Continuing the review series, I just finished watching The Mad Monster.
But first! More Commando Cody and the Radar Men from the Moon. Great Cthulhu's nose tentacles this is a horrible series, perfect for Joel and the bots. In this continuing story, we see that Commando Cody wasn't disintegrated by the evil Moon Man leader's atomic ray gun because he jumped behind a piece of furniture just before it was disintegrated instead—phew, that was a close one!
In this second installment, Commando Cody escapes back to the rocket, then recruits help to go steal the tripod-mounted atomic ray gun from the Moon Men. Commando Cody introduces Nitrous Oxide into the ventilation duct of the Moon Man base, which makes them fall asleep, except for the leader, who dons an oxygen mask under a table and uses it to revive a henchman. While Commando Cody is disassembling and stealing the ray gun, they attack him. Another fistfight ensues, Commander Cody escapes with the ray gun, and his lackey helps him carry it back to the rocket ship. But wait! The Moon Men have a car (sort of) that they chase Commando Cody with. He ducks into a moon cave, and the Moon men use their ray gun on continuous heat mode to melt the rock around the tunnel. The molten rock flows into the tunnel and Commando Cody and his ray-gun-stealing partner-in-crime leave their ill-gotten ray gun behind as they run from the flowing, molten rock. The episode ends there, stay tuned for the next review!
Okay, on to the movie. The Mad Monster is about an evil scientist who distills something from the blood of a wolf and injects it into his retarded gardener. The gardener (named Petro, but I thought they were calling him "Pedro" and was wondering why because he didn't look very Latin) turns into a werewolf (that somehow manages to keep his sport coat buttoned the entire time and kills a little girl out in the swamp surrounding the scientist's house. One of the earliest scenes shows the scientist talking to ghostly peers at an empty table. I guess they were trying to convey how crazy the scientist was, but it was a strange scene. In a misbegotten attempt to prove to his peers he isn't crazy, he sics the werewolf on them in various ways so they know he succeeded just before they die at the hands of a slow werewolf. In the end, of course, the experiment backfires and the scientist dies at the paws of his own creation, and they both burn up in the house as it burns down. Oh crap, sorry I just ruined the ending for you.
Honestly, though, I don't think it was as bad as The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy. It still stank, but more like wet dog…
I stole this pic from The Onion. It was funny and worth keeping around…
You may notice a theme here—I'm going through the first season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, what is perhaps my most favorite TV show of all time.
Last night I watched The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy, dubbed in English. This movie was way worse than The Crawling Eye, which I didn't think possible at the time I watched it.
Before the real movie started (it was quite short, 65 minutes), there was a "short film" entitled Commando Cody & the Radar Men from the Moon (Episode 1). Holy cow it was bad. "Commando Cody" is a scientist that dons a leather jacket over his suit and a jet backpack, and flies through the air like Superman—the old black and white Superman they used to play on Sunday mornings when I was a kid. He does the stomp-jump almost the same way, too.
Anyway, things (buildings, powerplants, trains, etc) are exploding and the government sends scientists to the moon to fight the moon men who are using their Lunarium-powered (a mystery element found only on the moon) atomic ray guns to attack Earth, to soften it up for their impending invasion.
Commando Cody also has a seriously stupid-looking helmet that looks like three holes punched out of a trash can. But I digress. The scientists take off to the moon with a woman they try to leave behind, but she insists they'll want her along for her cooking abilities—gaaahhh! Definitely some choice pre-women's lib dialog going on there.
There are tons of fistfights, arguments settled old-school style with broken furniture and really bad acting. Commando Cody flies around on the moon just like he does on Earth, because apparently their atmosphere is just as good as ours (and gravity, too). Commando Cody dukes it out with the moonmen, who continue to blast things with their atomic-lunarium-powered ray guns.
I dread part two, but it's like watching a train wreck (it has those, too), you just have to keep watching to make sure it can't get any worse, yet it still manages to outdo itself.
Okay, on to The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy. First off, you hear this 45-minute long recap of what happened five years ago, filling in back-story about the Aztec mummy and how Flora was hypnotized and revealed that in a former life she was sacrificed in an Aztec ritual. To prove that hypnotism and past lives weren't a hoax, the doctor sets out to find the location of the sacrifice and retrieve the golden breastplate and bracelet she talked about. He finds them, and falls under the curse of the Aztec Mummy, Flora's past-life lover cursed to protect the treasure forever.
No mention of any robot whatsoever until about the last 12 minutes of the movie, where we find another doctor, the evil "The Bat", has built an invincible human robot to defeat the mummy so he can steal the treasure for himself. This human robot is obviously a man in a metal box—his helmet shows just the face, though. Anyway, the Aztec Mummy kicks the robots ass, Flora gives the treasures back to the Mummy she loved and that was the end. This film sucks so bad it distorts nearby gravity.
Holy cow this movie was one of three in a series. Who funded this crap?? Who paid good post-depression money to watch it?
Last night Lorien and I braved the 20°F weather to get tickets to see The Bucket List. It's about two guys that find out they don't have a lot of time left to live and go out and do things they never had the chance to do before. It was full of humor and heartwarming friendship, broken and repaired relationships, etc and had a good ending. It's rated PG-13 and has some language.
My favorite character was probably "Thomas", or Tommy. He was billed that way in the credits, but he said his name really was Matthew, but Jack Nicholson's character thought it was too biblical, so he just called him Tommy. That cracked me up.
I watched The Crawling Eye (US title) this morning. More accurately, I watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version (season 1, episode 1!). It stank.
The IMDB entry says it's 84 minutes long in Germany, 82 minutes here. I think that has something to do with metric-to-imperial conversion or something.
Anyway, the sound was positively horrid—half the time I couldn't even understand the dialog. But I was also playing it real quiet because my wife was still asleep. But this movie would have sucked in silence anyway. It's about an alien race of giant frozen eyeballs that alternately possess or decapitate people. Oh, and they have tentacles. The Eyeballs, not the people.
Chock full of cable-car trips up and down a mountain and an observatory with no telescope, this movie was truly terrible. No wonder MST3K did it.
Yay! Macbook vs Commodore!
Macbook FTW!
</sarcasm>
Why the Sam Hill are 90% of business projects running at 1024x768 native resolution?
What laptop, made in the last 5 years, uses that kind of resolution? What application (barring PowerPoint) runs well at 1024x768??
WTF????
I just ran across a link to TechShop. It's a place with all the machinery you'd ever want to use for cool projects. A membership isn't terribly expensive considering what you get access to, and they have classes to teach you welding, CNC machinery, metal lathing, etc. They're building one in Portland that I'll certainly be looking to visit each time I go.
Not only did I get my new camera, I just got an advanced copy of The Journal of Curious Letters (The 13th Reality) by James Dashner. Can't argue with free books!
I'll add a review soon. Thanks LibraryThing!
Now that I have my new camera, I can take pictures again. Well, I only needed a new lens, but the difference in price wasn't that much. Anyway, today they aren't doing much work on the new courthouse (probably due to the cold). Here's a photo of what's been going on lately (click for larger 6Mb jpg):
Remember that post about a new camera? It's here!
Click for larger (6Mb) image:
And this is just a sloppy, quick shot. I can't wait to get some real pictures!
My wife's car was frozen solid this morning, the engine wouldn't turn over, even with jumper cables hooked up to it. It was a carsicle. The outside temperature was 1°F and her car hadn't run much in almost two weeks. I started it once while she was gone, but I probably should have run it every day considering how cold its been getting lately.
Lorien's parents get back today from Houston. They've been there for nearly two weeks. She's been watching their B&B while they were gone, and hasn't been home at all. I'm glad she's going to be home finally.
It's been dumping snow for the last two hours. The news says the temperature will continue to drop, by Tuesday it may hit 1° F. Brrrr.
You can't believe everything you read on Wikipedia (it's fixed now). For example:
Physically, Canada is similar in appearance to the Moon as it is heavily cratered. It has no natural satellites and no substantial atmosphere.
Heh, no substantial atmosphere.