Sunday Burst of Weird and AWESOME!

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: I'm usually willing to suspend disbelief with various movies and teevee shows, but one area where they really test my ability to do so is when our heroes are investigating an image or snippet of video that doesn't show them what they need to see...so they use the Magical Power of Computers to enhance the image!



The worst examples of this I've ever seen come from CSI: Miami. In one case, they found a photo of the victims taken moments before their deaths, and discerned that the killer must have been taking the photo. So they blew up one victim's eyeball and enhanced the reflection of the killer. And in another episode, they discerned again that the killer was the one behind the camera, and they further realized that the blotched-out area in the upper corner was the killer's finger partially covering the lens, so they were able to enhance and sharpen the image to get the killer's fingerprint. And Horatio Caine did all this whilst putting on his sunglasses.

(via)

:: I alluded to this in the post immediately preceding this one, but I've just gotta share it: Willie Nelson singing "Frosty the Snowman".



Hooray, Willie!

:: Squarely in the "awesome" category is this post by Sheila O'Malley, in which, referring to the "old" New York City -- before it got all cleaned up and saw porn theaters replaced by Disney stores -- she says, "I have to say, I miss the smut." I've only been to NYC a couple of times in my life, and when I do go, it'll be as a tourist rather than as a dweller, so I'll probably appreciate the cleaner stuff more. But...well, I can't find the things she displays in her photos totally repellent, either.

More next week!

Sunday Stealing

Last week it was "The Ninja Meme, part 1". This week it's...guess what!

26. Whose responses to Stealing do you want to read the most?

Aside from Roger, I don't know of anyone else who does these regularly. SamuraiFrog does them occasionally...probably the same way I do, checking to see if the questions are interesting and acting accordingly. I probably should peruse the links at the end of each S.S. quiz, though.

27. What color shirt are you wearing?

It's a light gray sweater with bits of colored yarn (blue, brown) scattered throughout.

28. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?

I'm not sure I've ever slept on satin sheets. I suppose it would be OK.

29. Can you whistle?

Yes, but not terribly well. I can produce tones by whistling, but I've never developed my whistling skills sufficiently to producing actual music. This is probably because I find whistling generally irritating. (Except for a cat my parents once owned, a beautiful Himalayan named Tribbles, who would come when my father whistled "The Impossible Dream". And only "The Impossible Dream".)

30. Favorite colors(s)?

Purple! And then red, blue, yellow, green...I really tend to like all colors, with the main exception of brown, which doesn't really do anything for me.

31. Could you be a pirate?

Sure, I guess. But probably not a very good one. I'd be like this one pirate in a scene from The Simpsons, when the pirates are all burying their treasure; I'd say, "Hey, Cap'n! Suppose instead of burying the treasure, we used it to by things! Things we like!" And on the show, the guy who says that gets shot by the Cap'n. But yeah, I'd be that guy.

32. What songs do you sing in the shower?

I don't sing in the shower, really. Maybe once in a while. When I do it's probably a show tune of some sort.

33. Favorite girls name?

The Daughter's.

34. Favorite boy’s name?

Quinn. Also Anakin.

35. What’s in your pocket right now?

Nothing. I don't carry a lot of stuff around in my pockets.

36. Last thing that made you laugh?

Well, when we got in the car to come home from church earlier, we had the radio tuned to a station that's doing all-Christmas, all the time. The song that was on when I turned the key was "Frosty the Snowman", sung by Willie Nelson. I had no idea he did "Frosty". I laughed with delight, because Willie Nelson rules.

37. Best bed sheets as a child?

I had a set of Star Wars blankets and whatnot at one point. I don't recall if there were sheets. I do recall the blanket.

38. Worst injury you’ve ever had?

I sustained a broken collarbone when a local bully pushed me off my bike. That dude is high on my "fantasy revenge list".

39. Do you love where you live?

Absolutely. I just wish the governance around here wasn't so messed up.

40. How many TVs do you have in your house? How many HDTVs?

Just one, in the living room. For bedroom viewing, we use my laptop for watching movies or downloaded programs.

41. Who is your loudest friend?

No idea at all.

42. How many dogs do you have?

Zero. Our current living situation is not conducive to dog ownership.

43. Does anyone have a crush on you?

I have no idea. I rather doubt it, though.

44. What are the most fun things you ever did?

Whale-watching with The Wife; roller coasters and the Giant Wheel at Cedar Point with The Wife; Disney World with The Wife; road-trips to Ithaca and Pittsburgh and Toronto with The Wife; cooking with The Wife; getting pied by The Wife; Christmas shopping with The Wife; seeing Star Wars movies with The Wife. Sense a theme here?

45. What are your favorite books?

I'm not listing 'em here, since books are a major subject of this blog.

47. Favorite Team?

The Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Because I like teams with long, rich traditions of winning...that were followed by long, poor traditions of losing.

48. What songs do you want played at your funeral?

"Into the West" by Howard Shore, sung by Annie Lennox. And "People Get Ready" by Curtis Mayfield. And "Last Dance" by Donna Summer. (I guess. I've never really thought about this before.)

49. What were you doing at 12 AM?

I was probably dropping off to sleep.

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?

"Stop pawing at my hand, you idiot!" Our cat Lester likes to drape himself across the back of The Wife's pillow and wait to be petted in the morning. But when he decides he's waited long enough, he'll start pawing around, looking for a hand. Often-times he finds mine.

OK, that's it. Huzzah!!!

Places I don't want to live

I don't want to live in Westdale, the town where Funky Winkerbean takes place. Boy howdy, is that comic strip depressing...and in a car-wreck kind of way, I can't stop reading. The current storyline has Les Moore ignoring a phone call in which his dead wife warns him not to get on a certain airplane. Gee, I wonder what will happen next!

Something for Thursday

I see that filmmaker Blake Edwards died today. I didn't see too many of his movies, but those that I did, I liked immensely. Here are two favorite clips from his movies.

First, the ever-amazing Audrey in Breakfast at Tiffany's:



The way she looks up at the end and says "Hi!" just sends shivers a-tingling the length of my spinal column. Audrey Hepburn always seems so...weary in this film. It's evident in her eyes that she's seen so much, and that a great deal of what she's seen has been sad or traumatic in some way. It always amazes me that she made this movie three years before she made my beloved My Fair Lady, in which her spirit is so youthful in her energy and her exuberance that she seems ready to bubble right off the screen.

And, of course, being right up my alley, there's this little scene from Edwards's zany road-trip comedy The Great Race. It's just the greatest pie fight ever filmed. Huzzah!



Well, maybe it is. I'm not entirely sure what the criteria would be for judging pie fights, but this one's got a lot going for it: duration, amount of edible ammunition, a scantily-clad beautiful woman sustaining multiple hits, and the lead actor almost managing to wander through the scene without getting hit himself. That adds up to a pretty good pie fight!

RIP Blake Edwards.

Explaining climate change

1 climate, originally uploaded by tallguydraws.

This is very well done; follow that link to see the entire thing. I find this sort of thing very useful, especially during the winter months when I start to hear all kinds of variants on the "It's cold in Buffalo! Al Gore's a fat poopyhead!" argument.

(via)

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

Some folks love brie and think that it's wonderful stuff. Other folks think it resembles, in texture if not taste, nasal mucus.

Brie: snot, or not?

Commenting....

It seems that there's some thinking about commenting, on blogs and whatnot, going 'round these days. Chris Smith at WNYMedia.net wonders if blog comments are dead:

You may have noticed in recent weeks that the number of comments on the site have decreased. However, our traffic numbers are higher than ever before in a non-election season. So, what’s happening in the comment section?

SamuraiFrog is also thinking about comments, specifically, why he doesn't leave too many comments on blogs these days:

It gets to me, because sometimes it feels like it crosses the line from sharing a difference of opinion to actively tearing me down because of it. Sometimes it just comes across--in text form, where inflection is next to impossible--as a rudeness directed at me instead of some celebrity. It feels like a put-down instead of an opinion.

I'm genuinely unsure of whether I have more comments here or fewer than in previous years. I do have lower traffic across the board; once upon a time I averaged over 250 hits a day, and now on a good day I'm around 150. I suppose that's because blog readership in general is down (but I'm not really sure even if that's the case). I suppose it's also because, for all the fun that comes with blogging as an interactive form (I had more to say about this in this week's Sentential Links post), it's really an imperfect means of producing conversation.

I like receiving comments as much as any blogger, and also as much as any blogger, it can be roundly disappointing to see a post that I worked on for a longer-than-average time get no comments at all. If I had a nickel for every post of mine here that I thought would get some comment and/or linkage only to have it ultimately disappear, uncommented and unlinked, off the main page, I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner (to paraphrase Stephen King). There has always been the "unexpected flood of comments" phenomenon in Blogistan, which can be formulated as a law:

Kelly's Law of Comment Receiving: The more off-the-cuff your blog post is, the more likely it is to receive quite a few comments.

Anyone who has blogged for any length of time has seen this. A post that one works on for quite some time, getting the logic and the language just right? Zero comments. A two-sentence rant on the jerk who cut in front of you in line at Tim Horton's or Dunkin' Donuts this morning? That post gets a dozen comments by lunchtime. I've never figured out why that should be the case, but it is.

I find it sometimes easy to get discouraged about this stuff. Not just comments, either; those tend to go in about the same way they always do around here now. The majority of my posts get a few comments, but still -- I am sometimes amazed at what doesn't get a comment. Every February when I do "Ask Me Anything!", there is some question or category of questions that I expect to come up...and it never does. That interests me.

The lack of linkage, though, gets to me sometimes. I'm enormously appreciative of every link I get, but I do often wish there were more. Every blogger has his or her own "community" of readers, and it's links that encourage one blogger's "community" to go forth and "meet" another. I don't think I'm too unique in this regard among bloggers. I know that my tastes and the subjects I like to post about aren't always the most popular things in the world, but I don't exactly think I'm out here shouting into the wind, either. Yeah, I know it sounds whiny and all, but it bugs me that my Fixing the Prequels posts have never been linked from...well, anywhere. There are a lot of science fiction-centric blogs out there. It sucks when you're not noticed. But then, I put a lot of work into those, and the topic is near and dear to my heart, which is mainly what amplifies the disappointment when I put one of those up, only to see it come and go with nary a reaction from anybody. And this goes for content I post online, anywhere -- be it here, or on Flickr, or on Twitter, or on Facebook.

Now, there is a reverse phenomenon, as well: the fact that as I see over time just how little reaction my blogging actually receives, the more open I am about what I'm willing to blog about. It basically boils down to the realization that, in a lot of cases, you may think that you're weird and that everybody is staring at you as if you're a guy with four heads who just walked into the room, but in reality, nobody is really noticing you much at all. It's a kind of liberating realization, actually -- but still, you'd like some reaction.

But what about me, and my comment-leaving habits? I'm trying to leave more comments these days, really. It's the old notion that people aren't going to want to engage someone they don't see as engaging in the first place. I tend to want to leave one comment only; maybe another if a new thought occurs to me, or if I feel a need to clarify something. Once in a while I'll engage in a lengthy debate, but I try not to do that, because frankly, debates online only have a very short "halflife" before they decay into snark. I'm as big a fan of snark as the next person, but when a conversation reaches the point of being nothing more than an exchange of snark, then the conversation's usefulness and interest are at an end.

I also tend to offer comment when I have something to add that I think the blogger will find interesting, or when I disagree in what I hope isn't a disrespectful way, or when I agree so emphatically that I want to share in the love. The key here is that I'm trying to engage the blogger, which is for me why I almost never comment on the WNYMedia blogs. I've been a fan of Alan Bedenko's ever since I first encountered him, circa 2004 or 2005, when there was a small-but-growing community of bloggers in the Buffalo area. Ditto Chris Smith. But their blogs are among the most widely-read in the region, which means their comment threads can get long at times, filled with regulars who seemingly comment on every post. I rarely feel, in commenting there, that I'm interacting with Alan or Chris, but rather with a cast of supporting characters, some of whom I find really annoying. It's no fault of theirs, really -- it's the nature of blogs whose content is mainly political. I read those two because, while I don't agree with them all the time, they generally seem to approach things from a similar point of view to mine.

But when you spend any time in the political areas of Blogistan, you discover that every blog of a certain viewpoint has dedicated readers of the exact opposite viewpoint, who comment with a high degree of frequency. So, for me, it basically boils down to: read what Alan and Chris think, but bypass the comment section because I can pretty much predict what the local right wingers or libertarian weirdos* are going to say. Is that an indictment of myself, perhaps? Indicative of a lack of curiosity about "the other side"? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But in my experience, especially in the USA in 2010, I have to be highly selective as to which voices on the other side of the fence I want to even begin to listen to. If that strikes others as arrogant or judgmental, so be it -- but I value my time, and I'm not going to waste it interacting with people who strike me as being, well, wasteful of time to interact with. (And since many of the same characters are active on Facebook, their annoying talking points show up there, too.) Many times I've started to comment there, only to delete my comment without posting it. I've seen these conversations go in circles, too many times, on Facebook, on blogs, on Usenet before blogs, on message boards, on forums, on any online discussion arena at all to not know where things are going to go. I don't have any particular insight that is going to change anyone's mind or make anyone think about an issue a new way, so I abstain.

Ultimately, with a lot of political blogs -- with all of them, I suppose -- for all the comments they receive, there's not really a whole lot of interactivity. And that, for me, is key to making commenting worthwhile. I prefer my blogging experience to be as interactive as possible, with people commenting here or linking me from elsewhere and me doing those same things.

* Yes, I am deeply dismissive of libertarianism. I think it is a goofy viewpoint that is almost blissfully dismissive of the way the real world actually works, and that its adherents are mainly motivated by a desire to feel smarter than everyone else in the room than by any principled thoughts as to the proper role of government or how to make peoples' lives better.

If this were a dream, there'd be rum.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides now has an official trailer!



This excites the ever-bloomin' crap out of me. I love, love, love the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, even the two sequels to the original, which aside from a couple of flaws I always found extremely fun and engaging (and not that hard to follow, either). I am highly excited about a fourth film of the adventures of Jack Sparrow -- sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow -- and I think they're taking the right tack here, moving into a new adventure or set of adventures, now that the original story, the Will-and-Elizabeth tale, is over.

Bring me that horizon!

X-Files Case Report: "Squeeze"

On the trail of a killer, Mulder and Scully find, in an abandoned building, a giant nest made of old newspaper scraps and bound together by some kind of fluid that Mulder reaches out and touches.

SCULLY: I think it's...bile!

MULDER: Is there any way I can get it off my fingers without betraying my cool exterior?

For the most part, episodes of The X-Files can be grouped into three categories. The first two episodes, the pilot and "Deep Throat", were also the first two episodes in the "Mytharc" category. That's short for "mythology arc", and it is those episodes which tell the serialized story that takes place over the entire run of the series. One of the other two categories hasn't shown up yet, and I'm not sure when its first appearance is, so we'll hold that one – which I call "Creepy Comedies" – in abeyance. The third category, though, makes its first appearance here, in the third episode of the series. These are the "Monster of the Week" episodes: self-contained stories that don't advance the overall storyline of the show, but instead pit Mulder and Scully against...well, monsters. You can't have a SF/horror show without monsters, can you?

Now, I should point out that those categories aren't hard-and-fast; there are "Monster of the Week" episodes that are also "Creepy Comedies", and there are overlaps the other way as well. The categories would become more clearly marked in later seasons, when the big Mytharc episodes would be saved for the beginning and ends of the season and the sweeps periods in between, with everything else mostly being MotW's or CC's. In the first few seasons, however, things were much more of a free-for-all. (I tend to think that's one reason why the show's mytharc in general became harder and harder to follow, but we'll address that as we go, I suppose.)

"Squeeze" introduces us to a particularly nasty killer whose MO is to somehow enter dwellings or offices, violently murder the occupant and rip out their liver, and then depart again without leaving any trace of entrance or exit. That is, any normal trace of entrance or exit. He's got to get in and out somehow, and Agent Mulder will be the one to figure it out, much to the chagrin of fellow FBI agents who view him as a total crackpot who isn't even worth having around on standard investigations (which this turns out to not be). Mulder's tendency to odd theories leads him to look for evidence where no one else even thinks to look, which then leads him to discover that the current killer's fingerprints are identical to those of a killer from a series of similar crimes thirty years ago...and thirty years before that...and thirty years before that.

However, the FBI agents in charge of this case don't want to hear any of this, and for his troubles, Mulder endures a lot of mocking as he pursues the investigation in his own way. Scully's loyalties are challenged as she is presented with an opportunity to further her career and steer herself back into a more "normal" path up the FBI ladder, as opposed to "wasting her time" following Spooky Mulder on his wild alien chases. I suppose it's no surprise which path she chooses, in the end, especially when in a bit of spite the other FBI guy (whom she knew from FBI school) torpedoes Mulder's stakeout of the real killer.

As for the killer himself, Eugene Victor Tooms is one of the series's creepier creations. He is clearly not insane, but he is terribly, terribly dangerous. Tooms hibernates for thirty years, and when he awakens, he must find sustenance – by consuming human livers. And there's something about his skeleton and his musculature that allows him to contort his body in ways that allow him to crawl through ducts and chimneys that are barely big enough for a large cat. Tooms's serene expression when being questioned is chilling, as is the way he smiles at episode's end as he looks at the tiny slot on his asylum door through which his guards put his meals.

This episode establishes to a great degree how sceptically Mulder is viewed by the rest of the FBI, and not for the last time is Scully put in the position of having to choose between expediting her rise in the Bureau and sticking with Mulder in his bizarre investigations and crazy theories. Those decisions get easier as the series goes by, but early on, the show does a very good job of showing that Scully is seriously thinking about these things. She doesn't know Mulder well enough, yet.

Eugene Victor Tooms would return later in the season, in the episode "Tooms". We'll get to that one soon enough, but for now, "Squeeze" is another early high-point in the series's run.

A shiny nose, Rudolph had....

(via)

Every animated movie, ever. Or something like that.

I found this at Roger's blog, and you'd better believe I'm doing it!

The Rules:

- X what you saw
- O what you haven't finished/seen or saw sizable portions
- Bold what you loved
- Italicize what you disliked/hated
- Leave unchanged if neutral

CLASSIC DISNEY
-------------------------------
[X] 101 Dalmatians (1961)
[X] Alice in Wonderland (1951)
[X] Bambi (1942)
[X] Cinderella (1950)
[X] Dumbo (1941)
[X] Fantasia (1940)
[X] Lady and the Tramp (1955)
[X] Mary Poppins (1964)
[X] Peter Pan (1953)
[X] Pinocchio (1940)
[X] Sleeping Beauty (1959)
[X] Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
[X] Song of the South (1946) (Not a movie in this bunch that I don't love, except the first two, which are OK. Even Song of the South, although when I saw it I was nine and was blissfully unaware of the racial tones. I want to see it again and find out how it holds up...but Disney refuses to release the film in the US. Peter Pan is my favorite classic Disney film, by the way.)


DISNEY'S DARK AGE
-------------------------------
[X] The Aristocats (1970) (It's an OK flick, but you want to talk about some ethnic stereotyping, check out the Siamese cat. I mean...check out what happens at the 2:50 mark of this song from the movie. Whoa.)
[o] The Black Cauldron (1985)
[X] The Fox and the Hound (1981)
[X] The Great Mouse Detective (1986) (Not a bad movie. A fun adventure.)
[X] The Jungle Book (1967) (I have never liked this movie. Mainly because I can't stand Mowgli and end up rooting for Shere Khan.)
[X] The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
[ ] Oliver and Company (1986)
[ ] Pete's Dragon (1977)
[X] The Rescuers (1977) (I love this one, even with its 1970s era static-background, lazy animation.)
[X] Robin Hood (1973)
[ ] The Sword In The Stone (1963): Uh...Walt was still around for this one...

There's some good stuff in here. And some not-so-good stuff.

THE DISNEY RENAISSANCE
-------------------------------
[X] Aladdin (1992)
[X] Beauty and the Beast (1991) (I adore both of these films. The Girlfriend (now The Wife) and I saw them in first release. We saw Aladdin five times.)
[ ] A Goofy Movie (1995)
[X] Hercules (1997)
[X] The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) (Both of these seem terribly underrated to me.)
[X] The Lion King (1994)
[X] The Little Mermaid (1989) (And both of these seem terribly overrated to me.)
[X] Mulan (1998)
[X] Pocahontas (1995) (Both of these are just kind of "meh". Mulan tends to be prized by film music fans because it has a score by Jerry Goldsmith. Not that good of a Goldsmith score, but there are people for whom Goldsmith can do no wrong at all.)
[X] The Rescuers Down Under (1990) (Not a bad adventure flick.)
[X] Tarzan (1999) (Love this.)

DISNEY'S MODERN AGE
-------------------------------
[X] Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) (I love this one! It's such a fun adventure story.)
[ ] Bolt (2008)
[X] Brother Bear (2003) (This could have been so much better.)
[ ] Chicken Little (2005)
[O] Dinosaur (2000) (A stunning opening sequence, followed by ninety minutes of "meh".)
[X] The Emperor's New Groove (2000) (Absolutely great. The Disney people were channeling the spirit of Chuck Jones on this movie.)
[X] Fantasia 2000 (2000)
[X] Home on the Range (2004)
[X] Lilo & Stitch (2002): Watched this the other day for about the fourth time, and it still holds up for me. (All fine films. Even Home on the Range, which was goofy fun.)
[ ] Meet the Robinsons (2007)
[X] Treasure Planet (2002): There's some nifty stuff here, but the idea doesn't work as well as it could have. Author Philip Reaves did much the same kind of thing in a series of "Victorian space operas" a few years later.)

PIXAR
-------------------------------
[X] A Bug's Life (1998) Not a huge fan of this.
[X] Cars (2006) Well...I like a lot of the individual stuff in this movie, even if there's something subtly creepy and unbelievable about the world the movie creates.
[X] Finding Nemo (2003) My favorite Pixar film.
[X] The Incredibles (2004)
[X] Monsters Inc. (2001)
[X] Ratatouille (2007)
[X] Toy Story (1995)
[X] Toy Story 2 (1999)
[ ] Toy Story 3 (2010)
[X] Wall-E (2008)
[X] Up (2009) Both of these suffered the same fault: "First-halfitis". Wonderful first halves that were followed by conventional, dull second halves.

DON BLUTH
-------------------------------
[ ] All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
[ ] An American Tail (1986)
[ ] An American Tail: Fieval Goes West (1991)
[ ] Anastasia (1997) (Always wanted to see this one.)
[ ] The Land Before Time (1988)
[ ] The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)
[ ] Rock-a-Doodle (1991)
[X] The Secret of NIMH (1982) I love this one!
[ ] Thumbelina (1994)
[X] Titan AE (2000) This movie sure disappeared into a black hole, didn't it? But I liked it.
[ ] A Troll in Central Park (1994)

CLAYMATION AND STOP-MOTION
-------------------------------
[ ] The Adventures of Mark Twain (1986)
[X] Chicken Run (2000) Just great!
[X] Corpse Bride (2005)
[X] James and the Giant Peach (1996)
[O] The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
[ ] Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) I desperately need to see this.
[ ] Coraline (2009) This too.

(I changed the category header here; it was just "claymation", and that's not true of each of these films.)

CGI GLUT
-------------------------------
[X] Antz (1998) I loved this, considerably more than A Bug's Life, which came out roughly the same time.
[ ] Bee Movie (2007)
[X] Happy Feet (2006) This movie makes me want to club baby seals. I HATE it.
[X] Ice Age (2002)
[X] Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) Love the first; the second is "meh".
[ ] Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) I've heard good things about this one....
[O] Kung Fu Panda (2008) I should watch the whole thing; I was kind of amused by the parts I saw.
[ ] Madagascar (2005)
[ ] Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
[X] Monster House (2006) Fun flick.
[ ] Over the Hedge (2006)
[X] The Polar Express (2004) I love this movie...even the supposedly "dead eyes" of the characters don't bother me. We watch this every year.
[O] Robots (2005): I liked this one more than I probably should have.
[ ] A Shark's Tale (2004)
[X] Shrek (2001)
[X] Shrek 2 (2004)
[X] Shrek The Third (2007) Love the first, love the second even more, kinda liked the third.
[ ] Shrek Forever After (2010)
[X] Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) I liked this one more than I thought I would.

IMPORTS
-------------------------------
[ ] Arabian Knight (aka The Thief and the Cobbler) (1995)
[X] The Last Unicorn (1982) Love it!
[ ] Light Years (1988)
[ ] The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
[ ] Persepolis (2007) But I read the brilliant, brilliant comic.
[ ] Waltz With Bashir (2008)
[ ] Watership Down (1978)
[ ] When the Wind Blows (1988)
[ ] Wonderful Days (2003)
[ ] Yellow Submarine (1968)

Heavens, I need to see some of these!

STUDIO GHIBLI/MIYAZAKI
-------------------------------
[X] The Cat Returns (2002)
[ ] Grave of the Fireflies (1988) I've had this on DVD for six years or so and still haven't watched it. Don't know what I'm waiting for.
[X] Howl's Moving Castle (2004) When I finally saw this, I couldn't figure out why it was so roundly disliked by other Miyazaki fans.
[X] Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
[X] Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) Both fantastic films.
[ ] Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)
[ ] My Neighbors The Yamadas (1999)
[X] My Neighbor Totoro (1993) SO good!
[X] Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984): I watched this a couple of years ago, and I'll be damned if I remember anything about it.
[ ] Only Yesterday (1991)
[ ] Pom Poko (Tanuki War) (1994)
[X] Porco Rosso (1992)
[X] Princess Mononoke (1999)
[X] Spirited Away (2002) Three amazing films...and none has anything in common with the other. Miyazaki's diversity of storytelling is amazing to behold.
[ ] Whisper of the Heart (1995)
[X] Ponyo (2009) Wonderful.

Most of these feature wonderful music by Joe Hisaishi.

SATOSHI KON
-------------------------------
[X] Millennium Actress (2001)
[ ] Paprika (2006): Visually lovely, but I found it hard to follow.
[ ] Perfect Blue (1999)
[ ] Tokyo Godfathers (2003)


SHINKAI MAKOTO
-------------------------------
[ ] She and Her Cat (1999)
[X] Voices of a Distant Star (2001) Deeply haunting film...and it's only 25 minutes long.
[ ] The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)
[ ] 5 Centimeters per Second (2007)


OTHER ANIME FILMS
-------------------------------
[ ] Akira (1989)
[ ] Angel's Egg (1985)
[ ] Appleseed (2004)
[ ] Appleseed: Ex Machina (2007)
[ ] Arcadia of My Youth (U.S. Title - Vengeance of the Space Pirate) (1982)
[ ] Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2003)
[ ] The Dagger of Kamui (U.S. Title - Revenge of the Ninja Warrior) (1985)
[ ] Dirty Pair: Project Eden (1987)
[ ] End of Evangelion (1997)
[ ] Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone (2007)
[ ] Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance (2009)
[ ] Fist of the North Star (1986)
[ ] Galaxy Express 999 (1979)
[ ] Ghost in the Shell (1996)
[ ] Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
[ ] The Girl Who Lept Through Time (2006)
[ ] Lensman (1984)
[ ] Macross: Do You Remember Love (U.S. Title - Clash of the Bionoids) (1984)
[ ] Memories (1995)
[ ] Metropolis (2001)
[ ] Neo-Tokyo (1986)
[ ] Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)
[ ] Ninja Scroll (1993)
[ ] Patlabor the Movie (1989)
[ ] The Professional: Golgo 13 (1983)
[ ] Project A-ko (1986)
[ ] Robot Carnival (1987)
[ ] Robotech: The Shadow Chronicle (2006)
[ ] Silent Möbius (1991)
[ ] The Sky Crawlers (2008)
[ ] Space Adventure Cobra (1982)
[ ] Steamboy (2004)
[ ] Sword of the Stranger (2007)
[ ] Unico and the Island of Magic (1983)
[ ] Urotsukidoji: The Movie (1987)
[ ] Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer (1984)
[ ] Urusei Yatsura: Only You (1982)
[ ] Vampire Hunter D (1985)
[ ] Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust (2000)
[ ] Wings of Honneamise: Royal Space Force (1987)

Wow. I need to see some of these. A lot of these.

CARTOONS FOR GROWN-UPS
-------------------------------
[ ] American Pop (1981)
[ ] The Animatrix (2003)
[X] Beavis & Butthead Do America (1996) Yeah, we went to see this. And we liked it. So there!
[ ] Cool World (1992)
[ ] Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
[ ] Final Fantasy: Advent Children (2005)
[ ] Fire & Ice (1983)
[ ] Fritz the Cat (1972)
[ ] Halo Legends (2009)
[X] Heavy Metal (1981) So cheesy! It still appeals to my inner 15-year-old kid. And a great score by Elmer Bernstein.
[ ] Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)
[ ] Hey Good Lookin' (1982)
[ ] Lady Death (2004)
[ ] A Scanner Darkly (2006)
[ ] Sita Sings the Blues (2008)
[ ] South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999) I want to see this.
[ ] Street Fight (Coonskin) (1975)
[ ] Waking Life (2001)

OTHER ANIMATED MOVIES
-------------------------------
[ ] The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
[ ] Animal Farm (1954)
[ ] Animalympics (1980)
[ ] Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon The Movie (2007): I watched about half of this; what is hilarious for 15 minutes proved to be tiresome for almost an hour and a half.
[ ] Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000)
[ ] Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)
[ ] Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
[ ] The Brave Little Toaster (1988)
[ ] Bravestarr: The Movie (1988)
[ ] Cats Don't Dance (1997)
[X] Care Bears: The Movie (1985) Ahhh, The Daughter's Care-Bear phase! To be honest, I never even found the Care Bears all that annoying. No idea why.
[X] Charlotte's Web (1973)
[ ] Fern Gully (1992)
[ ] G.I. Joe: The Movie (1987)
[ ] Gobots: Battle of the Rock Lords (1986)
[ ] Green Lantern: First Flight (2009)
[ ] He-Man & She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword (1985)
[X] The Hobbit (1977) It really isn't bad. Here's an old post about it.
[X] The Iron Giant (1999) Every bit as great as its reputation. It's the Shawshank Redemption of animated movies.
[ ] Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010)
[ ] Justice League: The New Frontier (2008)
[X] Lord of the Rings (1978) (Ugh....)
[ ] Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1992)
[ ] My Little Pony: The Movie (1986)
[X] Pink Floyd's The Wall (1982) (At least, I think I liked it. I saw it five times, and was sober for none of them.)
[X] The Prince of Egypt (1998) Very well done, even if the opening musical number ("Deliver Us") is so good that it overshadows all of the ones that follow.
[ ] Powerpuff Girls: The Movie (2002)
[ ] Quest For Camelot (1999)
[ ] Ringing Bell (1978)
[X] The Road to El Dorado (2000)
[ ] Shinbone Alley (1971)
[ ] Space Jam (1996)
[ ] Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985)
[ ] Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (2009)
[ ] Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (2010)
[ ] Superman: Doomsday (2007)
[ ] The Swan Princess (1994)
[ ] Transformers: The Movie (1986)
[ ] Wizards (1977)
[X] Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) One of the best films of the 80s.
[ ] Wonder Woman (2009) Don't ask me why I haven't seen this.
[ ] Balto (1995)
[X] Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) Watched it with the Kid. It was just kind of there.

Wow, that was pretty exhaustive. And yet even so, there are omissions, such as last year's The Book of Kells. Animation marches on!

On an editorial note, I encountered someone on Facebook the other day who literally dislikes all animation. She claimed that none of it was "her cup of tea", and that she'd rather watch real actors emoting than drawings of people emoting. I found that attitude utterly mystifying. I don't watch movies for actors; I watch movies for story. If you can tell a wonderful story with a drawing or with an actor, well...who cares about the "how"?

In the service of Naamah

Quite a while ago, I read a wonderful fantasy novel called Kushiel's Dart, by Jacqueline Carey, a long book set in a pseudo-Europe roughly around the Renaissance era, featuring as the lead character a woman named Phedre who serves a goddess called Naamah, an an anguissette -- a courtesan, or concubine, whose major point of attraction is the fact that she is, well, masochistic by nature. Phedre became deeply involved with the court politics of her city, making enemies before she even knew that she had, and eventually found herself journeying across the continent in an effort to save her kingdom from the disastrous war that was about to befall it. Along the way, she fell in love with her companion and bodyguard, a conflicted young man named Joscelin Verreuil. At the end of the book, most threads were resolved satisfactorily, save one: the escape of the main traitor of the first book, Melisande Shahrizai.

The sequel, Kushiel's Chosen, opens with Phedre having been made a noblewoman by the new Queen, and with Melisande still at large and very likely scheming anew against the realm. Phedre takes it on herself to try to find Melisande and the insiders who helped her escape. This leads her anew into ever more dangerous areas of court politics, evil plotting, selling herself to people she would rather not, and journeys to areas we didn't visit in the first book. All the while she is searching for clues to the magic that will release her dearest friend, who voluntarily took on permanent magical imprisonment in the first book.

Kushiel's Chosen is, as it happens, the middle book of a trilogy, and so it has some of the problems inherent in middle books, leaving certain plotlines unresolved in an ending that sets up the final book. But enough of the plotlines that are inherent to this book are tidied up, so while there is a sense of "To be continued" at the end of Kushiel's Chosen, it is still an overall satisfying read.

The strength of the book, as in its preceding volume, lies in Carey's writing and in her ability to populate a familiar world with interesting and sympathetic characters. In Phedre and Joscelin, Carey has created a couple we can't help but root for – but she does not make things easy for them, in any way at all. They are, in many ways, completely different people, and their relationship is a clear illustration of the old precept that the people we hurt the most tend to be the people we love the most. Carey creates a number of other fascinating new characters here as well: cruel jailers of an inescapable prison, a Prince and Princess who rule a distant island kingdom, a pirate captain, an entire people of supposed heretics who are looking for someone to lead them to the homeland that their god promised them, and many others.

I did find that Kushiel's Chosen was not quite as engrossing as the first novel; the first half of the present book is mainly character-driven drama that doesn't move along very briskly at all. The second half is where things start to happen, and the pace livens significantly after that. The first book had some of the same problem, but in that case, Kushiel's Dart had the sense of exploring a new world that we didn't know helping to alleviate any problems arising from slow pacing. In Kushiel's Chosen, we already know the world we're reading about, so it is a bit more of a problem here. (But it is in no way a large enough problem to detract from reading the book in the first place.)

I am already looking forward to reading the final volume in this trilogy, Kushiel's Avatar. Carey has also written several other books set in this world; I hope to eventually read those, as well.

Sentential Links #231

Let's get to the linkage!

:: I have a huge confession to make. It's something that I've tried to hide, but I can no longer keep silent. I'm sure that when you read it you'll all leave me en masse and never come back here again. I will have crossed that line with you at last. (I need to...be more exposed to what Steph is confessing about here.)

:: They need to be ready because in January the awards season begins!! A standard rule of thumb: an actress’ skin must be pulled tighter than the red carpet. What they don’t understand is that viewers don’t say, “Wow, she looks amazing!”, they say, “Wow, she looks like Barry Manilow.” Not that the interviewers are any better. One day Joan Rivers and Ryan Seacrest will look as one. (OMG, the photo in Ken's post can not really be Meg Ryan, can it? Oyyyy....)

:: I wasn't planning on writing anything on the anniversary of John Lennon's death. I figured there would be plenty of other voices on the InterWebs this week paying tribute and remembering, and anyway I honestly didn't think I had much to say about the subject because, as crappy as this is going to sound, John Lennon just doesn't mean that much to me. (This post doesn't go in the direction it sounds like it's about to go. Trust me.)

:: Donn Esmonde wants a museum at Canal Side. That’s a great idea, seeing as museums and nostalgia are the only growth industry we seem to have in this region. (For the life of me, I don't understand why "set up some zoning regulations for how we want the waterfront to look and then just sell the lots and let entrepreneurs do their thing down there" is never seen as an option. Instead, we endlessly kvetch over what to build on the Buffalo waterfront. Ugh! By the way, lots of people complain about the idea of "big box retail" on Buffalo's waterfront, apparently being of the notion that a big-box store is incompatible with the type of walkable urban development that we supposedly want around here. Well, check this out:



That is a proposed Wal-Mart for Washington, DC. Looks pretty urban and walkable to me. Zone it and let people build, folks. That's how you get a vibrant waterfront.)

:: We work hard to shield kids from all things bad. In the process, though, we rob them of opportunities for self protection. (I have no memory of how I found Robyn's blog, Life by Chocolate. It's just a terrific blog about life in general.)

:: There are people out there who have no one to relate to, to talk to, to share with – for one, because our society is so reluctant to open up about death and other difficult subjects. And so, I relate, talk, share. And people, like my overall-wearing, pie-throwing reader in New York, relate, talk, and share back. (She's referring to me, there. Beth Howard is one of my favorite blog discoveries of the last few months. I've been reading her for a while, after discovering her during one of my searches for fellow lovers of bib overalls. I found that, in addition to proudly wearing overalls, she lives in Iowa in the very house that's in the background of the famous painting American Gothic, and that she uses her blog as a way of dealing with some of her issues of grief and sadness after she suffered a staggering loss: her husband, who passed away unexpectedly a little more than a year ago. One week before what would have been Little Quinn's fifth birthday, actually.

Beth also uses pie as a metaphor for a lot of life's struggles, and she approaches the baking of pie as therapy and a method of engaging a world that can seem harsh and uninviting at times. She and I have been Facebook friends for a little while, and I recently corresponded with her about issues of grief, and about communication and writing in Blogistan -- which some folks find to be of little worth -- and about my own love of pie, which includes not just the making and eating of it, but also the wearing of it. Basically it was "Hey, you wear overalls and make pies; I occasionally wear overalls and get hit with pies."

I refuse to see blogging as worthless, just because it's online or because online writings seem more ephemeral than stuff that appears on paper. In some ways, I suppose, it is more ephemeral, just from a preservation standpoint, but I'm not sure the distinction is as strong as some seem to think. I'm always struck, when I'm at the library book sale, by all those old paperbacks with jacket copy that reads along the lines of "The latest riveting novel from one of our most beloved storytellers!" or "This novel is sure to be read and treasured for many years to come!" And it's always some author of whom I have never heard. On the occasions when I Google such an author, their name only shows up on used book seller sites. Their books are nearly completely forgotten.

:: We’ve all heard the stories about people who put up their tree only to have it tip over during the night. I’m ashamed to say it’s even happened to me once in my younger days, but over the years I’ve honed my methods and now can put up a tree the kids could climb — I wouldn’t put it past my boy, either. (Great advice on putting up the Christmas tree! Listen and learn, folks! There's some great advice there -- not the least of which is, Toss the eyebolts and use different screws. Using better-quality hardware than what comes with the item in question is almost always a good idea.)

All for this week, folks!

Sunday Burst of Weird and AWESOME!

Well, you wouldn't think that I would have seen so much Weird and/or Awesome what with being offline for most of the last ten days (aside from swiping time here and there at work to check my e-mail and throw up quick blog posts and Facebook status messages), but Boy Howdy, has that turned out to not be the case. I've seen plenty! Hooray for the Interweb! Oddities and Awesome, as always, abound!

:: The folks behind Archie comics are experimenting with "Real World Archie", or something like that.

But as the Archie brand expands, a new monthly magazine series sold in major bookstore chains and Wal-Mart, Life With Archie: The Married Life, has been quietly ripping apart the fabric of life in Riverdale. The recession looms large and disease and infidelity intrude on longtime friendships and young marriages. Life With Archie is a spin-off published by Archie Comics, so it's not a rogue parody. But within just a few months, Riverdale has turned from a 20th-century middle-American paradise into a 21st-century middle-class hell. Is all this grit really necessary in a universe that has blissfully hummed along for decades without it?

Ooooh! How about a CSI: Riverdale? Maybe one murder can revolve around the wounds matching the spikes from that hat that Jughead always wears. I, for one, hope this trend continues! Let's see versions of Richie Rich wherein our hero and his impossibly wealthy family are done in by the Great Recession, or by an insider-trading scandal, or stuff like that! Let's see the real class struggle between Richie and girlfriend Gloria! Let's not ask how it is that I was able to call up the name of Richie Rich's girlfriend without having to Google it!

:: I imagine most of you will have seen this already, but it's too amazing not to share. Since the Minnesota Vikings were to have a home game today, the FOX Sports people had their cameras all set up a few days in advance for the game-day broadcast. So they had the cameras running when, after a major snowstorm pummeled the Upper Midwest, the weight of the snowpack on the Metrodome's roof finally became too much for the air-supported structure to bear.



That is some amazing stuff!

(And this is the fifth time the roof has collapsed!)

:: A science writer blogs about the Apollo 11 moon mission for NPR, and gets a response...from Neil Armstrong. That is some serious Awesome, I have to tell you. It would be like if George Lucas were to e-mail me in response to, well, anything I write about Star Wars!

More next week!

Sunday Stealing

This week it's called The Ninja Meme, part 1.

1. What do you add to your coffee?

Raw sugar. Occasionally, if I'm in the mood, I'll add milk or half-n-half. Very rarely I'll use a flavored creamer, but 95 percent of the time, I just add sugar. I subscribe to the old Turkish proverb: "Coffee should be strong as hell, black as death, and sweet as love."

2. What are you reading now?

Cordelia's Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold, in an attempt to get into the Miles Vorkosigan series. I read this before some years ago and found it nice and entertaining but not particularly compelling. This time, however, I'm finding myself a lot more involved in the story. I'll report more when I finish it.

I'm between nonfiction books at the moment.

3. Do you own a gun?

No, nor do I have any intention to. I have no problem with gun ownership and I have little taste for eroding the 2nd amendment, but on a personal level, guns give me the serious willies.

4. Are you registered to vote?

Yes. I'm a registered Democrat. This year, in fact, marked the tenth anniversary of the last time I cast a ballot for a Republican (former Congressman Amory Houghton). The only election I've skipped was 2002, when we had moved to Syracuse just a month prior to voting. I had no idea who the local candidates were or what the local issues amounted to in that time frame, so I abstained.

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?

Sometimes, but not terribly so. My current doctor is super nice.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?

Love 'em. In fact, I rank hot dogs high among my favorite foods. (They have to be grilled, or at least pan-seared so they have some texture. Steamed or boiled dogs do nothing for me. I do make exception to this rule for sidewalk hot dog stands, though.)

7. Favorite Christmas Song?

"Little Drummer Boy". My favorite version? Bing Crosby and David Bowie.

Honorable mentions to "Angels We Have Heard On High", "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", and "Silent Night". For more modern Christmas songs, I'm partial to "Happy Christmas (War is Over)", "Same Old Lang Syne", and "River".

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?

OJ and water. I tend to have coffee a bit later on in the morning; I don't get right up to coffee.

9. Can you do push ups?

A few, but not enough. (Note to self: start going to the gym again.)

10. What was the name of your first boyfriend/girlfriend?

Errr...well, it depends. First date? Tammy. First girl with whom I had a "thing"? Chris.

11. What’s your favorite piece of jewelery?

My wedding ring. Close second: the star sapphire The Girlfriend (later The Wife) got me the Christmas before our wedding.

12. Favorite hobby?

Reading, writing, blogging, walking, listening to music, ogling power tools, using power tools, waxing poetic about bib overalls.

13. Do you work with people who idolize you?

I have no idea if any of them "idolize" me. If they do, I hope they stop; I'm more than aware of my massive imperfections! I like the fact that I'm generally liked, though.

14. Do you have ADD?

Not to my knowledge.

15. What’s one trait that you hate about yourself?

My tendency to fly off the handle, sometimes.

16. What’s your Middle name?

None: I just have an initial, 'C'. I should get the story someday as to why that's the case.

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment.

"Hey, why don't I have a middle name, anyway?"

"Wow, is my butt comfy!" (I just bought a new cushion for my desk chair and I'm trying it out now. Huzzah!)

"Goodness, there's a lot of chicken in our fridge." (We have leftover KFC and a leftover rotisserie bird in there right now.)

18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday.

Yesterday? Geez...coffee, a bagel, and a half a sub sandwich for lunch.

19. Name 3 beverages you regularly drink.

Water, orange juice, coffee.

20. Current worry right now?

Wow, I wish the Christmas season had an extra week or two in it. There's a lot I wish I had time to do!

21. What side do you dress to?

I don't know what this means. Thinking about it, I suppose I put my left leg in pants first...I guess...hmmmm. With overalls, I always fasten the right shoulder strap to the bib first. (By the way, that 90s trend of wearing one strap unfastened was pretty goofy.)

22. Favorite place to be?

Wherever The Wife is. (Awwwww!)

23. How did you bring in the New Year?

Like this.

24. Where would you like to go?

The Smithsonian.

25. Name three people who will see today.

I think there's something mis-worded here! Three people who will see today? Or three people whom I will see today? The latter seems funnier, so: three people who will see today are actor Howard Hesseman, British singer Seal, and the guy who plays Eric Delko on CSI: Miami.

Hooray!

My year in statuses

Every year around this time, the "Status Collage" gets popular on Facebook. It's just a collage of the things one posts in their Status box. Here's my collage:



Wow, I babble a lot over there.

What has two thumbs and an Internet connection?

What has two thumbs and an Internet connection?, originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

Answer: This guy!

Yes, our Internet connection appears to finally be fixed. What apparently happened is that a woman who lives in our building switched apartments, moving literally across the hall. But when they deactivated the phone connection to her old apartment, they deactivated ours instead, by mistake. Oops.

But now we're back online. Huzzah!!!

It's easy if you try

I was nine years old when John Lennon died; I had no idea, really, who he was when I first heard the name. I remember hearing the news on the radio as I was driven to school the next morning. I knew nothing then about him or The Beatles. And ultimately, since I didn't start loving his music (and the rest of 'em) until just a couple of years ago, he'd really been dead 28 years before he came to mean something to me.

So, in a way, John Lennon is, to me, not unlike Berlioz or Wagner or Mozart: a dead artist whose work came to mean something to me when he was already gone. That's not intended to be any kind of deep statement, just a thought....



Imagine.

An antidote to annoyance

As you all might expect, I am seriously irritated by my lack of Internet connection at home and the Keystone Kops manner in which EarthLink is going about fixing it. The latest? Out of curiosity I decided today just to see if maybe my phone was causing some kind of problem, so I experimented with plugging it in, unplugging it, et cetera, just to see if my DSL would come on. And what did I find out?

Since their "tech" came out, my landline has apparently been dead too! What the hell did they do, shut off my entire phone line instead of fixing it?

AGGHHHH!!!

So I'm annoyed and need something to amuse me. Which brings me to...some pie-throwing action.

Antigone Magazine is trying to raise money by selling calendars; in an effort to drum up business, the editor, a young woman named Amanda Reaume, has decided to take a pie in her face for every ten calendars they sell. They must be up to thirty, because so far, she's received three:





Self-inflicted, too -- that takes some moxie.

And then there are Ten Unexpected Pies in the Face:



And...ten more (with a Star Wars one)!



OK, that's helping my mood. A bit, anyway. Harumph.

Stupid EarthLink.

Status unchanged

Well, folks, I'm still offline at home. I may have opportunities to get online here and there over the next few days, but it's starting to look like "New ISP shopping" time at Casa Jaquandor. EarthLink told me day before yesterday that a tech would be out "tomorrow" (yesterday, in real time) to check our phone lines. I have no way of knowing if that happened (they said he wouldn't need access to our apartment at all, which is good because The Wife and I both worked yesterday), but when I got home, our DSL modem wasn't even picking up the DSL line. At least before it would pick up the line but not connect to the Internet; now it wasn't picking up the line at all.

So I called yet again, to be greeted by a recorded message that said, "According to our records, your issue has been resolved successfully. Would you still like to speak to a representative?" I said yes, and then proceeded to rip into the poor guy who answered. Oh well. The long-and-short of it is that another tech will be dispatched, yada yada yada. I'm not optimistic. I told the guy, this is EarthLink's last chance, and believe me, it is: if we're not reliably connected to the Internet by the time I get home from work tomorrow, I will cancel my EarthLink subscription and begin looking for a new ISP. The guy assured me that it would be resolved, but at this point, I have less than zero confidence in EarthLink's ability to provide the bare minimum of technical support to a customer who has been giving them forty bucks a month for seven years.

So, I may have new posts up at times over the next indeterminate period. I hope to, anyway. Keep checking back, and thanks for checking in anyway!

(Oh, and for my Buffalo region readers, what's a good ISP in these parts if all I want is Internet -- no phone and no cable teevee?)

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

Abbott and Costello, or Laurel and Hardy?

Holding Pattern Omega

Well, a tech should be coming out this morning to look at the phone lines here at Casa Jaquandor, in an effort to determine why our Internet service from EarthLink has been so calamitously bad this last week. So I suppose by this time tomorrow I'll know if we will still be EarthLink customers or not. Their options are: fix our DSL, or wish us well as we take our money to FIOS. Ugh!

And there's lots of stuff I want to blog, but for now, it all has to wait.

Irony is lost upon his soul....

Just seen on Facebook, in comments to someone's post:

I'm sorry, but this is what you get for picking a Dem nominee who was a Senator for about 3 min before running for President. Obama is a lot of ideas and absolutely no clue how to DO anything.

What's funny about it is that the person offering this view was, in the last New York gubernatorial election, a vocal supporter of Carl Paladino.

Sentential Links #230

Sorry this is late, folks, but EarthLink is not allowing me to do many of the things I like to do online. Fewer links than usual, but onward with the linkage!

:: In one of those memes I do sometimes, there was a question about the movie that I found most scary. The problem was that I saw it when I was nine, give or take a year, couldn’t remember the title, and I didn’t even know how well I remembered the details. (Wow, that does sound like a scary movie!)

:: Watch Family Guy for a week. I think we can take it for granted that you're going to see an incredible amount of misogyny, but what does Seth McFarlane have against Asians? (I keep trying to figure out of McFarlane is that bigoted, or if he is trying for shock value with a lot of the jokes on that show.)

:: I have a weird fascination with X-ray photos that show the path of some object into a person's head. (Well, I didn't until I read this...and now I do!)

:: I lost interest in football years ago when I realized that the quarterbacks weren’t calling the plays. These days, neither are the coaches, at least not on the spot. The reason video games like Madden can be so realistic is that real football games are as programmed as software. Games are simultaneous runnings of competing algorithms and the coaches who write the code days ahead of time are on hand in case bugs develop.

:: The first day I was there we stopped at a tractor supply store and I bought a pair of bib overalls for myself and a John Deer bandana for Yoda. (A new convert, huzzah! She was visiting Beth of The World Needs More Pie, one of my favorite new blogs and people behind the words.)

Well, that's about all I could manage to find when I was able to access the Internet for two minutes here, three minutes there. Still, good stuff! More next week. I hope.

Holding Pattern Eta

AAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

OK, now that's out of my system. For now, anyway. Yes, the Saga of the Awful Internet Connection here at Casa Jaquandor continues, with my connectivity woes now reaching Day Five. Oh it makes me mad.

Now, there's the whole "blessing in disguise" thing, yada yada yada, I've been reading a bit more the last few days and I've been writing a bit more too, but still: I like the Internet and I expect it to work, which since last Wednesday it has not. Which annoys me greatly.

Today I finally knuckled under when I got home from work and got EarthLink on the phone. What's happened for days is that the connection is only available for a few minutes at a time (at most), with long periods of connectionlessness in between. Today the "no connection" period lasted, as far as I can tell, overnight and through just about all of today. This sort of thing has happened before, but not in quite a long time, and it's finally become annoying to the point where I'm genuinely considering switching to Verizon FIOS if it's not fixed.

I spent almost two hours on the phone with a service rep with EarthLink, who was very polite and very willing to repeat himself a lot (a necessity, given his very thick Indian accent). He did a good job, although clearly my problem did not get resolved. But it was clear that he was following scripts and decision trees, as there were several times when I tried to offer information that he hadn't asked for, only to have him basically ignore what I had said and plow on to the next point. First we did the "usual" stuff (unplug the modem, wait ten seconds, plug it back in; describe for him my configuration of phone and data cords; et cetera), and when we seemed to have exhausted all of those alternatives, he talked me through some stuff that I didn't know anything about, which seems to have consisted of accessing setup screens and configuration menus and other things I had never seen before.

To his credit, my rep guy at no point sounded at all frustrated as the "Internet" light on the modem refused to come on and stay on, no matter what we did. But it was interesting how obvious it was when we finally reached the final item in his particular bag of tricks, because at that moment, he said "Here's your case reference number, someone will call you within twenty-four hours, have a nice night." And the call ended right then and there. I'm not sure what that means – at one point it sounded as if he was arranging for a tech to pay us a visit to get things figured out, but he didn't say that outright and as of right now I have no idea what the problem here is. I do know that it can't be anything that we did, as we have made zero changes in our Internet setup at home, with no ill effects on the DSL until now.

So here, I am trying to write posts in OpenOffice, paste them into a Blogger window, and "publish" them in the few brief seconds of being connected that I get here and there, once in a while. Hopefully this ends soon....

Sunday Burst of Weird and AWESOME!

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: The Galaxy Garden is a garden whose plants are cultivated, grown, and placed in such a way as to represent the Milky Way Galaxy. This is amazing! It reminds me, in a way, of the Carl Sagan "Solar System Walk" in Ithaca, which I see part of every year when The Wife and I go there for the Apple Festival, but whose comprising monuments I can never get pictures of because they're always crowded with people.

:: The other day I posted a video of a Star Trek: The Next Generation clip, in which Captain Picard joins a woman he's met in playing the flute he acquired in an earlier episode, one of the more memorable episodes called "The Inner Light". Here, then, is another video, wherein a guy plays that same melody on the Theremin.



Wondering what a Theremin is? Here's the basic background. It's an early electronic musical instrument, invented in the 1920s by a guy named Theremin. (Hence the name!) I'm not sure how it works, but the pitch and such are literally controlled by the position of the performer's hands in the air around it, so it's the only musical instrument I know of -- save the voice -- that can be played without touching anything. It was used a lot in movie filmscores of the mid-20th century, especially in science fiction flicks.

:: Map of Metal -- as in, I think, heavy metal, that wonderfully glam music whose heyday was in the late 70s and early to mid 80s. I wasn't a huge metal-head, relatively speaking, but I enjoyed quite a lot of it at the time. (Never went to a concert, though. In fact, to this day, the closest I've come to attending a rock concert is the Beatles tribute band that played with the Buffalo Philharmonic last year.) I'm actually linking this site on an "unvetted" basis, as it appears to be quite heavily graphical in nature, and with my recent connectivity issues, I haven't been able to load the entire site to see what it's like. Someone let me know if it's cool, OK?

More next week!

Been good to know you....

A long-favorite blog of mine, "Mental Multivitamin", has gone "Read by invitation only" after being around for quite a long time. I know I've been reading M-MV for at least four years and probably longer. I have no idea what led "Mrs. M-MV" to take that step, but I do find it a shame. (Her blog never had comments at all, so I can only assume she's been the recipient of nasty e-mails, or maybe she just felt it necessary to "close the door" now for some reason.)

Oh well. I wish her, and her family, well.

Holding Pattern Epsilon

Sorry for the lack of posting, folks, but again, the DSL here at Casa Jaquandor has been in and out, all weekend long. It's been enormously frustrating. I was willing to grant that the weather we had several days ago was behind the outages at first, but that excuse is getting harder to accept.

Now, our ISP is EarthLink, and has been since 2003. But I've noticed that since we switched from dial-up to DSL, when I view the blog from home, it shows up on my SiteMeter as a hit from Verizon.net. So my supposition is that EarthLink's DSL is simply Verizon's, rebranded in the same way that a lot of the store-brand merchandise at big stores like Target or Wal-Mart is name-brand stuff with a new label slapped on. If that's the case, then I wonder if Verizon is purposely letting their DSL go to hell in hopes that enough people will sign up for FIOS.

If that's the case, well...it may end up working. We have no interest in a cable teevee plan, so if we decide to ditch the DSL, our best option is to go with FIOS Internet on its own (perhaps also ditching our landline telephone). For now, I've been posting lots of nasty things about EarthLink on Twitter, to see if they pay attention to that. Calling their service number isn't an appealing option; I've gone that route before only to end up talking to a call center employee in Mumbai who very nicely talks me through the steps in power-cycling my modem. Which I've already done. Multiple times. Each day.

Oh well. We've had this problem with our DSL before, and it's always turned out OK after a few days. Hopefully that happens again now, but if it doesn't, I'm prepared to pull the trigger.

20 Questions about Star Wars

01. Who is your favorite character from the original trilogy?

Han Solo. He's got the coolest ship, the coolest weapon that isn't a lightsaber, and I like his character arc from outsider who doesn't believe in anything to full-fledged member of the cause.

02.How would you rank the original trilogy, in order from favorite to least favorite?

A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi

03. What are two of your favorite action scenes from the original trilogy?

The rescue of Luke and the escape from Vader at the end of TESB, and you know what? I'm gonna stick up for the Ewok battle, which I've never disliked (although it could have used a bit less broad comedy).

04. What do you consider the most emotional scene from the original trilogy?

Darth Vader's rejection of the Dark Side. In fact, I think that scene is even more powerful in light of the Prequel trilogy, because now we have some idea of what must be going through his head as he watches his son there, writhing on the ground from the same Dark Side lightning that the Emperor used to kill Mace Windu at the time that he first rejected the Good Side. The scene is edited together so brilliantly -- Vader stands there, watching; Luke screams "Father, please!"; Vader watches some more; the Emperor starts to get caught up in his own glee; Vader glimpses at the Emperor and sees the joy in Palpatine's eyes; Vader looks back at his son; Vader looks back at the Emperor...and then decides that he can't do this Dark Side thing any longer. That scene packs an amazing wallop for me.

05. Do you have any favorite toys or collectibles based off the original trilogy?

Mostly ships. (I should probably do a post of my Star Wars toys one of these days. It wouldn't be a terribly long post, really.)

06. Which character had the most unsatisfying death in the original trilogy?

None of them are particularly "unsatisfying", really -- I'm not even bothered by Boba Fett's demise, although a little more of a bad-ass exit wouldn't have been unwarranted. Maybe a bit of a fight with Han before Han manages to set off the jet-pack, or something like that.

07. What’s your favorite ship or vehicle from the original trilogy?

The Millennium Falcon.

08. Who is your favorite character from the prequel trilogy?

Obi Wan Kenobi.

09. How would you rank the prequel trilogy, in order from favorite to least favorite?

Revenge of the Sith
Attack of the Clones
The Phantom Menace

10. What are two of your favorite action scenes from the prequel trilogy?

Obi Wan's fight with Jango Fett on Kamino and his subsequent pursuit of him through the asteroid belt of Geonosis; Obi Wan versus Darth Vader on Mustafar.

11. What do you consider the most emotional scene from the prequel trilogy?

I found Revenge of the Sith almost emotionally overwhelming, starting with Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. His subsequent acts of betrayal were terribly sad. One moment stands out: when Plo Koon is leading a contingent of clone troopers into battle, and they receive the go-ahead for Order 66. He turns to them, yells "Come on!", and then looks on in shock and bewilderment as they aim their weapons at him. John Williams's music for this sequence is some of the best of the entire Saga.

12. Do you have any favorite toys or collectibles based off the prequel trilogy?

Again, mostly ships. I never did much with action figures, although I do have a couple.

13. Which character had the most unsatisfying death in the prequel trilogy?

We're straying into Fixing the Prequels territory here, aren't we? I don't have a problem with Padme dying essentially of a broken heart, since she hasn't just lost Anakin but her beloved Republic -- she has lost the very world in which she wanted to raise her children. I think Lucas was striving for something very operatic here, and deaths from broken hearts aren't unheard-of in opera. But it should have been drawn a bit more clearly, I think.

14. What’s your favorite ship or vehicle from the prequel trilogy?

There are wonderful ships all through the Prequel Trilogy; I love just about all of them. Picking just one...oh geez, I don't know. Maybe the Jedi starfighters in Revenge of the Sith, the ones that are on the way to being TIE Fighters.

15. If you could get a personalized Star Wars themed license plate for your car, what would it say?

E CHU TA. (Points to whomever can identify that!)

16. Do you have a favorite Star Wars based video game?

I really need to start playing some Star Wars games. I haven't played any of 'em. Yeesh!

17. Have you read any of the Star Wars books (expanded universe), and if so, what are your favorites?

I haven't read any in a long time. I started following them eagerly when they started coming out in the early 90s, but too many were coming out too quickly and the quality tended to be very uneven, so I eventually stopped. I wouldn't mind reading a few now, but I'm not sure which are the "good" ones.

I loved Timothy Zahn's novels, though.

18. Are you a fan of the “Clone Wars” cartoon series?

I don't have Cartoon Network, so I haven't seen any of it. I need to.

19. What (or who) do you hope to see in upcoming Star Wars TV series?

I'd like to see stories that take place well outside the scope of the "Big Story". Maybe follow some Corellian pirate around, or something like that. I'd like to see tales that follow characters who aren't Sith or Jedi or tied somehow to the fate of the Republic. Small-scale stories, perhaps. It's a big galaxy!

20. If you were stranded on a desert island with one Star Wars character, who would you want it to be and why?

R2-D2. Seriously, he's an intergalactic Swiss army knife. He can start fires, cut firewood, stun game so I can kill it, scan for passing ships, and so on.

Of course, if my choice was between R2 and Princess Leia, then....

A favorite scene from Star Trek TNG

No reason, just a wonderful little scene.

A shout-out to the fine young man who helped shovel out my car

Hey all!

Now I'm blogging from a public terminal at the Orchard Park Public Library. I hope the home DSL comes back on soon. Yeesh!

I was able to leave work today with relatively little fuss, which was nice owing to the large number of horror stories I had heard from denizens of the South Buffalo area regarding travel. The big difficulty was digging out my car, which had been buried in about a foot of snow since parking it seven hours prior. But a coworker of mine came along to help me do the digging, at one saying, "So, are you going to mention me on your blog?"

Well, here he is. Thanks, dude! And in the brief time span I was out there, he helped shovel out four different cars for coworkers. I'm sure there were more, even, than that. Huzzah for helpful coworkers!

Holding Pattern Delta!

Wow, are we ever getting hit with snow in the regions surrounding Casa Jaquandor. Lots and lots of snow, that wonderful lake-effect stuff that beats the hell out of a region about five to ten miles wide and leaves folks half-a-mile outside of the snow band scratching their heads and saying things like, "What in tarnation do you suppose the fuss is all about!"

I assume it's weather related, but our DSL connection at home has been extremely spotty over the last day and if it is weather related I expect it to remain spotty, so I'm not likely to be online a whole lot. But don't just say "Well, screw him!" and click Back on your browsers! I've posted some good stuff lately (also on Flickr), or at least I like to think so. Hang out, leave a comment or two, yada yada yada. Meantime, new content will show up, oh, sometime when I can actually post new content. Cheerio, folks!

(I'm posting this from work, which is something I don't like to do, but duty calls.)

Wednesday Wickedness

Somewhat along the lines of Sunday Stealing, Wednesday Wickedness offers quiz-things, but with a twist: the W.W. quiz questions are inspired by quotes from famed personages. I haven't done one yet, but I'm going to start now, with Groucho Marx:

1. 'A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere."
What is a superstition that many have that you think is crazy?

Just about all superstitions are crazy, aren't they? I can't think of one that isn't. I myself am not very superstitious, except for always saying "Bless you!" when people sneeze.

I suppose I could get political and say that the notion that cutting taxes will raise revenue strikes me as a deeply crazy superstition, or I could call Creationism or climate change denialism "superstitions", but those seem more errors than superstitions to me.

2. "A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running."
What were you in the hospital for the last time that you were admitted?

I have, to date, never been admitted to a hospital. I'm sure that lucky streak is bound to end someday, but for now, everything I've ever done has been in a doctor office visit.

3. "Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse."
What payment do you make that seems ridiculous?

None of my current payments seem ridiculous to me.

4. "Humor is reason gone mad."
How would you describe your sense of humor?

I guess I'm all over the map, huh? I'm a guy who loves intricate wordplay, complex puns, the types of zany comedic situations that fill the Monty Python movies; I love geeky humor like what you'll find in The Big Bang Theory, and I got a huge kick out of the raunchy humor of The Hangover. I like oddball, off-kilter humor like O Brother, Where Art Thou?, observational oddity humor like Seinfeld, meta-weirdness like The Far Side and Pearls Before Swine.

Oddly, slapstick humor doesn't tend to do a whole lot for me, aside from pies in the face (which are more of a participatory thing for me anyway), unless it's worked into one of the above categories for more comic effect. I don't care for the Three Stooges, for instance, but there were some inspired slapsticky things that happened on Frasier.

5. "I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it."
Who was the last person that you wanted to beat with something or other?

I don't really ever genuinely want to beat anyone with anything. But I do use the beating metaphor on occasion. One of my coworkers and I like to joke about how we're going to snap one day and run around The Store, beating people on the head with stale French baguettes. Another friend and I like to quote James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams: "I'm gonna beat you with a crowbar, until you go away!"

6. "I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception."
Would you ever like to change something about your face?

Aside from having The Wife hit it with a pie once in a while, I'm generally fine with my face. It's got me this far in life. (Maybe a slightly bigger chin...but nothing else!)

7. "I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury."
I read an article recently that asked if marriage was still relevant. Other than to raise children do you see the point?

I don't know about this. I'm not sure that the government should be involved in marriage at all, anymore. But as long as it is, then I think it's relevant -- as a legal matter, marriage is, I suppose, society's recognition of the commitment of two people to one another. And I do think that to some extent, marriage still implies and helps to create a stability of a relationship. But this may change. I'm not sure how much longer people will be getting "married" in the traditional sense.

8. "If you've heard this story before, don't stop me, because I'd like to hear it again."
Do you find that you tend to repeat your stories?

Yes, I do, and sometimes it gets annoying when (a) I realize I'm doing it, and (b) other people point out that I'm doing it.

9. "There's one way to find out if a man is honest - ask him. If he says, "Yes," you know he is a crook."
Do you find most people that are in your life to be honest?

I find that most people believe that they are honest. Whether or not they actually are can be open to some interpretation. I don't think that anyone is 100 percent honest, but I don't think that there are all that many people for whom lying is as easy as drawing breath.

10. "Wives are people who feel they don't dance enough."
Have you ever felt that your significant other did not go out with enough?

Occasionally, yes. But I know she has thought that about me at times, too. We both seem to easily fall into ruts of familiarity and then not realize we're in the ruts for a bit longer than it should be healthy.

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

Tomato juice. Yum! or Ewwww!?