Scary Creature

Scary looking, aren't they? I should've spent more time focusing before I sent him to the vacuum cleaner. C'est la vie.

Wanted: Photo Ideas

Of the three or four people who might read this blog, I ask you for some photo ideas -- being that it will be at least a month before I get to another race, and might not even be until next year.

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On another note - Hockey Is Back! Yay! Now to scam some club-level Wild tickets.

More Movies

A couple very brief movie "reviews" while I watch Lance win his 7th Tour de France...

Repo Man - A surreal comedy that combines teen angst, repo men, and UFO's. A friend at work kept telling me to watch it, so I finally did. I was expecting something along the lines of Emilio Estevez's other comedies like Men at Work, but this was nothing like it. The humor was subtle and almost beneath the surface (Estevez eating out of a generic container marked "food",) while the bizarre story gets the emphasis. I liked it, but not for everyone.
My rating: 4 out of 5.


Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind - Difficult movie to categorize, I think officially it is considered a romantic comedy, but throw in science fiction, and mess up the chronology and you might begin to get a sense of this movie. If you like movies that you have to figure out (which I do,) this is a great one... if you didn't like how movies like Pulp Fiction or Run Lola Run are put together, you might be a bit confused. Excellent acting and special effects, for some of which they used trap doors and other tricks to make the shots continuous.
5 out of 5.

Current Vinyl Record

So this afternoon I received my long-awaited [not really] vinyl version of the 89.3 founding member's CD. All the founding members received the CD a few weeks ago, and it's pretty good, though a little melancholy for my tastes. Keep in mind that the last vinyl record I played was probably my dad's copy of the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack... and I haven't owned a record player of my own since I was 4 or 5 years old and listened to Kermit the Frog singing, "It's Not Easy Being Green".

I'm definitely not one of those audiophiles who thinks that records sound better than CD's, nor do I anticipate a wave of nostalgia as the as the stylus hits the record and those scratching noises are amplified through the speakers.

But I am curious to listen to this record, just to see what effect is has... not enough to go buy a turntable mind you, but maybe enough to ask my dad where his LP player is buried in the garage.

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Photo Geeks: link here to the picture on PBase where you can get the full EXIF info... taken using my Rebel XT using macro mode on my Tamron 75-300 telephoto.

Blogging Ideas - First Movie Review

Carrie (aka Knit-Whit) suggested that I do movie reviews as a means to update more frequently. I think this is a good idea, but having been so busy lately, I still doubt I can update more than a couple times per week. With that in mind, I'll kick it off, and try to add a few contextual links for those who like cross-reference thingies. (These will not be terribly long reviews, just my impressions.)

Spoiler Warning -- I may or may not divulge plot details below... proceed at your own risk or curiosity.

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Napoleon Dynamite --

The primary plot line of this film surrounds a socially awkward "teenager" in rural Idaho named Napoleon Dynamite. His immediately visible family includes: a hippie-ish grandmother, a stuck-in-the-80's uncle, and 30-something Kip, who is apparently Napoleon's older brother.

Typing this up in blogger, I started to detail the plot a bit, but decided that it really wouldn't do any good, you'll have to watch the movie. :)

ND appears to have two distinct camps: those who love the movie, and those who hate it. I'm afraid I fall into the latter. There were funny moments, and it does have a bit of what I call the Spinal Tap effect -- it's more humorous to recall the funny stuff than to actually watch it in the first place. But it's just not quite to that level.

After a conversation I had with some friends last night (post golf-tourney beers were being imbibed,) I have a hypothesis of what the problem is. Those who watched the movie and just saw a bunch of funny, weird, messed-up stuff happening to the main character liked it. Those who watched the movie and empathized with this socially-challenged guy and felt sorry for him for all the weird, messed-up stuff surrounding him, hated it and were generally bored.

My Netflix rating: 2 out of 5.

Cinderella Story... at Augusta...

Prior to this year, I didn't play any golf for about two or three years... it was costing too much money, and I wasn't having any fun.

This year, a co-worker asked if I wanted to play in the par-3 league -- I figured what the heck... it's probably been one of my better decisions this year, as I've had lots of fun, met a few neat people, and seem to have improved somewhat compared to my previous abilities.

Some random thoughts about golf, I'm too lazy to put this into something other than a bulleted list:

• In this country anyways, it really is accessible to everyone in the middle class on up... to play par 3 courses usually isn't much more than $10-$15 for 9 holes.
• The golf swing is depressingly difficult to learn, especially considering each club requires a slightly different motion due to the differing club lengths & angles.
• There is still a lot of snobbiness out on the course, people who think they're better because they have the stodgiest clothes, newest clubs, etc. This is one of the things that most bothers me about the game. Hard to think of any other sport that has this many private facilities in the world, where large amounts of money make it an elite class.
  
• All it takes is one good shot to become addicted.
• Just when you think you've learned something, another thing will go off.
• Mark Twain called golf, "a good walk spoiled".
• It's okay to be a beginner at golf, it's not okay to play slow... unless you're Tiger.

That's all I got for now... just watching the Tour de France and scratching mosquito bites, figured I'd better write something.

Leaky Faucet

I figured I'd better write something... I've had threats.

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The faucet in my laundry room tub is leaking. Give me credit, because after the initial, "oh crap," my reaction was, "hey, I can learn how to fix this." However, one basic concept I was immediately aware of, is the need to turn off the water in order to replace/fix whatever is leaking. Hard to replace something when it is spraying water at probably 30 psi or so.

This is where the whole townhouse thing comes in, because it appears that in their haste to save a few bucks, there is no valve for this faucet, and there is no immediately visible valves in the pipework above the tub. So now, I figure I have to find wherever the main connection is, in order to fix a stupid leak.

Well, this should turn out better than the $80 I had to pay a water softener guy to replace a 15 cent spring a couple years ago.

(I'll try to think of something more interesting for next time...)