Super 8

It's rare for me to do a movie review on my blog, so don't let me break this tradition by much. I was intrigued by the trailers for Super 8. Speilberg's name was associated with it even though he didn't write or direct it. Was it good? I'd say it was "Meh" and tell you to wait until it comes out on home video formats and rent it. At least if you must, go to a cheap matinee showing.

I'm not so much reviewing the movie that I'm going to do here as an account of what I did to go through to see the movie. The Alliance Cinemark 5 has state of the art digital projection, but the sound system is severely underutilized. Admittedly, the movies do cost less than other theatres in the area, but there's no excuse for not using the 6 speakers on the walls that go along with the ones near the screen. If there's a bass unit, I don't know if it's on. Plus the volume from what speakers are being used is clearly not high enough. The impact the movie could have had was hampered by a less than satisfactory sound system. Also, I had to put up with some idiot high school student (presumably) and his date continually talking for the first 45 minutes of the movie. I mean who the hell goes to a movie and sits there bullcrapping about stuff that's not the movie? I hissed a terse "Please shut the hell up" at them and the volume of their inane banter did decrease. Go outside to talk; you go into a movie to see a movie, not talk.

The movie itself seems to be mis-named because I expected a suspense and intrigue flick surrounding a reel of Super 8 film shot by accident that some kids were using to shoot a little movie they were making. "Super 8" is what you'd call a Classic 1980s sci-fi flick, and it makes pain-staking effort to reinforce it's supposed to be set in the early 1980s, which is why the kids are using a Super 8 movie camera and not videocameras.

I expected an all out conspiracy fight for the film the kids shot, unknowingly, after a mysterious train accident. I'm not going to give away how this was possible, because it's one of the movie's great moments. However, the story never goes in that direction and the existence of the footage on the Super 8 film the kids shot becomes secondary. It's not the film I was expecting which I felt would have been a better story. It's as if they couldn't come up with a better name.

How to straighten a truck frame, redneck style

I didn't hear this going on at the time, just moments ago, but my older sister did and just got done telling me about it. 

Apparently out front, within mere feet of the front door of Apartment B, our redneck neighbors that live across the street from us were trying to straighten out a truck frame.

However, they were using another truck to do it and trying to do this in the road, not on their property.

Imagine 2 trucks attached to each other by the towing hitch, heading in opposite directions. Now imagine this dangerous scene within 5 feet of your front door on the road. I went out to see the skid marks on the road from this.

My sister was in the right to yell at these idiots because they were endangering other people and personal property. She says some lady also from over there was yelling at her (apparently with no teeth) for yelling at the 2 idiots trying to straighten out a truck frame! Mentioning something about having kids and all, what this has to do with what was going on with the two trucks, I don't know.

My sister believes people like them aren't worth suing because they likely have nothing and or have no insurance for stupid things like this. If I had seen this as it was happening, I would have taken pics, but also advise them that they'd better have insurance and be ready to file a claim as we'd be suing them. I'm sure the event of the chain or whatever they used to hook the 2 trucks together snapping wasn't considered at all.

If you want to straighten a truck frame, you have to go to a garage and take the truck apart. It also costs a lot of money for the labor to do something like this. I would imagine there's some welding involved.

Fighting, burning, and now this. I wish I had the money to buy up these surrounding houses.

And another thing: The rednecks have this big ass USA flag draped across and over their huge wood pile. Nothing wrong with a flag, but does it have to be 8 feet tall?

The best part of this was one guy apologizing and they did leave.

ADDITIONAL:  Later that night, there were 2 ambulances that went rushing down the road, so maybe that was them somewhere else? Who is to know?

Young drivers out and about yesterday

Yesterday I'm doing a few things. Getting water jugs filled, a few foodstuffs. I go to one store in town where they still have the water jug filling machine set at 25 cents and while I get out of the car, I see a girl in a billowy yellow dress and a boy get in a car. Oh, I guess the Spring Formal aka Prom (why is it called Prom?) is tonight. I file that away, fill my jugs and get on with things to do.

Some time later while at Aldi's as I go in, I hear rescue vehicles screaming in the distance, and by the sounds of things, they're going away from where I am. I get done with what I get there and leave, deciding to go right home.

It's a good thing I'm not quick on the accelerator, because as soon as the light turned green for me, I went to turn right out of the parking lot, and I barely managed to keep from getting hit by a black SUV from my left. The driver clearly was not paying attention to the red light he had - clearly red long enough for him to see it. I recall the driver was in the vehicle with someone else (which I managed to see in the split second the damn vehicle sped right in front of me - and there were witnesses), and was able to determine it was an underage driver at the wheel. I was so mad I fumbled around before managing to sound my horn. It must have shaken the other driver up because he did brake and slow down. I wasn't sure if he thought I was coming after him, and I really should have after seeing him pull into the used car lot a block down the road to let him know how close he came to having his insurance premium get more expensive or cancelled altogether and me getting a new car (among other problems).

Anyway, after a few minutes of going towards home, I come to the crossing of where two state routes meet, and the scene of a traffic accident. That's where the rescue vehicles were going.  I see a girl in a familiar yellow dress - just odd that a while before they were in town. I don't know who was at fault, but seeing another girl in the gathered group of onlookers in a purple dress, I guess a more than a few prom attendees' evening just got more complicated if not cancelled altogether. A gray car and a black SUV collided at the light at that intersection.

Makes me wonder how many other high school prom attendees were involved in collisions this weekend. I saw a stretch limo SUV earlier getting fuel. That's the way to do it - hire a limo and driver. I would think that's much safer even if it costs some money to rent one.

I WOULD have to find that stuff NOW dammit...

So my sister asks about a noise maker that helps people fall asleep. I
know Mom used it when we were out at my grandparents' house and I seem
to remember seeing it here after we moved in. She needs it to fall
asleep because of some ringing in her ears.

When I got a moment, I decided to check out the dressers Mom has and had
her stuff in. The one tall dresser didn't have the noise maker.

Then I turned to looking in the drawers in the other dresser.

While I didn't find the noise maker unit, I did freaking finally run
across the Go Lite Mom got for Seasonal Affected Disorder (or Depression
in my Mom's case) as well as the other basket Mom bought for her walker.
I have NO IDEA why the Go Lite was even in the drawer. But that f___en
basket!!! We searched ALL OVER for that damn thing! Mom was hoping to
use it because it held onto her walker better than the one I kept
repairing. I think it got stashed away in the dresser when my other
sister came out one January (I seem to remember this being around New
Years) and helped organize and clean things up. Only nobody reminded
anyone where things got put.

I JUST HAD TO RUN ACROSS THAT DAMN BASKET NOW, DIDN'T I? I saw that
thing in the drawer and called out "MOM, I FINALLY FOUND THAT GODDAMN
BASKET!"

And her Go Lite. Why was it stashed in a dresser drawer when it was
something she needed? She was hoping to find it and show one doctor she
went to about things since the doctor expressed interest in seeing the
device, perhaps recommend it to others.

But I didn't turn up the noise maker. My back was yelling at me over the
exertion, so I took a break and decided to check out the toy box /
storage bin. It wasn't in there either (so it must be in a box upstairs
in that... room), but I managed to find something else. I knew it when I
saw it what the hell it was... Dammit. The yellow piece that went on the
... water reservoir for Mom's BIPAP machine when you needed to rinse it
out and clean it. We lost that at some point and I spent 2 years holding
my fingers over the holes when I rinsed it out with a little vinegar to
remove the annoying particulate build-up inside it. Why the hell did it
end up in with the toys?

Going through the toys was depressing. It certainly was full of the love
my Mom had for her grandchildren. It makes me depressed to realize that
when I finally start a family, my children will never meet a grandmother
that would have loved them a lot as well.

I just HAD to find all 3 of those items today. I still have so much of
Mom's stuff here. I don't know what I'm going to do with a lot of her
books. I will keep some, but there's a lot I have no desire to keep, and
since nobody in the family has voiced any interest (which is a damn
shame), when I sell or get some amount of money out of them, I will use
it as I please and if anyone has a problem, they'll just have to deal
with it.

Dumping WebTV soon

Just letting everyone who needs to know that I'm making plans to cancel
our dialup ISP and WebTV services soon. I've already saved all the
webpages I created and some a friend has on here as well, but I've got
some more details to deal with such as saved webpages and emails. This
will take some time to clear out.

If anybody wants something, grab it now. I need to find a free personal
webpage host that lets me upload my own HTML and pictures similar to
Geociites' File Manager.

Which is odd to be getting rid of WebTV when I got a notice loading up
my email that MSN is offering (requiring is more like it) Windows Live
ID shtuff and wouldn't let me delete email until I created one.
(f__kers).

I've gotta change something around here

So today almost like out of the blue my sister asks me to check grandpa's push lawnmower because, as I suspect, for the past couple of days we've both noticed how much the grass has been growing and as such needs to be mowed. I know if Mom was looking at it from the bathroom window, she'd be saying the same thing.

She basically wants to see if it'll start. She put more oil in it (I don't think it really needed any more), and I see it's been left out front. So I do the usual prime push on the rubber bulb that primes it. I do this about 10 times, because it's been months since it was started. I'm sure lots of places say you should drain the gas from the tank for winter storage. This is something I don't do. I've never done it. I'm sure the more inclined and able people do this, but I'm not that sort of person.

So I prime and pull the rip cord. It's not even firing. I realize this sort of thing will require more priming - after all, it's sat around for months unused. It will require more than the usual amount of priming. I check the gas and add a little still in the old metal gas can. How old? My grandfather has had it for years and never bought a new one. Still in great shape.

The addition of a little more fuel to the mower obtains the desired result. The mower fires up to life and runs just fine. Some preliminary white smoke belches from the muffler (if it is a muffler), and after a while it subsides, but the mower is doing its job.

I would think my sister would suddenly appear, offering to take the reigns of the mower at this point. Certainly it's loud enough to tell her that yes Andy can do something for once and actually got a gas mower started after being in storage. But no. Anywho, I decide that for once I need to get up and do something. The problem here is that I usually plan for events like this. This means the use of some ibuprofen. Whatever I do these days usually requires some planning for the pain I get for payback for doing anything.

First goings of mowing the small side yard near the driveway (car park if you like) are not so bad. Toward the middle and clearly towards the end of doing this mowing I am winded. I do not recall ever being in this much pain for a simple mowing job as this. I try to breathe deeply, and it takes much of my quickly disappearing stamina just to pull through. I managed to finish the task, but not before I'm wheezing, pain in my windpipe, desiring of more comfortable surroundings and some water.

At first, before even this happened, I had been inside getting annoyed by the growing coldness, and I turned up the heat. But coming back in, the heat was overwhelming and I turned it back down. It doesn't help that indoor humidity is above 50% while during the winter I observed no more than 20%.

I really need to change something in my lifestyle and get more in shape so that I don't ever experience pain like that again. My big problem is that I don't know how to change it. Running up and down the stairs or something, any kind of physical activity just to be doing something instead of depressed and bored watching TV or trying to start my computer service business.


 

Seen At Big Lots: Wireless Mouth

And look! It's on sale!

The Dell CRT monitor is probably going bad

I've noticed for the past couple of days the Dell CRT monitor is doing this little flicker jumpy thing, like it jumps back and forth vertically like a couple scan lines. It doesn't happen when it's first turned on. It is about 6 or 7 years old by now (Mom got the computer in 2004 if I remember right). I would think it could be dusty inside. TVs also act up when too dusty, so perhaps this is the CRT showing dusty signs.  Maybe I just need to disconnect, open the case, and blow it all out. I do have a backup monitor which has a bad wire (the red cuts out if the cable isn't properly placed) just in case. Maybe it's time to find a decently priced LCD monitor. I don't know.

Always something

Sherriff called on redneck neighbors fighting out in the street

Ookami-den for the Nintendo DS

It's been about a year since I found a used but in good shape copy of Ookami for the PS2. I had traded in a bass fishing game Mom bought but never played (probably due to not having a fishing controller if there was one) and got a paltry 63 cents for the exchange. I had to also go online to find the cover to print out and a PDF for the instruction manual. I am thankful that Capcom supports their games in that manner.

Now I find out about a sequel game for the Nintendo DS, Ookami-den. After about 10 hours into game play, I'm stuck. But some reflections on what I've played so far.

There's no longer this nit-picky annoying collecting of 100 strings of beads. You don't have to feed any animals. I like that there's still the blooming of trees. Most of the locations in the original game are here and some new ones as well. So if you're used to Shinshu Field and the guy who does pottery there, you know you'll see that again. There's plenty of signs that this is a sequel - time has moved forth and some things are slightly different. It's nice to see more of the story.

What I greatly miss is seeing this game on a big screen TV. I guess I could still plug the audio out of the DS into the Dolby unit with a patch cable instead of using headphones. The look and music of the PS2 game are re-created for the DS, though there are more areas per game part likely due to the less RAM in the DS. I was used to Shinshu Field being one area in the PS2 version.

Funny how a lot of the treasure locations are the same, and there's new puzzles to figure out. I decided to go the Greenhorn aka Easy route to play even though I know what to expect in this version for the DS.

Brush techniques have to be re-learned again. You have different friends accompanying you in various parts. I was able to get to a point where I'm going to have to backtrack a bit due to unfinished business in one part. At least now there won't be a feeling at one point going "Is this all there is?" like I did last time only to find out there's more.

Some control of the camera is lost but the user interface helps make up for it. I like one difference from the original: No Falling Off of Cliffs. Or at least less of it.

I have lost sleep due to playing Ookami-den. I was up until 3:30 am last night before I realized I was up that late. It was similar to last year while playing Ookami on the PS2, but not quite as late.

I doubt there's a walkthrough to help me figure out what I forgot in the previous spot...

I'm glad I saved the gift card to help pay for this.