May 26, 2008

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull

No Spoilers here!

And, in order to keep this a spoiler-free zone, it'll be a short review.

I loved it.

I watched Raiders and Temple of Blech Saturday night. I made the mistake of watching Last Crusade before I went to church Sunday morning. (It was a mistake because I was beyond hyper during church.) We grabbed a quick bite for lunch and headed over to the theatre.

Okay - without spoilers - here are some elements of the movie.

1) As with the other movies, this is a "throwback" to the old serial adventure movies and the golden age of comic books. It is not a realistic action flick. (Actually, I don't think any action flicks are realistic. I guess I mean modern.)

2) It is now 1957. So far as I can tell, Indiana Jones was "born" in 1900 - this makes him 57. (There's a plot for an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles which puts him at age 5 in 1905.)
Fifty-seven year old archeologists of any genre are no longer physically capable of stunts without pain. This holds true throughout the course of the movie and becomes a running gag much as the younger Indy's ability to do stunts with great good luck and little pain were a running gag throughout the first three movies.

3) It is now 1957 and archeology has changed. Let's face it - in the first three movies, Indy was a professional grave robber. He wanted museums to have the stuff he found - but not the museums of the countries of origin. Of course, most archaeologists of that time period did the same thing. It was status quo for the times. However, in 1957 Indy has to change his tactics as he is probably also in the process of changing his opinions on ethics.

4) It is now 1957 and the country has also changed. Quite dramatically, actually. Hence, the characters around Indy are different than they were in earlier films - and some have moved on in one way or another.

5) All of the Indy movie plotlines revolve around one premise: Indy is looking for some mythological, mythical something. The culture varies from Judaic to Hindi to Christian. Indy searches for this thing even though he thinks it's "just" an artifact. He never believes in the mysticism around the artifact when he begins the search - and at the end of the movie that mysticism is always proven to be truth and not just a myth.
In this fourth movie the myth is actually a somewhat 1950s, somewhat American, somewhat South American conglomerate. I found it utterly fascinating that it took several myths and tied them all together - much, quite frankly, as was hinted at but not fully done in Last Crusade.

6) The puzzles in this movie were almost meta-puzzles. That is, they were almost more about the myth of Indiana Jones than they were physical archaeological gimmick-traps as seen in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Did we still see cool bits of "rock mechanics" and "rock gears" and such? Yep. Loved it.

7) Characterization - I thought Indy's character made as much sense as he ever did. His supporting cast made as much sense as the previous supporting casts (in some ways, even more so). Were some of the characters cardboard? Umm, well, let's think about this. Were any of the bad guys in previous films more than cardboard? Not really and that's where the whole "throwback to the old adventure serials and golden age of comics" comes into play. I don't want them to be fully developed. I don't want to have any sympathy for the bad guy characters. They are mere plot device spear carriers only there so I can watch Indy be Indy.

I'm hearing some people complaining that they are Indy fans and think this movie sucks. Lemme put it this way, it was heads and shoulders above Temple of Doom. I thought it was on par with Last Crusade (and I have a hard time deciding if I like Last Crusade or Raiders more - Raiders is more of an action flick; Crusade is more of an Indy flick, so I think I come down on the side of the more fully developed Last Crusade).

So did I like it? Hellz yeah. Did I think it was a good Indiana Jones flick? Hellz yeah. It was far better than I feared and it was exactly the right script to bring Indy back.

Bravo! (Yes, I do give it five stars out of five.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:53 AM | Comments (5) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

May 23, 2008

Funny Thing Happened ...

So. Umm. Yeah.

I have a confession to make. Confession is supposed to be good for the soul and, to be honest, I tarnished mine this week.

I am addicted to Diet Vanilla Pepsi. And, as I wrote last year around this time, it's become difficult to find again. Dammit.

I have spent the last two weeks NOT drinking it because I couldn't find it. Zilch, zero, nada, goose egg. Diet Vanilla Coke is ucky, although I buy it on occasion when I cannot find my sweet nectar. I have spent the last two weeks doing Diet Mountain Dew. Meh.

So, whilst at the grocery store this week, once again NO nectar of the gods. Try another store. Nope. And then, then, I tarnished my soul. I couldn't stand it anymore.

I went to EvilMart. (Also called WalMart.)

I know, I know. I am going to hell for this. But just wait. It gets even worse.

I go in, grab a cart and put four 12-packs in my cart. I'd take ALL that they had, but I can't quite reach the fifth pack that is way in the back and I don't feel like rummaging through the store for a broom or a mop just to fish it out. (Yes, by the way, I have done that before. I told you, I'm addicted to the stuff!)

On a whim, I decide that I should just make a quick dash through electronics to see if they have the thing I have been obsessing about for the last week and a half. At least in this area, this item is still in high demand and most stores almost never have them on the shelves.

I stood in electronics at the lock-up in complete and utter disbelief. It is sitting there. Several of them. In their compact and clean little white boxes.

Yeah. I know. I'm going to hell.

I used nearly half of my stimulus check to do what I said I was not going to do - I stimulated the economy. At EvilMart no less!

But I got a Wii!!! WOOHOO!!! A Nintendo Wii all for me! And I kick arse at tennis -

I mean. Umm.

Oh my blogging peeps, I am most heartily sorry for having offended even myself. I detest all my sinful EvilMart shopping, because of the unfair business practices, but most of all because EvilMart offends thee, my most valued readers, who are all good and deserving of better things. I firmly resolve with the help of thy grace to shop at EvilMart no more, to do two hours of Wii daily penance and to amend my buying practices (and buy the Wii Fit somewhere else). Amen.

(Am I going to hell for spending money I shouldn't? Or for shopping at EvilMart? Or for re-writing the Act of Contrition? Yeah, that's what I thought. For all three. Crap.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:48 AM | Comments (12) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

May 16, 2008

Red Monkey - Starting Year Four

Here's my blog anniversary post for your enjoyment ... Jodi asked a year ago, why the red monkey ... here's the answer. Oh ... and the red monkey graphic? That's not the red monkey that I talk about here ... that's a vector graphic I drew for this blog ... based on one of my other passions: Fisher Price Little People. So now you know.

I love antique stores and junk stores. I have this thing for toys, particularly old toys. I'm fascinated by everything from the packaging and advertising to the toys themselves. The problem is a lot of those so-called antique stores - at least the ones that also sell old toys - are really antique store and collectibles store combos. So I'll see a booth full of Nascar stuff next to one with clothes from the 20s and 30s. Not a big deal, really, it's usually all interesting stuff - if it wasn't for the crazy prices some of the collectibles folks tend to charge.

Anyhow, this is about 1999 or 2000 and I'm walking through a pretty cool antique store when I round the corner to the biggest flippin' display of Ty Beanie Babies I've ever seen. And despite their frenzied, must-have popularity, some of these little guys are really cute and clever. I already had a handful of the things, ones I thought were really cool or cute. I have the otter, the Ireland bear and a few others. (Why haven't they made a dolphin yet??) I also have the first monkey they made, cuz I've always really liked monkeys.

So, in this display case they have this really cool new Beanie Baby I haven't seen yet, a little red monkey with a cute tan face and a little fluff of hair on top of his head. I have to have him. DId I mention that some of these collectible places think they can charge 4-5 times the retail prices on a toy that's just come out? Not a toy that's been out and then discontinued, excuse me, "retired." A toy that is currently being mass produced but just barely started hitting the shelves - those toys are worth the retail price. Not "scalper" prices.

So this scalper booth wants $20 or $25 for a $5 stuffed animal. I stomped past, growling and grousing about opportunistic scalpers and this kind of artificial supply and demand being among the worst of human impulses. I do not "have to have" something like a little stuffed animal so badly that I will pay 5x its actual worth. I would pay $1 or $2 more to have it now - I can be that shallow and that careless about my spending money from time to time. But this, this is not capitalism - it's stupidity. Stupidity on the part of the seller and on the part of anyone who gives in and buys the overpriced goods.

Yeah, my friends are tired of that rant, too.

So, later that night, my friends and I are sitting in the living room watching a movie. It's a pseudo-SF movie called Strange Days. It's an awesome movie set just a touch in the future when people don't just watch reality tv, they experience it through virtual programs on the computer.

Well, I'd seen the movie before and it was fast becoming one of my favorites, but I was a little restless and bored that night. So everyone's really really into the movie, the tension's building and I'm kinda looking around the room. I see my little beanie-baby monkey on the bookshelf.

"I really want that red monkey," I say aloud.

The whole room turns to stare at me in shock. "What?"

The movie had to be paused and rewound a bit. Evidently it was a really intense point in the flick.

"What?" I ask, all wounded innocence and surprised at their reaction.

"Where did that come from?" they reply.

"I was just looking around the room and saw my little monkey and that reminded me of the beanie baby we saw in that store today - " there's much eye-rolling at this pronouncement "-and I just realized that I really want that little monkey."

"We're in this intense part of the movie and you're talking about a stuffed monkey?"

Somehow, my explanation did not help my case at all. "I've seen the movie before" I point out helpfully.

"I repeat, we're in this tense and intense part of the movie and you are thinking about a toy monkey?" The room is staring at me now. Finally someone grabs the remote and flips the movie back to play, muttering, "You are so ADD."

You've maybe seen the t-shirt that says "They say I have ADD, but I don't think ...Hey look! A chicken!" Well, my chicken is a red monkey.

Interestingly enough, a year or so later I was diagnosed as ADHD.

Now, I have a McD's teenie beanie version atop my monitor at work and the regular-sized one in the home office.

So, that's the story of the red monkey.

And now you know lots of important tidbits about me.

So now you know.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:48 AM | Comments (6) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

May 1, 2008

The Island Who Lost Its Name

It's true, Virginia, there really IS a Lesbos.

Seriously. It's a Greek island just off the coast of Turkey, near Ayvalik (which was a Turkish city filled with Greeks until about 1922). Today, it's often referred to as Mytilini - which is actually just the name of the island's capital.

And, they want their name back. They do not wish to be residents of the isle of Mytilini (which sounds vaguely Italian anyway), they want to be ...

Lesbians.

Wait, wait, wait. That came out wrong. ACK! Not "came out" like "came out of the closet" ... I mean, it didn't sound ...

Oh bollox.

It's simple. Waaaaaay back in the 7th century B.C., there was a woman named Sappho. She wrote poetry. Love poetry. Sappho lived on the Greek island of Lesbos. She wrote love poetry to women. Hence, Sappho was a Lesbian lesbian. Or was she a Mytilinian lesbian? Maybe she was bi, we just don't know. At any rate, somewhere along the line, instead of being accurate and calling women who write love poetry to other women Sapphians, which would have been more accurate, they called them lesbians. And then, of course, they attached the word to females who were attracted to other females, instead of being more precise and only referring to women who wrote poetry to women as Sa - I mean lesbians.

So it's quite obvious that the entire process of naming women who happen to be homosexual as lesbians has been very much botched from the beginning. Or at least since the 7th century B.C. Or, to be more precise, B.C.E. (before the common era).

At any rate, the people of the island sometimes called Lesbos and sometimes called Mytilini would actually like to be called Lesbians now. Never mind that there are plenty of people who would prefer to NOT be called a lesbian, these people would like their name back.

It's been badly misused by the media in the United States. All throughout the 1980s, any news story involving Sharon Gless using began in this way: A crazed lesbian broke into Gless' home or perhaps Gless has taken out a restraining order on the crazed lesbian who broke into.

And anyway, why bother to divide the gay community into "gay men" and "lesbians" anyway? Shouldn't the gay community try to band together and show their numbers instead of subdividing into minute special-interest groups? What if the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s had subdivided into Africans, half blacks, quadroons, Baptists, Catholics, etc, etc, etc?

I say, let the island of Lesbos have their name back. I don't want it, anyway.

Now, if the Dutch start demanding "dyke" back, we're gonna have problems ...

You can read the BBC article here.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:46 AM | Comments (10) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

April 25, 2008

Withdrawals

3:05 PM
Inexplicably, nothing will load in Firefox. As the machine hasn't been restarted in a while and is bogging down, I decide to restart. All lights green on the router.

3:10 PM
Machine restarted. Now nothing on the internet works. N O T H I N G.
Everything still green on the router.

3:15 PM
Begin running the diagnostic on the router. "No internet connection can be obtained." Really, Sherlock? Thanks for that bit of stunning information. Dammit.
Oh, and now the router thinks there might be a problem. Middle light is now orange. Little behind the times, there, hoss.

3:16 PM
Now the router thinks my login/pwd might be wrong. WTF?

3:17 PM
Now it's back to can't find an ATM circuit and cannot obtain an internet address. Hit the Diagostic Test one more time and pick up Hampton Sides' Blood and Thunder. I'm down to the last 100 pages and the part I was most dreading to read about: the Navajo Long Walk.

3:20 PM
Peek up from book. Light still orange. Diagnostics still refreshing approximately every 60 to 90 seconds. Sometimes it's "login/pwd wrong," sometimes it's "can't obtain internet address." Attempt to plant book in front of face so I can't see the computer screen.

3:30 PM
Internet still down. Meh.

3:40 PM
See, when I was little, I read a biography of Kit Carson and I wound up thinking he was the coolest guy in the world, a real advocate for the native Americans. Of course, it was a fairy tale, legend-based biography which in many respects only had a passing glance with truth. But I didn't know that at the time. I thought he was cool.

I also absolutely adored the Navajo. I'd announced when I was three that I wanted to grow up to be an Indian, and it was the Navajo tribe that had fascinated me from that day on.

This biography, Blood and Thunder, is wonderful. Not only does it give a nice, academic look at Carson, it also tells the story in a readable way. (The book's selected bibliography is 17 pages long!) And it does more than just talk about Carson - Sides makes sure to give all of the surrounding context of Carson's life, including constant overviews of the Navajo life at that time. Of course, this is all building up to Carson's worst mistake ever - his scorched earth campaign against the Navajo.

These last 100 pages are simply difficult for me to stay focused on at the best of times. Two of my favourite Old West entities clashing. I hate it.

4:10 PM
Other half comes home. The house is no longer peacefully quiet, but absolutely drenched in words. Talking to me, to the dogs, to the cats, to me, to the dogs. I can't tell anymore when to listen and when not to. My processing filter is broken. After trying to read one sentence at least a half dozen times, thinking she's done talking to me, only to find out she's still in the middle of some story ... I put the book down finally.

Damn internet is still down.

4:11 PM
Get a word in edgewise: The internet is down.
Response? Oh.
And then she picks up her computer. Pushes buttons. "How long has the internet been down?"
(Okay, so I'm exaggerating a bit here. That's what it felt like, though!)

"About an hour." Luckily for her, she had a story already loaded in her browser and could sit there and read it. Since I restarted my computer, I had nothing. Besides, most of my online work is dynamic. And I couldn't concentrate on the website design I was doing - I rely a lot on being able to upload and check the code against four different browsers on two computing platforms. If I can't do that cross-checking, I get very out of sorts very quickly.

4:30 PM
Begin obsessing again over restarting the router and performing diagnostics. I know at this point that it's AT&T's fault. I know at this point it's not going to come back just because I restart the router. I know constantly running the diagnostic is not going to magically fix things.

I keep doing these things anyway.

Stupid Kit Carson and his overblown sense of "my country needs me and even if I don't agree, it's my duty to do what the Army general says I should do." He knew he shouldn't take on the Navajos. He knew it was wrong to round them up this way. He knew they weren't going to fare well at Bosque Redondo.

Stupid AT&T DSL.

Meh.

5:00 PM
We take a nap to prepare for choir night. Internet still out. The other half has to wake up at 3:30 AM in order to get to work by 5 AM. Generally, we go to bed between 8 and 9 PM in order to get a full night's sleep. Since she suffers from severe, debilitating migraines, we have to be very certain that she gets enough sleep and follows a regular sleep pattern. Thursday nights, though, choir starts at 7:30 and usually runs until at least 9, which means we're often up until 10 or 11 PM. In order to make up for this, we try to take an hour or two nap Thursday before choir.

6:10 PM
Feel like I could have slept another couple of hours at least.

Damn internet is STILL OUT!

Reboot the router. Meh. Damn AT&T anyway.

Boy oh boy. Scorched earth. Carson either took any stock animals for his army or he killed them and left them to rot or burned them. He fed his army's animals on the fields of the Navajo and then burned whatever was left over. The Diné (the name the Navajo use for themselves) were starving to death and sure that it was not just a war against them, but an extermination of their entire people. His last act before leaving Canyon de Chelly was to chop down the peach tree grove of which the Navajo were so proud. Talk about insult to injury.

When Kit did something, he did it thoroughly. I am still disgusted.

6:15 PM
Restart the router again. Meh. Fix a cheese sandwich with some Cholula on it for dinner.

Turns out Bosque Redondo was far outside the Dinétah (Navajo lands) and the people did not fare well there. Carson didn't even lead them on the Long Walk. Somehow, that seems kind of insulting to me. All this work to subjugate them ... and then I wonder if it felt like he didn't even think enough of them to walk them to their new reservation himself. That doesn't appear to be his reasoning, but still ... I think that's what I would have felt like.

The first year, the Navajo threw themselves into farming the land. The corn crop looked great and General Carleton (who was the one who ordered Carson to subjugate the Navajo and make sure they got to the bosque) Carleton thought he had a great thing going. His benevolent plan was working.

Cutworms got the corn.

6:45 PM
Reset the router again. Why do I keep doing this? I know it's not the router, it's the service from AT&T.

Unsurprisingly, things do not get better at the reservation. The Mescalero Apaches who had been brought to Bosque Redondo before the Navajo eventually slip away one night. The Navajo try to farm the land for three years and with the coming of the fourth year, they give up. Cutworms two years in a row and a hailstorm the third year. All they can think about is how they had always been told not to leave the Dinetah or their medicine would no longer work and they would wither and die. It certainly seems to be true after three failed years. Why should they continue to fight it? They lost their wealth, their lands, their gods.

Meanwhile, Carson is mostly retired. At least, he keeps trying to retire, although he allows the bleat of "duty" to call him back at least once. Seems he's developed an aneurysm on his aorta. It's a slow leak, leaking into a "balloon" in his chest. The thing could pop at any time and he'll die. There's nothing to be done for him. His wife, Josefa, has given birth to their seventh? eighth? child. She suffers some complications from the birth, but perks up ... only to suddenly die. Carson follows her in death within a month.

And the Diné, after an army investigation into the Bosque Redondo experiment, are allowed to return home. Their traditional lands have been made much, much smaller, but it is in the Dinétah. They are going home at last.

7:00 PM
Still no fricking internet.

9:30 PM
Back from choir. Still with the damned center orange light on the router. Seriously, WTF? I mean, I finished my book, dammit, I was virtuous. NOW WHERE IS MY INTERNET????

Meh. Damn AT&T.

We watch the Unbeatable Banzuke that recorded last night, plus the new Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

Still with the orange light. A handful of games of solitaire. Meh. Boring. I pull out Jerrold E. Levy's In the Beginning and begin preparing for bed.

This is a more academic treatment of the Navajo creation and origin stories. It's fascinating to me, but it's the kind of book that I read very very very v e r y slowly. I'm soon ready for bed.

The orange light mocks me as I fall asleep.

3:30 AM
Rob Zombie's "Dragula" pierces my dreams and I'm up.

THREE GREEN LIGHTS!!!!

I'm back, baby, B A C K, back!

Now, please. Don't ever go out again, okay? Please? It was horrible without you, baby. Horrible. I swear I'll not cheat on you with my phone ever ever ever again. (Wait, I never do internet with my phone. I don't even text with it.)

Well, the important thing is, I'm connected again.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:54 AM | Comments (3) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

April 3, 2008

SUCH a Geek

Alternate title: I SOOOOO need a job.

I hang out at BlogCatalog far too much. It's my primary form of entertainment on days when the other half is home with a migraine and I have to be quiet. Of course, that backfires sometimes when people like Ekim get to thinking they're funny. As punishment, and because I was boreded and wanted a non-productive project on which to work, I give you ...

Ekim-Diego. Go Ekim Go!

For those of you curious as to how you can do such a thing as insert a photo of someone into a cartoon character, this time I also wrote a tutorial of sorts, complete with screen caps. Sadly, the Claire/Smurfette picture would have been a better one to do the tutorial to since the picture turned out better - but ... eh.

The trick, for those of you kind of curious, but not curious enough to slog through the tutorial - is to pick a facial picture in which the shape of the person's face comes close to the shape of the cartoon character's face. Otherwise, you'll have to copy/paste just the eyes and nose and such and place them in the picture and smooth out the edges - it's a long and tedious and not very worthwhile endeavor. Trick the second is to pick a cartoon character with a very different skin tone than your real person. What makes this type of image actually work at all is the colourizing of the original face. Otherwise, it's just a lame cut and paste job.

Put a face on a cartoon

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:31 AM | Comments (5) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble