All posts by rbowen

Lord of the Rings, Warner Brothers edition

I meant to mention – I checked out the old Warner Bros LotR movie from the public library and watched it earlier this week. It was truly dreadful. The animation was terrible. The story telling was terrible. Everything was terrible. I’m amazed that they bothered to make a DVD of it. I’d have thought that they would rather the entire embarrassing thing be forgotten forever.

It was animated, but apparently they had taken live footage and animated on top of it for some of the scenes. This did not work particularly well.

It’s hard to express how utterly terrible it was. Just awful. Think bad saturday morning cartoons, but without the relief of cereal commercials.

That’s NOT funny any more

I’m trying to teach my daughter that humor tends not to enjoy an economy of scale. Which is to say that a funny line from a movie will tend not to be funny the 112th time it is repeated in any given 5 minute period.

Paraguay

Yesterday, when I came out of Walmart, there were two ladies peering at Rocinante, which now has a Paraguay license plate on it, given to me by my brother. They were getting into an ancient, beat-up Jeep Cherokee parked right next to me. When I got to the Jeep, they asked where Paraguay was. After I described where it is, one of the ladies said, “Can you drive there from here?” Initially, I assumed that she was asking if I had driven from there, and that was why I had the license plate. However, after I told her that you can, indeed, drive there from here, a funny thing happened. The other lady started trying to talk her out of it, as though this was the sort of thing that had happened before. There’s got to be a fascinating story in there somewhere, and I wish I had had more time to stay and chat.

Ghost Rider, again

Finally had a chance to pick up where I left off in Ghost Rider, over another finally: I’m finally starting to make good meals again. Having largely lost interest in cooking, it’s starting to come back. This is a very good thing, as I love eating, and I love cooking. Anyways …

So I’m having this back-and-forth regarding Neil Peart. I can’t decide whether he’s what *I* would be if I was absurdly wealthy, or whether he’s a spoiled rich kid with the chance to ignore reality. Perhaps those are the same thing. I’m not sure. Perhaps some day I’ll have the chance to find out. I should be so lucky.

So, over barbeque chicken and zin, I read the following:

… More reasons to treasure the memories of [important period in his life. Read the book. Not relevant for my ruminations.] I keep saying we were “spoiled,” but I guess that’s only so if you consider it being spoiled to have, like, a good life. Not hardly.

Is it such a bad thing to want to be happy? Hell, no. Everyone deserves to have their life not suck. But, unfortunately, so few people seem to achieve that. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” quoth Thoreau. And I used to think, geez, that must suck for them. Yet, here I am, quietly desperate.

Oh, and I wanted to make note of another thing that Peart said, because it made a lot of sense to me, particularly in light of my recent forray into fiction writing.

Millions of thoughts spin out, all connected, like a tape unreeling, then as soon as I stop, all gone. Snap.

He’s talking about how, as he’s hiking, he’s writing the great book of his life. And then, somehow, when it comes to actually writing it, nothing happens. Yeah. That’s how it is. And so, alas, I’m stuck writing technical books, rather than the great stories that come to me as I hike, drive, or sleep, only to vanish when I sit down at the screen.

Well, I expect I could ramble more, but I’m not sure how long gnat is going to put up with my lateness. (Oh, on a very cool related note, Morbus apparently put a note in his new book, something like “Thanks to Ken and Rich for making me feel better. At least I’m not as late as you!”. You suck, Morbus.)

Please note, if you understood any of the above, you are very scary person, and should seek professional help.

Bogle 2K1 Zin

Obviously I’m either rembembering wrong, or Bogle has seriously remade themselves. I remember the Bogle Zin as being flat, kinda sweet, perhaps a little smoky – in a bad way, not a nice way. But this is pretty good. Not wonderful, understand, but pretty darned good for a $12 zin anyways.

It’s kinda fragile, and after a little air it starts to develop some bitterness. Which is kinda weird for a zin this young, I would think. But right after I opened it, there were some good tanins, and good peppery zin flavors. Perhaps I’ll say more after having some with dinner.

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OK, more comments.

With a simple chicken barbeque, which is where Zin really shines, imho. Peppery. Tannic (just enough). Pepper. Chocolate. Tobacco. And that strange “road dust” aroma that’s in a really good Zin. Geez, why is this just $12? Probably have more of this tomorrow night. Had just a tad too much of it right now.

Frustration upon frustration

11.5 hour work day just ending, and almost nothing to show for it. Went to $customer office to set up printers. Discovered that they had purchased a print server device that was incompatible with the printers that they had purchased, even though both units were from a certain unnamed large printer manufacturer located in LEXington Kentucky. Felt like a complete incompetent by the end of it all. I’m not sure I care for being sent on these fool’s erands for which I am completely unprepared. It’s embarassing, depressing, and expensive. However, I did hit a geocache on the way home, so the day wasn’t a complete loss.

Floods of spam

Apparently spamd died some time over the weekend. This morning, I had 1012 email messages, and perhaps 10 of them were ones I actually wanted to read. It’s hard for me to imagine that this is the email experience that most people have. It’s no wonder people hate email.

Fishfood

I wrote a short story yesterday. I was driving along, and noticed one of those crosses on the side of the road with a name and a message on it, and found myself wondering what they were talking about, or thinking, in those last seconds. Suddenly, this story sprang fully formed into my mind. This happens every once in a while, and I never write them down, and they they are gone like the visitor from Poorlock. So, I know it’s kinda schmaltzy, but, perhaps Bradbury’s admonition that we write something every day, no matter how trite it seems at the time, is worth following after all.

So, yeah, I know it’s not very good, but here it is.

I while back I read a book of short short stories – they were supposed to be 50 words or less, I seem to recall – and I like the style. Say as little as possible. Leave the reader to figure out what the story is about. If you have to explain something, you probably need to rewrite rather then explain. It is better to imply than to say. I’m not good at this, but one has to start somewhere.