Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Uncle Hyena's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, May 26th, 2012
8:26 am	Battleship, MIB Slow week, too much work, not enough health... "Battleship" is a dumb movie; hostile first contact stories that don't end with humanity dead are, by definition, dumb. But I saw a couple of reviews that implied that the thing had a soul in spite of that, and I had a layover between work and a dental appointment. I'm glad I saw it. Yes, the film is STOOPID in many ways, but there are a few wonderful sequences that are worth the price of admission. The first is an incredibly romantic and funny bit involving a chicken burrito and a taser, and the other involves pulling a battleship out of mothballs on the bounce, which sequence punched several of my sentimental buttons and had me in tears. (As an aside: One of the critics failed to notice that there was a six year gap between the chicken burrito and the soccer game, a fairly critical plot point that the director did NOT underscore heavily enough. So, mistakes on both parts, but the director's was MUCH worse.) In the end, I can't actually recommend the movie, but I am glad that I saw it. "Men in Black III" is very much more of the same, with the interesting addition of Josh Brolin doing an extended and brilliant impression of Tommy Lee Jones. If you liked the first two, you will like this one; we did. Uncle Hyena Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 20th, 2012
6:13 am	Dark, Marigold, Expecting Two weeks again. Shame on me. "Dark Shadows" is silly, but so was the show it is based on. In spite of the trailers, the movie is NOT a comedy; it is a Tim Burton film, which means it has a great deal of humor, even more weirdness, and a pretty solid story underneath. We enjoyed the film a great deal. "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" is a quirky comic drama about a fledgling retirement "hotel" for English expatriates in India. The cast is AMAZING, the story if pleasantly bittersweet, and it is worth seeing, if you can find it. "What to Expect When You're Expecting" is an ensemble romantic comedy, in the style of "Love, Actually". The unifying theme is pregnancy, and I would have been inclined to give the thing a miss, but Dementia liked the trailers. The movie has some very funny bits, and some engaging characters, and some hole-in-the-screen characters. I don't quite regret seeing it, quite. Three weeks later, the canoe still hasn't hit the water. The day is getting closer, though. I managed to get through a bit over a year without a lawn mower, since I have had fairly reliable itinerant mowers ever since my last mower broke last spring. My luck ran out this week, and I bought a new machine and did a cursory job on the front lawn on Saturday. I suspect I will have to do a more thorough job front and back next week; we shall see. (Remember, the goal is to have the second worst lawn on the block; the worst lawn belongs to a bad neighbor, and any better than second worst means I have given the job more effort than it deserves...) Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 6th, 2012
10:25 am	Raven, Five, Safe,Pirates, Lucky, Avengers, Marathon, Canoe, Poker Horribly behind. Time to catch up. Movies first. "The Raven" isn't what I hoped it would be, but wasn't bad. I found that it was one of those rare movies that I liked better a day later than I had when I left the theater. John Cusack is physically wrong to play the short, spindly Poe, but does a decent job anyway; the movie has a number of anachronisms that only matter if I let myself slide into anal retentive mode; the movie often pretends that Poe's stories contained plot lines that they did NOT. Still, an interesting and enjoyable movie for all of that. "The Five Year Engagement" was frustrating. It was in many ways a study of the stupidity of choosing relationship over vocation (for one of the statistically insignificant few who HAVE a vocation for something that will pay the rent). The characters are engaging, but the story is just MISERABLE. The ending ALMOST rescues the thing, though, and is probably the best movie wedding I have ever seen. "Safe" is a Jason Statham action film, pretty much "The Transporter" without a car. This is a good thing. Stathham is both a real actor and a credible martial artist, and he generally has very good taste in films. "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" is a silly piece of claymation from the "Wallace and Gromit" people. You get what you pay for. "The Lucky One" is a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book. Sparks tells good stories that tend to end really badly; he believes true love exists, but with a horrible karmic penalty, usually involving pointless tragedy shortly after the lovers acknowledge one another. Sometimes the characters, and the cast, pay the freight on the gloom. Sometimes the gloom doesn't QUITE materialize for one reason or another. In the end, I liked this movie well enough. "The Avengers" is the best superhero movie ever made. It is occasionally heart wrenching, often hilarious, and just generally good. Yes, there is a credit cookie; yes, you WANT to stay and see it. On April 27, after working an overtime shift, I bought a canoe. I have been thinking about this for a LONG time, and there were a bunch of factors involved. I found one that met my rather odd specifications for cheap, waffled for a week, and bought it. I had an interesting moment while unloading it from the van; due to a miscalculation, I found myself holding the thing over my head supported entirely on my outstretched right arm. I was... AMUSED by this. There was a time when holding something that weighed sixty five pounds seven feet in the air with one hand would not have been a big deal. Thirty years later, however, I had no idea what was going to happen when I bent my elbow. It turns out that the vast majority of the muscle is still there, but it was an interesting moment. On the evening of May 2, we watched the 2008 "Incredible Hulk" as preparation for the next days Marvel Marathon. We were among forty people in a 200 seat theater who watched all of the other five Marvel produced superhero movies in a thirteen hour stretch: "Iron Man", "Iron Man 2", "Thor", "Captain America", and finally "The Avengers". They are all good movies, and we had a great time. Friday was poker night; I did the usual dinner with my father (who is having severe and worrisome mobility problems), and then went on to break my streak after nearly two years and flame out in both tourneys. Ah, well... Uncle Hyena (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
4:41 am	Chimpanzee Wednesday I took a different route to after work decompression: I hit Colosseum Games in Kenosha, and hung out. Played Pirate Fluxx (one of a series of MANY Fluxx games, but my first) which was silly but fun, and then did an introductory scenario of the Lord of the Rings Card Game. LotRCG is beautiful and clever, but a bit dry and slow. After we were done, I recited the inscription on the Ring by way of a parting shot; one of the guys at another table looked up and said, "Why do I get this sudden feeling that the ground is about to open up?" Heh. Thursday went away, mostly. Got some minor projects done. Friday we went to see the annual Earth Day Movie, this one called "Chimpanzee". Because we were sanity optional, we brought all of the chimps in the menagerie with us (there are six). The movie is visually stunning, and less irritating, narratively, than previous Earth Day films have been. It documents one authentic and peculiar event (the adoption of an orphaned infant by an adult MALE chimp), and then weaves a story around that out of whole cloth, using clips chosen from hundreds of hours of images to make it look like the story is actually happening. Still, two hours of beautiful images of chimps being chimps. Not too bad. Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Monday, April 16th, 2012
6:41 am	Reunion, Cabin, Lockout, Zoo Two movies (one a repeat) on Wednesday, Thursday lost in fog, Brookfield zoo on Friday, and two more movies on Saturday. Movies first: "American Reunion" is much of the same with its three predecessors; it is vulgar, stupid, and manic, and yet it has a real heart down in there somewhere, and you see just enough of it to make the whole mess tolerable. "Cabin in the Woods" tries a unique take on horror tropes, and mostly gets away with it, mostly. It's hard to say much about this movie with out giving things away, but: Blood, humor, and a LOT of weirdness. "Lockout" is pretty much a remake of "Escape From New York", cross pollinated with "Die Hard", all set in space. The plot is worthy of a Syfy original, but the production values are high, and the characters and the dialog are enough better than that to make it watchable. Again, mostly. We hadn't been to Brookfield zoo in three years, and spent four hours wandering around the place. Everything seems a little emptier and more remote, though that may just be me. Still, Rodriquez Island Fruit Bats and Humboldt Penguins, and a bizarre interlude in one of the gift shops that included a discussion of mahjong and segued into an explanation of how cricket is played. Good times, and moderately sore feet. Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Monday, April 9th, 2012
10:16 am	Jeff and Taxes One movie and the annual battle with the IRS... "Jeff, Who Lives at Home" is a well executed non-comedy that is mostly painful to sit through. The main character is a good-hearted slacker whose life is being ruined by his delusion that everything in life is meaningful; his older brother is an utterly self-absorbed ass who is so clueless that it is painful to hear him speak. Their mother is a decent, sane person who has had most of the joy sucked out of her life. By the time the movie is over, the mother is a bit happier, the older brother is slightly less of an ass, and Jeff has had his delusions confirmed, and is one step closer to being really crazy. The film has occasional moments of charm and real humor, but is mostly just dreary. Dementia liked it well enough; I am profoundly indifferent. On Thursday I did this year's taxes. I suspect that I am very close to the point where I am no longer sane enough for this task. I did NOT seriously contemplate burning most of our possessions and killing Dementia and then myself, I just thought about it sort of wistfully. I REALLY hate doing the taxes. Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Monday, April 2nd, 2012
3:43 am	Yemen, Hunger, Wrath, Mirror, Poker, Deep Ones Four movies this week (not too unusual), all of them in Dementia's company (which is pretty unusual). "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" is a British romance that borders on comedy without ever falling over. It is a great deal of Quixotic fun, and we enjoyed it very much. "The Hunger Games" is a disappointment, and I went in with low expectations. The book had decent character writing and bad science fiction, and the film makers chopped up the character stuff to make room for even MORE bad science fiction. The cast is good, and the performances are good, but the overall experience is mediocre. "Wrath of the Titans" is superior to its predecessor. It is another piece of quasi-classical fantasy adventure fluff, this time without a shred of classical plot to keep it on track. It is amusing for all of that, though, and Bill Nighy as Hephaestus is almost worth the price of admission all by himself. "Mirror, Mirror" is GREAT. Yes, it is silly fluff, but it is INSPIRED silly fluff, and we loved it. Friday was April Poker Night (because the appropriate evening would have been Good Friday, so they rescheduled the first Friday of April into March). I kept my streak of one money finish per night going by finishing third in the second tourney. On Sunday (April 1), Colosseum Games in Kenosha had a Lovecraft day. I arrived, kibitzed a bit, and made a small purchase. There were about two dozen people there, playing at least five different Lovecraft based board games. I checked with the owner, and then went into Stentorian Mode... "A few days ago, Gerrold asked me to come in today and sing for you. I can see that this idea frightens you, and it should. But it will be only slightly painful, and it will be over quickly." And then I sang "Meet the Deep Ones". The reactions were pretty unanimous, from distressed bewilderment to laughter to applause. "Meet the Deep Ones" is pretty much a perfect comedy bit, given the right audience; it is short, it is funny, and it builds. Thanks again to Jon Kaufman for writing it. Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
5:59 am	Casablanca, Lorax, Carter, GaryCon After I got off work on Wednesday, I picked up Dementia, we picked up the van from the body shop and took it back to our regular mechanic for an alignment and a new muffler, and then headed up to Kenosha to see a fully restored "Casablanca" on the big screen. I can't say it is my favorite movie, nor can I say it is the best movie ever made. But I have no idea in the world what movie I would put in front of it in either category (and I know of a whole lot that I would NOT...). On Thursday, I took in "The Lorax", which was lamer than I expected it to be, and then saw "John Carter" again, this time in 2D. It's a very good movie; it's a shame it is not living up to its absurd expectations. On Friday, I spent the day in (or outside of) Lake Geneva, at GaryCon; details are here: http://uncle-gnoll.livejournal.com/3999.html One other note: At about 5:00 on Friday afternoon, I was informed that if I had been home in the morning, I would have been able to work a double time shift on Saturday. Among other things, this means that my absurd record for paying (or in this case, failing to earn) about $50 for every hour I spend gaming remains intact... Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 20th, 2012
4:42 am	Half, Jump, Repair, Party, Gebo, Charisma I worked seven days last week, which burned my brain just a bit... As of about 8:00 AM on Friday, March 16, I had known Dementia for half of my life. On Friday afternoon we saw, "21 Jump Street", which was DUMB, but fun. On Saturday morning, I got up earlier than I needed to (barely), drove to Midas and dropped of the van for routing maintenance, then walked home, where I was informed that the van had frame rot, and needed a major repair. I immediately thought in terms of the $1500 cash only, off book, no warranty, technically illegal repair that the Jeep had needed, and felt kind of sick. When we got to the body shop on Monday, it turned out that it was a fairly routine fix of a known design problem, and will cost only $225. Phew. Saturday night we went to Nikki and Steve's annual Housewarming Memorial, and had a great time. We hadn't been there ten minutes before I found an excuse to sing Jon Kaufmann's "Meet the Deep Ones" (and thanks again for that one, Jon; I have gotten an amazing amount of mileage out of that song) which went over well, and things progressed well from there. On Monday... Sometime back in 2007 I talked Dementia into joining Neopets. She did, and adopted the minimum one pet, a yellow goatish-thing (an Ogrin, for those who care) that she named Mister Gebo. Being Dementia, she took the game too seriously, and became attached to the critter. In January, someone hacked her account and stole a fairly large amount of game cash. She complained, and the admins froze her account "for her protection". And then, being Neopets, and having about a million customers for every employee, there was a LONG silence. Dementia did everything she could to make sure that they would return her account to her, but Neopets doesn't send acknowledgements, and days stretched into weeks into months; Dementia was sure that they would never unlock the account, and was more than a little upset. Finally, on Monday, more than two months after the initial complaint, the reset her password and unlocked the account, and Mister Gebo is free again, and a bit of daily trauma is over. And then we have the following foolishness, a combination of game geekery, and a memorial for Clueless Tom, who died six years ago Saturday: http://uncle-gnoll.livejournal.com/3771.html Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Monday, March 12th, 2012
7:10 am	28 Years On this day in 1984, Dementia started a new job. She met a lot of new people, all of whom she has since lost track of-- except the very last new face of the day. Him, she can't seem to get rid of. It's interesting to realize that when I went home and went to bed that night, I did not have a single clue that I had just experienced the single most important event in my life... Uncle Hyena (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 11th, 2012
7:30 am	Hunger Games Over the course of the last week or so I have consumed "The Hunger Games" as an audio book. I wanted to have read it before the movie came out, reading time was scarce, I had a road trip in front of me, and we already had the audio book (Dementia had consumed it a while ago). So it worked out. I approached the book with a certain amount of trepidation. Several of my friends whose opinions I trust had loved this book and its sequels; the single person whose opinion I value most (Dementia), however, had been significantly unimpressed. As it turns out, so was I. To begin, I am not fond of present tense narrative. Sometimes it works, but it is usually a bad idea. First person present tense multiplies all of the problems inherent in third person present tense, and adds a few more. My effort to remain open minded to the story ended in moderate hostility in the first minute. I liked the characters, for the most part. Katniss often struck me as almost unbelievably thick, and many of the names irritated me (and this when I only had to hear them, not look at them). The world struck me as rationally untenable in many ways. The governmental uber-villian failed to convince me; it struck me as so pointlessly and obviously EEEVIL as to be an obvious straw man. The plot twist that led to the climactic act of defiance struck me as stupidly self destructive (Do you REALLY want all of your citizens to not only fear you, but to HATE you?). So, tolerable romance, BAD science fiction. Maybe a C- overall. On the other hand, this means the movie has a really good chance to transcend its source material... Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 10th, 2012
5:55 am	Artist, Project, Carter Movies... "The Artist" is an example of a movie that was designed from its inception to win an Academy Award. It is well made at every particular, and pretentious to the limits of credulity. I imagine that this conversation took place at some point in time: Director: I want to do a remake of "A Star is Born" with a happy ending. Producer: That's moronic. You'll get laughed out of Hollywood. You'll be lucky to get a job directing music videos in Vancouver. Director: Yes, but I am going to set it in 1929, and do it as a black and white silent. Producer: Wow! You'll probably win the Academy Award! "Project X" is a train wreck. Take "Risky Business", suck out every last vestige of wit and charm, add a flame thrower and lots of property damage, and shoot it as camera-as-character, and you will have an approximation of this mess. "John Carter" is great. There are a few bits of lame pseudo-science left over from Burroughs, and a few other bits of lame idiocy that the screen writers conconcted, but for the most part the movie is just a lot of fun; the principals are engaging, and the effects should be convincing to anyone who can't do inertia calculations in his head (and I just tell that part of my brain to shut up). See this movie, though avoid the pointless 3D if you can. I intend to see it again in 2D if I can (we saw it in 3D due to a schedule conflict). I wish this movie all the best, though I really doubt it will recoup its staggering production cost. Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 8th, 2012
10:14 pm	Sixth Tetrahedral (and a Jagermonster) Fifty-six years old today; nothing clever to say about fifty-six, except that it is the sixth in the series of tetrahedral numbers, which is to say that if you build a triangular pyramid out of marbles (or tennis balls, or what have you) that has six elements on a side, it will contain fifty=six elements. My birthday going well so far, in spite of having to go in to work for two hours for a staff meeting. The annual Birthday Cherry Pie materialized. It is usually marked, "WE ALL LOVE YOU" ("We" meaning Dementia and the Plush Menagerie) in fork dimples; this year's was marked, "VE ALL LUV HYU", because Dementia has gotten into Girl Genius in a big way lately, and is threatening to start living in a JagerMonster accent. (She gave herself a London accent for her 40th birthday, and lived in it for about five years). I didn't catch on to the fact that the pie was foreshadowing. Some of you have met Rook, the sock gnoll that Dementia made for me for Yule in 2007 (details, and a picture, here: http://unclehyena.livejournal.com/217569.html . In January 2011 she started work on another secret project, one which didn't come close to being finished in time for my birthday last year. It languished for a while, then last fall she started up on it again, hoping to finish for Yule. It didn't happen. Since then, she started working REALLY hard to get it finished for my birthday, and didn't QUITE get there, but it she did get close enough that she felt she could give it to me. I was worried. What on Earth could she be working on that would be worth that kind of effort? What was there that would have as much impact as the world's only (as far as I know) sock gnoll? And remember, she has put about three times as much effort into this project as she put into Rook (and consider; when she was asked how much she would charge to duplicate Rook, she had smiled sheepishly and said, "He was an act of love. To make it worth my while to make for a stranger, I would have to ask for at least a thousand dollars."). Anyway... I got home from the staff meeting, opened the bag, and I cried. Because she had done it again. I now have a sock JagerMonster, specifically, I have Maxim. He still needs a hat and boots, but I recognized my favorite Jager immediately. Pictures will follow as soon as he has a hat and boots, because no self respecting Jager would be seen in public without a hat. Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
7:03 am	Thirty Years Ago Today... ...I worked midnight to eight, went out to breakfast with my now-lost friend Don Royal, and let him talk me into going to Sabbath School with him (he was nominally a Seventh Day Adventist). The class was led by a gorgeous, intelligent, deranged redhead whom I subsequently asked to marry me (she accepted, and then came to her senses a few months later). I went home, got some sleep, and then got together with my family to celebrate my birthday (which wouldn't be for two more days, but Saturday night is easier to schedule). The redhead (who ended up eating a year of my life) makes the details stick, but the really important thing that happened that day was that my brother Pete gave me a present with a note: "This is for your car." I opened the package, and found a WB Taz plushie who was promptly christened "Grishnakh" and took up residence in my car (my first car, then on its last legs), a 1971 Chevelle known as "The Beast". He has lived in every one of the seven cars I have had since then ('74 Mustang, '76 Celica, '82 Civic, '88 Civic, '86 S10, '93 Wrangler, and now the '2000 Caravan); he comes into the house when his home goes in for repairs, and on a few other special occasions. Like today. "Priceless" doesn't begin to cover it... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v373/unclehyena/Random/grish_02.jpg Happy birthday, Grish. Uncle Hyena (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, March 5th, 2012
5:10 am	Valor, Deeds, Gone, Hitcher Three movies and a road trip. "Act of Valor" is a pretty good war movie. It is fairly formulaic and predictable, but I LIKE this kind of thing, and it gets the important stuff right. "Tyler Perry's Good Deeds" is yet another "Tyler Perry being serious" movie (Number 64 in a series; collect them all!). Soap opera for a dull Wednesday afternoon. "Gone" is a thriller where the central mystery is the sanity of protagonist. It works fairly well. Friday I visited my dad, and played in the usual back to back poker tournaments. I managed to finish in the money (third) for the second one, making this the seventh consecutive outing at which I have managed to score at least once. I stayed in one hand where the percentage play was to fold pre-flop (10-5 suited, against a bet of three blinds when I was on the big blind), and ended up with four fives against fives full of jacks all in. The other fellow was SURE I would have folded pre-flop if I was holding a five, and kind of freaked out when I had the one card in the deck that could beat him. After poker I spent the night in Merrillville, en route to Who's Yer Con in Inidanapolis. I got four hours of sleep, and got to the convention more or less on time, then wasted more than half an hour FINDING my friend Scott. We hung our for until about 11:00 PM, then I hit my hotel, got some sleep, and headed home by daylight. I stopped for gas south of Lebanon... I was doing some paperwork, about to drive away, when someone knocked on the passenger side window. I looked up and saw a woman of indeterminate age; she was slight, and was probably pretty as a teenager, but now she mostly just looked worn out. She asked if I would give her a ride to an apartment complex that was in sight behind half a mile of empty field; she said she had walked across it once, but it was muddy and cold, and after the chemo she didn't have it in her to walk back. I said I would help her, and cleared the front seat for her; she said I shouldn't go to so much trouble, she could sit in back; I said that there were no seats, and finished moving my stuff. On the way, I asked her what she had had chemo for; she said that it had started out as non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but they said that now it had spread to her pancreas and her spleen; she would know more when the next round of test results came in. I nodded and didn't say anything. She asked me if I lived in Lebanon; I laughed and told her I was from Waukegan. She said that she didn't know Waukegan, but she knew where Illinois was; she had been to Spring Grove a few times. I yammered a bit about Waukegan, the usual Jack Benny and OMC stuff, and insisted on delivering her to the door of her apartment building. She offered me money and I turned it down; I offered her my hand and my name; we shook, she said her name was Chrissie, and she told me I was a good person. I wished her luck with the cancer, and drove away. Metastaic lymphoma. Damn. I got the impression that she didn't know she was dead, yet... Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
4:05 am	Island, Arrietty, Rider, War, Wanderlust Five movies and not much else last week, though I did get around to writing up my adventures at BASHCon on my gaming blog: http://uncle-gnoll.livejournal.com/2770.html "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" is tolerable; Dwayne Johnson at his best is still a let down from Brendan Fraser; the movie is slightly MORE childish than the earlier movie, and of course there is the idiocy of 3D production (No, I didn't see it in 3D.). On the other hand, there is a "Nautilus" set, and seeing characters wandering around THAT is ALMOST worth the price of admission. "The Secret World Of Arrietty" is classic Studio Ghibli anime, a welcome event after the enormous disappointment of "Ponyo". One of these days I will have to read the source books; I have a childhood memory of Aunt Mary discussing the book with one of the elderly aunts. "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" features the most over-the-top performance by Nicolas Cage that I have ever seen. This movie lacks the few rare moments of visual brilliance that made the first movie watchable, but it is still tolerable. Dementia liked it better than I did. "This Means War" is a romantic comedy with gun play and explosions, but it isn't as much fun as it should be. It IS still good enough that it makes me a little bit closer to forgiving Reese Witherspoon for "Election". The script is flawed in that Witherspoon's character makes the wrong decision in the end, but it comes out well enough. Sort of. "Wanderlust" is a silly movie with an engaging cast that works, mostly. There is one sequence in which Paul Rudd tries to psych himself into sexual excitement by muttering vulgar nonsense into a mirror that REALLY needed to be cut, but other than that the movie is pleasant and fun. It is also often stupid and vulgar as well, but still... Uncle Hyena (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
9:04 am	House, Vow, Black, BASHCon Wednesday's decompression movie was "Safe House", a pretty decent thriller. The cast is solid, the plot is reasonably plausible (as such things go). On Thursday, we did a double feature, because we are behind and losing ground. "The Vow" features engaging actors playing badly flawed characters in an impossible situation. The production values are high, but the story is so fundamentally horrible that watching it is a kind of torture. (Yes, the movie pushed my buttons. I am quite good enough at making myself crazy without paying for the privilege of having it done to me.) "The Woman in Black" is a pretty good period ghost story. The production values are high, the cast is excellent, the story is OK. Someday screenwriters will learn that ghosts that follow consistent rules are scarier than ones that don't... I got up early on Friday morning, packed, and headed for Toledo to attend BASHCon, a gaming con hosted by the University of Toledo. Played T&T in the evening, got some sleep, played T&T in the morning, and came home. Got to meet a Trollhalla denizen that I had not encountered before, and got better acquainted with two others. Good times. Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
5:51 am	Chronicles, Tails, Dickon I have worked a lot, lately. I have had only one day off in the last ten. It eats into other thing (but also pays for them). Movies: "Chronicle" is yet another camera-as-character film, this one about three teenagers who find themselves with telekinetic abilities. I am REALLY tired of camera-as-character, but this one isn't half bad for all of that. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power is kind of neat. "Red Tails" is a George Lucas movie about a really cool bit of historical trivia. Essentially, Lucas wanted to make an old fashioned, corny, cliche-ridden movie about WWII fighter pilots, and the Tuskegee Airmen gave him a hook to wrap his story around. Ultimately, the quality of the cast and the strength of the underlying story prove able to survive the Lucas treatment, but it is a near thing. Hallmark produced a Christmas Donkey back in 1987; it might have been made by Ty; it certainly had the look of a Beanie Baby. Dementia encountered one (the last on the shelf) in January of '88 while shopping for a birthday card for her father, and bought it. She named him "Dickon" after a character in the book "The Secret Garden". Since then... He has been to London, San Francisco, and Baltimore (among other places) by air, and to Texas and Vermont and Arizona (among other places) by road. He has seen nearly 2000 movies while sitting on Dementia's lap. He is utterly priceless. A few years ago Dementia replaced his by then threadbare mane and tail, and I occasionally look at him sadly and think about how much he is wearing out. On Saturday morning when I got home from work, Dementia showed me that Dickon had developed a hole in his throat that needed to be repaired. Dementia told me how she intended to repair it, and I gave my mostly worthless approval. I went to bed with a knot in my stomach, because this was DICKON, and he was precious, and... Dementia is good at this kind of thing, and top-stitched in a new panel that, while obviously not original (mostly because it is too solid and too WHITE), does the job very nicely indeed. So just that much is right with the world. (You are JUST finding out that we are sanity optional?) Uncle Hyena (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
4:07 am	Iron, Contraband, Miracle, Poker Three movies and a poker night... "The Iron Lady" is a flashback ridden biopic on Maggie Thatcher. I have nothing against flashbacks, but the framing story was Thatcher as she is now, fragile and somewhat senile. I DO NOT NEED to pay money to watch fragile seniors be lost in their own lives, thank you. Other than that, it is a good movie about a fascinating person. Dementia liked the film a great deal; it pushed too many of my buttons, and I found it unpleasant. "Contraband" is a mediocre caper movie. It has its moments, and passes the Royko test, but there is some serious STOOPID along the way. I enjoyed it anyway. "Big Miracle" is a heartwarming slice of life thing about a media hiccup that took place in 1988. It's a lot of fun, and the footage of the people who took part in the actual event that plays over the end credits is great. The story as presented is apparently almost entirely true, except, well, if you really want to know, read the Wikipedia article on "Operation Breakthrough". Friday was my first chance to go to one of Pete's poker tourneys for the year, and it went pretty well. We had a larger than usual crowd, 16 player, and I flamed out in the first tourney at 8th, but then came back to win the second. Because of the large number of players, the blind structure was brutal, doubling every ten minutes. 16 players with 750 chips each is 12,000 chips, and by the time the second tourney was over (I didn't watch the final of the first tourney), the blinds were 1000/2000. Hold'em is WEIRD when you and the other gut effectively only have 12 chips between you... I have now managed at least one money finish in each of the last six outings, including three wins. Not too shabby. Uncle Hyena (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
9:25 am	Money, Noise, Underworld, STORY! Trying not to bury the lead, I wrote a story yesterday. This is the most substantial bit of creativity I have committed in YEARS that was not based in despair. Here: http://unclehyena.livejournal.com/310105.html Dentist on Wednesday, blodge on Thursday, two movies on Friday, work a bunch, movie on Wednesday, and it is Imbolc morning and I am finally updating my blog. "One for the Money" is based on a long running series of flaky sort-of detective novels. It deserves to be a series of movies. This is far and away the best thing star Katherine Heigl has ever done, and I LIKE her a great deal. Highly recommended. "Joyful Noise" is a come from behind sports movie that happens to focus on Gospel choral singing. You get what you pay for. If you enjoy the music, and Queen Latifah, you will enjoy this movie. We do and did. "Underworld: Awakening" is yet another entry in this humorless, dreary, convoluted series that mostly features Kate Beckinsale running around in a black latex unitard blowing things up. Like the other entries in the series, it is neither as good as I had hoped, nor as bad as I had feared. I have seen them all, and will likely see the inevitable next entry, but then, I am a movie slut. Uncle Hyena (1 Comment |Comment on this)