Lights out

According to a couple news items I’ve read some alleged scientists want to put a giant umbrella in space to block out a couple percent of the energy reaching Earth. Apparently, some uber-rich individuals are all in on the idea as well, although they’d prefer to have taxpayers foot the bill for it. The arguments in support of this idea are of course all based on the still quite dubious claims that we are heating up the globe because blah blah blah. For argument’s sake, let’s say they do it, and oops, they block a little too much, and the ice ages return forever, and it’s irreversible because almost all of us die so nobody can get rid of the umbrella. I suppose we could sue…

Apart from the fact that there are quite a few eggheads out there that want large numbers of us to drop dead, all of whom seem to think that if there is a massive reduction in the population, they will still survive, there remains the real question. Where the fuck do these people think they get the right to conduct such an experiment, one that could have a catastrophic effect on all life on this planet. And no, this isn’t a distant kind of possibility. The Earth has wobbled back and forth over the tipping point for an iced age repeatedly in its past without any help from us humans. People taking an action that significantly reduces the amount of energy we get from the sun could easily send us into one that never ends. And, the interesting thing about tipping points is that ANY amount of reduction could do it, and done is done. Just the fact that we have had several Ice Ages already shows we are in a fine balance between freezing and roasting as it is. Proponents of the GAIA theory imagine that life itself on a global scale is what has maintained that balance, this kind of action, cutting off the source of energy for life itself, could deal the entire planet a death blow. Maybe the earth itself could survive it somehow over millennia, I doubt we would be there to see it.

Imagine the ego you have to have to think that they can unilaterally take such an action, and tell anyone who objects to stuff it, or maybe just do it on the sly, because science, or something. One thing for certain, I’m pretty sure I won’t hear about any kind of proposal to have us vote on this anytime soon.

Cheers

Et Tu, Dune?

Worldwide events are too depressing, I’m retreating to watch old movies. Because I just finished the latest incarnation of the book Dune turned into a movie at the theater, so, I’ve decided to dredge up some of the earlier ones. Today I’m going to review the Sci-Fi channel’s “Frank Herbert’s Dune, Directors Cut”. Circa December 2000

Here we go, on with the review.

Let’s start with a critique of the players. Not a single actor in this production has the appearance, character, or presence of personality conjured up in reading the book, none were even close. And the liberties they took with the lines, along with the obliteration of the roles the various players were given, changing the essence of the story itself, is a tale all of its own. First of all, the director(s) should have been beaten for the costumes and faux English Royalty trappings they presented the audience with in the settings. While the book does hint at a Feudal society in decline, it nowhere depicts a degenerate European nobility with costumes out of a middle ages fable as it’s model, right down to the Robin Hood esq.’ furniture and trappings. And, I’m not being homophobic here, the main characters all act a bit gay, both in demeanor and costume, stereotypical English gay at that, the way John Cleese in Monty Python would depict them, not a manly man among them. And the performance of the leads, sigh.

Take William Hurt, for example, playing Duke Leto Atreides, the designated victim.  I’ve never seen a more wooden performance by him as he read various lines snatched at random from a book I doubt he ever read. He has done some good work over the years, and I don’t want to besmirk him now that he’s passed away, I think his best performance was in Gorky Park, but comparing that to this movie I am thinking someone swapped out his personality for a robot for this role.

Anyway, the lead actor, playing Paul, they kept trying to portray him as a blond and noble “Teutonic Knight in training”, but his performance is a cross between a petulant rich kid schoolboy and a stiff upper lip preppy, I kept hoping that a worm would eat him.

Then there’s Chani, the love of his life, helping to define the word “forgettable”. Also, in the novel, Paul’s mom is supposed to be a serene beauty, wily and thoughtful, along with killer fighting skills and mental powers. The actor for this part looks and acts like she has trouble picking out what lipstick to wear that goes with desert drab.

There is a nod to some of the other important figures in Paul’s life, like Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck, but the Duke’s Mentat, Thufir Hawat, despite being a crucial character in the novel, is almost invisible, excepting a ridiculous costume. As for the Duncan and Idaho characters, well, they both sucked, sorry. Integral they may have been to the original story, but here I was happy they got only a little screen time. Dr Yeuh, the erstwhile traitor, is in the book a strong but tortured man, here, he’s a spineless wimp. I’m not going to pick at the rest of them, it’s just more of the same.

The pacing of the “action”, amounts to “walk around for a bit, stop and recite a few lines grabbed at random from the book, do it again, and then again”, with all the enthusiasm and energy of third graders reciting Shakespeare in Old English.

And they can’t even get the lines right, in the book Chani, in an early “get to know you” dream conversation, says to Paul “Tell me of the waters of your home world, Usal”, she doesn’t call him “Mau’dib.” It makes a difference, but I guess you’d have to both read and understand what was going on in the book to know that, something that apparently no one involved in the production of this turkey took the time to do.

On we go to Chani meeting Paul in a desert hideout, a touching scene with all the sexual chemistry of a barracuda smelling rotten meat. A bit of banter here and there as they settle into their hideout, and then, unexpectedly, they treat us to a lingering shot of a guy changing clothes, bending over to show his bare ass down to his knees. Letting us see bitter-faced Chani’s boobs after that did nothing to mitigate the horror of that scene.

And then Paul’s mom pops in to catch him looking and she says “She’s the one from your dreams, I can tell by the way you stare at her”. For an all-wise Bene Gesserit Witch, she seems awfully dense.

I mean really, there isn’t a straight guy on this planet that has gone through puberty that doesn’t know why he is staring at her, and it isn’t because of any dreams he’s told his mom, I hope. “Gee mom, she reminds me of something that I dream about”, “I don’t know son, she looks a little rough around the edges for that”

And then there’s the scene with Dr. Kynes getting whacked, people who never read the book, i.e. most of the non-Sci-Fi buff audience, must have been flabbergasted at that one. At this point, his importance to the whole story is a complete mystery, and it’s going to stay that way. Right now he’s in the desert wandering around, dumped there by the evil Harkonnen’s, when all of a sudden he kneels down at a rumbling sound, and says “A pre-spice mass”, and then the sand, along with the good doctor, blows up. Given how far this thing strays from the book and its themes and dialogue, just about now everyone still watching is wishing it came with a Cliff Notes version along with a pause button so they could check and see what was going on.

Did I mention how they did the blue eyes of the Freeman in this one? Think “Village of the Damned” with Donald Sutherland, meets the sand people from Star Wars, peering at you from the shadows, only worse.

And then we have the fight scene with Jamis to ponder, as they both strip down to Japanese sumo wrestlers clouts, stuffed with socks in the front. I guess you don’t get Jockey’s in the desert. After a bit of posturing they proceeded to make the knife battle in “West Side Story” look believable. And the dialogue, oh god, the dialogue. “He’s never had to kill”, “Well, he better learn”. Good advice indeed. Jamis is, of course, toast, “Hey, we’re trying to fulfill a prophecy here”, and they move on to a depressing scene where they suck the water out of him, you wanna drink some,? it’s gooood, oof.

Sandworm riding. Of all the things they should have explained to a clueless audience, this is a biggy, and none of the Dune movies ever do so despite an excellent narrative on it, and how it’s done, in the book. In this one, you’re left with an image of a Roman Charioteer holding reins attached to a couple of flaps of “what?” In the book, it makes perfect sense, in all the movies so far they may as well have been using a flying carpet. The worms, and the riding thereof, are an integral part of the story, and indeed of the concept of desert power as expressed on Dune, a central theme almost totally washed out of the movie. When you finally get to see one of them they look like overgrown mealworms, with teeth. And into the fight scene he comes, evil Harkonnen’s are being slaughtered everywhere, as Paul floats in to join the battle like Zorro without a horse, knife in hand, I guess he learned his lesson. At this point, he is supposed to be evolving into some kind of a natural leader, based on his performances so far I don’t think there is a man on the planet who, being desperate to pee, would follow him to the bathroom.

We get treated here and there to the Emperor’s daughter, Princess Urulan, getting a complete recasting in both role and dialogue vis a vis the original story, and also an unbelievably cringe performance by Chani talking about the awesomeness of Paul’s skin, it made mine want to crawl away and hide.

In stunned response to this speech his mom, Jessica, the erstwhile Bene Gesserit, fishing around for something to say, gives us this line, “I mean, he still has the glow of youth”. This is dialog that must have escaped from a bad Disney movie, I almost heaved. BTW, Speaking of Disney characters, this is the mouse that supposedly inspired Paul to be “The Man” after they met:

I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a dessert warrior after having a conversation with that?

We then get treated to what passes for entertainment in the hideout. Wait, what? Punch and Judy Theater with dolls on strings, where was that in the book? Let’s inject English fable into a story that had nothing to do with anything European, why don’t we? This really gives a new definition to the concept of “Artistic License”, and not for the better.

 And then, as my mind slips into some imaginary dialogue to go with the next scenes, I give you this vision, courtesy of the red wine I’m drinking: Paul and Chani have a private talk, and it comes down to, “Let’s do a little bonding over some mystical sayings, and then we can go to my tent”. ”Okay, but I hope you don’t mind the smell of a VJ that’s never known a drop of soap and water”. “That’s ok, I’m so horny right now I’d fk a wet rock,“ or something like that. Think Michael Caine in “The Man Who Would Be King”, as the Afgan women try to entice him into a little hanky panky, only here he goes for it. And remember, she looks like this when she’s thinking about Paul:

And then they manage to squeeze in the orgy scene from the book, sort of, a lot of groping and rolling around the caves, along with a couple random breasts flashed upon the screen. I wanted a “Spice Beer” myself after I watched this one. I guess they were working on an “R” rating to drum up some interest when marketing this thing, but really, as far as the plot goes, they could have left this to the imagination of the fans.

Continuing on, somewhere in the making of this masterpiece the directors or producers or whoever runs the show says to the casting and makeup peep’s ”The Emperor’s private army, called the Sardaukar, are the badd-est, mightiest warriors in the galaxy, feared by all, make me a uniform/costume that reflects that”. And this is what they ran with:

Why, they practically radiate fierceness, right? I mean, let’s face it, you have to be tough to wear a wool sweater on a desert planet, think Phoenix in July….. And that hat, people practically die just looking at it.

There seems to be so many B-grade Sci-fi films made with all English casts, they must be really cheap compared to Hollywood extras. I still like to watch them, and it really shouldn’t matter but, in this case, it totally sucks, because they can’t shed their English mannerisms, and the fact that Herbert clearly defined the Atreides male line as being dark, dark, Greek, is totally ignored. And they so butchered the end scenes in this movie, a travesty majestic in its ineptitude. An audience that never read the book would not have had the slightest idea what was going on, and what’s the point of a movie you have to read a book first to understand?

Along the way Princess Irulan is tossed to the figurative wolves by her dad as he tries to salvage his place on top of the galactic food chain, in the final scenes I want to add her saying this subtext “It’s ok Dad, I’ll fk him, that’ll fix everything, “ and Paul, completely lacking in male hormones, declines.

And the costumes, why so many fkd up costumes, did someone have a side deal to get rich making up these ridiculous outfits for this movie, they have absolutely no place in this tale, someone must have had way too many bong hits when they approved them all.

Coming up on the final fight scenes, the opponents start to diss each other, saying things like the traditional Freeman “May they knife chip and shatter” the meaning of which is never explained, or, they could have used the “just as plausible” English rant “May you throw up after your first beer”, either line would have fit the mood. I knew they were skilled actors when they didn’t bust out laughing. And, somehow, they managed to sneak in a Japanese samurai outfit with a headband on Paul’s head for him to remove before the final fight scene:

When Paul says the obligatory “let’s fight” line I am reminded of another old taunt laid on the memory of ancient Greece, “May thy hemorrhoids be as big as grapes”. maybe it was Ancient Rome, it still fits this scene. The disrespect is so thick it could cut cold movie theater popcorn butter.

They start to fight, and, in the meantime, the actor playing Paul’s sister, Alia, suddenly laughs hysterically for some reason, and I think she says, sotto voice, “I can’t believe I get paid for this”, me neither. The final battle, completely lacking the tension and drama depicted in the book, is thankfully over quickly, a little more nonsense that was just made up by the screenwriter’s plays out, and it’s done.

And so it falls, like all the other Dune movies I’ve seen. Having been given a masterpiece, and told to bring it to the screen, instead the massive egos of the decision makers dictated that they rewrite the story somehow, and “Make it theirs”, and in doing so ruined the whole thing. It’s like a disease, and everyone who makes movies out of great books seems to be infected with it, they are driven to take masterful works of the imagination and turn them into dross while patting themselves on the back for being so wonderful. One thing that is consistent with all the various incarnations of this book on the silver screen is that they all refuse to tell the story that Frank Herbert told, absolutely refuse. This is a novel that has been touted as Science Fiction’s Supreme Masterpiece, and yet, the directors and producers all take different bits and pieces and slap them together to tell entirely different tales, why?

Everyone acknowledges the book was great but in all of the filmed versions I’ve seen they all manage to tell the tale, while eliminating its essence. They even managed a little bit of pseudo-Nazi symbolism in this one to the Atreides décor, no telling why, they just stuck it in there and ran with it:

Oh well.

Having just seen the most recent Dune movies at the theater, I am going to run down the other older ones that are out there. I remember being amused by the one that had Sting in it, if I can find it that will be next. I’ll save my critique of the current one for a while, people seem to like it and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone with my definitely biased opinions. BTW, this thing won 2 Emmys and a nomination for a third, and its follow-ups, depicting the next 2 books in the series, were apparently quite popular, although I’ve never seen them, so I guess I am in the minority with my critique, my bad.

 So there it is another movie review for your reading pleasure. It’s got some spoilers in it, but then again it’s a really old movie, so, so what? Even with my massive readership this one is not going to make much of an impact at this point in time, and my cat says I need to write something, so here it is.

Cheers, NADOA

The body count …

Glancing through X feeds, I keep seeing this as a popular topic, so I decided to watch a few as the phrase rang a bell. When I first heard it, way back when, on the 5 o’clock news, it was used in reference to a mostly made-up number, or “estimate”, if you will, about how many enemies were killed in the latest battle in Vietnam. I guess it was supposed to be a morale booster as we licked our wounds during a time when “search and destroy” was a good name for a troop deployment. It faded from the newscasts when we changed our mission names to things like hug and kiss, or something like that, as we tried to get out of that whole hot mess of a war.

Lately, the phrase has come back into the popular lexicon as a way of describing and putting a number to casual sexual encounters, what used to be called “one-night stands”. Every generation has to have its own lingo, so here we are, and instead of whispering about them in hushed conversations in back rooms, it’s being proudly posted on the internet via podcasts and spot interviews on the streets. Back in the day, it was the guys doing a little boasting as the beers got swilled down, now all I see are girls proudly grabbing some bragging rights.

So, I listened to a couple more tik-toc’s of single girls talking about their body counts, dating circles, and expectations regarding a suitable mate. All were apparently mid-20s to early 30’s, some were attractive, and others were, how to be gentle, were not, to not even close. All of them were on the path to the most frightening moment in a single girl’s life, while getting ready to make the scene. The day when they are ignored in the crowd, when nobody notices them, no one glances back, and offers for dates or just plain hookups vanish. The day when the competition is getting all the attention, they are no longer desirable hotties, if they ever were, besides in their own minds. You may think I’m being a bit judgmental, and perhaps I am, but I’d rather be pursued by a horny wildebeest than get caught by some of these specimens who think they can snag a guy worth millions. Anyway, it’s not quite the end for them at this point, they can always retreat to the regular bars when the clubs no longer work. The beer goggle effect will reliably work right past middle age and beyond. Unfortunately, they are going to need their own pair as time continues to march on, and they are always gone come morning.

When listening to some of these conversations I’m not surprised that can boast about “doing” 2 or 3 guys a night sometimes, even given the size of some of these heifers, alcohol still works wonders. But hearing some of these girls state that a guy needs to make a quarter mil a year minimum for exclusive rights (i.e. marriage), to a package that is about to pass itself around like a stinky party favor only leads credence to the theory that today’s women are living in a fantasy world. I saw one today where a somewhat attractive girl on spring break told the interviewer she was “doing” 5 guys a day for the duration of her vacation. Just think, over 70 chances to get an STD in less than 2 weeks, you go girl! 

I guess if I was a randy guy at the beach I’d be all for it, but I don’t think anyone is bringing her home to meet the p’s anytime soon. They say the Internet is forever, so can you imagine the conversation she will have with her teenage or younger kids when they run across that clip while wondering why they all look different from each other. In the spirit of keeping up with tradition, I can hear her “Dad-Of-The-Week” yelling “Roll camera” as he gets ready to immortalize his family’s complete breakdown. Gonna be fun.

Cheers

Water, water, everywhere…..

How much in volume is a pound of water? About 16 ounces

Why should you care?? Let’s see.

Water is one of the most abundant things on earth, and easily sourced most everywhere. Other than in desert areas, hot or cold, it’s also one of the most obtainable, especially in an industrial scale. When you are talking about the cost of it per ounce even bottled water from Fiji is ridiculously cheap considering where it comes from. The stuff that comes out of an industrial-size tap is too cheap to even mention by the ounce. So again, why should you care, it’s a good thing, right? Except that, it’s being used to cheat the consumer on a mind-boggling scale. How so? Here we go…

Today I’m going to focus on meat, so all you vegetarians can tune out now. They are getting you too, but that’s for another day. I first picked up on this many years ago in a chain store known for lower prices, in Arkansas. A package of beef had caught my eye because it looked inexpensive compared to the same cut where I lived in California. So I looked a little closer, and there it was, a statement on the label that said, contains up to 7% of added water. I noticed similar notices on some packages of chicken. I thought about it and came to the realization that this being a state not known for individual wealth, this is how they kept buying meat for dinner an option for people who didn’t have a lot of money. Oh well, it wasn’t something I saw in my neighborhood market so I kinda forgot about it. And then, over the years it has crept into all the meat counters at home. At first, it was just chicken where I noticed it, and then slowly but relentlessly has been showing up in other meats. Ham, beef, you name it. It’s listed in the label, sometimes deceptively called “a solution” of something, expressed as a percentage. They even have an industry name for it, it’s called “Plumping” They sometimes claim it adds taste and blah blah blah, it’s good for you, ya know, call me skeptical but I’m thinking the real plumping is in the producer’s bottom line.

Some meat products don’t have a warning about added content, but, while I can’t prove it, I can see and even feel the added water as I work with a meal or cook things. Take raw pre-packaged bacon for example, something I’ve been handling since I was a kid, it all has all achieved a greasy, limp, and decidedly wet feel to it when you take it out of its packaging. For comparison, feel it along with deli counter bacon with its stiff, waxy feel. I know, it’s subjective, so what. It’s always been known for shrinkage when cooked, but now it practically does a disappearing act, leaving watery grease behind. Put it in a microwave to cook and you can watch the steam boil off.

The worst offenders so far are chicken products, fresh, frozen, whole bird or just parts, followed by processed ham, then beef.  Chicken, depending on its origin, seems to range from 3% to an astonishing 25% by weight of “a solution”, AKA, water, along with salt and other crud. And they still get to say it is all natural, because what could be more natural than water.

And to add insult to injury, even if you are ok with buying water at meat prices, you can’t even cook this stuff the way you want to, for example, in stir-frying. Why? Because you can’t stir fry water. Heat up a skillet, add a little oil, set the heat to high, and toss in the meat, and as soon as the chicken heats up out comes the water, and you’re boiling your dinner, like it or not.

A lot of cuts of beef are getting the same way, you can’t get a good sear, or caramelize it properly because as soon as it gets hot it’s sitting in a puddle of water that just oozes out as your dinner shrinks. And no, you can’t escape this by grilling, your $ 15-a-pound rib eye, or $ 10-a-pound flap meat, is still going to shrink when you toss it on, except the water will turn into vapor, unseen.

The ground stuff is even worse. I’m used to 70% lean ground beef losing about half its size as hamburgers on the grill, I know I bought a lot of fat with it, so I plan for it, but when 96% “lean ground sirloin” does the same thing we have a problem.

Today, when asked why I need 5 pounds of meat to make enough Italian beef for 4, all I can say is that it’s going to disappear when I cook it. And it isn’t just a few producers doing it, it’s everywhere. I’m going to attach some packaging pictures from various, but by no means all, sources available locally, to illustrate how widespread this is.

Wild Fork, for example, not to pick on them, but, is a somewhat upscale store featuring all frozen products that comes to mind. Chicken tenders, 15% “of a solution”, thighs, up to 20% water and salt, bacon wrapped beef tenderloin, 15% of water, and some blah blah,blah, and “beef type flavor”. This one really burns me, I mean, WTF, this is supposed to be upscale meat, why do they have to add beef flavor to it, what happened to the flavor it started out with? What kind of cows are out there that don’t taste like beef?

Cooks ham, butt portion, 23% water added. Seasoned Carne Asada (flap meat) up to 22% of “a solution.” In case you thought fish has been left out, I just saw a package of frozen Swai, a factory-farmed fish that is as hard to raise as goldfish, going for a sale price of $5 lb., the package said it contains a remarkable 30% of ”a solution”. I could go on. The point of all this is that even with prices going through the roof, they are selling it to you somehow packed full of water, one of the cheapest things on earth next to air, and charging you for it at the price of meat.

So let’s go back to the numbers. The Carne Asada was “on-sale” at $6 lb. It’s 22% water. You got 14.08 oz. of meat for your money, and 3.52 oz. of water, at meat pricing, so you paid $1.32 per pound, or .0825 per ounce for the water. According to the internet, .007 is what a consumer pays for a gallon of water in CA.  Divided by 128 ounces that’s about .0000547 per ounce. Times 3.52 ounces equals a water cost of .0001925 for the added water, the cost to a consumer if paid at retail for the water. You paid 1.32 a pound, divided by 16 is .0825 per ounce, times 3.52 equals .2904 for the water. There is no way the food processor is paying retail for water but we’ll go with this number. That translates to a whopping 150757.1% markup for the water, sweet. Think about this the next time you hear that they are adding all this water to better the consumer experience, for flavor, whatever the excuse. It’s a massive con, even if my math, not my strong suit, is off by a decimal point or two. Sure, it’s not It’s not a lot of money per transaction, but look at the big picture,

For example, an estimate from the internet gives me 15,000 metric tons of chicken eaten every year in the US. That’s 33,069,000 pounds. By the way, the chicken I mentioned is about $3.50 a pound, nowhere near the high price it can go for around here. I’ll average the water content to 20%. That’s 70 cents per pound for the water, and $2.82 for the meat. 33,069,000 pounds of chicken minus 20% for water is 6,613,800 pounds of water, or 105,820,800 ounces, or 826,725 gallons. Cost at retail, .007 x 826,725 = 5,787,075. Profit, .70 per pound sold is for the water, x 33,069,000 pounds, is 23,148,300 – retail cost is 5,787,075, net profit is $17,361,225. Not bad for selling water.

The actual numbers may vary, but nonetheless, the consumer is getting screwed big time for this, and the amount of water being sold at meat prices is going to keep going up until somebody screams, but in the meantime, apparently, since I’ve never seen any commentary on this, no one cares.

The receipts, by no means all, but you’ll get the point:

and yes, you can still find some without water added, but you’re gonna pay

I’m done,

Cheers, NADOA

We’ve been invaded

Watching a “The Invaders” TV episode from the ’60s, where aliens plot to take over a newspaper and publishing empire, a clear warning about the power inherent in a single entity dominating the media of the day, and the danger of letting it become controlled by a hostile ideology. Also watching the first episode of “The Time Tunnel”, same era, one of many Cold War era programs that got people used to the idea of a supposedly good but secretive government agency hiding in the desert areas and conducting off-the-books scientific experiments the public gets to pay for but knows nothing about.

That brings me to the question of “How did we get here, anyway? “ A look at reruns of these early TV shows, the ones they are willing to air, gives us a clue. For example, the first episode, of “The Time Tunnel, 1966,” when secret government experiments were conducted in the middle of the desert without any public oversight was cool. Messing with the fabric of time and space, “What could go wrong?” “Anyway, we just won’t tell anyone about it and it’ll be a-ok, because we are the benevolent kind of government, not like those other bad guys who operate in secret out there.” Talk about conditioning the public through “entertainment.”

In the first scenes, after a car disappears from sight via a hidden ramp in the desert floor, there are guys with guns everywhere, and the Senator who has come to visit, our representative, has his briefcase taken away forthright, security you know. What, you may ask, is with all the guys with guns ready to shoot people? Well, the place is a secret ya know, so no apology needed. After they enter the main door of the place the Senator is shown multiple buildings descending into the depths, supposedly housing 12 thousand people each, and working in secret on the government dime. Upon questioning the cost of all this he is told that control over time is potentially the most valuable treasure man will ever find. Why it should be controlled by a secret government agency that keeps the public away at gunpoint is a question left unasked, Deep State anyone? The general he meets gets up on his high horse right away. “What’s all this investigation about, anyway “? He wants to know.  So far, it’s all about the money being spent, nothing about the morality or even legality of what they are doing in secret has come up yet, and I don’t expect it will. Did I mention that there are rifle-toting guards everywhere, in a secret, restricted access complex 800 stories beneath the earth, staffed entirely by insiders, who exactly are they prepared to shoot? The staff doesn’t like to be grilled about results for the money, the figure 7 and a half billion in 1966 dollars is mentioned, that’s 72 billion 375 million in today’s money, not exactly chump change. The “scientists” act offended that the Senator cares. The Senator wants results, “Show me someone going back in time”, they protest they are not ready. So far, all anyone cares about is the money, a worthy concern, but the possibility of altering history and fucking us all out of existence isn’t brought up. Then, with the possibility of the money being cut off, the heroic/reckless/stupid (your choice) lead scientist sends himself back in time, what could go wrong that’s worse than losing the cash, eh? Just like Starship Captains, lead scientists always are the first to jump into danger, while leaving the crew behind. And, lucky him, he winds up in the past on the deck of a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, why he didn’t show up in the same desert he was in but x number of years earlier is unexplained. So much for plot holes.

A couple frames later and, of course, he meets a beautiful woman right away, and then finds out that they are on the Titanic, which is on the way to getting sunk. He can’t use his foreknowledge to save her, or anybody else, without changing history, which, as any sci-fi buff knows, would wipe out the future he just came from, but you know he just wants to, ’cause she’s hot. What to do, what to do….

In the meantime, the Senator still wants to know about getting results for his money, but what nobody is asking is, “What is the taxpayer footing the bill getting?” In fact, it looks as though if a random taxpayer showed up at the facility uninvited, they’d get shot, no questions asked, as would any of the insiders who dared to spill the beans, otherwise why there armed guards everywhere in this supposedly secure facility.

Meanwhile, the idiot scientist, knowing he’s on the Titanic, and having locked eyes with a pretty but doomed girl, immediately starts trying to convince the Captain, or anyone else that will listen to him, that the ship is destined to sink and they has to change course, resulting in getting him locked up as a nutcase. Later on another scientist, and I use the word loosely, goes back to help him change time along with saving the both of them. Of course, if they were successful, all of history would be changed, and it’s possible neither of them would be borne, sad for them, tough shit for all the other lives affected. Think about it, if he was successful, poor Leonardo wouldn’t have had a movie to launch his career from! How about that for unintended consequences.

They do manage to make sure the pretty girl gets saved when the ship does go down, too bad for all the fugly other people, they should have been born better looking. Why she never tells the tale of the 2 guys who knew the future and tried to save them, which certainly would have made global news given the notoriety of the event, is left unexplained. They get yanked off the ship as it goes down, and, of course, the trailer for the next episode shows them winding up on a manned flight to outer space instead of going home. They are stowaways on a tin can smaller than my living room headed to Mars. That vessel has just enough food for the crew, upon being discovered the men right away start to talk about shoving the newcomers out of the airlock, and that’s when I decided I had enough and quit watching.

It doesn’t matter as the point I am trying to make is that there were many of these shows, both as TV series, and movies, that in hindsight go out of their way to normalize the existence of secret, shadowy government agencies scattered around in out-of-the-way places. They are all funded by taxpayers, and they all keep their whereabouts, actions, and objectives, completely, and unaccountably, off the books. It is taken for granted that the public doesn’t get to know what they are doing, will not be privy to any results, and risks getting shot if they even stumble across one of these facilities by accident.

One has to wonder how the public’s passive acceptance today of the existence of secret bio-warfare labs, such as the one that supposedly gave us COVID, is due to this early conditioning through entertainment, as opposed to pure apathy. Not too long ago there was a report of the discovery of a secret lab working on the same mad scientist’s dream of altering the genetics of already lethal viruses, in California, a perfect spot as apparently no one will miss the population there if they all drop dead, and supposedly staffed and funded by the Chinese. It vanished from the news cycle in a matter of days, the public just gave it a big yawn. Is this the missing link for why nobody cares? I guess we will never know. But look, “There’s Taylor Swift, get a news crew here stat!

Cheers

Get the message out

Movies are about messages, first and foremost. Making it into entertainment is just a way of opening the public’s mind when it’s most vulnerable, when people’s mental guard is down. Sure they want to make money, but that’s icing on the cake if they do. In reality it is propaganda for profit. Entertaining or educating you is the last thing on their agenda. I don’t dwell on this much but watching a handful of post-WW2 Japanese monster movies running on one of the cable channels brought it back to the front.

For example, “Son of Godzilla” My take is that here, as in all the early Godzilla movies, is that Godzilla of course is the United States, the sleeping monster that they woke up, and it almost spanked them back into the stone age. The baby is the naïve US public, needing the powerful government to take care of them in a hostile world that tries to eat them. Sometimes he turns out to be their friend in the end, otherwise he just stomps their cities into the ground. The other monsters of the genre are the other players on the world stage, some good, some not, all to be feared. The Japanese women all act like they have the emotional development of 2-year-olds and the Japanese men are totally emasculated, the soy boys of today only a gazillion years ago. They actually had them shooting cowboy-style lever-action rifles at the monsters to show how non-militarized they were, even their photographer had one. Compare this to the Tommy Gun toting guys of American monster movies of the same era, they were always depicted as tough-talking he-men, the kind of men who win wars….

Coin for sale

I need someone to give me a lot of money for this quarter I found in my change. It looks different than the rest of my change, so it must be worth a bunch. I need money because I have a lazy cat, 2 kids that are even lazier, and a wife that has to work hard to support me. The quarter is in great shape, me, not so much. Thanks for asking.

Killer on the road.

I passed up 3 killer trucks on the way home today, making sure I didn’t look them in the eye, while Jim Morrison was singing in the background. These are not the kind of trucks you mess around with, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t spook them. Looking at them, with their huge front grills, dripping with toxic truck masculinity, I realized that they were obviously made to annihilate pedestrians right out of the factory, along with a couple more older models I saw with some questionable modifications by their owners.

How do I know these trucks are so dangerous? Well, someone brought out the trope again about how the automakers deliberately design light trucks to wipe out anyone unfortunate enough to get hit by them on the road. It must be real because they believe it really hard. This theory must be on some kind of schedule, it’ll be blaring out on the internet for a bit, some people will hyperventilate about it, and then it’ll go away for a while, only to resuscitate again a little later.

I can imagine the scene that plays out in their heads:

An automaker Big Shot sits down with his best engineers in the secure conference room and tells them, “There’s too many people walking around on the roads today, design me a truck front end that will kill them in one blow, get back to me with your ideas ASAP.”

The next thing you know, on the secret test track you just know they have, a bunch of minimum wage peeps they just hired try to cross the road, scattering in all directions. Suddenly, a wild truck appears and, giving a furious blaring honk, starts running them down, tossing them into the air like a bull that caught up with the runners in old Spain.

Or something like that, all I know is that they are passionate about this accusation, it keeps coming back, and reasoning with the promoters of this one appears to be futile.

And yet, they accuse the right-wingers of being deranged conspiracy theorists.

Cheers

NADOA

UPDATE! It really does keep coming back, this time just modified a bit, as in this one from Twitchy:

https://twitchy.com/samj/2024/04/15/short-canadian-woman-is-mad-at-tall-trucks-n2395091

“We’ve always thought that if someone has time to get on Twitter and complain about silly, small, and petty things they have too much time on their hands. OR, they’re a Karen. Well, as we all know, Karen is like SO 2018, and people have for the most part stopped using the name as an insult. It was fun while it lasted.

That being said, lucky for all of us, we now have Sue.

Send your thank you cards to Canadian, Sue Huff who complained about giant trucks possibly hitting her in the middle of her face because she’s short. No, really.

We’re not making it up, see for yourselves:”

Sue Huff

@suehuff·ollow I’m 5’4″. This truck, parked in Stony Plain, would make contact with the middle of my face, if it hit me. Why do they need to be so big and why aren’t we more worried about human safety?

I’m scared for her just looking at that thing, I can almost hear it plotting now. Stay safe Sue, stay safe.

NADOA

It’s shitty movie review time again.

Although the movie isn’t new, it’s new to me so it counts. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but I got bored enough to watch it, so here goes. Fair warning, I was motivated by seeing one of the better-looking women from the sitcom two and a half men as the love interest, sadly, she never gets even close to being naked.

So, I’m watching this thing called “Far Cry”, supposedly based on a PC game that I remember playing years ago. The setup for the plot is beyond ridiculous. In the first few minutes they start working on the old “let’s hate Germans just because” vibe by letting you know the “soon to be a hero” guy is both kind of a dick and obviously German, but with a whiny little kid’s voice and demeanor. Then you get introduced to the main character, who is doing secret experiments for the military and is the stereotypical example of a Hitler stand-in, the evil mental case genius doing genetic research with clandestine government money to create killer humans. The crazy guy, of course, does oil painting on an easel while listening to Wagner recordings and hatching his devious plots.

Then there are the action scenes, you can almost hear the director yelling “Shake the camera, shake the camera” ” Now shine lights in everybody’s faces,” and “Quick someone get me an expresso”. The hero’s attempt at comedic banter sounds like they dubbed it in at the studio after an all-night drunk, and the dialogue reads like the writers grew up watching “Hogan’s Heroes” on late-night TV while making fun of those stupid but murderous Germans.

And then, there’s the love interest and the hero subplot, they totally don’t like each other, but still find a reason to get undressed and crawl into bed together. It gets deathly cold on those tropical Islands you know, gotta cuddle up. The hero actually grunts out the word “hypothermia” as a single-word sentence, he sounds like a stagehand poked him with a stick to get him to say it. Then comes one of the most awkward make-out scenes ever filmed, a hundred percent pure cringe. Later, in the morning, they are casually strolling down the road in nice clean clothes, while they are being hunted like vermin, and the hero wants to be rated on his sexual performance last night. “What, I’m only a 2? Dam”.

The script writing alone on this movie must have cost hundreds of dollars.

Did I tell you they even managed to have an “Eva Braun”-type character in here? The head of the crazy doctor’s private security is, of course, a tough, bitchy girl with a German accent, complete with the requisite folding baton to beat you with, cold-hearted and ruthless, and willing to kill anyone who sasses her back, oh yeah. Apparently, if you have your own private island you can whack anyone you want and nobody will notice they are gone, a whole island staffed with people who have no relatives or friends.

Midway or so into the movie someone, possibly with a relative that needed a job, decided they needed a Joe Pesci-type character, al la one of the “Lethal Weapon “movies, so they wrote in a fat Italian-looking lump of useless flesh for the hero to take care of while the female interest is being detained, because why not. Later on, they revisit the whole “crazy German painter who listens to Wagner ” theme while they get ready to do some torturing, in case you missed it the first time.

The since-captured fat guy and hero dialogue as they buddy up is completely inane, it may as well have been “Do you think they are going to fk us up the ass?” “Well, not me, but you look like a roly-poly doll waiting to be buttered up, so watch out,” followed by another credibility-straining action scene.

They actually have a part where there is a floor-mounted machine gun, with the gun at chest height, set up for no discernible reason at all in the middle of a room full of technicians looking at computers. It proves to be very handy for a couple of the bad zombie-type guys who got loose to grab and start slaughtering people with. Fortunately for the good guys, they have all the aiming skills of a 2-year-old taking a piss in the toilet for the first time, you hit some, you miss some.

Wait, hold on, they suddenly don’t do so well, we need more bad guys in play, so the evil doctor lets all the rest of his creations out of their cages. And, it’s shaky cam time again. Uh oh, it looks like the lab-grown mutants aren’t big on loyalty, they want to kill everyone, oops.

Things aren’t looking too good for the crazy German doctor about now, so he calls for a rescue with someone he has a side deal with, and, of course, the voice on the other end of the phone call sounds like it’s a Japanese businessman, crooked as usual. “What were the odds?“ Sigh.

In true evil dictator fashion, he orders his military chief to hold his position at all costs, with no retreat, and then orders his private guard captain, the “Eva” girl, to eliminate said military commander just to be safe, and then escort him to the dock for his escape.

Meanwhile, the army-type guys are morphing from “evil sadists who will shoot anyone no questions asked” into the “just following orders” kind of good people you knew they were all along, just in time to be all wiped out. Honestly, these guys’ acting skills make the wooden performances of the extras in Arnold’s movie “Commando” seem positively brilliant.

After a few more betrayals here and there the main bad guy is ready to move, and, of course, he takes the stupid, utterly useless love interest girl who’s been wandering around with him along. And then, in a totally unpredictable, impossible-to-foresee event, the good guy gets wounded in the hostage exchange scene.

“Eva” is now dead, of course, after facing off against a good guy turned bad guy turned good again, but insane, while the doctor makes his way towards escape. She totally overpowered lots of ordinary inept soldiers, but the big mutant, who was only literally twice her size and weight, somehow pulled it off with his final act, even though she drilled him with a bullet right through his eye. Wow, this seems familiar, thinking, thinking….

Alas for the poor crazy head guy, the hero and the love interest get rescued by the fat slob who somehow got away and found a boat, along with his gonads, and came back for him. For loyalty like this you usually have to buy a dog and feed it well. And now the sad German doctor is left on the dock to confront the rest of his homicidal creations on his own, stunned that they won’t listen to him giving orders.

Coming up on the final scenes, as the love interest sashays off wagging her ass goodbye, the hero is left wondering if he was as shitty in bed as she said he was. Then, to put a fork in it, as he walks away from a job offer, the writers couldn’t resist one more dig, the last spoken dialogue you hear is “Don’t worry, he’s emotional, he’s German.”

And to think, I wasted 4 perfectly good beers on this travesty.

Oh well.

Canuck

In the wake of the news regarding their government’s recent advice regarding rampant car thefts from homes by armed gangs, i.e. leave the keys and fobs close to your front door so they don’t have to go looking for them, fellow lefties in America might want to remind Canadians that the robbers could just be hungry like the thieves running wild here, so don’t forget to leave some milk and cookies out with your car keys, mkay.

In further potential news from up north, after hearing about the advice by the police to leave your car keys or fobs by your front door, to make the thieving a little easier, insurance companies might be thinking of amending their policies to state that if you willingly give or make available said items to robbers then they didn’t really steal your car, you gave it to them, hence, no claims for theft will be honored. Ps, don’t forget to keep making those car payments, you wouldn’t want to damage your credit score.

As some Canadians like to say, “Canuck you! , eh “

Also, while in ultra-liberal Canada they are telling people to leave their car keys close to their car to make it easier for thieves to steal the car, in ultra-liberal California, a recent PSA from the Long Beach area says you should never leave your key fob in your car or nearby, because it makes it too easy to steal the cars. Choices, choices.

But wait, there’s more, Minnesota AG Keith Ellison on car theft: “We are investigating 2 automakers. Their cars are too easy to steal for young people.” I wonder if there is a Venn diagram that can explain all of this, let’s give it a try:

I rest my case.

NADOA