DAFT PUNK

-Say WHAT?!  Huh?!!!

I've watched TRON: Legacy twice now.

I saw the original TRON when it first came out in 1982, and in 2002 I added the 20th Anniversary Collectors edition to my DVD collection.  It somehow survived the many purges and sell offs I had gone through over the years.

With the new movie sequel coming up, I was very surprised to not see the original all over the place; Disney has absolutely no peer when it comes to milking something for all it's worth.  It's been out of print for years now, and I've learned that my copy truly is  a collectors item; prices starting at $130.00 on Amazon.com for new copies still in the original factory wrap.

A relook at my copy of the original verified my memory of it; it was fairly good, but not all that fantastic.  I suspect the suits at Disney took a look and decided that it would not compel people to put the sequel on their "must see" list.

Which is a shame, as they did something truly amazing with the sequel, elevating it into one Hell of a fine movie, with a simple (deceptively simple) storyline that has a lot more going on than at first appears.

(Jeff Bridges also has had an amazing year, appearing in this, and  in True Grit ; THE best movie of 2010, so far. He deserves a post of his own, so I'm not going to cover him here.)

The first thing that grabbed me (really grabbed me) was the music; seemingly a marriage of Phillip Glass and Tangerine Dream (with bits of John Carpenter and John Barry thrown in). The music is mostly for motion (and there is a lot of motion here) and it puts the movie into overdrive.

I had to wait until the end credits to learn that DAFT PUNK (an electronic music duo consisting of French musicians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter) did this score.

I had never heard of them before, and this appears to be their very first film score, but they've been around for awhile.  I can see now that my next bankruptcy may well be engendered by seeking out what else they have done.

Hunt up the CD soundtrack of TRON: Legacy and give it a listen.

If it doesn't move you, and make you want to check out the movie, you might as well pack it in;  you're already dead!.
-

Dr. Sanity's already been here.

I had thought (in my post  Dr. Sanity nails it! ) that she had said it all about nanny-statism.

That clearly shows my lack of imagination. 
Check out one of AJStrata's latest:  Dumbest Lawsuit Evah ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The left truly is insane. Who else would champion a lawsuit that basically cries out: “Mom has no damn backbone“:

"The lawsuit alleges that “McDonald’s exploits very young California children
...
said she was bringing the case because of the constant requests for McDonald’s Happy Meals."

Good lord, what a moron.  Her kids want Happy Meals and so she is suing McDonalds to shut them up.  Just let that one settle in for a bit.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

There appears to be truly no limit to this urge to place restrictions on absolutely everything we do in life. In total contradiction to everything I've ever believed in and advocated, she makes me feel that, in her case at least, some people really shouldn't be allowed to run around loose. :(
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"What is THAT for?"

-
I'd love to post the whole Strategy Page  article that answers the question, but that might strain their patience on copyright, so look for "What is THAT for?" on this page...  http://www.strategypage.com/cic/docs/cic324b.asp

(Somehow, this brings to mind Jerry Van Meter's "Glooshmaker" joke.  No, you probably wont find it on Google; it's peculiar to his sense of humor.  If any of my Air Force buddies see this, they will know it.  I could tell you, but then... :-)

Bureaucracy forever.
-

HOW do spambots evade my site meter?

-
I occasionally get anonymous comments of the type that neo-neocon has posted about as "Spambot of The Day", when a new or somewhat original example came through her spam filters.

Often whimsical, with wonderfully loose language, and sometimes no other apparent purpose than to show that it could  be done.
(Updated - With an answer)

December 7

My calendar shows today as...
   1) Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day
and...
   2) First of Muharram (First day of the first month in the Islamic calendar;
       making it the Islamic equivalent of New Years Day)

Any bets on which one will most likely be honored (or even mentioned) by The One?
-

ADDENDUM - After that vent, I remembered this...

Today (Dec 7) is also the 38th anniversary of the Apollo 17 launch;
the very last manned lunar exploration mission.

This is very personal to me, as described in...
  Adventure of a Lifetime
and
  The Adventure - Continued

(Yeah, I'm blowing my own horn here.
 Well -- So What? :-)
-

Help! - Carpal Tunnel Syndrome???

That's a term I've heard for a long time, and always thought of as some kind of arthritis-like pain in hands and fingers.  (Updated below) 
(Updated again 05 Dec 2010 below)

For months now (since my 68th birthday on May 25) I've had problems with my fingers and thumbs feeling numb and thought it to be a circulation problem; hence the walking regimen I've forced upon myself since the end of May. While good for other things, it may turn out to have been an exercise in futility for this particular problem.

You see, a number of people where I work, observing my problems, have raised the possibility of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS). While that sounded just plain wrong to me, I finally decided to look it up on the internet.

So, what did I find?

Thanksgiving pizza...

...will have to wait 'til Friday.

You see, Pizza Hut will be closed on Thanksgiving day (the one convenient to me at least).   For some time now, I've favored them over others; having long considered grease an essential ingredient of a good pizza. :-)

Wasn't always so; when I first came to Houston in the mid '60s, the absolute best pizzas, bar none, were served by Shakey's, but they became history here when Hunt International bought them out in the mid '70s and closed the local restaurants (Domino's taking over most of them).

A lot of other buyouts followed, with the results that an outfit once having hundreds of locations all over the country has now been reduced to a few dozen, mostly in their home state of California.

Second best (also now history) was the Post Oak Drive-In Theater.  Instead of pulling out a frozen pizza and shoving it into the oven, they made theirs from scratch, just like a real pizzeria.

One of their toppings  was chili.  When washed down with the beer I had snuck into the the drive-in, it was fantastic. (Just had to be sure to also bring along a trash bag, a roll of paper towels, and some wipes; messy doesn't even begin to describe it. :-)

Once in a while I try to duplicate that experience by adding chili to a frozen one.  Close, but somehow just ain't the same.

By now, instead of asking "What about turkey?!!!", you've probably deduced that I'm not a big turkey fan.  Give me pizza and beer, and throw in a DVD to watch (there'll probably be nothing but football on TV that day), and I'm all set.

Did I just commit blasphemy with that "there'll probably be nothing but football on TV that day" above?

Well, I've never been much of a football fan either, except for a brief shining moment in the late '70s when coach O. A. "Bum" Phillips raised what was then the Houston Oilers to superbowl material, twice actually making it to the playoffs (only to run into that steel wall called Pittsburgh).

Something I'll always remember was the wonderful welcome the team got from cheering crowds that greeted them when they came home. They had to be feeling pretty low from those defeats, and for those fans to give that kind of "Welcome Home" made me proud beyond description.

(For a while, before those playoffs, I'd considered the Oilers as mostly just their two prima donnas (Dan Pastorini and Earl Campbell). But, while on vacation with friends in New Mexico, I saw a game (don't remember who they were playing), where both of them were benched and the remaining players went out there, just like a real team, and WON!)

Unfortunately, Phillips was getting more publicity than team owner Bud Adams (worthy of his own story) and many of us felt his days were numbered.

Sure, enough, Phillips was eventually fired and went to New Orleans to coach the New Orleans Saints (at that time owned by River Oaks native (and neighbor of Bud Adams) John Mecom.  I think there was a rivalry between them worthy of a TV movie, if it hasn't already been done.)

So many Oilers' players (Campbell, Pastorini, others) followed him there, our secretary began referring to the team as the Houston Saints.

Well, I've managed to wander all over the map this time, even including one of my least favorite subjects. So, I think it's time to close this one.

Hope you have a really wonderful thanksgiving. I'm gonna give it a shot. :-)

-

The Anvil of Life

To be smart as Hell and to not have a lick of sense are not mutually exclusive.

In my previous post Ready for a firestorm? :-)  (about an Ann Coulter article on the insanity of letting young people vote) a commenter noted...

"After reading Ann's full article, if it's true that 18-24 yr. olds broke for Obama by 19 points (I still question who's polling them and where because I don't recall any pollsters anywhere in my neighborhood) but if that's true, with a military service exemption, I would be for. Sigh. There really are millions of stupid Americans.

I replied in a comment of my own, and after further reflection, decided to tweak and expand the comment into the post you are now reading.

There really are millions of stupid Americans.

Yup!

But, in the 18-24 range, I suspect it is ignorance more than stupidity.

I've always viewed ignorance as simply lack of information, whereas stupidity consists of going ahead and doing something when you damned well (or should) know better.

In 1962, I was in the USAF, newly stationed at Goodfellow AFB outside of San Angelo, Texas. One weekend, I went with three other Airmen down to Del Rio and across the border into Villa Acuña (now Ciudad Acuña) to check out "boystown" (the local red light district) and to buy and bring back cheap duty-free booze.

A little background necessary for what follows:

We were in the United States Air Force Security Service (now the Electronic Security Arm, I think).  (See update below)

When you enlist in the service, you are given a battery of tests on almost anything imaginable (of course, to see just what, if anything, you're good for).

The spook shops have the privilege of being the first to troll through the results and they pick from the top 2%.  If they're interested in you, background checks will be performed while you are still in basic training ("Some people from the government were asking about you, but we lied and said you were Ok." :-) but they'll likely wait until they're sure you aren't going to flunk out of basic training before informing you.

In my case, about 2/3 of the way through basic, after being marched to a class one morning, and standing at parade rest waiting to go in, my drill instructor comes up to me and quietly tells me, "at 1300, you will report to Bldg. ####, Room ###, in the Uniform of the Day. That is all."

The strangest thing is that, for the first time in 7 or 8 weeks, he's not looking at me as if I scuttled out from under a rock, but has a quiet smile, as if he's proud or something.  Also, I'm the only one in my flight (40+ Airmen, the USAF equivalent to a platoon) to receive that attention.

Upon reporting to that room, I find several dozen other Airmen, NCOs and Officers also there to see what the Hell this is about. We're told that they are seeking linguists to attend a one-year intensive language course at the Institute of Far Eastern Languages at Yale University (this was 1961 - The USAF departed Yale in 1965 and now uses the Defense Language Institute or whatever at Monterey, California).

The afternoon is spent on testing our aptitude on learning Mandarin Chinese, although some will be selected for other languages (Korean in my case).

I manage to do Ok, and am selected. I had to drop out of school after the 9th grade, and here I am chosen to go to Yale!  (Well, I did know how to read (see On Reading... for how lucky I've been in this area)). I suspect that I really needed a cap a couple of sizes larger at that point.

I spent a solid year at Yale, with some of the brightest people I have ever met, and that was the greatest thing in the world for me.

After graduation, we were then sent down to Goodfellow for the next phase of our training. Whereupon, the four of us embarked upon the great Villa Acuña sex and booze adventure noted way up yonder.

What I'm trying to convey is that our little bunch was absolutely as sharp as they come (including, modestly, yours truly :-).

And, just how was all that brilliance used?  Stay tuned...

To bring that booze back over the border, you had to be 21 or over, and not one of us had reached that exalted age. So, we cleverly shoved the bottles under the seats as we approached the border crossing.

We had noticed that the Customs guards and Border Patrolmen were just waving through car after car of families that had come over to watch the bullfights and indulge in some very cheap shopping.

So, this bunch of super-smart Airmen (including myself) would later actually conjure up conspiracy theories, about informants in the liquor stores, to explain the mystery of why a Patrolman takes one look at this old Mercury pulling up with a Goodfellow AFB sticker on the windshield, occupied by four young punks sporting military haircuts, and waves us right over.

   "Do you gentlemen have anything to declare?"
   "No Sir."
   "Right!  Step out of the car please."

And they go straight to our hiding place and pull it out.

Not having enough to pay the fine, so help me, I actually asked, "Can I just leave it?"

To which one of the Patrolmen (probably really straining to keep a straight face) replied, "I've got news for you son; you are going to leave it."

Thankfully, one of the others was able to loan me enough to handle the fine.

As I said, being smart as Hell, and not having a lick of sense, are not mutually exclusive.

The missing ingredient, of course, was experience; the hammer with which we're forged on the anvil of life.

Updated 12 Dec 2010, and AGAIN 16 AUG 2019  - "(now the Electronic Security Arm, I think)" - Slightly off, and way out of date.  Its name often changed along with what was covered in its mission.

The various incarnations were...
  United States Air Force Security Service (USAFSS) 1948-1979.
  Electronic Security Command (ESC) 1979-1991.
  Air Force Intelligence Command (AFIC) 1991-1993.
  Air Intelligence Agency (AIA) 1993-2007.
  Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance Agency (AFISRA) 2007-2014.
  25th Air Force  2014-Present.

-

Ready for a firestorm? :-)

Then check out Ann Coulter's latest: REPEAL THE 26TH AMENDMENT!... (Updated below)
   ...
Adopted in 1971 at the tail end of the Worst Generation's anti-war protests, the argument for allowing children to vote was that 18-year-olds could drink and be conscripted into the military, so they ought to be allowed to vote.

But 18-year-olds aren't allowed to drink anymore. We no longer have a draft.
   ...

Dr. Sanity nails it!

One reason I'm a Republican is that, while we may be cursed with a few of those she describes, the Democrats seem absolutely infested with them.

This lady is well worth bookmarking and reading.

Her latest post (at Dr. Sanity ) ...
--------------------------------------------------------
WHAT 'PROGRESSIVES' STAND FOR
Let's get down to the nitty gritty of what "progressivism" is all about, shall we? And, it's all about controlling other people's lives, down to determining the food you and your kids will be able to eat ( because, you know, you are far too stupid to decide that yourself).

For all their happy talk and utopian fantasies, that is the essence of progressivism. Oh, they say it is for your own good...they insist that they are protecting you from the "greed" of those evil capitalists who desire not only your money, but your death--but make no mistake, what they really want is to control your life.
--------------------------------------------------------

That last emphasis is mine. She has a lot more to say, but she really nails it right there.

Update - 05 Dec 2010 - Dr. Sanity does not permalink her individual articles, and this one no longer appears on her main page. To find the full article, look in the sidebar at the left of her page, go down to Archives, and click on November 2010,  Once that page finishes loading, look for Thursday, November 04, 2010 (near the bottom). The full article WHAT 'PROGRESSIVES' STAND FOR begins there.

-

Election 2010 - So, where are we now?

...Not nearly as far as I'd hoped we'd be.

As I write this (Wednesday afternoon, 03 Nov 2010) the House appears to be 239 Republicans (for a gain of 60, so far), 185 Democrats, and 11 undecided.

That ain't chopped liver; legislation originates in the House, before being passed along to the Senate and eventually to the President's desk for signing. At the very least, after the new congress is seated in January, there will be enough Republicans to stop any new atrocities from being passed in the House.

Further, Republicans will now chair House committees. As this includes the House Ways and Means Committee, Republicans will now have a very big say on how much (or even if) certain legislation will be funded.

The Joker in this deck is, Will the Republicans actually exercise this power they have won?

"...Don’t worry, you’re boring.”

Found this on John Lott's website... 

   http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2010/10/indian-givers-fbi-demand-gps-bug-back.html

“We have all the information we needed,” were their parting words, “you don’t need to call your lawyer. Don’t worry, you’re boring.”

Now, that's cold. :(
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Early Voting

As I don't know what my unpredictable working schedule will be for Election Day Nov. 2, I took advantage of early voting today, about 15 minutes ago.

A LOT of people there. I'm told it's this way all over. This very likely means lots of people that just can't wait to get their point across, even though it's still a week until the results will be known.

This year, what to do was real damned simple; select "Straight Republican Ticket", then page through the ballot to be sure that every Republican candidate (and NOT ONE Democrat) was selected, and then cast the ballot.

From how quickly many voters were done, I suspect a lot of them were doing the same thing.

From the turnout,  I expect a very bad day for the Democrats when the results come in the evening of Nov 2.

We'll see.
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Airshow

%)#-#!&^##  &(%^#$-$&#**^%  @(^-($-!-%*%#^!!!

Just got back from the Wings Over Houston Airshow at Ellington Field, just south of Houston.

On May 30, I had posted Ready to hear God laugh?, in which I mentioned health problems and announced a regimen of walking to help with them. I set as a goal, catching this airshow, getting a lot of good shots and having something really good to write about in a post.

Well, here's the post. But it sure ain't what I intended.

Experiment

I'm going to see if I can play with the order of my posts by editing the publishing time.
(Originally published 10/10/10 11:00 AM)

Result, YES, I can!!!.

There's a post from a while back that I intend to move to the top when the time is right.
Now, I know how.
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A Boy and his Vampire

(This post is mostly about remakes)

  Owen: "How old are you, -- really?"  
   Abby: "Twelve, -- but I've been twelve for a really long time."

Let Me In is the story of 12-year old Owen, lonely and tormented by bullies at school, and of Abby; a very unusual girl of the same apparent age, with whom he becomes acquainted when she and her guardian move into the apartment next to his.

Based on the Swedish thriller Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In), from the novel of the same name, it is the latest in the long-standing Hollywood tradition of taking an absolutely superb foreign film and remaking it for those who "don't want to read their movies".

What is not in that tradition is the fact that this remake stands in the same league as the original, to a degree I haven't seen since Gore Verbinski's The Ring.

The Swedes have been cranking out some interesting work lately, including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, already scheduled for an American remake with Daniel Craig.  For the role of Lisbeth Salander (the girl of the title), for a short while Emma Watson (Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films) was briefly considered for the remake, before being ultimately passed over for someone else. Lisbeth would have been one Hell of a change for Watson; very edgy and as big a step as Kurt Russell going from the nerdy kids he played in Disney movies to putting on the eye patch and becoming "Snake" Plissken  in John Carpenter's Escape From New York. (Believe it or not, even that one has a remake in the works.)

Before that, I'd have to rate Insomnia (with Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hillary Swank) as maybe one of the most successful re-dos of a first-rate Swedish movie. That particular remake was directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Inception) and that may have had much to do with it turning out so well.

Of course, Hollywood doesn't have to go overseas to mine something already done (and done very well) before. (They never seem interested in taking something that should have been good but was botched, and giving it another shot.)

Even the Coen Brothers are going down this path. After couple of decades of some of the most original work seen on the screen, they confessed to being inspired by The Odyssey for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, they adapted Cormac McCarthy's novel for No Country for Old Men, and now they are going as mainstream Hollywood as one can possibly get; they are remaking True Grit.

Scheduled for this Christmas, this is one remake that does not fill me with dread. I've not seen any of the trailers now available online (watching videos on a dial-up connection is an exercise in masochism), but some of the stills I've seen give me a very good feeling about this.

Jeff Bridges steps into John Wayne's role as Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn, and looks absolutely perfect for it.

Matt Damon is the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, and while Damon can make me want to throw things at him when he opens his mouth politically, as an actor he has a lot more going for him than did singer Glen Campbell in the original.

Likewise, I have no problem with Josh Brolin taking over from Jeff Corey as Tom Chaney, the object of the manhunt the story is about.

Who I'll be most curious about is Barry Pepper (the sniper, in Saving Private Ryan, who would cross himself before blowing out the brains of some poor German soldier). He will be essaying the role of the outlaw "Lucky" Ned Pepper, a role that was filled by Robert Duvall in the original.

Now, that will be a challenge on a par with Steven Weber following in Jack Nicholson's footsteps in the TV remake of The Shining. I think Weber did a fine job of meeting that challenge. We'll just have to see how well Barry does.

As of now, the "True Grit" remake is scheduled for Christmas Day, 2010.

December 25th this year occurs on a Saturday. New movies are usually released on a Friday, with an occasional Wednesday or Thursday thrown in. I don't ever recall a Saturday being used before, BUT, this is the Coen Brothers we are talking about. So, anything can be on the plate where they are concerned.

But, WHY does Hollywood depend so much on remakes and sequels? Are they really that devoid of imagination?

I seriously doubt it. I believe some of the most imaginative people on the planet are in that industry, but, you must never forget that there are two words in "show business". Millions (lately hundreds of millions) are at stake in modern movies, and that is a powerful incentive to play it safe by remaking, or making sequels to movies that made money. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

As for sequels; there have been some good ones. But as far as most of them go, consider Robert Rodriguez's violent, over-the-top live action cartoon spoof of late 60's exploitation movies Machete.

As the end credits start, they announce...

Machete will return in

"MACHETE KILLS"

             and

"MACHETE KILLS AGAIN"

Right there, Mr. Rodriguez says it all about most sequels.
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Spambots - Or, why comment moderation is back on.

-
For a long time now, neo-neocon has posted Spambot of The Day when a new or somewhat original example came through her spam filters. Often whimsical, with wonderfully loose language, and sometimes no other apparent purpose than to show that it could be done.

I've gotten these examples on Anatomy of an eBay Transaction... 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
Clearly, many thanks for the information.
   July 13, 2010 6:28 AM

Paul_In_Houston said...
Although that comment appears appropriate to this post, my site meter (StatCounter) shows no trace of anyone even visiting my blog around the time the comment was put up, let alone actually reading this post.

In fact, that comment would have been far more appropriate to the follow-up posting "An Ode to PayPal...".

So, I have to conclude that it is almost certainly a spam-bot.

I'd love to learn how it accomplishes this; finding a particular post to comment upon and actually doing it without leaving a trace other than the comment itself.

And as for WHY it was done ("What's in it for them?") I suspect the answer may be because they could.
-
    July 13, 2010 2:26 PM

Anonymous said...
The excellent and duly answer.
   September 13, 2010 3:47 AM

Anonymous said...
You have quickly thought up such matchless phrase?
   September 13, 2010 11:42 PM

Anonymous said...
In my opinion you are mistaken. I can defend the position. Write to me in PM, we will discuss.
   September 16, 2010 10:41 PM

Beginning today, these are what I'm getting (on Yet again, the Brits know us much better than our own media does.. )...

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    September 23, 2010 11:51 PM

Paul_In_Houston said...
Like other spambots that have visited here, this one left no trace at all on my site meter (StatCounter).

As this one at least provided a URL, I've emailed them, asking how they managed that.

If they simply came here the same way as anyone else, doing nothing special to avoid detection, then I may want to take it up with StatCounter.

In the meantime, I'll leave it up for a while before purging it.

Just a little while; if I'm gonna provide advertising space for someone, I want my cut. :-)
    September 24, 2010 1:09 PM

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    September 24, 2010 4:21 PM

I'm afraid that final one was the last straw. If you want to advertise on my site, we need to negotiate a fee first.

Because of this, I have purged those last three comments and I'm turning comment moderation back on. :(

(And, as I mentioned in my comments before, I would still love to know how they manage an end run around StatCounter.)
-

Yet again, the Brits know us much better than our own media does..

Thanks to neo-neocon for Finally: a fair depiction of the Tea Party movement

She simply points to Tea Party insurgents prepare to seize power in 2012
and figures (rightly) that it says it all.

Not feeling bound by such a restriction, I'm gonna quote from it a bit:

Flu can really suck, you know.

Back to square one...

If Stephen King hadn't already described the circumstances (in "Danse Macabre") of how he wrote "The Stand", wherein flu (albeit a souped-up version) was the instrument of the downfall of civilization, I would have guessed his inspiration to be a recent bout of it and thinking "What a miserable way to go!!!".

Tsunami

- Yeah, others have used that word for what's coming in November.  So, tsu me. :-)

AJStrata, of The Strata-Sphere has used the analogy frequently of late, in There Is An Anti-Dem, Anti-Big Gov Wave Out There, following many other posts on his site.

He points out (in some of those other posts) that, like an iceberg only revealing 1/10th of itself above water, a tsunami wave doesn't doesn't look all that different from other waves out in mid-ocean (unless you can note its length).

It's when it begins arriving in the shallows that the true monster rears its head.