I watched a couple of really great movies this weekend and thought I'd share. You've probably seen them already since I wait for stuff to come out on DVD instead of seeing it in the theater, but if not, I give thumbs up on these 3!
Movie #1 The Butterfly Effect
I love movies that make you think. This one plays on the theory of the Butterfly Effect; "If a butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the world, the ripple effect could cause a tempest on the other.” I saw “Dude, Where’s My Car” and believe me, I didn’t have high hopes for Ashton Kusher in this movie. Surprisingly, he was quite good. This movie is about this guy named Evan who has always suffered from something that causes him to "blackout" during times of extreme crisis. All through his childhood he would blank out right before something drastic happens and not remember anything that happened. Now in college, he reads through a journal he used to write as a kid to notice that all of a sudden these harmful memories are coming back to him. When he goes to ask his childhood sweetheart about it she doesn't want to talk about it. He finds out however, that he can actually tap into his past and change what happened in these events. Unfortunately, every time he changes the past, even in the slightest way the future is also affected. I won’t give away the ending, but it was surprising. I totally recommend this movie. I sat down to watch just a few minutes of it while I was eating ice cream before going to bed and ended up watching the whole darned movie. Good thing it was a weekend!
Movie #2 The Island
OMG! This movie is amazing. How did I miss it before? It’s a cross between Logan’s Run, the Matrix, and Coma. It’s about Lincoln Six-Echo who is a resident of a seemingly utopian but contained facility in the mid 21st century. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to the "The Island" - reportedly the last uncontaminated spot on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie. He and all of the other inhabitants of the facility are actually human clones. Lincoln makes a daring escape with a beautiful fellow resident named Jordan Two-Delta. Relentlessly pursued by the forces of the sinister institute that once housed them, Lincoln and Jordan engage in a race for their lives to literally meet their makers. Yeah, okay, I stole that description off of imdb. The whole idea is intriguing. The sets are marvelous, technology fantastic, and there are some truly amazing chase/crash scenes. Greg and I give it 2 thumbs up. I wish I could find a novel of it, but I can’t find any reference to it being a book before a movie. Dang.
And movie #3 Detroit Rock City
You all know that I like those silly high-school coming of age movies. This one fits the bill perfectly. It takes place in 1978 when four members of a high school band called Mystery do everything they can to attend a KISS concert in Detroit. In order to make it to the show they must steal, cheat, strip, deal with an anti-rock mom and generally do whatever it takes to see the band that has inspired them to be musicians. The soundtrack to this movie is so great. They did a good job of suiting the song to what was happening in the movie and keeping it pretty close to the right era. I went to order it on Amazon, and found out that who ever created it totally screwed it up. Instead of using the original versions of songs like “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC, they have Marilyn Manson singing it on the soundtrack. WTF?? I’ll just have to make my own, I think, with the REAL songs. I’m not a huge metal fan, but this movie has a lot of good ones in it.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
This is SO COOL!
Guess what I just discovered I could do? I can download letterboxing clues on to my PDA! Isn't technology great?
Whew. It's Back!
Well, LBNA is back up and running. Talk about putting a lot of letterboxers out for a week or so. You should have seen the complaining on the lists! Sheesh. We all need a 12-step program.
Here is one of the clues to a letterbox series I did with my friend Maiden. She carved the stamps and I did the clues. So, can anyone answer the following questions:
Part 1: How many pennies are needed if they are placed on a chessboard as follows: One penny in the first square, two in the second, four in the third, eight in the fourth and so on doubling the amount with each square?
Part 2: 'Here lies Diophantus,' the wonder behold. Through art algebraic, the stone tells how old: 'God gave him his boyhood one-sixth of his life, One twelfth more as youth while whiskers grew rife; And then yet one-seventh ere marriage begun; In five years there came a bouncing new son. Alas, the dear child of master and sage After attaining half the measure of his father's life chill fate took him. After consoling his fate by the science of numbers for four years, he ended his life.' How long did he live?
Part 3: A rabbit puzzle: A rabbit falls into a dry well, thirty meters deep. Since being at the bottom of a well was not her original plan, she decides to climb out. When she attempts to do so she finds that after going up three meters (and this is the sad part) she slips back two. Frustrated, she shops where she is for that day and resumes her efforts the following morning—with the same result. How many days does it take her to get out of the well?
To get the clues to this spectacular box, you must provide me with all three answers. Can you do it?
Here is one of the clues to a letterbox series I did with my friend Maiden. She carved the stamps and I did the clues. So, can anyone answer the following questions:
Part 1: How many pennies are needed if they are placed on a chessboard as follows: One penny in the first square, two in the second, four in the third, eight in the fourth and so on doubling the amount with each square?
Part 2: 'Here lies Diophantus,' the wonder behold. Through art algebraic, the stone tells how old: 'God gave him his boyhood one-sixth of his life, One twelfth more as youth while whiskers grew rife; And then yet one-seventh ere marriage begun; In five years there came a bouncing new son. Alas, the dear child of master and sage After attaining half the measure of his father's life chill fate took him. After consoling his fate by the science of numbers for four years, he ended his life.' How long did he live?
Part 3: A rabbit puzzle: A rabbit falls into a dry well, thirty meters deep. Since being at the bottom of a well was not her original plan, she decides to climb out. When she attempts to do so she finds that after going up three meters (and this is the sad part) she slips back two. Frustrated, she shops where she is for that day and resumes her efforts the following morning—with the same result. How many days does it take her to get out of the well?
To get the clues to this spectacular box, you must provide me with all three answers. Can you do it?
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Pet Update
Cleo lost her collar about a week ago. Greg thinks she teamed up with the dogs and got them to take it off and hide it somewhere. She runs around here in "stealth kitty" mode and is just loving it. I really need to go and get another collar for her. She is very sneaky without a bell.
Carmen hurt her foot somehow. I can't figure out what is wrong with it, when she chases the ball or Frisbee, she keeps coming up lame. She yelps and won't put weight on it. I just can't find anything wrong. No bumps or bruises, nothing noticably wrong, nothing feels hot or broken or torn that I can tell. Guess I'll have to take her to the vet and do a "toss test."
Sophie is fine.
End of update.
Carmen hurt her foot somehow. I can't figure out what is wrong with it, when she chases the ball or Frisbee, she keeps coming up lame. She yelps and won't put weight on it. I just can't find anything wrong. No bumps or bruises, nothing noticably wrong, nothing feels hot or broken or torn that I can tell. Guess I'll have to take her to the vet and do a "toss test."
Sophie is fine.
End of update.
The Explanation
Remember my post a week or so ago about the guy who went all crazy at Greg at the dog park? Well, I’m here to tell you the rest of the story today.
Yesterday afternoon Greg took the girls to the park. They always go to the big open area first so the girls can stretch their legs and then wander the trails looking for bunnies. It gives the girls a chance for a good run and Greg gets some exercise too. So after they got in to the park and were in the open off-leash area Greg came upon the crazy guy (Greg just told me his name was Charlie) and his dog (Buddah). Greg went over to talk to him about the “incident” not to start a fight or anything, but just to clear the air. "Are you the gentleman I ran into about a week ago?" he said. Charlie said, (I’m paraphrasing here, these aren’t his exact words), “Well, I wasn't any gentleman. I owe you an apology for acting like I did last week.” Talk about taking the wind right out of Greg’s sails! “How I acted was uncalled for, out of line and very rude. I totally over reacted, but I didn't know what happened until later. I’m deaf as a post and didn’t hear you ask me to grab my dog, I only heard you say ‘well don’t hurry or anything’ and thought you were just rudely trying to get us to hurry up to our cars to get out of your way so you could go down the sidewalk. I talked to my buddy about it later, and realized what you had really said and I felt bad that I had acted the way I did.”
Of course, Greg is totally taken aback by this, since in our experience people never seem to apologize for stuff. He said he didn’t even remember saying “well don’t hurry or anything” and I didn’t until he told me. So he says “Hey, I appreciate that. Both of my dogs have been attacked at this dog park and they feel very vunerable and are very defensive when they are on leash and around other dogs that aren’t. They were feeling threatened by your dog and protective of me and the car and I was just trying to stop a problem before it started.”
I guess Charlie apologized all over the place and they came away good buddies. Isn’t the world a crazy place? Here we thought this guy was totally wacked and it turned out he just misunderstood the situation. He told Greg to be sure and apologize to me for him, too.
I think my faith in people been restored just a tiny bit. It was nice of Charlie to apologize and clear the air. He could have just been a jerk about it and ignored us if we met up at the park, but he didn’t.
Yesterday afternoon Greg took the girls to the park. They always go to the big open area first so the girls can stretch their legs and then wander the trails looking for bunnies. It gives the girls a chance for a good run and Greg gets some exercise too. So after they got in to the park and were in the open off-leash area Greg came upon the crazy guy (Greg just told me his name was Charlie) and his dog (Buddah). Greg went over to talk to him about the “incident” not to start a fight or anything, but just to clear the air. "Are you the gentleman I ran into about a week ago?" he said. Charlie said, (I’m paraphrasing here, these aren’t his exact words), “Well, I wasn't any gentleman. I owe you an apology for acting like I did last week.” Talk about taking the wind right out of Greg’s sails! “How I acted was uncalled for, out of line and very rude. I totally over reacted, but I didn't know what happened until later. I’m deaf as a post and didn’t hear you ask me to grab my dog, I only heard you say ‘well don’t hurry or anything’ and thought you were just rudely trying to get us to hurry up to our cars to get out of your way so you could go down the sidewalk. I talked to my buddy about it later, and realized what you had really said and I felt bad that I had acted the way I did.”
Of course, Greg is totally taken aback by this, since in our experience people never seem to apologize for stuff. He said he didn’t even remember saying “well don’t hurry or anything” and I didn’t until he told me. So he says “Hey, I appreciate that. Both of my dogs have been attacked at this dog park and they feel very vunerable and are very defensive when they are on leash and around other dogs that aren’t. They were feeling threatened by your dog and protective of me and the car and I was just trying to stop a problem before it started.”
I guess Charlie apologized all over the place and they came away good buddies. Isn’t the world a crazy place? Here we thought this guy was totally wacked and it turned out he just misunderstood the situation. He told Greg to be sure and apologize to me for him, too.
I think my faith in people been restored just a tiny bit. It was nice of Charlie to apologize and clear the air. He could have just been a jerk about it and ignored us if we met up at the park, but he didn’t.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
We Did Something Fun!
We finally got out of the house on Sunday and did something fun. I know, it’s amazing isn’t it? We did something fun together! We put the dogs in the car and drove up to the north side of Mt. St. Helens. We visited the south side a few years ago and were amazed at how desolate it looked . We chose to go to the north side this time since neither of us had ever visited the visitor’s center or the observatories. It was a really nice drive and some of the views were just breathtaking. It’s amazing how different things look from the other side of the mountain. Since the mountain blew on the north side, nothing in the blast zone survived. It was all washed away in the mudslide and everything else that gushed down the mountain and into the Toutle River. On the south side, it just got the blast part, so there are millions of logs laying on the ground like toothpicks. The Forest Service didn’t replant anything in the blast zone area, but the majority of the land from I-5 about to the edge of the blast zone is owned by Weyerhaeuser. They lost a lot of logging camps, equipment, and trees in the eruption, and had to take out a bazillion dead logs. In 1981 they started replanting millions of little baby trees, so there are all these new trees on the drive up. None of them are older than 25 years, so huge stands of young trees are all about the same size. As we were driving along we’d come to these whole hillsides of these Nobel Firs that are all about the same size. It was a really bizarre sight, because it looks like one of those 3D pictures that you have to squint and cross your eyes to see.
The observatories were nice. Greg said it was amazing how much money could be generated from a natural disaster, as all the observatories had gift shops that sold the usual gift shoppy type things. Happily for me, that included a penny machine in all but one place! So I came home with 12 new Mt. St. Helens smashed pennies. I had to fend off a couple of little kids to get to the machines, though.
Greg got some terrific pictures, which I include here for your viewing pleasure.
This is the bridge at the very edge of the "Blast Zone" (sounds like a ride at Disneyland, doesn't it?).
The land heading up to the mountain. Isn't it amazing how bare it looks?
The view from Johnson Ridge Observatory. The mountain is about 5 miles away from us here.
Old St. Helens put on a little show for us while we were there. This is the lava dome, and yes, that is steam coming out of it. She doesn't like us to forget she's an active volcano!
A lovely over-all view.
These are the 3-D trees. You can kind of get the effect in the picture. Weird, huh?
Okay, I have to go listen to the B52's now. Somehow I have "Hot Lava" stuck in my head. Wonder why?
The observatories were nice. Greg said it was amazing how much money could be generated from a natural disaster, as all the observatories had gift shops that sold the usual gift shoppy type things. Happily for me, that included a penny machine in all but one place! So I came home with 12 new Mt. St. Helens smashed pennies. I had to fend off a couple of little kids to get to the machines, though.
Greg got some terrific pictures, which I include here for your viewing pleasure.
This is the bridge at the very edge of the "Blast Zone" (sounds like a ride at Disneyland, doesn't it?).
The land heading up to the mountain. Isn't it amazing how bare it looks?
The view from Johnson Ridge Observatory. The mountain is about 5 miles away from us here.
Old St. Helens put on a little show for us while we were there. This is the lava dome, and yes, that is steam coming out of it. She doesn't like us to forget she's an active volcano!
A lovely over-all view.
These are the 3-D trees. You can kind of get the effect in the picture. Weird, huh?
Okay, I have to go listen to the B52's now. Somehow I have "Hot Lava" stuck in my head. Wonder why?
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Letterboxing
You will notice that I have taken the main letterboxing site (www.letterboxing.org) link off my page here. No, I have not decided to give up my favorite hobby. I just took it off temporarily because the site isn't working. Apparently they get too many hits on this site now and the server they are using can't handle it. So the webmasters have had to take the site down. I think they are searching for a new host or something. The new site will be linked here as soon as it is back up and running.
There have been many unhappy letterboxers out there the past couple of days, let me tell you! We can't get our clues that will take us to our "fix" for our addiction! It's terrible!
I have replaced the link with Cute Overload, which is a great website that puts up very cute pictures. It's a nice change from the bad news that's everywhere else on the web.
There have been many unhappy letterboxers out there the past couple of days, let me tell you! We can't get our clues that will take us to our "fix" for our addiction! It's terrible!
I have replaced the link with Cute Overload, which is a great website that puts up very cute pictures. It's a nice change from the bad news that's everywhere else on the web.
Too Much Coffee??
We took the dogs to the park today and had the weirdest encounter with a guy there. We had just gotten out of the car and were leashing up the girls, when these two guys were walking towards with their dogs to their cars that were parked in front of ours. These guys were both probably in their late 50s, early 60s. One guy had a Rotteweiler on a leash, and the other one had a Boxer that was leashed, but the guy had dropped the leash and was letting the dog walk about 15 feet in front of him. The Boxer was coming towards us with his head down and ears back and wasn't looking at all friendly (I learned a lot about dog body language in Sophie's class last month, ya know, and this was not friendly dog language). Greg had both the girls on leash by now and they were barking and pulling while he was trying to back away from this dog. I walked ahead and tried to distract the dog, but had no luck. I was just about to say something when Greg said "Hey! Can you get your dog?" This old guy went ballistic on him. He got right up in Greg's face and said "What's your f-ing problem?" Greg said "Your dog is coming at my dogs." And this guy just flipped. "My dog won't hurt your dogs, he's not doing anything!" He yelled.
Greg was just gaping at this guy who had gone from stress level 1 to 10 in an instant and said "Well, they don't know that! They are on a leash and he isn't." And they guy said something else nasty. Greg said, "Don't start something you aren't going to finish." This guy, who wasn't much taller than me goes right up to Greg and says something like "I'm going to finish anything I start!" Greg took a step towards him, and the guy picked up his dog's leash and loaded it in the car.
We just gaped at him. It was so weird. What a stupid thing to freak out about. Usually we try to keep the girls away from other dogs when they are on leash and the other dogs aren't. Dogs just react differently when meeting another dog on a leash than when they are off, and a dog on leash with a dog off leash showing signs of being unfriendly is never a good combination. Besides, Sophie can be quite snotty to dogs when she's on leash, especially when she is resource guarding her car. The weirdo guy didn't even think that MY dogs might have been the problem, not his.
Anyway, it was just weird. You can't even go to the dog park without meeting weirdos anymore. I don't know what the guys problem was, but I think he needs to cut back on the coffee.
Greg was just gaping at this guy who had gone from stress level 1 to 10 in an instant and said "Well, they don't know that! They are on a leash and he isn't." And they guy said something else nasty. Greg said, "Don't start something you aren't going to finish." This guy, who wasn't much taller than me goes right up to Greg and says something like "I'm going to finish anything I start!" Greg took a step towards him, and the guy picked up his dog's leash and loaded it in the car.
We just gaped at him. It was so weird. What a stupid thing to freak out about. Usually we try to keep the girls away from other dogs when they are on leash and the other dogs aren't. Dogs just react differently when meeting another dog on a leash than when they are off, and a dog on leash with a dog off leash showing signs of being unfriendly is never a good combination. Besides, Sophie can be quite snotty to dogs when she's on leash, especially when she is resource guarding her car. The weirdo guy didn't even think that MY dogs might have been the problem, not his.
Anyway, it was just weird. You can't even go to the dog park without meeting weirdos anymore. I don't know what the guys problem was, but I think he needs to cut back on the coffee.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Cuuute!
Look! Whippet puppies! Aren't they cuuute?
These are the newest Dreams Whippets puppies. There are 5 boys and 2 girls.
They are related to both my girls, but I'm not clear how. Let's see. Mom is Jazz (Dreams She Got The Jazz). Her dad is Eddy (Ringdove Black Adder) and her Mom is Breeze (Summer Breeze Mirage). Eddy is Sophie's grandpa. Breeze is Sophie's Mom's littermate. What happens when your grandpa and your aunt have kids? Okay, that's just weird. Factor in that I think Eddy is dead, things get even weirder. So that makes these puppies, um, second cousins?
Dad is Buster (Dreams Bustin Loose). His dad is Rusty (O'ochigea's Vitalis) and Mom is Crystal (Winsome Crystal Blue). Crystal is Carmen's mom, so that makes her and Buster half-siblings. So I guess these puppies are cousins to her, too. Luckily, Rusty's lineage is not represented in my girls's line, so we don't have to figure that one out!
Consanguinity is weird, isn't it? I even had a chart and I couldn't figure it out.
Okay, now that I've brought out the big words, my work here is done.
Kris out.
These are the newest Dreams Whippets puppies. There are 5 boys and 2 girls.
They are related to both my girls, but I'm not clear how. Let's see. Mom is Jazz (Dreams She Got The Jazz). Her dad is Eddy (Ringdove Black Adder) and her Mom is Breeze (Summer Breeze Mirage). Eddy is Sophie's grandpa. Breeze is Sophie's Mom's littermate. What happens when your grandpa and your aunt have kids? Okay, that's just weird. Factor in that I think Eddy is dead, things get even weirder. So that makes these puppies, um, second cousins?
Dad is Buster (Dreams Bustin Loose). His dad is Rusty (O'ochigea's Vitalis) and Mom is Crystal (Winsome Crystal Blue). Crystal is Carmen's mom, so that makes her and Buster half-siblings. So I guess these puppies are cousins to her, too. Luckily, Rusty's lineage is not represented in my girls's line, so we don't have to figure that one out!
Consanguinity is weird, isn't it? I even had a chart and I couldn't figure it out.
Okay, now that I've brought out the big words, my work here is done.
Kris out.
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