-made gun range just a couple hundred yards from my house.  Man, I miss that.

Anyway, he also put some goats on it, partly to help clear out the underbrush--which goats are exceptionally good at--and partly to get an agricultural exemption on his property tax. He had told us they were "fainting" goats, which I had never heard of before.  So I knew about the goats, but never really thought about it much.

One day I was over there, probably walking to the gun range, and his dozen-or-so goats were following me, probably because they expected me to throw out some pellets or range cubes for them.  Being a somewhat mischievous teenager at the time, I suddenly spun around and shouted "BOO!" or something like that at them.  Goats suddenly toppled around me like they had all just been struck dead by the hand of a vengeful, goat-hating god.

For about two seconds my mind was completely blank.  Well, maybe not completely blank, but certainly there was nothing in my thoughts except a whole bunch of exclamation marks and a few question marks.

There's a certain breed of goats that have an inherited genetic disorder that doesn't actually cause them to "faint," that is, they don't lose consciousness, but they do become paralyzed when frightened or stressed.  That Wikipedia article says "Older goats learn to spread their legs or lean against something when startled, and often they continue to run about in an awkward, stiff-legged shuffle."  Well, these were all fully adult goats and they hadn't ever learned anything.  They just collapsed.

After a few seconds I remembered what he had told us about the "fainting" part, and within 10 or 20 seconds they were all up and staggering around, and a minute or so later they were all back to normal.

So then it became funny, and I still laugh about it sometimes when something like this picture reminds me of it.

Thanks, internet

I saw this at LP Cover Lover and just had to hear the story behind it.  And here it is at archive.org:  Edna and the Toothbrush.

"I ran as fast as my legs would go, and right behind me was the Toothbrush Man tickling the back of my neck with his bristles at every step.  I ran with the Toothbrush Man just one step in back of me.  As I jumped into bed, and pulled the covers over my head, I could feel the Toothbrush Man brushing up and down on the top of the bed spread."

And this was supposed to make kids want to brush their teeth.

This may be the most epic music video I have ever seen

The Fount of All Knowledge

Wikipedia Deems Philip Roth an Unreliable Source On a Philip Roth Novel

There's an old post on this blog about an obscure and forgotten rock band called LAW, which I wrote about because I somehow managed to get one of their albums.  Somebody on Wikipedia linked to my blog as a source of further information, but they linked to the main page. I have tried several times to change it to link directly to that specific post url, but they won't accept the change.

Reminds me of something I read somewhere once:  "Wikipedia is a reliable source for The Family Guy, but not much else."

I still use it quite a lot to find track lists of albums I'm trying to hunt down, which I think should be safe.  But if not, I don't think it matters a whole lot.

A totally hypothetical situation

Let's say you pay someone a certain fee every month for a service they provide you.  One month, they accidentally overcharge you.  The following month, they deduct the amount of the overcharge from your bill.

Would this, or would this not, correct the overcharge?  Because if it doesn't, I must really be missing something.

The stupid people were coming out of the woodwork today.  Another guy told me that he keeps his water bill down by drinking bottled water.  And, "I only bathe four times a week."  TMI, dude, TMI!

Mars Curiosity rover video

Cool video showing the process of getting the Curiosity rover to Mars from blastoff to landing.  I thought it was kind of funny that it landed by inflating a bunch of balloons around itself and simply bouncing and rolling until it stopped.

I must say, though, that the "swooshing" noises it made going through space were kind of ridiculous.