PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 128

Well, finally I am home and I can have that cup of tea that I've been missing all day. I didn't get to have a cup this morning. I had to get up too early. It was 5:30 when I got up and 6 AM when I walked in through the door at work. I have to be around early for the board meeting. It's a big thing at the company. I get to leave early, so that's ok. Sometimes there is free food. I don' t have to do much. Make sure the projector's working, move some signs, drink some coffee. Damn, it's early. I should be sitting at home, reading or playing on the computer, having that first cup of tea in the morning. I'd have to get up at 5 AM if I wanted to make a cup of tea and I didn't want to get up that early. I don't drink coffee much, certainly not at home. The coffee is not so great in the company cafe. Rather bitter. Needs lots of half and half and sweetner. I don't want to drink the more expensive coffee. It's even darker and more bitter. The cafe does make a good ham, egg, and a slice of cheese on an English muffin. They call it a breakfast sandwich. $1.79. So, I'm havin' the stuffed muffin with it's cheesey goodness oozing out over my fingers and some java, thinking about maybe doin' some work. I think I have to call someone, maybe I'll do that. Instead I wondered down to the other part of the department and they were eating donut holes. I had some cinnamon ones. Then I had one of the ones covered with powdered sugar. Which I got all over someone's desk. Then I ran away.

Work was also buzzing for the United Way Drawing and the free apple pie. If you cough up some cash, you get some chances to win some prizes. The grand prize is two airline tickets, 5 days off, 500 bucks, and some car rental voucher or something. I won that once. They also have a lot of gift cards for local resturants, and stores like Target and iTunes. There were some iPods, all three seasons of The Office, and a couple of 42 inch LCD tvs. I won a tv one of the previous years and got a Dell plazma. This year I won a $100 gift card to Target. That was nice, and we had apple pie. I only had one piece. I did have two cups of coffee, with two little tubs of half and half and a whole packet of sweetnlow. It was better since it was free coffee. The pie comes in big trays. They must be a foot by a foot and a half. It's like a half sheet cake in the cake business. Where I work gets many cakes from The Queen of Cakes. The apple pie came from Rush City Bakery. Soon as I got my gift card I bolted and ran some errands before heading home. Then it was movie night.

Sperhauk had a couple of loaners from some guy we know. It's always nice to get some borrowed movies. I like to get them watched and returned before much time had past. Leave them too long and you never get to them. And I am glad we watched these. The first was called Tokyo Zombie, a Japanese zombie comedy from 2005. Black Fuji, the vast mountain of garbage outside the city has started generating zombies. The waste has become toxic and it's reanimating the corpses people are burying there. We meet some people as the movie goes along. There are these two guys, one of whom thinks he's got cancer and the other who seems to be a fucking retard. At least that's what everyone keeps telling him, often with punching. After a while I started to believe it and wanted to punch him. The bald guy is teaching the afro sportin' guy Jujitsu. The bald headed guy has a dream. He wants to go to Russian and be a wrestling star. They practice at work and when they are confronted by their boss, afro guy kills him. They bury him high up on Black Fuji. Where the zombies come from. He returns the next day, followed by some more zombies. Soon the zombies are everywhere.There's a bunch of humorous running and yelling. Our guys fuck some people up and wind up with a guy's truck. It's soon stolen from them. Bald guy is bitten and afro guy escapes with a yelly chick. They drive off into the sunset and it's jumps to 5 years later. Society had devolved into the rich hiding out in an armed camp with poor people as low payed employees who manually generate power. There's a fight club where zombies and humans duke it out to the death. One of the people stuck in the human pool is none other than afro guy. Yelly chick has born him a child who's now 5. The daughter has never spoken. Mom makes up for the silence by yelling at her man. She won't sleep with him, so what else is there to do. The fight announcer is always coming on to him. He keeps getting punched down. You can see a trailer on YouTube. Eventually the bald headed guy turns up as a zombie and afro guy has to fight him. It all works out somewhat as the little girls tells us that's another story.

The second movie was a Spanish movie from 1995 called The Day Of The Beast. It's a horror comedy too. A priest thinks he reads the sign of the arrival of the anti-christ. He tells another priest and a large cross, a really large cross, falls on that same priest, squashing him flat. The priest travels to Madrid to find the devil. He feels he needs to do evil to gain proximity to the beast and he pushes a mime off a railing down into a pit by the sidewalk. None of us watching thought it was very evil. I guess hardly anyone likes a mime. He meets a guy into death metal at a music store and that guy joins him on his quest to meet the devil. They do, but only after kidnapping a tv host who has a program about the supernatural, stealing the blood of a virgin, and ingesting a huge amount of LSD. Then they see the devil. Or do they? It's a little ambigious but it sure was entertaining. The best Spanish horror movie that I have ever seen. Well worth checking out for the comedy horror fan but unfortunately not readily available in the west. What we saw was a bootleg. There are secret places out there to get these things from.

What I Read In July 2007

 

 

I finished HP and the Half Blood Prince July 2. It's a rip-snorter with Harry and Dumbledore having some adventures. Who will live and who will die? Aw, you probably know by now. When I read the book for the first time I figured that it was really the first half of the end of the story. Nearly two weeks to the second half, what to read.

Charlie Bone And The Beast by Jenny Nimmo slipped into the stores with no HP like fanfare but I was excited to see it and picked one up at the Border's over on Ford Parkway. I didn't want to wait to find it used at the HPB across the street. I didn't realize there was a new one coming. According to the Wikipedia there are now going to be 8 books in the series. Yahoo! I really like this series. It's well written and there are some good characters, with several interesting new additions to the cast this book. Charlie helps save Asa from the evil Manfred Bloor, reunites him with his mother, and things get a little better at the Bloor Academy. It's two steps forward and one step backward there, as the good kids battle the bad kids. One of the new arrivals can control water and likes drowning people. So, you know he's going to be trouble. Charlie and the good kids get some help from some sort of knight type guy. Luckily the Bloor Academy is a place with untold secrets. More to come in the future I hope.

You Call This Art: A Greg Irons Retrospective is part biography and part art collection. There is a good overview of his life with many photos and lots of art reprints. Greg Irons was a poster artist and underground comic artist. He drew some great comix but didn't make any money. After taking up tattooing he was killed by a bus in Bangkok. Pays not to go to Bangkok. Irons won't appeal to everyone but he's a unique artist who a few people will miss. 

Ghosthunters and the Incredibly Revolting Ghost is the first of a young reader series by Cornelia Funke. It was fun to read as were the other two I had picked up. All were remaindered at HPB. In the first book Tom learns to hunt ghosts from his grandmothers friend. They fight tougher and tougher ghosts each book. The collateral damage picks up too. There are some jokes and funny things going on. The ghosts are varied and tricky to deal with. The first was followed by Ghosthunters and the Gruesome Invincible Lightning Ghost and Ghosthunters and the Totally Moldy Baroness. A bunch of nice quick reads that made me laugh. I enjoyed them more than Funke's Inkheart and The Dragon Rider.

So, now I have finished 6 books and it's only the 6th of July. What to read next. Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett called to me and I polished it off in a day. I really liked it and couldn't put it down. It's got two kids who are tossed into an art robbery mystery. They try to find the stolen Vermeer and become friends in the process. Both are slightly odd and lonely. It's a good read that won some awards. I like the cover. That's Petra Andalee and Calder Pillay. I love her coat and hair and glasses. There are several interior illustrations by Brett Helquist and they are very delightful. He did the illos to the Lemony Snicket books. These are better. There's a code hidden in the illustrations that's based on Pentaminoes and frogs. So, there's a mystery, art history, fun kids and some some other good characters. What more could you want. This is a keeper. I hope to find a nice copy of the hardcover someday. The cheaper the better.

Philip Ardagh wrote the Eddie Dickens series. I read the first three; A House Called Awful End, Dreadful Acts and Terrible Times. From the titles you might guess they are sad stories. True but filled with humor. Like the long winded Lemony Snicket books this series has a kid pulled along by a series of events that take him further and further from his goal. Luckily these books are shorter and sillier. There are 6 so far, but only the first three are here in the US. It's enough. I'd read the others if I found them cheap at HPB like I did these. I don't think I'll keep them but they were quick and silly, and that's not too bad.

I found a used copy of The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett that was signed to someone who must not have wanted it. I wonder why. I am glad to have an autographed book. Like the first book this was a good read too. There's a new character named Tommy, Calder's old best friend, who returns and sort of makes an uncomfortable triangle for Calder and Petra. The Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House in Chicago is a character in the book. The kids teacher tells the class about the plan to tear it apart and ship it off to museums. The class puts together a performance art protest at the house as a project. It stirs things up with the media. There's a mystery and some bad guys and some mystical stuff. Another nice read. I look forward to more in the series.

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene is a reprint of one of the early Nancy Drew mysteries. It was ok. Not as action packed or as dangerous as The Hardy Boys it's still a good story. Nancy helps a whole bunch of people get the inheritance that they were entitled too.

Harry Potter and the Edge Of Light by Chad Mershon is a novel length fan fiction by a guy I work with. I read it and printed copies so he could hand them out. Chad turns Harry into a sword wielding killer. That's after having Voldemort return and kill off Ginny. Since she's one of my favorite characters that makes me like the book less. Then Chad has Ron and Hermione break up while Harry is living with some Ninja's. Harry returns and starts to date Hermione. They marry and then kill off Voldemort, who repents on his death bed. I know. It's just nuts but what are you gonna do. He's working on a sequel and a third novel where Harry is the Highlander. I can barely say it here, I don't know if I could actually read it. Chad's writing was fair but his idea of Harry is un-Harry like to me.

The House On The Cliff by Franklin W. Dixon was another Hardy Boys. They solve a mystery that has something to do with that house on the cliff and some smugglers. Living on the coast they have their fair share of smugglers.

The End Of Harry Potter by David Langford explores the same old ground everyone else has dragged their ass across before. There is no good reason for this book. Don't bother with it. Unless your a big fan and think you need to read books like this. The Mugglenet book about book 7 was better by a long shot. Read that if you must. Better read the 7th HP book and find out for yourself.

That's what I did, read the 7th book. I blogged about it back on July 20th or so. After reading that book for the first time I read The Secret Of The Old Mill by Franklin W. Dixon. Some counterfeiters are working about Bayport and the Hardy Boys are swindled out of some money in the first chapter. Their mom get swindled out of $800 by a carpet dealer. I think their dad got kidnapped in this one.

I ended the month with Gregor and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins. I have liked this series. It's not top notch but still a good read. Gregor is back down in the underground world that exists below New York City. There's some thing going on with the rats. They are killing the mice some how. There's a huge body count in this. I have noticed that many young adult novels seem to be very violent. This book has mice, females and babies, being gassed to death and then burned by molten lava. It ends with getting ready to continue the story in the next book. More war fare coming.

It's not the end of the month and I need to get to bed. Me tired.

Friday Night Movies 127

Joe brought a copy of To Catch A Thief. No one else had seen it before, so we watched it. Cary Grant is John Robie, an ex-jewel thief nick named The Cat. He gave up crime and helped the French Resistance during WWII. He's been straight for 15 years. Now he's been wrongly accused of a series of jewel robberies and has to prove his innocence. That's just like all 14 Boston Blackie films. He's also an ex-jewel thief who has gone straight and in every movie the cops think he did the crime. They aren't very imaginative cops. He escapes easily and by the end of the movie he's caught the killer and proven his innocence. There's more murder in Boston Blackie, and more comedy. Turner Classic Movies has been running a pair of Boston Blackie films each saturday morning. I've been enjoying them. To Catch A Thief is an Alfred Hitchcock crime story with a touch of romantic comedy. I don't have many Hitch films, never been a big fan. I have seen several over the years but most of them I'm not interested in seeing again. I have a copy of The Trouble with Harry, an idyllic romantic comedy, with a dead body that won't stay put, which is rarely this funny, and North By Northwest. I like both of them enough to want to see them a few more times. I'll keep an eye out for the remastered version of TCAT. The 2002 dvd we saw had some sound and picture problems. The movie has Cary running around Cannes, Nice and some especially curvaceous country roads that lead to some really nice big houses in the south of France. Big houses filled with jewels, that someone is stealing, and The Cat is getting the blame. Mixed in with the pretty scenery are some really horrible rear projection effects. It doesn't matter too much. There are some good characters like Jessie Royce Landis, who plays Grace Kelly's mother, and John Williams, who plays the helpful insurance man. Landis also played Cary Grant's mother in North By Northwest. She's a much more fun character in this movie. There are some stunts and some nice sets. Very sophisticated with nice costumes by Edith Head. A good addition to the dvd collection.

 

Cult of the Cobra is from that BestBuy exclusive collection The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Volume 2. None of us remembered having seen it before. Some US Air Force guys are on leave in Asia. They meet a snake charmer who will sneak them into a snake cult so they can see a woman transform into a snake. He wants 100 Dollars. That's a lot for the 1950's but the guys think they should go. If they are found out they could die. They drink some beers and off they go. One of the guys takes a flash picture and the cult erupts into chaos. Camera guy grabs the snake girl's basket and bolts leaving the other guys to battle it out. They do, leaving the place on fire as they leave. They find their friend lying in the street, bitten by a snake. Some woman was leaning over him and she bolts. That guy is the first to die of the 6 friends who were cursed by the leader of the cult. Luckily they were all leaving Asia and heading back to New York City. Their tour is over and they are returning to civilian life. There's some soap opera as the guys settle in and Marshall Thomson, TV's Daktari and star of the great 1958 film Fiend Without A Face, gets dumped only to rebound into Faith Domergue. Unfortunately, she's a snake woman and kills some of his friends. It's hard dating. The transformation effects are pretty poor but there's a pretty good cast, including David Jennsen, Richard Long, William Reynolds, and a guy I have always liked, Jack Kelly. I might not watch this every year but I'll watch it again.

LEGO Street Sweepers

I stopped in at the LEGO store at the Mall Of America this morning. I was thinking of buying one of the Exo-Force sets on clearance. That's what it makes above. Robotic Street Sweepers. Exo-Force features some sort of fighting robots, which are stolen heavy influenced by Japanese Fighting Robots. There are guys, with super anime hair (see below), inside giant robot fighting machines, which fight robots, which are inside bigger robot fighting machines. It was only $12.48, marked down from $49.95. Lots of parts. 632 of them. Many are small. I just wasn't too interested in the set, even at that low price. I don't have much interest in building in that area anymore. Most of the parts would be hard pressed to fit into a Harry Potter setting. That's where I want to focus my attention. I have been building all sorts of sets lately to see what is complete. Many are. I don't want to keep many sets. I'll sort 'em out and I get rid of the 'em. So, I shouldn't be buying anything I don't think I will have a use for. Too bad there aren't any fighting robots in Harry Potter. Maybe if I take a look in fan fiction. Harry Potter and the Magical Super Gundam. Damn, I bet that would be good. Better than the story where Harry Potter fights the Ninja's, or should I say, dozens of stories.

   

These are the robots and guys, check out their hair, that come with Bridge Walker vs. White Lightning. I am only guessing that the good guy wears white. Maybe the robots are the good guys. I just went to the LEGO site and read the back story. The robots are bad and the humans are good. I still couldn't talk myself into buying a set. UPDATE: I was back at the MOA 9/19/07 and there were none of the sets left. This has happened before. There are many sets for weeks and then a week later they are all gone.

I looked at the Pick-a-Brick display and they had some small parts that I figured would be good to have on hand. But I didn't pick any. At least not yet. I wondered about some more and found that there was a new Street Sweeper in the City series. That's part of the bigger Town series, at least that's how Bricklink lists them. I have a copy of the previous Street Sweeper and for some reason it's the only Town set that I am thinking of keeping.

   

That's the new 7242 Street Sweeper on the right. The set on the left is 6649 and it came out in 1995. I remember seeing that picture in one of the LEGO mailings and thinking it was cute. I ordered a couple and one of them has been sitting on the top of my LEGO storage drawers for the last dozen years. I am going to sell off the one still in the box. I'll probably keep the new Street Sweeper but I don't think it's as cute. That guy is pretty ugly too. Perhaps things were better in the city in 1995. I don't think they improved the design of the machine. 6649 looks nice with it's red stripe, yellow rims and a rounded motor compartment. There are 4 nozzles across the back of the old version and none on the new. No one would put a tank of compressed something on the back of a machine. That's just courting trouble. Where is the safety protection? The new version has 63 pieces over the 58 in the old. Here's a better picture of the two city workers.

 

See, you could use the guy on the right to play a murderer. People would believe it. Of course, the guy on the left could be Ted Bundy. Go figure. I do like Ted's jacket. The orange jacket is ok but the blue is much nicer. Here are a couple of pictures of some guys nice home made creation. Now that looks more like a Street Sweeper to me.

Friday Night Movies 126

Each week there are more choices tossed into the ring and some bold bastard fights it's way to the top of the heap and we watch that. The process is a carefully guarded secret. Tonight our first bout champion was a BestBuy exclusive dvd set. There are two in the picture above, we had the right hand set,The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Volume Two, and we watched The Land Unknown. I have a fondness for these old Universal International Horror and Science Fiction films, partially from growing up with them, and partially from their being so damn enjoyable. The previous set had The Monolith Monsters in it. Everyone should know that it's one of my favorite movies. The Land Unknown is pretty good and I have watched it several times over the years. It's about an artic expedition, part of which gets stuck at the bottom of a crater where time has stopped. Greg and I agreed we liked lost world stories and so do many people. Can you name some other lost world pictures or books? Dinosaurs fight it out and pterodactyls roam the skies in this 1957 UI near-classic. It could have been a contender but it has some bad effects. The T-Rex is particularly laughable. Here's the cover from a bootleg dvd that shows our boy Rex in a pretty good closeup. His head was the best part.

Believe me, the artist rendering of the T-Rex is much more exciting than the one in the movie. There are some fighting lizards and a lake monster with huge man-killin' flippers. Not that anyone gets killed on this mission. You would have thought, or even expected, the crazy guy who was lost on the previous mission to be killed, but, no. He makes out in better shape than that lake monster who gets a flare shot in his mouth, and that's after having two flaming torches thrust over and over into his mouth. That monster should have stayed in his lake bed today. This new dvd looks great, you can even see the strings in one scene where the little lemur like guy gets eaten by a hostile plant. That wasn't to bad a monster either. The sets and backgrounds were pretty good and ambitious. The story and the character development were pretty fun too. The three guys and a gal are trapped, maybe forever. There's a bit of romance and sexual threat but it's okay in the end.

There's not much romance in Feast, our next feature, but there is monster sex, and that's pretty threatening. Greg picked the dvd up based on some horror magazine review. It made it sound like it might be a fun movie, in the Slither vein. It was. There are a bunch of people who are drinking at a small bar in the middle of nowhere. Some guy comes in and tells them some terrible things are on the way and then he's pulled out a window and eaten. At least he left his gun behind. The movie was part of the Matt Damon/Ben Affleck Project Greenlight series and it's written and directed by John Gulager. His father is the great character actor Clu Galager, who plays the bartender in Feast. Then it's a fight to the death between the monsters and the people, with laughs. The monsters are strong and have big teeth. The people are a mixed bag and some of them get offed right away, like Jason Mewes (Jay of Jay and Silent Bob). Be sure to look for Jason in his new movie Bottoms Up. Jason plays a bartender and co-stars with Paris Hilton. You can see a scene here. Back at Feast more people are eaten and eventually it's all over. I want to get a copy for myself. There is a commentary that might be good. I like the movies sense of humor and hope that John Gulager makes more movies down the road.

We scanned through Blazing Stewardesses looking for nudity. There was hardly any. Don't see this movie, ever! And if you see Al Adamson, give him a kick in the nuts from me. From the IMDB, where the movie gets a well deserved 1.6: First film for the Ritz Brothers comedy duo since 1943. Originally conceived as a comeback film for The Three Stooges, which at this time consisted of Moe Howard, Joe DeRita and newcomer Emil Stika. Howard died before production began, which was when the Ritz Brothers were brought in. Sadly there is a second movie in the dvd box. Naughty Stewardesses. You know that movie has a great potential to disappoint solely based on it's name. The first two movies lived up to their names but not Blazing Stewardesses. Not one of those air hostesses was on fire. In any possible way. They didn't even take their cloths off. You can see an old trailer for both here. Then you'll know you don't need to get that dvd. Saved you some money.

Readin'

That's the best of the three R's. A lot less work than writing, and no fractions. I was reading the blog of this guy named Tony, he used to live in Winnipeg, and he was talking about his enjoyment of Arts and Letters Daily. I looked at that site a while ago and decided that I didn't need more places to go to read long articles. Anyway, they had an article, Tony mentions, about the shrinking of book review sections in the countries newspapers. I read it and started responding on my own book habits. Give a hook and I can ramble on for hours. I am reprinting that here as some people don't know Tony's blog.

I read that article on the shrinking book coverage in the newspapers, mostly out of morbid curiousity. For some twisted reason I am actually enjoying the death spiral of physical newspapers. I haven't been reading a physical newspaper much in the last several years, so I hadn't noticed what they have been dropping. Our local paper is pretty poor and certainly not worth buying for me. A lot of people I know quit taking it. So, I can see where the shrinking income in the newspaper business means something must go. Books aren't too popular and I bet they don't buy many ads to promote there books as something like the movie business. There's probably ten times the coverage for movies. Theaters buy a lot of ads each week.

I won't miss them myself, neither the newspapers, nor the books they review. I don't read most of the kinds of books that do get reviewed in newspapers. There are a ton of other places to get info about new books now that the internet has caught on, but mostly I just pick things up in the stores and look at 'em. If it looks like an interesting story, I'll pick it up. After having worked in book stores for over ten years I know there are people who need to be told what to read. I rarely helped any of them after the first two or three years, partially through contempt, and partially because they rarely ever listened to my recommendations. When I read mysteries more regularily I read a wide range of authors, not just the crazy stuff from out on the edge of popular mystery fiction. I read new writers like James Lee Burke and Robert Crais and I read old writers like Craig Rice. I bet most mystery readers would not have ever heard of her. She wrote a whole bunch of great mysteries and I am glad that I took the trouble to find them in the 80's. Some fan recommend her to me. I don't think he read more than a couple. I read nearly all her novels, including a couple of her mainstream books. Jonathon Latimer is another great writer of the thirties and it's hard to find his books and he's been reprinted in the 90's. I'd yak on about some great series or five and rarely did anyone ever buy them. Same thing at DreamHaven. Must be me.

I rarely ask anyone for help. I think I picked this up from my mother. She haunts the used places to feed her ravenous habit of a couple of hundred books a year. She systematically reads romance novels and the rare mystery. Once she finds an author she keeps an eye out for more. She keeps a little book with lists in it. I have index cards in my checkbook. I don't do a good enough job keeping them up, but they have saved me buying the same book over.

Sadly most clerks in bookstores know less than I do about the things that I like. Occasionally there are people like the guys at Uncle Hugo's and Edgar's Bookstores that know a lot. But for the most part asking can be a waste of money and time. I picked up two series that a friend really liked and neither of them are keepers.

Sometimes my own instincts fail me and I get stuck with something that doesn't pan out. That series about magical kids and the dragon gates turned out to be a hard read and I barely finished. China Meiville was in the store and I liked his reading but it turned out that I can't read his books. That happens occasionally.

So, I don't need to search out more stuff than what I already have an interest in, which, believe me, is a lot. I can't keep up with the new stuff I buy, even with my current narrow focus on young adult fiction. Seems every time there is a sale at Half Price Books I find several young adult fantasies, or a nice cache of Hardy Boys books, that look promising. Many have proven to keepers.

Once I find a book by an author that turned out to be promising, I go look for more. The internet has proven invaluable for gathering information on an author. And places like ABE Books, and sometimes ebay, are gold mines for book hunters.

Anyway I need to go off and make a cup of tea and finish the book I am reading. It's the first of a young adult fantasy series called Wyrd Museum that mixes The Fates, kids, an animated teddy bear with the soul of a dead American flyer, the demon Bilal, London during the Blitz and time travel all into one book. Heavy body count too. I am often surprised at the blood shed in much of modern young adult fiction. People get mowed down left and right. J K Rowling said she was always puzzled when people say the later books were so violent. She says that the first chapter of her first books starts with a double murder. The Wyrd Museum book starts with an American Flyer being gunned down in a London street in 1943. Then it moves into the present day and I wondered where the hell I was going. I'll let you know where I was later, my tea is ready and that book is waiting. A book I found on my own.

Mayor Kirsch on a Bench

I went to a statue unveiling today. My old boss Marty Kirsch, who's retired from the company for almost two years now, was the Mayor of Richfield up until early this year. One of the city's urban renewal projects on Lyndale, Casa Bella, decided to add statues to the street. There were three of them. That's the front of Casa Bella and the first of the statues. It's called Slipstream and it's by Bruce Stillman. It's okay, but not something that I cared for that much. I have seen better. Luckily there was free Caribou Coffee and those really rich granola bars they make. I am having the Chocolate Mocha right now and it's like eating candy. Quisnos Subs was handing out cookies and Raspberry Lemonade. The cookies were so-so. I didn't try the RL, not thinking that it would go with the coffee. There was a fairly nice crowd there. Casa Bella is somewhat up scale and lots of older retired well off people have settled in. There were a lot of old people there, that's for sure.

 

That's Paul Tierney and The Quest. I liked it. He has his own site. There are some great things on that site. Take a few minutes to enjoy it. I can wait. Or, do it later. It's well worth the stop.

That's Mayor Kirsch on a Bench by Jane Frees-Kluth. She was real nice and talked to everyone about her work and how much fun she had making Marty pose on a fake bench. You can't see it but Marty's I heart Richfield hat sits on the bench with him. It's bronze with a patina and some preservative coatings. It looks enough like him, but no glasses. I was thinking of getting some wire rim glasses and sneaking out one night. That's me on the bench with the Mayor.

 

Friday Night Movies 125

It was a Japancentric evening with two Japanese movies and lashers of Japanese candy to wash it down with. We watched Charisma first, or Karisuma in Japanese. It's about a tree that kills and a cop that didn't. Sorta. It's one of those movies that isn't too obvious when you watch it. Open for discussion kind of a thing. There are a lot of people interacting in the woods where this tree is killing off everything that grows near it. Some people are trying to destroy it and others trying to save it. There's some killing and other crazyness. It moves at a slow pace and nothing much gets exciting. According to some guy on the IMDb the director wasn't sure what the movie is actually about. I'm not sure, either. Luckily we had some nice candy that Greg brought back from Japan. He even brought me a couple Kit Kats. Kiwi flavored coating on one and Chocolate & Orange on the other. We tried the Kiwi and it wasn't to bad. Very soft, even at room temp. We ate samples of over a dozen other candies. There were several carmel types with flavors like strawberry cream, corn, pineapple and some that we weren't sure of. There were several other things that were interesting too.

Our second feature was Gamera 2: Assault of the Legion or Gamera 2: Region shurai. It one of the trilogy of Gamera movies done in the late 90's. They are better than the first series that started back on the 60's. This movie has Gamera up against a monster from space, which comes in various forms. It starts rather small and gets bigger. There's lots of fighting and collateral damage. You can see a trailer at iFilm or here in English. You can read more about it at the links above, and there are some pictures too.

During the films Greg told us about his month in Japan. I don't remember what he said except there were a lot of vending machines everywhere and it was hot. Never below 90 degrees and very humid. I wouldn't like it, I know that. I did like some of the candy he brought back. Here's a nice Japanese candy blog. Here's one of the candies we tried. Chocolate coating with not very good peanuts in them. Just like here not all Japanese candies are to everyone's taste. Greg complained about the bean curd in so many items. I wouldn't like that either.

What I Read In June 2007

     

I ended May by starting the second of the Harry Potter books and ended reading it on June 2. HP and the Chamber of Secrets. There's a big ass snake in that one. No, not Gilderoy Lockhart. A basilisk, a huge massive people killin' basilisk. Harry stabs it up good, nearly dying in the process. But Fawkes saves his bacon, first by blinding the snake and second with his magical healing tears. Then, it's back to the hospital for a nice kip in before the, even more exciting, next book. Those are the covers from Japan, Spain and the Ukraine. I like all of them quite a bit. Most of the countries seem to use the UK, or more often, the US edition art with their own language over it. At least these countries did some new art. Here's a site that offers up some fake book covers for people who want to read Harry but not let anyone know it. I got a good laugh out of some of them. They'd cover up Harry alright but who knows what people would think once they actually read the cover of the book you're holding. I don't think some of them would get the joke. I certainly know people who wouldn't get the joke.

There was a new Buffy book in and I read that next. The Deathless by Keith R. A. DeCandido has Buffy joining with the Russian witch Baba Yaga against Koschei the Deathless. It's was an ok read. I think someone got stabbed. I can't remember. Most of the Buffy books have been about average. I like the characters and I like following their story, other wise I wouldn't bother to read the series. This one takes place right after The Zeppo in season 2. The covers to the Buffy books are all photshopped cast publicity photos with other elements added to suggest some connection with the story. I don't care for them much. When you see the same Sarah Michelle Geller photo on 11 books it make you think. Yeah,unoriginal much!

       

Next it was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which made The Deathless all the more shabby by comparison. I sure liked this book. It's often spoken of as a favorite by hardcore fans. It introduces many good characters like the awful Aunt Marge, so easily inflated, Professor Lupin, so tragic, and Sirius Black, a great name, a great guy, greatly disturbed. There are good animals too. Hermoine's Crookshanks and Hagrid's Buckbeak are favorite's. Sadly only Buckbeak has been made into a LEGO figure. He's in two different sets. That's them below. LEGO quit making small sets for Harry Potter. Poor sales I suspect. I managed to get several duplicates of these sets when they were on clearance. There used to be more clearance LEGO in the past. You don't see it as much anymore.

 

Auld Lang Syne is an Angel Comic trade paperback. It reprints a 5 part story in which Angel joins up with Spike to punch things, including each other. Those guys just never get along. Everyone likes that. Here's a bit from the Wikipedia. They even have articles on comic characters.

Angel has taken up his job in L.A. again, but is quickly faced by mysterious figures from his past, and they seem to be quite real. Similarly, Spike is faced by the ghosts of his pasts, and the two accidentally meet each other, placing the blame for the occurrence with the other. A fight ensues, but they soon discover that they are being manipulated and are forced to work together again. The culprit turns out to be a demon both men have wronged in the past, who hoped they would kill one another. Angel and Spike are able to defeat her however, and both go their own ways again. Features the IDW comics debutes of Skip, Holtz, The Master, Nikki Wood and the Chinese Slayer (Xin Rong).

IDW has the series rights and they are making new stories that take place after the Angel series wrapped. Obviously Angel killed that dragon. What a dead guy! The art in these books isn't too my liking but I like the characters, and yadda yadda yadda. I see there is a new vampire private eye series on some network this fall, which I guess is right now. Damn, where did the summer go. I guess I was inside and missed it. I might have been reading. I count comic collections that are in books as books read but not as novels read. Currently I am at 75 titles read but 4 are comic collections.

      

HP and the Big Ass Dragon Goblet of Fire was up next. I started reading other books between the HP's. I didn't want to finish the first six books way before the last book showed up. I finished POA on the 9th and GOF on the 16th. The books above are from the Ukraine, Denmark and Sweden. I don't have any of them and while I wouldn't mind owning a copy or two from foreign countries I can settle for a nice scan thank you very much. GOF has so many things that I liked. A great creepy opening chapter. The Quiddich World Cup, and that great tent, which returns later in book 7. Only to be stolen by stinky werewolf guy. Tons of dragons. Fire breathing. LEGO did 4 HP sets for the GOF movie. I bought them but never put them together. They are still in their boxes in the box I got from LEGO back in 2005. They just didn't make me excited to see them. One of them has a dragon in it, but so does the new Castle set. Anyway, I still have them for later, and I still have GOF for later too. It's a good book to reread. I certainly have some favorite scenes in the book. Ron and Harry making up. Boys! And I always get all misty eyed when Dumbledore talks about Cedric at the end. I wasn't reading the series while people were waiting for the 4th book to come out in 2000. I was reading something else. It wasn't as good. I'm sure not to reread that, what ever it was. Luckily, I have it written down. I just went and looked. During the period for about 2 weeks before and after the July 8, 2000 release date I read only one book. I finished Freddy and the Baseball Team From Mars by Walter R. Brooks on 6-26-00 and I finished Mission To Universe by Gordon R. Dickson on 7-23-00. Was that Dickson book so uninteresting that I could not read it with any speed. Maybe I was watching a lot of tv. I certainly can't remember for sure. I understand how Alberto G must feel. I just don't remember. At least I took some notes. I don't think that bitch has a pen. Maybe he can steal one on the way out. I bet they have some nice ones at the White house he could have. I remember Reagan couldn't recall alot either.

Tom Swift and His Airship by Victor Appleton sure was a change of pace.  This was another of those original reprints by Applewood Books. It's the 3rd book in the series and it was published in 1910. Not an exciting time, although Tom does crash his airship into a building full of girls. He gets a date out of the deal. There's a lot of flying in the airship. A bit of excitement, but not too much. It's no Hardy Boys, or Nancy Drew. Someone is still writting Tom Swift books. There is a 6th series going on right now. I don't think I'll look them up. The old Tom Swift book was ok but I wouldn't bother with any more. I just didn't like the writing style too much and the book just wasn't that interesting.

The Hidden Myth of Harry Potter by David Colbert was not such a great deal. Only 32 small pages, most of which had an illustration on them. And a poster size map, which is where the illustrations that were used in the booklet came from. It was $9.95 list. There's not a lot of info in this book, which is mostly aimed at the young reader who wants to know a tiny bit more about some of the references or names etc in JK's books. You can get most of that in other books in more detail, or off the web. There are so many Potter books and webpages with lots of info and links to more. One book is by the same writer as Hidden Myths of HP, which I read in 2003. It's just another way to repackage the same material to make another buck. Still I am glad I picked it up after it had gotten remaindered. They had copies at Half Price Books. The map is kind of nice, illustrated by some lady, but it's all folded up in a book. Not very handy to look at. Here's the book description from Amazon.

Book Description
An illustrated map and guide book to the legends behind the Harry Potter series Hidden in the Harry Potter stories are references to mythical crea-tures, legendary characters, real history and J.K. Rowling's own life. A beautifully illustrated poster-sized map takes readers on a worldwide treasure hunt to uncover those hidden clues. The accompanying Book of Secrets reveals even more incredible facts behind the magical places and people readers will come across in their journey.

About the Author

David COLBERT is the author of The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter: A Treasury of Myths, Legends, and Fascinating Facts and The Magical Worlds of the Lord of the Rings: The Amazing Myths, Legends, and Facts Behind the Masterpiece.

Here's Colbert's defense of Hidden Myths:

Unfortunately, some people seem to have mistaken this item, which is a large map that comes with a very short booklet of explanations, for my full book on the subject, "The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter." The map, which was drawn by Virginia Allyn, is great. (She gets all five stars in the rating I gave it.) It's interesting and it's very funny. There's a lot of Rowling-like humor in Virginia's drawings. But obviously a map isn't going to have the same amount of information as a 40,000-word book. It's a fun poster that also happens to have substance, and it's meant for either very young fans or for those older fans who already know the background of myths and legends in Potter but want to see it all as a picture.

Oh, I get it. It's a map with a book, not a book with a map. Silly me. What one reads when one has an obsession, huh.

The Saga of the Bloody Benders by Rick Geary is another comicbook. Geary must have done a dozen of these historical true crime comics. Most are pretty darn interesting and I really like Geary's style. The Benders were a murdering family that had a resturant, where they killed you as dessert. They don't even eat the people they kill, just rob 'em.

The Ultimate Unofficial Harry Potter Trivia Book by Daniel Lawrence was just that. Pages and pages of questions followed by pages of answers. Questions in multiple choice formatt. It right boring to read a bunch by yourself. After a while I just read the answers. It's short and it was half price with a 15% off coupon. Glad I waited on this one too. I'd show the cover but it's crap, especially when compared to the ones below. Japan, Denmark and the Ukraine.

   

I finished the month of June with HP and the Order of the Phoenix. This is the first book that I actually waited for. I got mine at DreamHaven, which opened for employees, ones who had keys that is, at midnight. I actually got it a bit early but I didn't read it until after I got home and made a cup of tea. Then it was after midnight, and it had turned into June 21, 2003. I had read all the first four books at the end of April and beginning of May. For some stupid reason I joined the Science Fiction Book Club, gotten a bunch of cheap books, and quit after buying my allotment. I got The Hobbit, LOTR in one volume, and the first 2 or 3 of the Harry Potter books in my first package. I thought the books were pretty poorly made. The printing was very uneven. Many signatures were fairly faint at times. I liked Harry so much that I sold the ones I had to a guy at work and bought all new hardcovers. Which I read in June. Now I could see the illustrations like they were intended. The nice thing about HP is that there are a ton of them about. They can cost a little or a lot. This guy I know, he only buys them when they are a buck or less at HPB. He's up the fifth book so far. Won't be long before he gets to read HP and the Half Blood Prince. I bet I will have reread it before he finds that dollar book. I doubt I will wait a year before I get into them again.

I hadn't gotten to mentioning the book yet. I liked it of course. There is so much stuff going on in the book, it's like it's bursting with ideas, spillin' all over me. My only complaint about the size of the book is the physical size. The US hardcover is so big my arm gets tired after a while. Holding that big ass thing up for hours on end makes my old flabby muscles ache. I have to prop it up on something. I actually like reading the Canadian or UK editions when I read the series. They are lighter, with less pages. They suck in most ways so I don't mind getting them dirty while I am reading them. Something always seems to happen. And there's something always happening in the new Harry Potter. Dementors in Little Whinging, Grimmauld Place, Harry facing the Wizendgmot, Arthur getting bite by a snake, the trio meeting Neville's grandmother at St Mungo's, Dumbledore's Army, Ginny and Luna, the Department of Mysteries, the battle at the Ministry. So much going on. It's a corker all right. Great for rereading. I finished Harry Potter number 5 on the 26th and started the next one before the month ended. More on that later.

Mini Mega Movie Sunday

I didn't get all the movies watched yesterday and tackled a few more today. I took time between the films to nap, shop at Target and finish two books. Free and Easy was Buster Keaton's first talkie. I didn't find it that interesting. Parts were funny but nothing that great. It was followed by a documentary called So Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton & MGM. It was kind of sad. Buster was a heavy drinker. After his independent films weren't doing to good he joined MGM. They didn't use many of his ideas and he got poorer and poorer parts. Spite Marriage was a silent film but I didn't care for it much. More of a melodrama than a stunt film.

Then I watched a Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was episode 104 Women of the Prehistoric Planet. It's a real MST3K dvd that have been coming out from Rhino. Some guy lent it to me. They are too expensive for me. I have my tapes, many of which are transfered to dvdr. There is a special intro by Irene Tsu. She played Linda in WOTPP, and she still works today. The dvd looks nice but 15 bucks an episode is way too much.

The same guy that lent me that MST3K gave me the first two episodes of The Film Crew to watch. That's the name of the three guys who watch movies and make commentaries for them. Kevin Murphy, Mike Nelson and Bill Corbett were all MST3K guys who now dress in blue shirts and make commentaries for their boss, who calls them on a speaker phone. The three do an intro segment, a middle segment and an end segment. I think that's all. The first episode was Hollywood After Dark which is also known as Walk The Angry Beach or The Unholy Choice. I hadn't even seen it before and wouldn't normally. It's a fairly cheap crime movie with Rue McClanahan. She's an erotic dancer who takes that horrible step toward giving the audience what it really wants. Some guy is her disturbed boyfriend. He dies from robbery complications. I warmed up to the crew after a while and laughed at times. Glad I could see this for free. I wouldn't want to pay 15 bucks on Amazon for it. Yea for Netflix.

After a break I watched the Gary Cooper western Along Came Jones. I don't think I ever saw it before. Cooper plays a guy towns people think is a gunslinger murderer. He likes the attention but when he crosses paths with the real killer he nearly dies. Thankfully he's saved by Loretta Young. William Demerest, Uncle Charlie on My Three Sons, plays his side kick. He gets shot up even worst, but he lives. Coop gets the girl in the end and hey, she's nice looking and has her own spread. That's ranch talk, ya perverts.

The second episode of The Film Crew was Killers From Space. It's got Peter Graves and those painted ping pong balls for eyes aliens. Don't ya just love 'em. They are as iconic as the movie is a stinker. Pretty solid. The Film Crew making fun of this movie is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, easy, and that's way better than real fishing. Who would want to go out on a boat when you could blast fish in a barrel. I don't know why there aren't places to go to do that right now. Maybe it's just me. But, then again, I don't understand why fishing with dynamite is against the law. Now that would really be blasting fish in a barrel. I don't like fish. It's personal.

Down Three Dark Streets was a pretty good crime drama written by The Gordons. Kenneth Toby is an FBI man who is gunned down while on the job. Broderick Crawford takes over the three cases he was working on. They track down the three suspects, killing one along the way, and finally catch the criminal. It's a pretty hardboiled film for 1954. I liked it and the second film on the dvdr I made from TCM. Big House U.S.A. also had Broderick Crawford. A kid goes missing from a camp and a guy finds him. He hides the kid and asks for a ransom. The kid escapes and falls down. He dies. The kidnapper finds him and tosses his body deep into the canyon. He's caught with part of the money, but doesn't says where the kid is, or what he did with the rest of the $200,000. He goes to prison where everyone hates him because he's a child murderer. The kidnapper escapes with Broderick and some pals from stir. Some of them die, on the way to the cash. Eventually, it all unravels. The FBI catch the kidnapper's girlfriend. She was the nurse at the camp and she purposely scarred the kid into running off. To his doom. Most of the escapees are killed in a gun battle. The rest go to the gas chamber. They get the money back but the kidnapper goes to his death never giving up what happened to the kid. Sad. Good low budget B movie.