Today I (with the help of my father) picked up 200 feet of R-19 insulation and four sheets of 15/32" 4x8 plywood. The insulation is for the rooms I'm finishing, to keep the sound from upstairs traveling down through the floor. The plywood is for the ceiling in the library—since I'm hanging brass tile from the ceiling it needs a solid backing, which means no gypsum.
Oh yeah, and I left work early to play 18 holes of golf. With two cow-orkers, Luke and Brian. It was a very nice day, and my golf game sucks. But still, a bad day at golf beats any day in the office…
You should read this review on Amazon. It's full of awesomeness. Here are some highlights:
"Spiers's eyes popped extraneously from their sockets, as his face turned from a deep red to a sickly purple."
"The lamp's glow was very weak compared to the blue glow emancipating from the basement."
"It infiltrated his lungs, filling them with a kind of innovativeness he had never felt before."
"Of all the things to think, he never thought he'd think that."
"Already, he knew he wouldn't be able to do it. In fact, he KNEW he wouldn't."
Cinematic Titanic is releasing their new movie tomorrow. For now, we'll have to be happy with this:
Before It Conquered the World, Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed a short film called Snow Thrills. Full the the brim with yesteryear banter, this film was borderline nauseous. The best part was when they introduce a fast-growing popular sport called skiing, pronounced shee-ing. This part starts around 4:17. Go see it, it's really funny.
Last night I watched Earth vs. the Spider with my wife. It was preceded by a short sales training film about speaking clearly, which was probably funnier than the movie itself. Be heard. Be understood. Be pleasing. Heh heh.
This movie should have been called A Very Small Town vs the Spider. There was no Earth involved. Actually, it really should have been called Two Teenagers, Their Borrowed Car, a High School Teacher, a Sheriff, Two Deputies, and a Small Deputized Posse vs the Spider. Yeah, I think that about sums it up.
There were some pretty funny jokes in it. And a truck full of DDT that only "stunned" the spider. It was amusing when the people opted not to try DDT again, because it only stunned the spider and didn't kill it. Well, the spider was nearly comatose for hours! Had they used DDT again they could have killed it at their leisure once it was "stunned" again.
One of the best parts of this movie is how the teenager treats his girlfriend. When she calls to ask him if he'll take her to the cave (where the spider came from) to retrieve the gift she dropped there the first time they encountered the spider, the boy tells her he doesn't want to go because there's a new puppet movie that looks really great and he hasn't seen it yet.
I rate this movie 36 empty seats, one for each year that DDT has been banned (1972) for most uses in the United States.
Today as Lorien and I were buying some new tank buddies for Steve, our goldfish, the lady at the fish section told us to hold the bag up high when we walked out of the store, because the tall pylons you walk by that sense stolen goods send out an electrical field that shocks the fish.
WTF? On our way out, I told Lorien I bet the have a security camera pointed on the entrance just to watch for people holding up their fish purchases so they can have a good laugh.
Our Oscar died this morning. He was looking pretty sick for a while, and wasn't eating much. He was the meanest, most ill-tempered, grumpiest fish I've ever known. We're honestly happy about this, as it means we can get other colorful fish and add them to the tank now. Oscar would eat anything that would fit in his mouth, and only his tank-buddy Steve Hawking (the world's smartest goldfish) was able to coexist with Oscar and not be dinner. He did this for several years. He's quite a clever goldfish.
We are going to get some new tank buddies for Steve, and may even get a plant or two.
I watched Fugitive Alien this morning before I went to work. For some reason, the DAP release didn't play in my DVD player, but played fine in my laptop.
Anyway, Fugitive Alien is a movie spliced together out of a Japanese TV show. It's about outer space, but there are no giant monsters. At least not yet. And it's a bumpy ride in, let me tell you. First, a group of evil "wolf raiders" are pillaging Earth. When ordered to kill a young boy named Ken, the main character (also named Ken) has a fit of conscience and stops his partner from killing the boy. Unfortunately, the partner dies accidentally. This puts Ken (the wolf raider Ken, not the boy Ken) on the run from his superiors, who now want him dead.
Ken (again, the raider Ken—the boy Ken ends up dying anyway) hijacks a space ship and flies away, but gets blasted by a weird smelling cloud (don't ask) and he spaces himself so he doesn't blow up with the ship. He is picked up by an Earth space ship that doesn't realize he's a raider. They take Ken back to Earth, where he escapes their care and tries to hijack another space ship to leave Earth. At this point I have no idea where Ken is going, and I have my doubts whether he does either.
The captain of the Earth space ship (who's wife and son Ken—yes, that Ken—were both killed in the raid ) shanghais Ken into being one of his crew. They take off to some other planet to defend the natives against the Wolf Raiders, Ken gets captured because he can't follow orders, but then escapes and rescues an imprisoned soldier and brings him back to the space ship. Ken's love interest, who happened to be his partner's sister, is sent to kill Ken because of what he's done, but ultimately she can't follow through with the order and dies in an ambush. They escape the planet and the movie ends with a great big To Be Continued. Great…
I rate this movie three empty seats one for each friend or relative of a main character that dies on screen.
I recently watched Gamera vs. Guiron, another classic Japanese monster movie. When a young boy, his friend, and his sister spot a UFO with their telescope land near a river, they set out to find it. When they do, and board it (against their sister's wishes), they play around hitting buttons and it takes off, leaving the sister behind. When the UFO (which was, apparently, unmanned) leaves Earth, Gamera shows up to try to rescue the two boys.
Alas, the UFO is too fast for Gamera's rocket-powered turtle shell, and quickly outdistances Gamera. They land on a planet in Earth's orbit, but opposite the sun. Sound familiar? Anyway, this planet is dying, and there are only two strangely-dressed women left on it. Well, them and some giant monsters. Gaos makes an unexplained return from the volcanic lava that Gamera threw him in to in Gamera vs. Gaos, but is quickly and brutally diced up by Guiron, the monster "controlled" by the two women.
The women are cannibals, and shave one of the boys' head trying to eat his brain or something, but Gamera shows up and they decide to beat feet instead, taking off in the UFO the boys arrived in. Unfortunately for them, Guiron has gotten out of their control, and uses his giant knife-shaped head to cut the UFO in half whilst in midair and they die.
Gamera and Guiron go at it, Guiron almost wins with the ninja stars he shoots out of his face, but Gamera triumphs in the end (as usual), puts the two halves of the UFO back together, the boys board it, and Gamera carries it back to Earth in his mouth.
I rate this movie one planet worth of empty seats, one for each of the people that died on the planet opposite Earth's orbit that seems to be so common in Scifi movies.
PS Did I mention Cornjob? There's a bumbling police officer in this movie whose name sounds like Cornjob. Weird.
I just finished watching It Conquered the World, a hideous film about a man that hears a voice over the radio, a voice belonging to a superior being on Venus that wants to take over the Earth for some unknown reason. The man gives the alien information, and it somehow boards a satellite orbiting Earth and rides it down the the surface, where it begins sending out bat-like drones that sting people in the neck and take over their minds.
Really, I'm not making this up.
The man later realizes his folly and atones for his betrayal of the human race by helping to destroy the alien. I rate this movie eight empty seats, one for each of the drones.
I finished The Amazing Colossal Man, another in the long line of MST3K shows. This movie is about an army man that is burned in a plutonium blast when he tries to save a downed pilot from certain death. He lives through the blast, and doctors bandage him up only to find him completely free of scarring the very next day. His fiancée shows up, demanding to see him, only to be scared witless at his rapid growth.
He begins growing several feet per day, and quickly outgrows the hospital and military base, so they bring in a circus tent for him to live in. He keeps growing and growing, and getting progressively crazier every day. He finally cracks, jumps ship, and wanders through the Nevada desert. He goes on a rampage through Las Vegas. Scientists come up with a cure for his growth (and we get to see really cheesy shrunken animals, an elephant and a camel), but they can't inject him in time.
I rate this movie two empty seats, one for each of the writers that should have been in the plane from the beginning.
Yesterday I watched Gamera vs. Gaos, episode 8 of season 3 of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
It was your typical Japanese giant monster movie, with a sub-plot of a small village fighting a new road going in so they could make more money from the sale of their land. A little boy, as is typical with Japanese movies, is one of the main characters and once again befriends the giant turtle Gamera. The boy's name is Itchy—or maybe Ichi. Gaos has a big flat head, shoots monster-cutting laser from his mouth, and spews fire extinguishing material from its armpits. This sucks, because Gamera breathes fire much like Godzilla.
Fortunately, Gaos hates sunlight, so the Japanese scientists make a giant merry-go-round to trap Gaos and spin it around so Gaos' balance is off and can't escape the oncoming sun. Amazingly, this plan fails, and Gamera comes to save the day.
We get to see Gamera do a new trick with the flames he shoots out his shell-holes. Typically, Gamera retracts his feet and head and jets of flame come out the holes, spinning him around and (somehow) propelling him through the air. At one point, while fighting Gaos, Gamera only does this with his back feet, opting to attack with his head and fore-feet, using the rear thrusters accelerate.
Full of lots of cheesy giant monster antics, this movie wasn't one of the worst that MST3K does. I'd watch it again, so I rate it one giant, spinning empty seat.
I got suckered in to coming to downtown Coeur d'Alene today to fix my in-laws' wireless router. As you can see, there's nothing wrong with it, as I'm connected to it right now. Today is Car d'Lane, the big classic car show. Therefore, there isn't a parking spot to be had anywhere downtown—including my in-laws' business lot for "guests only." I wish.
The temperature finally crested 70°F today, it seems like forever since we've had a warm day like this. Except for one odd heat wave real early this year, it's been quite cool. We've had rain for the last two weeks almost. I even had to turn the furnace back on!
This morning a neighbor's dog woke me up with its incessant barking at about 7:30am. Now, I'm usually up by this time, but it is a Saturday, and it would have been nice to sleep in. But since I was up, I decided I should go out and mow the lawn. I spent the earliest part (I didn't start until about 8:45) by the fence nearest that neighbor, just in case they were able to sleep in with their damn dog barking every two seconds for the entire morning.
It took about two hours to mow everything, and now I feel like I'm going to die from all the pollen I've been exposed to. It's been the curse of my life to have bad hay fever.
But at least the lawn's done. Until next week, anyway.