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| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | | 8:35 pm |
This looks fun! Aye, Dark Overlord!Tell lies! Shift the blame! Save yourself from the anger of the Evil Genius! You are returning to the Tower of Dark Sorcery after the umpteenth failed mission. His Excellency will certainly be displeased, which can only result in the most awful pain and suffering for his hapless minions. If only there were some way you could convince him that it's not your fault...
Aye, Dark Overlord! is a hilarious party game of lying through your teeth. Convince your Dark Overlord that it was not your fault his evil plan failed, but that of your inept companions! But watch out; they probably have the exact same idea...Also known as Sì, Oscuro Signore. Current Mood:  evil | | Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 | | 12:49 am |
Fifty-two dollars for a tank of gas I don't drive an SUV. My car has a 14 gallon tank. Despite being over a decade old, it still gets an economical 30-35mpg. I can drive over 400 miles before needing a fill up, in rare cases nearly 500. On the first page of my mileage logbook from 1996, a tank of gas cost $15. Today, I paid over $50 for a tank of gas for the first time. Local prices went up over a nickel since this morning alone, a dime since Friday. This bothers me. Current Mood:  cynical | | Sunday, May 11th, 2008 | | 6:25 pm |
Presto! Teacher Out Of A Job The telephone call that spelled the end of Jim Piculas' career as a substitute teacher in Pasco County came on a January day about a week after he performed the disappearing-toothpick trick for a group of rapt middle school students.
Pat Sinclair, who oversees substitute teachers in the Pasco County School District, was on the phone. She told Piculas there had been a complaint about his performance at Rushe Middle School in Land O' Lakes.
He asked what she meant.
"She said, 'You've been accused of wizardry,'" Piculas said. | | 1:35 am |
| | Saturday, May 10th, 2008 | | 8:33 pm |
Crystal Grottoes Today featured a trip to Crystal Grottoes outside of Boonsboro, MD. It's only an hour away, so we left around 2pm, taking mostly backroads through the rural and scenic Catoctin mountains. Along the way, we attempted to make a brief stop in Burkittsville, MD where there's a little-known gravity hill. You can put your car in neutral and, while it looks flat, your car will roll backwards because it's an optical illusion. Unfortunately, there was no parking and it was busy enough that we couldn't just stop and roll back and forth or even get out and come back to it, so we planned to come back later (but didn't). Crystal Grottoes is a tiny attraction in the middle of farmland. Above ground, it's little more than a single old building (see link above for a pic). Unfortunately, they had a severe fire in the last month and the top floor was gutted, windows were gone, and the main floor was damaged. Nevertheless, the owner greeted us outside, insisted they were open, and we paid the $15 each at the lone remaining counter in the foyer, around which lay piles of construction equipment as they rebuilt. We played with the site's resident brown lab doggy while we waited for the next tour. The cave itself has some very big positives and some very bad negatives. The good: the most formations of any showcave known; the passages are narrow and low, so you're literally eye-to-eye with gorgeous examples of flowstone, active stalactites, pillars, and curtains. The bad: At least 25% of the formations are broken from either the original excavation, poor maintenance, or abuse; our tour guide was a young guy with a flashlight who was so ignorant of the subject matter that he didn't know what a fault line was; the tour is somewhat hurried so you don't get too long to examine the up-close formations; and there are many passages that looked opportune for exploring, but weren't open yet - the guide even admitted that 900ft of additional area was available, but had no idea why it was closed. There are signs all over the cave saying not to touch anything, but our tour guide repeatedly bashed at formations and surfaces in the cave when asked about them, visibly tearing off material. I was wringing my hands while he told us how the curtain stalactites made different sounds and banged on each one to demonstrate - skipping the ones that had clearly broken off from having had that done in the past. These formations took thousands, if not millions of years to develop, and the guide was wrecking them for the amusement of a handful of tourists. It's a great cave that gave us unprecedented access to sights we could only see in other caves at a distance, but it's being destroyed by the carelessness of the very people who own it. The tourists were more respecting of the cave than the guides. I'm comforted by knowing that there are probably hundreds of other undiscovered caves with features probably rivaling any we've seen that remain safe. Leaving there, we attempted to find a nice rural diner to grab dinner at, but ended up in Hagerstown before anything turned up, so we landed at a Ryan's, which is like a mini Old Country Buffet. I lurve buffet food, but it's something that has to be done in moderation because that stuff is so bad for you. Luckily, we hadn't been to one in a year or more, so...om nom nom. We took old route 40 back to Frederick and I saw a record & tape shop where I can offload some of my vinyl that I didn't know what to do with - the nearest trade shop I'd known before this was in DC. And continuing on, we eventually came home. Current Mood:  tired | | Friday, May 9th, 2008 | | 6:40 pm |
If you're a Republican, you should be ashamed... ...of your representatives in Congress! Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, KittensIt was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.
On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.
"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers. | | Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 | | 6:30 pm |
Movie Reviews (5/6/08) TV Series: Planet Earth (1996) Review: The best analogy I can make for this gorgeously-filmed TV series is that it's the Bathroom Reader of nature specials. While each episode is designed to cover a grandiose, sweeping chunk of the natural world, the subjects it touches on therein amount to only a few seconds to a few minutes apiece - enough to briefly whet the curious mind, but hardly a dedicated inspection. This isn't really a complaint as it is a description of the approach. Earth is a big place and a lifetime of hour-long specials wouldn't cover it all, so this'll have to do. The DVD set is narrated by the original BBC pick, David Attenborough, who I'd prefer for all my nature specials if possible (or Peter Coyote), rather than the USA redub by Signourney Weaver. The rumor of heavy-handed focus on vicious predation is overrated - while there are examples of these, the gore is kept to a minimum and in moderation. Of course, the visuals are where this series is at. Whether you have HD or not, the eye-popping footage is the best of any television documentary I've yet seen. Each episode is endcapped by a ten-minute behind-the-scenes featurette which is often just as intriguing and often fairly humorous as well. The five-disc set does falter a bit in that the first episode is essentially a clip show of the next ten, and the entire 5th disc is another three-hour clip show with a less tolerable narrator focused on talking heads making dramatic pontifications on environmentalist issues - we stopped watching that after 15 minutes, preaching to the choir and all. Rating: **** out of ***** Movie: Snakes On A Plane (2006) Review: It's very easy to suspend disbelief for a movie that's inherently fantasy, such as a cartoon, a parody (like Naked Gun, Scary Movie, etc), or a sci-fi film with inexplicable gadgets. But despite the insistence of its advocates, SoaP simply took itself too seriously to be allowed to get away with it. Originally billed as having been made to be deliberately bad and hokey, it succeeds wildly, but not in a good way. Instead of lovingly embracing and wallowing in all the bad clichés of disaster/horror flicks, it falls into the gap between, simply utilizing them in passing, resulting in a painful-to-watch homage to direct-to-video paperweights. Samuel Jackson is simply not enough of a badass - his prize line is jarringly tacked onto a surprisingly mellow performance. The CG is terrible, but not deliberately enough to be laughable. The gore is probably the only thing that's gratuitous enough to be funny, but probably only because it was thrown in at the last second and doesn't mesh at all with the script. There is only one shining moment of hilarity that represents what this movie could've been, a truly Zucker-level gag that straddles every bad action/horror genre. That would be the deus ex machina button on the microwave. If only the rest of the film had been that brilliant. Rating: ** out of ***** Movie: Pucker Up (2005) Review: I've seen a number of movies about niche competitions lately, including Spellbound, Wordplay, and Word Wars. There seems to be a market for about one per year. In most cases, these have been fantastic. Pucker Up, covering the pursuit of the international whistling championship, is pretty good, but falls under the shadow of the others in terms of drama and historical examination. There just isn't a whole lot of whistling history to cover. They review the same content two or three times to fill the short 75 minute program. The excitement of the contest also doesn't build to the nail-biting crescendo one would hope, and unlike other docs the viewer isn't able to play along as things unfold. Still, the participants perform some pretty impressive feats of musical performance, and we caught ourselves comparing our own whistling prowess long after the show was over. Rating: ***1/2 out of ***** Movie: Iron Man (2008) Review: It's not every day that a superhero movie is widely praised by critics, and that led to my decision to catch this at the theater. I'm not a huge fan of Iron Man, and thus I wasn't able to connect with the main character, although he will appeal primarily to mechanics, engineers, and people who like to build stuff from scratch or take things apart to see how they work. This in no way precluded me from enjoying the film, with a fine balance of comedy, FX, and adventure. The only thing more surprising than how Robert Downey Jr. fits his role as Iron Man is how well Jeff Bridges does as Obidiah Stane. The characters and visuals are remarkably true to the comic books, especially the final battle, which lends to a significant amount of fan-love whenever any of the multitude of easter eggs pop out, but also reduces the depth that can be portrayed. Downey's delivery can be heavy-handed due to the actor's style and the level of improvisation that director Favreau allowed. There is a gimmick after the credits roll that, while many have raved about and wowed at, I was extremely disappointed in considering the level of painstaking accuracy that had gone into the rest of the movie. Rating: **** out of ***** | | Sunday, May 4th, 2008 | | 2:27 pm |
Wisp Mountain alpine coaster and Adventure Park, USA Continuing in the theme of desiring to get out more, we participated in two ACE (American Coaster Enthusiast) events on Saturday. We would've invited others since we could bring guests, but X didn't know what the job situation was until the end of last week, the day before the deadline for registrations. We woke up at 6am and made sure we were out the door by 7am since it was a three hour trip to Wisp Mountain at the western edge of the Maryland panhandle and the meetup was at 10:15am. I-68 is a rollercoaster in itself, going up and down mountains of increasing size, from 900' to 3000', as we entered the eastern continental divide. Close to our destination, we passed through the ironically named Accident, MD, outside of which was a recently overturned car being attended to by the local constabulary. We arrived earlier than expected and bought the ACE-discounted tickets. Normally it's an exorbitantly-priced $10/ride which I wouldn't say is worth it, but the event gave us half-off, so each ride was only $5. We bought four tickets which gave us enough rides to fill our 30-minute ERT (exclusive ride time) and get a good overall experience. During the summer, Wisp sets up a series of track down the mountain and through the woods on which ride elaborate plastic sleds. The sleds descend completely via gravity, controlled only by the rider's application of brake handles. It ends up being a combination of an alpine slide and a rollercoaster, aptly called an alpine coaster. The trip up the mountain is very simple: sit in your sled and a pulley system hauls you to the top in a peaceful, relaxing manner. The descent is mostly quiet woodland and takes about 90 seconds, a bit short compared to some alpine coasters in Europe from what I understand. Here's a video of the descent. (not ours) The best experience is with the brakes completely off all the way down. Signs and signals say that going too fast is dangerous blah blah blah. The sleds can only reach a maximum velocity of 20-25mph, you're belted in, and the sled is attached to the track which can handle even the biggest rider at full tilt - a fact that was quietly impressed upon me by one of the staff. The ride becomes a drag when non-enthusiasts fearfully putter down the length of the ride with their brakes on, maintaining a top speed of about a fast walk, which results in a dozen cars piling up behind them. Luckily, with our ERT, few ACE participants shied from the full thrill. It's no serious rollercoaster by any means and the absence of risk that comes with a true alpine slide and the brevity sucks a lot of the adrenaline out of it, but it's definitely an experience I'd recommend trying once (with the brakes off!). We got a bonus trip because, towards the end, regular visitors started filtering in and a pileup occured behind one frightened rider - the attendants generously said we could ride again free because the experience was ruined. When we left, the queue was filled with little old ladies, so we were getting out while the getting was good. On our way back to I-68, we stopped at Annie's Kitchen Country Restaurant which was pretty close to the epitome of rustic diner. Tables and chairs seemed scavenged from the local flea market and the dining area was little bigger than a decent-sized living room. The food was merely adequate, tho. Next stop was a 2.5 hour drive back the way we came to Adventure Park, USA, a large entertainment center about 5-10 miles east of Frederick, MD on I-70. They'd recently installed a Schwarzkopf Wild Cat that had been previously located at other parks. Schwarzkopf is a famous coaster builder and their Wild Cat style is a wild mouse with elements that make it more standard coaster-like. Adventure Park is a large, themed warehouse building that contains an arcade, fast food, climbing wall, laser tag, and party rooms for kids. Otuside are the coaster, two kiddie rides, two go-kart tracks, two minigolf courses, and a few other small kids games. We met at the front at 3:30pm and were given a tour of the coaster's restoration project by the owner. He showed us the rare, original cars he's rebuilding as well as letting us inside the coaster fence to view the old 70's chain house - something you're never allowed to do at other parks due to the risks involved of being right next to an operating coaster. It was very interesting and informative, tho I didn't really understand half of it. The owner was very friendly and has a broad vision for the ride and the park. The group took a picture in front of the Wild Cat and then each ascending the hill on the ride. The 30-second coaster itself is really no big deal, but it's historically significant which is neat. During the day, we rode the so-so go-karts twice, played both of the mini-golf courses, and had dinner. We received giveaways in the form of two coaster-themed shooter glasses (Top Gun & Volcano), a Volcano snow globe, an Adventure Park hat, and an Adventure Park stuffed bear. The location itself is really not an amusement park destination. It's primarily geared towards kids and families, although the minigolf is pretty good. In that capacity, it works out well. One major drawback is a constant reminder that the ownership is deeply christian. At the front door is a plaque declaring glory to god. The first game you see is the "holey roller". And the music piped into the bathrooms and onto the golf course is unashamedly blatant religious pop music. It's a little subsversive and inappropriate. We met a lot of nice people during the trips and discovered that, just as obsessive as we are about some things, other people are equally obsessive about other things. Some people's homes are loaded up with all sorts of coaster memorabilia. Others spent every single weekend visiting amusement parks repeatedly, both days. Still others belonged to every possible coaster organization imagineable (winner: six) and some others on top of that, like DAFE (Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts). At 8pm it started to rain and the park shut down, so we said our goodbyes and headed home. | | Sunday, April 27th, 2008 | | 6:27 pm |
Crystal Caverns & Skyline Caverns Today, we visited a couple tourist caverns, known as "showcaves", in Virginia. I'd advertised our trip to multiple mailing lists comprising of over 700 people, but got absolutely no interested replies, so we went by ourselves. First stop was Crystal Caverns in Strasburg, VA. We left our place at 9:45am and arrived an hour later, about fifteen minutes before the first of their four daily tours was to begin at 11am. It's located at Hupp's Hill, an old Civil War site which also houses the Stonewall Jackson Museum and historical trails. It was nearly deserted, with just a family of three sharing the visit. Our $10 tour (minus $2 with our AAA cards) was led by a teenager in jeans and a t-shirt, holding a flashlight, who spoke in quick, monotone mumbles that were hard to understand. On one hand, the rickety and fly-by-night setup of the operation seemed quaint, but it became apparent that Crystal Caverns was more of a dying attraction. Back in its heyday, it housed a hotel, roller rink, and other entertainment, but that was all long gone. The tour was rather rapid-fire and interesting bits were glossed over without much time to examine anything closely. There was a lot of history to the cave, having been used as a ballroom, speakeasy, battlefield hospital, and station on the underground railroad, but we didn't learn much more than that. It lasted no more than thirty minutes and wasn't much more than a nice, small cave someone fortuitously had in their basement. We left somewhat disappointed. The next stop was Skyline Caverns, about 20-30 minutes away near Front Royal, VA. I'd read numerous reports online, especially TripAdvisor, that warned the Skyline tour was a facade used for springing religious evangelism on tourists when they were too deep in the tour to back out. My desire to see more caves was stronger than my distaste for proselytizing, so we ventured there anyway. It turned out that either all the previous reports dating through 2007 were complete frauds, or the attraction had gotten the message and excised all religious content from the site and tours. We paid the initial fee of $16 (minus a $2 coupon online) which seemed a bit exorbitant at first, but the experience ended up being well worth it. The entire tour was an hour or more and over a mile in length. The cave was filled with lights, wiring, pipes, equipment, and masonry, but for the most part it didn't interfere with any of the formations or sights. While not quite as grandiose as our visit to Natural Bridge last fall, there were some nice big rooms, still pools, and big pillars. The big, unadvertised surprise was the 2nd half of the tour. Skyline Caverns is filled with incredibly rare anthodites which, currently theorized, only grow in a vacuum (broken when they were originally discovered). Protected by state law with fines of $5000 and 2 years in jail for every single inch of them you break, these crystal formations carpeted the ceiling and walls in gorgeous fragility. They have only been found in three caves in the world and Skyline Caverns is the only one with them on display to the public. Their biggest displays are behind mesh screens because, unbelieveably, some imbecilic former tourists thought it would be fun to throw things at the precious minerals in hopes of breaking them off for fun and profit. In any case, this wonderful experience made the trip totally worthwhile and I'd recommend Skyline to anyone as one of the best showcaves in the area. Afterwards, we poked around their gift shop which was large but filled with mostly junk tchochkes. The site also houses a miniature train ride and a dragon-themed mirror maze. I'd never been in one of the latter, so we paid the $5 fee to try. While quite entertaining for about five minutes, it was a bit small and would probably be more of a long-term kick to kids (and parents watching them walking face-first into mirror walls, like we did). For lunch, we ate at the Main Street Mill in Front Royal, which was a bit mediocre, then headed home, getting back at 4pm. Future cave trips I'd like to check out include Crystal Grottoes in Maryland, maybe Smokehole Caverns in West Virginia, and the following Virginia caverns: Shenandoah, Endless, Grand, and Dixie (we've already been to Luray and Natural Bridge). There's also Gap Cave and Natural Tunnel, but they're at the southwestern tip of VA, a good 5-6 hours from us. | | 4:38 pm |
Truth: Can You Handle It? Better Yet: Do You Know It When You See It?For the Google generation, what happens to the concepts of truth and knowledge in a user-generated world of information saturation?
...Without peer review, it's so easy to be wrong, and for your wrongness to become the top Google hit on a subject, and for your wrongness to be repeated by other people who think it's right, until everyone decides that it's raining in Phoenix.
Andrew Keen describes it as "the cult of the amateur" in his same-named book. Stephen Colbert called it "wikiality" -- meaning, "a reality where, if enough people agree with a notion, it must be true."
Information specialists call it the death of information literacy.
Felipe Fernández-Armesto, a Tufts University historian and author of "Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed," has recently noticed something very odd: "Information has replaced knowledge," he says, "and the truth of that information no longer seems to matter as much." Current Mood:  contemplative | | Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 | | 8:10 pm |
Video Reviews (4/23/08) TV Series: Whose Line Is It Anyway? [UK Version, Seasons 1 & 2] (1988) Review: It's very simple to take the easy way out and say that if you liked the American version of the series, then you'll also like the original televised British edition, but that wouldn't quite be accurate. For one, the host, Clive Anderson, is a much more sedate, fast-talking, dry-humored individual who tends to rush the program along. The first participants are British, and their senses of humor lean that way tremendously, but the cast turns about half American by the end of season two. Some of the UK personnel are outright hysterical, like Tony Slattery and Josie Lawrence, and their non-UK counterparts that do not appear in the US version, like Mike McShane and Sandy Toksvig. The sets are a bit dreary, there's a lot of less-funny musical games, too-highbrow humor, and repetitious patterns to the shows, but when it's silly, it's very silly, and much more mature-themed and expletive-filled. If you're a fan, these are indispensible, although two complete seasons are a bit much to watch through all at once. Rating: ***1/2 out of ***** Movie: Duze Zwierze [The Big Animal] (2000) Review: This short, black and white fable from Poland came through the local independent theaters back in 2000. It took its sweet time getting to DVD, but is a pretty little thing now that it's arrived. Billed as a comedy, it's primarily a drama about a man and wife who come into ownership of an abandoned circus camel in a small, remote eastern european town. The presence of the camel is unique and keeps the slow, unexciting film interesting for its slightly over an hour runtime. The town's reaction reflects the communist influence of the 70s, supressing uniqueness and individualism, as the film is based on a story from that era. There is no definitive resolution, but it ends with at least a gentle ray of hope. A decent and artsy indie. Rating: ***1/2 out of ***** Movie: The Descent (2005) Review: I'd been very eager to get my hands on this film because it had been hyped as the scariest movie of the past several years. Its effectiveness is primarily based on the cave in which it takes place, where claustrophobia, silence, lack of escape routes, and natural pitch blackness lend to an atmosphere that can't be similarly replicated in other environments. The first third of the movie, with the exception of one or two shocks, is primarily a girly bonding drama. The second third is spelunking adventure. And the final leg is where all the realistic and creature-feature blood and gore lie. They sure do like their ooga-booga! jump-out-and-scare-ya jolts, but this gets a bit overused and predictable after the halfway mark. The creatures also seem highly reminiscent of the speedy zombies from 28 Days Later. The gore content becomes numbing after a while, even though the sequences get more rapid-fire as it accelerates to the finish. Perhaps it's because a Washington Post review gave away the ending the day it came out, or because the first NetFlix DVD we received stopped playing at the halfway mark, but this wasn't the scariest or goriest film I've ever seen - the director's previous outing, Dog Soldiers, is notably stronger, for example. This is a decent, hardcore, gross-out, creep-fest a little above par due to the location, but it's otherwise pretty standard. Rating: ***1/2 out of ***** | | Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 | | 12:02 am |
For Erf Day
Recently, we took two major initiatives around the house to be more environmentally friendly.
We replaced all the primary bulbs in the house with compact fluorescents. Even if the bulbs were still good, we chucked 'em and replaced 'em. The CFs came in soft white, bright white, and daylight, from equivalent 40W to 150W, and even in three-way, so there was a variety to choose from. They're definitely nothing like the stereotypical buzzing, flickering office fluorescents people are used to. There's a 1-2 second delay when the light switch is flipped, and 30-60 seconds to warm up to full strength, but once they do they give off a brighter, stronger light than the incandescents did. I'm looking forward to watching what sort of dent it makes in our electric bill.
Also, I did a little research on recycling and discovered that Loudoun County recently began accepting curbside pickup of all household recycleable materials, denoted by the full range of icons, 1-7. Many areas only accept a subset, like 1-2. I also learned how much that actually covers. All cardboard and paperboard packaging, paper, cereal boxes, phone books, many plastic bags (others need to go to the supermarket recycle bins), product packaging, and even junk mail can be thrown in the recycle bin. We had to get a new larger bin, which we filled to overflowing capacity the first week we had it. I'd say 1/3 to 1/2 of all our waste by volume is now going into the recycling bin. Everything I throw out, I'm asking myself, "Is this recycleable?" If yes, into the bin.
This is all pretty easy stuff. Consider making a one-time splurge on compact fluorescents for your home since they last 10+ years, and check out what your area accepts in the way of recycling - it may be more than you think.
We're also watching the BBC's Planet Erf series. :)
| | Friday, April 18th, 2008 | | 6:39 pm |
Almost a 600
Last Tuesday, I bowled a 184/189/213 = 586 series. That's the closest I can remember getting to a 600. So close!
I hope to break that soon.
| | Sunday, April 13th, 2008 | | 6:14 pm |
Re: [Portal. Meh.] - NEVERMIND Ok, finished Portal, and I was a bit wrong. While I'm still unwilling to say 10/10, A+, five-stars, I found religion, etc - level 19 turned out to be a pleasant and unexpected surprise. Things improved noticeably when the simple exercises started becoming of use in a less "experimental" environment and the black humor went off the scale, albeit in a voice that I had to turn on the closed-captioning to understand half the time. The new scenery still became a tad repetetive again after about 15 minutes due to the activity in it remaining the same, but it certainly turned more clever. I'm hard-pressed to see the portal concept implemented in any new ways after that - maybe that's why the game was so short (but longer than I had thought). And, no, I only had the faintest inkling of what was coming. :) Current Mood:  content | | 3:23 am |
Portal. Meh. So I'm finally getting around to playing Portal. It's turning out to not be nearly as exciting, comedic, or revolutionary as word of mouth made it out to be. It's a cute puzzle game in the form of a stripped-down FPS with a gimmick and light, dry humor. Yes, it's simple fun and there's some interesting ideas, but I'm missing the "wow" factor that caused the game to receive so many A+'s and 5-star reviews. It's like a Sokoban FPS - there's enough content to support a simple version, but one wonders why so much effort was put into making something so basic look like Half-Life. I'd say 7/10 so far. After an hour, I'm on level 14, should finish it in another session or two. Maybe the "wow" is on levels 15-19... Current Mood: tired | | Friday, April 11th, 2008 | | 12:38 am |
Another "conspiracy theory" bites the dust At 8pm, this was the top story on Yahoo. It's since slipped into More Stories. I wouldn't be surprised if it's buried even further by tomorrow, overshadowed by the latest sensational SWF murder, before it has the chance to be read over breakfast by the citizenry. I didn't see it in any prominent locations at any other mainstream media outlet. Cheney, others OK'd harsh interrogations [read: torture] Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned...
A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the meetings described them Thursday to the AP to confirm details first reported by ABC News on Wednesday...
The meetings were held in the White House Situation Room in the years immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks. Attending the sessions were Cheney, then-Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice...
The former intelligence official described Cheney and the top national security officials as deeply immersed in developing the CIA's interrogation program during months of discussions over which methods should be used and when.
At times, CIA officers would demonstrate some of the tactics, or at least detail how they worked, to make sure the small group of "principals" fully understood what the al-Qaida detainees would undergo. The principals eventually authorized physical abuse such as slaps and pushes, sleep deprivation, or waterboarding. | | Monday, April 7th, 2008 | | 5:56 pm |
Video Reviews (4/7/08) TV: Wondrous Secrets of the Ocean (1990s) Review: Being a fan of good ocean documentaries, I leapt at a chance to pore through a 6-disc series on the subject, hoping it would reveal unknown sights and information. The good news is that there are plenty of new things to see and learn. Some of the footage is rare and this may be the only place it's publicly available, such as hammerhead shark mating, whale bottom-feeding, and some weird species from the nether depths. The first five discs are narrated by Linda Hunt, whose placid, authoritative voice is easy to listen to. The downside is that this series is from the early 90s. The video quality reflects this in that it seems to have come from a tv show. Each episode is only thirty minutes as well and, with only two episodes per DVD, it could easily have been a 3-disc set. The last disc is completely different - a 3-hour documentary with a male voice, atrociously slow narration, frequently repeating footage, and a laughably dramatic script, referring to sea life as hellish, grotesque, alien, killers - like a halloween scare-fest. Disc 6 is probably one of the worst documentaries I've seen. A real shame that it endcaps an otherwise excellent program. Rating: ***1/2 out of ***** Movie: Waiting For Guffman (1996) Review: I'm no fan of Christopher Guest films. Call me biased, but a serious attempt at filmmaking is poorly done as improvisation. Very little of this movie was actually scripted, and so the humor is vague and invented for the hilarity of the cast rather than for the audience. Worse, the characters, who perform a play for their tiny town in an attempt to go to Broadway, are almost universally unlikable and annoying. The whole plot culminates in the play which, rather than building up to a comic catastrophe...doesn't. It results in the equivalent of a grade school show, which is merely bad, awkward, and, considering it's performed by adults, pathetic rather than funny. To top it all off, the ending is the unexciting equivalent of a deflated balloon. Meaningless, empty, and easy to sleep through. Rating: *1/2 out of ***** Movie: Little Miss Sunshine (2006) Review: As the film progressed, it became increasingly evident that it was primarily a remix of National Lampoon's Vacation, even with some of the same elements. It obviously means well, but the story of a dysfunctional family's interstate trip to satisfy a child's dream shares the structure of that ol' 80's classic. What differences there are are stark. One new character is thrown in, in the form of Steve Carell, who the movie loosely pivots upon. The motivations are different, even though the family unit is the same. It also gyrates wildly from serious family drama to awkward reality comedy, never portraying the individuals as detached caricatures, preferring to hug the schadenfreude discomfort of real people in dire straits. The climax, at a pre-teen beauty contest, is incredibly creepy, especially knowing the contestants are actual beauty queen candidates performing their real routines in their real costumes. The pat-on-the-back resolution doesn't really solve anything and leaves a number of loose ends. As feel-good as the movie leaves you, feel-good doesn't pay the mortgage. Watchable, often funny, but ultimately hollow. Rating: ***1/2 out of ***** | | Monday, March 31st, 2008 | | 1:06 am |
Puttanesca
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I'm a sucker for a good puttanesca (no sardines or artichokes), and Barilla is my favorite brand of pasta sauce. So Barilla's green & black olive variety is a favorite. Unfortunately, it's a rather unique concoction that most supermarkets prefer to abstain from carrying to save space for staples like marinara, tomato & basil, etc. It used to be more widely available, but I've spent the last several weeks trying to hunt down a single jar. I went to Giant, two Blooms, Shoppers Food Warehouse, Target, Harris Teeter, and Safeway. They all had anemic Barilla selections, and none carried the olive sauce. In desperation, I'd tried some other brands with olives as an ingredient, but none held a candle to Barilla's particular flavor. Finally, today I thought to go to the Barilla website where I found a product locator which tells you exactly what stores in your area recently sold any particular product. The 2nd Giant supermarket that I didn't try was the only one in town that carried it. I went there today and bought three jars to stock up because supermarkets seem to have a habit of discontinuing any items I start buying a lot of. Mmm, olives... |
Current Mood: tired | | Saturday, March 29th, 2008 | | 2:45 pm |
Video Reviews (3/29/08) Movie: The Animation Show Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (2003, 2005) Review: If you've been a fan of independent animation for quite a long time, about twenty years, then the first volume of The Animation Show will be a bit of a ripoff. It features shorts from old Spike & Mike festivals and International Tournees going all the way back to the 80s. With the exception of Hertzfeldt's admittedly hilarious interstitials, I'd seen nearly all the others in one format or another in prior shows. The second disc is where the value is really at. These come primarily from the current century and are very cleverly selected for both their entertainment and art value. A few are a bit too abstract, and others are of questionably low video quality, but most are fantastic examples of stop-motion, traditional 2D, and CG animation. My personal favorites included "Fallen Art", "RockFish", and the amazing Indiana Jones-style "Ward 13" which seems to only be easily available on this DVD. Be sure to check the special features for a few extra animated tidbits, too. Rating: ***1/2 out of ***** Movie: A Dirty Shame (2004) Review: Despite the fact that the film is rated NC-17, the naughty factor of this feature ranks no higher than a dirty joke or a pornographic cartoon. Tracy Ullman stars as an angry housewife whose inner sex addict is awakened by a bonk to the head. The town's comedic decency patrol takes to the streets as Baltimore, John Waters' traditional stomping grounds, is reduced to a perverse, slapstick paradise. Many elements hearken back to the darker Cecil B. Demented as well as being reminiscent of classic 80's late-night schlock. There's very little depth, especially when you get Johnny Knoxville involved, and feature David Hasselhoff taking a dump. Unlike Waters' earlier outings, this may have been intended for offense, but instead came out very silly. It falls apart pretty badly at the end, but by that time, the whole caricature has gone over the top in adult-themed zaniness, overacting, and nekkidness. Quite funny, but mostly just cheesy. The long documentary in the special features is watchable and enlightening. Rating: *** out of ***** Movie: A Scanner Darkly (2006) Review: I don't really understand the fascination with cinematically interpreting a person's personal experiences with drug trips. It can't possibly be as fulfilling as actually taking the drugs, and only really serves as an object lesson. This particular one, based on Philip K. Dick's own trips, is a combination of the personal downfalls of Requiem For A Dream and the comedic value of Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. While the rotoscoped animation is so fantastic and realistic that it's easy to forget you're effectively watching a cartoon, it's wasted on this particular topic that consists mostly of people under the influence wigging out at each other. The moral of the story is obscure, if it exists at all, and the film ends in the middle of the story, without a resolution. Even the sci-fi parts of getting there aren't particularly science, but simply mildly dystopian, with a single rather predictable twist. The value here is in the art form, but the story itself doesn't deserve such unique treatment. Rating: ** out of ***** | | Thursday, March 27th, 2008 | | 7:07 pm |
Comics - Cold Turkey? I've been thinking lately about going cold turkey on my comic book collecting. I've got nearly an entire wall covered with long boxes filled with bagged & boarded issues that I read once and never again. Comics haven't been a serious investment in decades, and at a minimum of $3/pop they're an expensive handful of paper. Many series that I read are such from sheer momentum rather than any real continuing interest. TPBs on the other hand provide a less expensive option. With deep discounts through online stores like Amazon, six issues of a comic that add up to $18 can be had for a fraction of that in collected format. I'd also get advance notice on what stories were crap by those who read the issues ahead of time so I could skip the filler junk. And I'd be able to start thinking about offloading some of my own stock of issues once I'm no longer feeding their growth. On the downside of TPBs, I'd no longer be able to hold a subscription at my local comic shop (minimum 10 series per month). I'd also be the last one to read stories, often months or years after they come out in issue format, risking getting them spoiled by friends and news online. Continuity between series would also go out the window. If I did so, I'd probably cut off after DC's big event wraps up later this year. Good idea? Bad idea? Current Mood:  thoughtful |
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