Well, the sky was blue anyway. The internet POP in Rockford came back online around 9 pm last night, so things were back to normal operation when I got into work this morning. We were short a staff member due to a vacation, and had yesterday's work to do in addition to today's. Needless to say, it was a heavy day.

On the bright side, our farrier friend John came to trim the horses' feet, and said they are all looking good. Tess has improved a great deal from where she was two years ago. She now has big, solid, heavy hooves on all four feet, and they are growing evenly. She's also acquired a much better disposition for the most part, I think, and has decided either that she really does like me or at least that it's a good idea to tolerate me affably.

In the midst of all the hubbub and distractions today, I found myself trying to explain, in twitter snippets, why I am so disapproving of Peter Jackson's version of Tolkien. In the end, I promised to e-mail an essay, since I can't successfully discuss major philosophical issues in chunks of 140 characters or less. That explanation is under the cut for anyone who really wants to read it. Feel free to skip if you aren't interested.

( Cultural integrity and the motion picture industry )

Tags: films, horses, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: calm

I never make polls, but answering a meme about films over on Facebook inspired me to ask these questions of LJ readers.

Poll #1445665 Silent film features
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 24

Before 1928 all motion pictures lacked a sound track. Dialog was presented on title pages where necessary, and the film was meant to be viewed with a musical accompaniment. Have you ever watched a full length "silent" film?

Here is a list of some of the best known of the silent films. Mark the ones you've seen. All of these are available on videorecordings now.

If appropriate, name the best or favorite silent film you've seen:

Two silent films were given Academy Awards for best picture, though one was later rescinded. What film retained its award?

"Silent" films were meant to have live musical accompaniment. Check the "sound tracks" you've heard with silent film, either recorded or live.

Considering all the silent films you've experienced, rate the experience (10 being excellent, 1 being dismal.)

Tags: films, meme, music, poll, quiz
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: curious
Music: Music track of "The General"

We missed this when it was in theatres. Finally got hold of the library copy today so we watched it tonight. It's adorable. Alterations from the book seem minor and forgiveable for a nice change. Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick played rat against mouse wonderfully. The lighting and scenery were enchanting and powerful. I don't regret casting my Ursa Major vote for Bolt, but this film is equally worthy. In the short feature on the DVD, "The tale of the tale..." (which is, of course, a "making of...") the designers admitted to taking their vision from classic Dutch paintings by Vermeer, Bosch, and Brueghel. I think they did a masterful job of their own in capturing the simplicity of one, and the hellish complexities of another as suited to the scenes being portrayed. Five apples for this one. ;D

Some similarities to scenes from Ratatouille must be coincidental, but it's amazing just how similar they were. ^.*

Tags: films
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: satisfied

So the promise of a dry week to follow Friday's deluge and wind has already been broken. It's been raining on and off this afternoon, and the next few days are once again filled with "chance of thunderstorms." Water in the pastures is again deeper than the top of my rubber boots, and I think deeper than it was at its peak earlier this spring. I can't get to the vegetable garden without a boat, even though I can see the snow peas hanging there begging to be harvested. In the first nine years that we lived here, we saw flooding like this only once. On that occasion, we received four inches of rain in a 24 hour period, so anything was certainly possible.

Since the stupid developers busted up the tiling in the 250 acres of land uphill of us, we are seeing this every time there is an inch or more of rain in 24 hours. That's about six times in the last two years. Our ability to use our land has been damaged by this, significantly so. Our chance of getting anything done about it is, of course, non-existent. I take great pleasure in the fact that no one has actually chosen to build anything in that "development." I hope the developers go bankrupt.

We went to see the Star Trek film this afternoon because Gary wanted to. Even setting aside the fact that I now have a headache imposed by the earthquake inducing level of the sound in the theatre (which always irritates the hell out of me...I guess everyone else is already deaf from listening to stuff at those decibel levels, so they keep escalating) my reactions are mostly negative. There were some cute moments and an occasional clever concept, but c'mon, folks. Star Trek has used the time paradox thing far too much. It's no longer credible to me. I never liked Kirk and I like him even less after this film. Giving Spock a romantic interest, even at a young age, doesn't wash with me either, no matter how cleverly they could play it off against Kirk. The young Scotty, McCoy, Sulu, and Chekhov were interestingly portrayed, but they can't carry off a weak plot all by themselves. I won't even dignify it with any apples at all.

On the way home we stopped and used the "coupon" (plus $16) to get a digital conversion box. I don't anticipate it doing any good here, but we can always give it to someone else if it's completely useless.

Tags: films, geekery, weather
Current Location: Soggy oak grove
Mood: bitchy

I should have known better. Gary asked me last night if I wanted to watch Serenity with him (the film, not the series which he's already seen.) He'd found it remaindered for $5. I agreed.

Not ten minutes into it, I got up and left the room. The gratuitous violence, which I guess the majority of film watchers feed on, was making me ill. Sometimes I really think there must be something to this otherkin idea, because I sure don't seem to belong to the same race as most people.

Oddly enough, in real life, Gary doesn't deal well with violent emotions. In fact, he doesn't react well to raised voices. He's also an arachnophobe, and won't watch video or films with giant spiders or spiderlike creatures because it gives him nightmares. Yet he can sit through two hours of people hacking, stabbing, shooting, and otherwise destroying each other without blinking. Had I watched the whole thing, I would have had bad dreams. In fact, I think I had some dreams about it anyway, in spite of choosing to read something soothing before going to sleep.

Tags: films
Current Location: At work, alas
Mood: confused

One of those days where you don't know what happened because it was all under cover of an antihistamine blur, which just reduced and did not quite control the effects of a massive cold. And now I'm falling asleep over the keyboard, though I seem quite unable to sleep when horizontal for fear of drowning in, well, you know...

Already short work week shortened by an extra day, as I did not go in today. Early in the day dabbled with software installation and configuration under OpenVMS, but as things hazed out I switched not to reading but to watching a DVD that contains a collection of movie serial episodes from 1935. Precisely, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin in glorious black and white. The sequence of half hour cliff-hangers begins with, believe it or not, a horse story involving the horsenapping of a black stallion from an island somewhere off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Said black stallion is revered as a god by his human neigh-bors, who are therefore not amused. Nonetheless, the horse, who comes to be known as Rex, arrives in California where he immediately runs away from the new owner who plans to make a polo pony of him... I began to wonder when Rin Tin Tin Jr. was actually going to appear, but appear he did, to befriend the lost horse, after which each rescues the other by turns from various fates worse than moldy hay. It amounts to camp when viewed through 21st century eyes, but it's not all bad, really, just very stereotyped and predictable.

Meanwhile, outside the windows, the two inches of snow that accumulated overnight all melted. All of it, gone by sunset.

Tags: films, weather
Current Location: Soggy oak grove
Mood: snuffly

Finally saw Bolt last night. Predictable Disney in some ways, but the characters are well done, most especially Bolt himself of course. I really liked it. Squeaky carrot, anyone?

This time I really have a cold. Yesterday I started feeling symptoms about mid-afternoon. This has happened several times this winter only to back off after four or five hours, but not this time. Not much sleep for me in the past 24 hours, even after taking stuff that should help.

Snow is supposedly headed in again. Yesterday they issued a winter storm warning for up to six inches of snow to commence last night and go all day today. Like the last one, they seem to have cried "wolf" at the chihuahua. There was a slight frosty film of snow overnight and that's it. They backed down to a winter weather advisory and said it would start at 1 pm. It's now 3:30 and still nothing, though the temperature did drop from 48F to 37F over about an hour's span. They've cut back the predicted accumulation to two inches now, overnight, but are still calling for continued snow all day tomorrow and overnight into Tuesday or longer. I'm sure no one believes it any more.

Saw a golden crowned kinglet about 1 pm today sitting in the wire of the dog fence. These are tiny birds, only a bit larger than a hummingbird, grey with dark wing bars and striped faces, and a bright yellow stripe like a mohawk down the crown of their heads. They can erect that crest like a bluejay or cardinal but usually it lies flat and nearly escapes notice. Typically they seem just to pass through here when migrating. I should be watching for their cousin, the ruby crowned kinglet, too. Similar but without the stripes and wing bars, and the mohawk is bright red. I've seen both before, but not for many years.

Gary is doing barn chores for me, though it's my day. I don't feel too guilty though, as I've done them for him pretty regularly of late due to his school schedule. Strawberries still not planted. Probably just as well if we're having another round of snow and ice. They will dry out in the shipping package though if held back much longer.

Tags: birds, films, gardening, weather
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: cold

So Gary brought home a DVD last week. Remaindered, probably at Walmart, for $5. He picked it up because of the steam-punkish picture on the front, of a dirigible carrying a metal ship's hull aloft.

The picture is called Stardust and neither of us had heard of it. He wanted to watch it, so we did, tonight. While unwrapping it, my librarian's eagle eyes (cataloging DVDs is bad for your eyesight, you have to read all that teensy-eensy print and it becomes a habit) noticed that it was... produced by Neil Gaiman, from the book by Neil Gaiman... Wait! What? I never heard of this book by Neil Gaiman.

So we watched it. And you should too. It's clever, of course, and witty, and hilarious. Turns out that the "book" was actually four comics, or a graphic novel, illustrated by Charles Vesa. The original will be in my hands by Monday so I can see what it was like. But this film gets at least 4 apples from us.



Oh, and the bandwidth controls on my new router setup passed the preliminary tests today. One more thing to do, and that's set up a caching web proxy on it. Should be ready to go live next week.

Tags: films, geekery, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: amused

Went back to the fair at 9:30 this morning and except for a 45 minute lunch break with Gary, stayed until just before it closed at 5:30 pm. Today I got to see most of the exhibits and vendor booths. There were some interesting things, but the only one that I was inspired to buy (after passing it up twice, I went back for it) was a plush llama about a foot high. I'll try to get a photo of him later.

Again most of the questions were reasonably well-formed and showed some understanding of process and materials. Only one person was somehow unable to understand that sewing can be done without a sewing machine, but spinning is not sewing.

We watched The Golden Compass on DVD last night. I was prepared for the worst, but didn't find it as horrendous as Prince Caspian was. It leaves out about half the book, of course, but doesn't invent major plot or character elements that weren't in the original. I really don't see how it could make sense to anyone who didn't read the book, though. So much is omitted that it leaves an extremely superficial summary of the plot and characters.

Tags: films, spinning
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: tired

Since it's a long weekend and started for me at 12:30 today, and Gary was home on a Thursday, we planned to go into Crystal Lake to see Wall-E (Gary's choice) and have lunch. Got there and picked up tickets for 2:40 then walked across the street to Bennigan's where we often eat when going to that theatre. It was closed. Apparently rather abruptly but with no plans to reopen. Nowhere else within acceptable distance would have been suitable (I don't eat fast food, and the other "real" restaurants within a block or two are too slow for us to make the show time.) So we went back to the theatre and swapped the 2:40 tickets for 2:00.

We often go to a Thursday matinee in order to avoid crowds, but had forgotten that kids aren't in school now. It was full, and noisy. The sound for the film was at twice the volume level necessary even then, which is one of my big complaints about movie theatres now. If their patrons aren't as deaf as they think they are, soon they all will be. It was painful at times.

The film is cute, though I have to say I found the Pixar short cartoon that preceded it, about a stage magician and his rabbit, much funnier than the main feature. The thing that ultimately held my attention about Wall-E was not the superficial story, but the more subtle undercurrent of acid social commentary. I'm amazed that a certain ubiquitous big box retailer hasn't sued over it. The stupidity of the humans on the space ship reminded me of Douglas Adams' "B Ark" only updated for current American culture. The two guys riding down the corridor in their floating lounges, carrying on a conversation with each other not directly but by looking at monitors in front of them, was so typical: it speaks reams about cell phones and video[games.] The fact that all the people were bloated like overinflated pool toys, and had forgotten how to walk was just too accurate. The fact that they knew nothing about where food comes from, or had lived on the space ship all their lives but didn't know it had a swimming pool, were also entirely believable. The captain's repeated reference to planting seeds that would grow into... pizzas... was scary because it wasn't too far from the truth.

If you like cutesy robots, or Pixar animation, or superficial humor, you'll like the film. If you enjoy subtle and not-so-subtle barbs directed at American sacred cows, you'll almost certainly like it. On the whole, though, I wasn't impressed. I guess I might give it three apples for trying.

Checked Bennigan's web sites and the closing is so new that they still say the restaurant is open, give hours and even the menu. We had an early dinner at Chili's after the film instead. It was reasonably good food, but as usual, the music was too loud.

Tags: films
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: bitchy