I went to the drive-in last night to catch the double feature of Conan the Barbarian and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Apes was good but far from great and did a decent job of reducing the suspension of disbelief required for near term science fiction.
But Conan left me shaking my head. At first I was worried from the promotional posters that the guy playing Conan was not going to get the job done but he wasn't bad al things considered and given a chance probably could have made for a good Conan the Cimmerian. Production vales even weren't terrible, certainly no worse than something like "The Scorpion King". Not that a comparison to "The Scorpion King" should be interpreted as a ringing endorsement.
Here's what's killing me: Conan the Barbarian, the character developed by Robert E. Howard is a greta character, hence his enduring popularity since his creation in the 1930's. Many of the original REH Conan stories would make Awesome films in the age of CGI as exhibited in the Apes movie. Awesome. So why, oh why, return to that pathetic storyline of revenge for dear old dead village that made the first attempt at a Conan the Barbarian movie so insipid?
I disgusts me that whomever owns the rights to the Conan the Barbarian copyrights lets them be so abused by the B-movie industry. The lust for money can truly be an evil thing. This movie would have been much better had they used the Deathstalker name instead of besmirching Conan.
In closing, don't go see it. Invest the money in one of the recent reprints of the original REH stories. The vivid imagery of the greatest sword and sorcery writer, maybe just plain writer, of all time is far superior to the movie visuals. And the stories and characters are beyond compare. Note: The Lin Carter, L. Sprauge de Camp or Robert Jordan stuff is not in the same league as REH so don't be fooled.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Johnny Got his Gun
I just finished reading Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. you may be familiar with it without knowing as it was the inspiration behind the Metallica song - One. The book is muich better. In fact, this book should be a standard part of the high school curriculum in any democracy but I guess we'll have to accept the small mercy that it hasn't been banned. Yet.
Friday, August 19, 2011
The Control Goup
1 in 6 couples in Canada have fertility issues, which is to say trouble making babies, and that is just those couples trying to have babies not a reflection of us selfish folk who just choose not to have children.
Fertility rates in Canada hit their peak in the 1970's and have been on the decline ever since. Interestingly recent immigrants have a higher fertility rate but over time fertility rates of immigrants decline to resemble the fertility rates of the general population.
This seems to imply that the infertility in Canada is a result of environmental factors strong enough to overcome our supposed food surplus. Many of these factors will be listed on any website talking about women's fertility issues but one I find conspicuously absent is genetically modified food. A typical dismissal of this environmental factor is: “scientists are still studying the relationship between GM foods and the increase in low birth weight human babies, fertility problems, and other health problems affecting the human population." They have figured out that GM feed does seem to cause these problems for rats but they are rats not humans.
Whats my point? My point is that there is a really big experiment going on, not just with GM food but also new chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, drugs, etc.) and micro-radiation. (Well really a bunch of massive, population wide experiments going on at the same time - which, conveniently enough, make it impossible to assign blame to things like low birth weights and infertility on one specific culprit.) So those modern “back to the landers” are not the freaky hippies you like to think of them as. Well, OK, a lot of them are but a lot of others are just people who have decided that if we are going to be part of a huge environmental experiment, like it or not, they are at least going to try to be part of the control group of guinea pigs. And lets face it, there are signs that it might not turn out well for the test group.
Fertility rates in Canada hit their peak in the 1970's and have been on the decline ever since. Interestingly recent immigrants have a higher fertility rate but over time fertility rates of immigrants decline to resemble the fertility rates of the general population.
This seems to imply that the infertility in Canada is a result of environmental factors strong enough to overcome our supposed food surplus. Many of these factors will be listed on any website talking about women's fertility issues but one I find conspicuously absent is genetically modified food. A typical dismissal of this environmental factor is: “scientists are still studying the relationship between GM foods and the increase in low birth weight human babies, fertility problems, and other health problems affecting the human population." They have figured out that GM feed does seem to cause these problems for rats but they are rats not humans.
Whats my point? My point is that there is a really big experiment going on, not just with GM food but also new chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, drugs, etc.) and micro-radiation. (Well really a bunch of massive, population wide experiments going on at the same time - which, conveniently enough, make it impossible to assign blame to things like low birth weights and infertility on one specific culprit.) So those modern “back to the landers” are not the freaky hippies you like to think of them as. Well, OK, a lot of them are but a lot of others are just people who have decided that if we are going to be part of a huge environmental experiment, like it or not, they are at least going to try to be part of the control group of guinea pigs. And lets face it, there are signs that it might not turn out well for the test group.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Gas is cheap believe it or not
My current source of cash is being one tiny cog in the giant machine that is international commerce. More specifically I push the paper that allows food to more across borders and every shift at work I’m brought face to face with the contradiction of fuel prices.
When I’m at the pump feeding the Subaru I’m horrified by the cost- $1.31 a litre! It’s highway robbery! But then I go to work and process dozens of truckloads of cheap food stuffs that have travelled literally thousands of miles just to get to the border and I think, man, is gas really so cheap? How is it that it’s a good business policy to ship trucklods of potatoes thousands of kilometers rather than find local producers?
The truth is that yes, gas is that cheap.
Looking at what a few dollars worth of diesel fuel in the tractor can accomplish in a morning - easily several weeks worth of bush clearing if done by hand - normally we just don’t realize how much waste gas has allowed us to get away with.
I don’t even want to think about how much energy is wasted in any large city every day just by the commute. Probably enough to build a pyramid. Crazy.
When I’m at the pump feeding the Subaru I’m horrified by the cost- $1.31 a litre! It’s highway robbery! But then I go to work and process dozens of truckloads of cheap food stuffs that have travelled literally thousands of miles just to get to the border and I think, man, is gas really so cheap? How is it that it’s a good business policy to ship trucklods of potatoes thousands of kilometers rather than find local producers?
The truth is that yes, gas is that cheap.
Looking at what a few dollars worth of diesel fuel in the tractor can accomplish in a morning - easily several weeks worth of bush clearing if done by hand - normally we just don’t realize how much waste gas has allowed us to get away with.
I don’t even want to think about how much energy is wasted in any large city every day just by the commute. Probably enough to build a pyramid. Crazy.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The drive-in movie theatre
The drive in is apparently alive and well. Last night (and early this morning) the Boss and I decided to try out the drive-in theatre that is just down the road from the house. Last night was he confluence of factors that made it a logical decision - $5 Tuesday, perfect weather and neither of us had to crawl out of bed for anything this morning.
The 5 Drive-in has three screens each showing a double feature we elected for comedy night - Crazy, Stupid Love and then Horrible Bosses. Both movies had some laughs but Crazy, Stupid Love was definitely the funnier movie. Steve Carrel is a funny guy.
The Drive-in does play off the “50’s nostalgia with the snack bar, interlude music and pre-movie adds but surprisingly (to me anyway) the vast majority of the customers were young people. Like late teens early 20’s. and a lot of pick-ups. Backed into their spots with air mattresses in the truck bed, a cool idea for our next visit.
The place was pretty busy, not packed but more than half full. More full by percentage than a regular indoor theatre in my experience. Pretty good considering the movies weren’t blockbusters and the shows ran from (1:30 PM to 1:30 AM on a school night. Yeah I know school is out for summer - and that might explain the high percentage of youths too. The awesome is that in the cab of the truck I don’t have to worry about the youths annoying me with their enthusiastic self absorption.
In all the drive-in gets my wholehearted recommendation.
The 5 Drive-in has three screens each showing a double feature we elected for comedy night - Crazy, Stupid Love and then Horrible Bosses. Both movies had some laughs but Crazy, Stupid Love was definitely the funnier movie. Steve Carrel is a funny guy.
The Drive-in does play off the “50’s nostalgia with the snack bar, interlude music and pre-movie adds but surprisingly (to me anyway) the vast majority of the customers were young people. Like late teens early 20’s. and a lot of pick-ups. Backed into their spots with air mattresses in the truck bed, a cool idea for our next visit.
The place was pretty busy, not packed but more than half full. More full by percentage than a regular indoor theatre in my experience. Pretty good considering the movies weren’t blockbusters and the shows ran from (1:30 PM to 1:30 AM on a school night. Yeah I know school is out for summer - and that might explain the high percentage of youths too. The awesome is that in the cab of the truck I don’t have to worry about the youths annoying me with their enthusiastic self absorption.
In all the drive-in gets my wholehearted recommendation.
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