Smiley and his Cousin

Smiley and his cousin

Street Work

The city is marking up the street in front of my house - literally, directly in front of my house - and I went and asked what was going on. Turns out they're building a gas line from the landfill in Franklin, all the way down to Jones Island. (!) Based on soil samples from in front of my house, they may have to dig the street up to lay the pipe. Yikes!

On Empire, Hoth, and Horrorween

I just finished watching the last 45 minutes of The Empire Strikes Back, and it brought back a lot of memories. I was a huge Star Wars nut as a kid, and at six years old my Dad took me to see Empire. We got there early, and I peaked through a window on the theater door and saw R2D2 fix the hyperdrive on the 'Falcon.

After the movie, I was pretty shaken. Seeing Han, my favorite character, frozen in carbonite scared the beejeezus out of me, and I couldn't sleep under my normal SW blanket that night. I just couldn't stand looking at Han, and I remember looking up 'carbon' in the encyclopedia in the next few days to try to find out if he was in pain or not.

Add in the whole "I am your father" thing, which confused me (I asked my Dad if he thought Vader was lying) and it was a chaotic mess of a movie visit, but one I'll remember forever.

You know, I've long since ditched SW fandom. It's cool, but it's not the cat's meow it once was for me. Even so, Empire stands as a great movie in its own right, independent of the series as a whole. It is dark and full of pain, emotional and physical, and the good guys don't win - but there is hope, and friendship, and love. It's truly great.

[Plus Leia never looked better - yes, even in the golden bikini of Jedi - and the battle for Hoth ROCKED]

* * * *

In another bit of useless trivia, I have discarded a copy of Horrorween by Al Sarrantonio. Sarrantonio's got talent and a way with words, but when you're midway through a book and a character says (parprhrasing here) "Remember the genius robotic engineer who went insane after his son was murdered by the clown? He escaped from the hospital and is on the loose!" well, there's no going back.

'Twas a time I'd finish any book I'd started, but screw that. Life's too short to waste it wading through crud.

Update: Town Hall Meeting

Did any reader actually attend the town hall meeting? I couldn't, but I just caught a synopsis of the event on the news. Apparently Moore answered only "five or six" questions during the entire two hour session, and the crowd was described as largely pro-Moore. I expected that, given the restrictions on speech she imposed, but I was suprised at the large number of opposing viewpoints that managed to be heard. Things got heated, but not violent, and if you think it was some grand GOP plan that got emotions running, think again.

Quoting Moore, verbatim, from the telecast of the meeting:

"One of the things we['re] gonna do is we're gonna repeal THOSE TAX BREAKS for the wealthiest Americans [applause, cks notes] . . . Number TWO, we're gonna end the war in Iraq! [applause, cks notes again, then yells the following] Number THREE, we're gonna MAKE THOSE INSURANCE COMPANIES BRING SOMETHIN' TO THE TABLE BESIDES THEIR APPETITE [loud applause]."

Really?? This was not a campaign rally, and all that crap did was satisfy the faithful who were already in her corner and harden the opposition's belief that she's all slogans and nothing more. I think that instead, she might have spent a little more than the half-hour that she devoted to *actually* interacting with the people of the district.

Again, as expressly pointed out by the reporters, this is the one and only time Moore will meet with her constituents.

Sigh.

Town Hall Meeting Tonight

Egads, it galls me to promote anything connected to my Congresswoman, but she is hosting a town hall meeting about Obamacare tonight, in uh, four minutes actually. It runs until six, so you can still attend, but don't bother going with a question in mind: Moore, never the sharpest pencil in the pouch, is responding only to questions that were submitted in advance and pre-approved by her staff. Why, that sounds like a joyous, give and take expression of democracy to me!

Oh, and please, if you go: remember to bring a spare tire. Ok, ok - cheap shot. Deserved, but cheap.

On a serious note: this is the first and only town hall meeting she'll be holding. The local Republican Congressmen have scheduled multiple sessions; off the top of my head, Paul Ryan has more than a dozen on the table.



WHO: Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wisc.
WHAT: Informational session on health care reform
WHEN: Tuesday, August 11, 2009, 4-6 p.m.., CST
WHERE: North Division High School, Milwaukee, WI

Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) will Tuesday hold an informational session to hear from her constituents on the proposed health care reform legislation that the House of Representatives will likely consider in September.

A representative from the University of Wisconsin is expected to be on hand to give a non-partisan, informational presentation on the bill’s specifics.

Congresswoman Moore will also answer questions that constituents have submitted online on health care reform. Those who plan to attend need to submit their questions online prior to the event.

EDIT: Formatting and text changes were rejected by Blogger at the time of publication, citing code errors that were over my head. I posted as-is given the time sensitive issue. Coming back now, a few hours later, I went with the original (intended) post.

Freaky

Every few minutes I've heard this guttural sound coming from the other room. Kind of freaky in a quiet house, actually. Then I got it: it's Smiley's crickets. They aren't quite chirping so much as . . . well, making unique disgusting noises.

Watchmen - the movie

The night before he left for Cape Cod, my nephew and I sat down to watch a movie. After a few minutes Lisa called out from the other room.

"That music is cool," she said. "What are you watching?"

"Watchmen," I said.

"What's it about?"

"Basically, superheroes are illegal, but when one of them is murdered a group of retired heroes gets back together to solve the crime."

There was silence for a moment.

"So, it's a violent The Incredibles?"

And that, Dear Reader, is the problem. Watchmen was innovative in the '80's, and a thousand stories owe a debt to the monumental graphic novel. But the market is so saturated with knock-offs that the original seems almost mundane. It's something I first wrote about in my review of the comic itself.

The movie itself is a visual treat, and for the most part follows the novel blow-for-blow. Aside from the stilted acting of Malin Akerman, I thought it was very enjoyable, and Rorschach's scene in the prison cafeteria was worth the price of the rental all by its lonesome.

The bad? The graphic novel is a long read, as such things go, and the movie seems to drag as it sticks close to the source material. Then they inexplicably change the nature of the threat in the closing minutes, altering the logic (and effectiveness) of the whole exercise.*

Still, if you can push past the feeling that you've seen it all before, it's worth a look.

2.8 out of 4.


* SPOILER: if it isn't an 'outside' threat that destroys the cities, what's the point? I mean, Dr. Manhattan is still a (rogue) U.S. employee right? If he blows up Tehran, I'm thinking the Iranians still have a legitimate grievance against America, no? So what did it all accomplish? Nada, not in the 'real' world.

Midnight Birthday Wishes

These pics were taken at the stroke of midnight on the 7th, as I stepped into Ginger's room to wish her a Happy Birthday.

Best. Movie. Line. Ever

From the movie Ghost Breakers, here's a dandy of a quip from Bob Hope. And yes, it's Snopes verified.



h/t to Opinionated Lady

Hope: "You live here?"

Man: "Yes."

Hope: "Then maybe you know what a zombie is."

Man: "When a person dies and is buried, it seems there are certain voodoo priests who . . .who have the power to bring him back to life."

Woman: "How horrible!"

Man: "It's worse than horrible because a zombie has no will of their own. You see them sometimes walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring."

Hope: "You mean like Democrats?"

Make that three cats (2 permanent), a turtle, a Beta, a goldfish, two minnows, a frog, and a dozen crickets

LuLu's fish died, a mere 12 hours after its 'warranty' expired. Shoddy workmanship Darwin, shoddy workmanship. God woulda done better.

[note: she'd named it "Cheetah" after the dark pattern on its back. She didn't pronounce it 'cheetah' however. It was more like "Cheetahhhhh!" in kind of a "jazz hands" voice.

Anyhow, as I did with YaYa's goldfish, I fed him to our turtle (although unlike with YaYa, I fudged and said I gave him a noble burial). This morning I took the kids to the pet store and wasted another $15.

We picked up a goldfish and a cheap plastic plant for Lu, and twelve feeder minnows and two dozen crickets for the turtle (twelve large roach-like monsters, and twelve little ones). In the end I wound up adding two of the minnows to LuLu's goldfish bowl, and to satisfy a suddenly insect-happy Smiley, gifted him the twelve little crickets.

As for the turtle, these are rare treats for he-who-normally-survives-on-turtle-pellets. He also was treated to a sunbath in the great outdoors. In a moment I'll take him in, as it's a bloomin' oven outside today.

I did want to mention an unrelated but odd thing that happened this past week. While driving home from work Thursday a woman cut in front of me. I hit the brakes and almost, but not quite, came to a stop. When I resumed driving I felt around for the gas pedal and couldn't find it. I actually had to glide to a stop on the side of the road, get out, and take a look.

The pedal had actually disconnected and was laying flat on the floor.

In such situations a mechanic friend is a Godsend, and I am blessed to have one who will ride to the rescue at any time of day. Roy came out w/in a half hour. "What the F did you do? I've never seen this before," he said. "If I were you, I'd start praying."

"Dude, you fix it and I'll drop and say a rosary right here."

Five minutes later, I was on the road. Apparently the throttle cable (?) attached to the gas pedal became entangled with the brake and disconnected after the abrupt stop. ???

"Is it going to happen again?" I asked after I damn near kissed the guy.

"I've never seen it before," he said. "So I'm thinking it's a once in a lifetime thing."

Let's hope so.