Day 17 (a future history)

Monday, February 5, 2018

Christ on a cracker! They made us watch stupid Trump and his stupid special TV broadcast at school today! We had to do it as a big assembly in the auditorium on a big projection screen. AND WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO IT EVERY SINGLE DAY! EVERY DAY!

No, I mean it. Every day. Even on the weekends. It’s mandatory for everyone so they can tell us how the war is going. Or something.

Is this what a war is? I want to say that it doesn’t feel like a war, but how would I know what a war feels like? Whatever it is, it certainly doesn’t feel normal. Life feels weird now. All of it.

We eat almost the same thing every day now.

There’s no TV.

There’s no Internet.

People are disappearing from school.

Everyone is going to be issued a special ID status card.

Oh, yeah, the cards. They’re going to make us carry ID cards that we have to use to check into the daily broadcasts. And we won’t be able to buy anything without them. Or go anywhere very far. They’re going to check the stupid cards for everything!

Maybe it does feel like a war. Just without any fighting. At least any fighting here. Trump said there is fighting in New York. With the Chinese. And THAT doesn’t make any sense. Why would the Chinese be in New York? Wouldn’t they be in California or something? But he said we’re fighting the Chinese in the streets of New York.

He also said there are a lot of traitors in the military who are refusing to fight against their own people, and that doesn’t make any sense either. If it’s the Chinese and they invaded New York, why would the Army be refusing to fight? People at school are whispering about it really being a civil war, but no one is saying it out loud. The teachers won’t talk about it. My parents won’t talk about it other than that my dad says that’s crazy talk then goes off on a rant about the Chinese and their horrible commie propaganda.

But that’s the only thing that makes sense to me, and that’s the scariest thing of all.

Except for the Russians, because Trump has asked the Russians to help take and hold New York.

He just went on and on about how great our friends the Russians are especially after they helped us take over Syria. Or we helped them take over Syria, because Russia got Syria.

And now they’re gonna get New York. Because that’s what happens. Syria. Korea. Afghanistan. Russia “helps” us, then they get to have the country. I don’t want to be the United States of Russia!

If it is a civil war, then I understand the thing about going to California, now.  Or any of those places. They must be the places fighting against Trump.

I don’t understand why no one is talking about what’s going on and why none of the adults will talk about it. Except my dad. HE believes Trump. The idiot. He's made at Trump about the TV, but he still believes every word that comes out of his mouth.

But my mom just shushes me when I try to ask questions, and none of the teachers will talk about anything that’s happening.

Oh, the principal said they’re going to be bringing in special counsellors for any students who need to ask questions or have someone to talk to. I don’t know why they think I would want to go talk to someone I don’t even know, though.

If this is what war feels like, being scared all the time, I don’t like it.

Day 13

Thursday, February 1, 2018

I wrote a letter to my friend in Australia. On paper. With a pen. I need to know something about what’s happening in the world, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I walked to the post office after school with it – and that’s not close! – and just got a blank stare from the mailman. He looked like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it. Finally, I said, “I want to mail this.”

His expression didn’t change. He said, “Are you sure?” I said, “Of course, I’m sure.”

He said, “You know we’re not accepting any mail from outside the country, right?”

I think I probably stared blankly at him because I hadn’t known that. So I asked why not. He just shrugged, then, for a moment, he looked like he wanted to say something, then shrugged again. I said, “What does that mean?” And he answered that it meant that I could mail the letter and it might even get there but I wouldn’t get anything back even if my friend responded. I cussed.

We stared at each other for a while and his expression never changed. He looked bored. I stood there getting angry.

Finally, I took his pen, opened the envelope as carefully as I could, wrote a note at the end of the letter to my friend that he probably couldn’t write me back, asked for some tape and sealed the letter back up, and told the dude I wanted to mail the letter. He told me it would be $7.00.

$7.00! I think I cussed again. I’m not actually sure. I don’t remember what I said, only that I was SO angry. His expression changed, though, to shock. I didn’t have $7.00 with me. Since when did it cost $7.00 to mail a letter? To anywhere? I stormed out and tried to slam the door. I really wanted to slam the door, but it had one of those stupid hydraulic arms, and I couldn’t make it slam. I’m pretty sure I screamed.

Now I have this letter that’s worthless. If I’d had the $7.00 while I was there, I would have mailed it, but there’s hardly a point in making another special trip to mail a letter which might not ever arrive and from which I will get no response.

So I tried to sneak a long distance call, and that was worthless, too. After almost an hour, I got connected to the operator because I was trying to make something that wasn’t a local call and was told that only local calls could be direct dialed anymore; everything else had to go through an operator and approved before it could be made. Which explains why it took me so long to get through, because the operators are backlogged with calls. AND she told me we were going to be billed JUST because I talked to her. $12.00! Twelve fucking dollars so that the operator could tell me that I couldn’t make my call. My mom is going to kill me.

There are a lot of rumors at school. Almost everyone has their own rumor. Almost none of them have to do with China taking over any part of the United States, though some of them are that Russia has invaded New York. And a lot of people are saying that there is fighting in New York. A lot of it. With tanks and missiles and all of that. I don’t know if I believe it or not.

Some people are saying it’s because Russia invaded and the fighting is against the Russians.

But some people are saying that it’s New York fighting against Trump and the United States.

They’re saying it’s a civil war. A new civil war. And that’s why that thing from the Statue of Liberty is showing up everywhere.

It is, too.

There are new flyers on buildings everyday.

Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…

It makes me cry sometimes. I feel like I’m yearning to breathe free.

I hate it here.

It even showed up on TV yesterday. When the teacher was turning on the TV for Trump’s daily shitfest, she accidentally changed the channel… and there it was, just on the screen.

Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…

come to California

Oh, God, I want to go to California! Or Washington. Or even Oregon. Anywhere that is out of this hell of a place where I feel like I’m a flower without sun.

No one said anything when it was on the screen. It was like no one breathed. Four seconds… five… I don’t know. Long enough for me not to be the only one with tears in my eyes.

Then the teacher changed it back to the right channel and Trump was talking, and I did cry. Sobbed. I wasn’t even embarrassed because I wasn’t the only one. Shelly ran out of the room with her hands over her face.

That was the first time I realized how many kids are missing from my classes…

Mom is calling. Dinner, probably. Yea. More hamburger meat and baked potatoes. It will be the third day in a row.

Day Three

Monday, January 22, 2018

I got up for school and the internet was still not working.

Except that it was and, now, I know why everyone kept saying the internet itself was fine because now the internet is gone. Trump took it away. I thought I hated Trump before, but I really hate him now.

When I got up, I turned on my laptop to check. I figured it had to come back sometime and, really, I’ve been checking all the time all weekend so, of course, I checked. My google homepage said this:

Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

This message brought to you by the free states of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey

Even New Jersey.

I wondered who wrote it. It’s really pretty. I want to go to California. Even Washington.

Anyway, that’s what the internet said. Everywhere I checked, netflix, facebook, youtube, everywhere. That was on every page. Obviously, the internet was working even if that’s all that was there.

Then I had to go to school.

School was weird. The teachers tried to act like everything was normal, but there kept being questions about China. And about the poem on the internet. That’s where I found out that it was from the Statue of Liberty. I hadn’t known the statue said anything. I wanted to know why. Why did it say that, but I hate raising my hand to ask questions.

But Olivia’s hand shot right up – she ALWAYS asks questions, everyone hates her for it, which is why I hate asking questions – and she asked it, but the teacher wouldn’t answer. She just said we were in English class, not history, and we weren’t going to talk about that. So I thought it was a poem and we could talk about it because it was a poem, and I almost raised my hand because I really wanted to know, but Emma raised her hand and asked almost the same question and about who wrote it, but Mrs. Stick-up-her-butt still said no.

And that’s how it was all day. No one would answer the real questions we had. Like about the Statue of Liberty and about why California and Washington and New York would put something on the internet that said that and about whether we were in a war with China. Other than the trade war that everyone had been talking about for months and blaming China for why everything was costing so much.

After lunch, Trump came on TV. It was a live broadcast. He wanted everyone everywhere to watch it which made me wonder if my parents were being able to watch it, because the TV at home wouldn’t work because we didn’t have an antenna, and there were no TVs where my dad worked. But they heard it because it was on the radio, too.

And Trump said he turned off the internet.

He said we had to be protected from those rebellious states and thoughts and he couldn’t have them putting stuff like that on the internet because only he knew what was good for the United States and he wasn’t going to have that kind of stuff out there for people to see.

He said he would make a new internet and it would be beautiful. Then he talked about twitter. A lot. And he was mad that some people would ruin everything for everyone because they wouldn’t do what they were told. And that he was going to make a big, new, beautiful internet.

But, until then, we would all have to use our TVs so everyone should go buy antennas and he was going to make sure that there were plenty of TV antennas for everyone and it was going to make so many jobs.

So I was mad that my parents voted for Trump because he said awful things and did awful things, but my parents said I just didn’t understand but that I would when I got older and that he would be better as a president and I should just wait and see. But he hasn’t been better as a president; he’s been worse, and even they complain about the things he says and does all the time now.

AND NOW HE TURNED OFF THE INTERNET AND I HATE HIM!!!

Because when I got home, I found that instead of the blank screens I had been getting, I was getting that screen you get when the internet is down. The one with the little dinosaur that let’s you play that stupid game. And now there is no reason to check for the internet anymore, because I know that it’s gone.

At least until we get the internet that Trump says he’s going to build, but I expect that that is going to go about the same as the wall that he still is talking about but isn’t happening, either.

Dad spent all evening out trying to get an antenna for our TV, but no one has any. He said he might be able to make something out of a clothes hanger, and Mom spent an hour looking for one, including ransacking my closet. I told her I didn’t have any wires ones and that I would look, but she wouldn’t let me or even listen to me and shoved my stuff all around. It was rude, and, like I said, I didn’t have one. She couldn’t find one in the whole house, so we still don’t have any TV, either.

I feel depressed and don’t know what to do. There’s nothing to do. Except, I guess, read. Is that what people used to do before there was TV and the internet? I can’t even listen to music because Mom has the stupid news on the radio ALL the time, but all they do is say the same things over and over again without ever actually saying anything. THEY can’t even answer the question about whether we are in a war with China. Or what it means that that poem was in the internet and why those states said that.

Tomorrow, I guess, I need to go buy some books. Or go to the library. All I can find here are mom’s stupid romance things, and that’s not what I want to read about.

I want to go to California. I bet they have the internet.

The Woggle-Bug Book (a book review post)

The Woggle-Bug Book is not precisely part of the Oz books as it doesn't take place in Oz or really have anything to do with Oz other than the Woggle Bug. Actually, the book is adapted from the musical adaptation of the second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz. Well, loosely adapted. The Woggle Bug is a supporting character in Marvelous Land, but it sounds like much of the plot of the musical is related specifically to the Woggle Bug and his love for a dress, which is what the book is about except set in New York. Maybe. Some American city, at any rate.

So, yes, the book is about how the Woggle Bug falls in love with a dress. He sees it on a department store mannequin and is taken in by its colors, but he can't distinguish it from the person who is wearing it, so the whole plot revolves around him chasing after the various possessors of the dress. And smashing hats. The premise is, in all actuality, entirely amusing.

However, the execution is lacking, especially by today's standards, considering that the book is filled with racial caricatures. I'm sure those things were amusing in their time, but it was a time when Blackface was considered a high form of entertainment. Needless to say, by today's standards, the stereotypes are, at the least, insulting.

I don't really understand the need to set the book in the real world for any other reason than to include those characters. Baum still felt the need to have the Woggle Bug encounter a bunch of talking animals, so it seems to me the book would have worked just fine in Oz. Except that it was done as a child's picture book, not a novel, so, maybe, they thought the book would work better in a familiar setting. It was more than a century ago, so it's hard to say. It doesn't translate well to modern day, though, because of the racial issues.

However, that probably makes the book ripe for a modern interpretation because, as I said, the premise is really very funny and put the Woggle Bug's life in jeopardy on more than one occasion. I wouldn't suggest the original for more than die-hard Oz fans.

And, now, for something I've never done before: a review of the specific edition I purchased.
I picked up a free edition of The Woggle-Bug Book for my Kindle, and it was definitely an example of getting what you paid for. The person responsible for the adaptation did a piss poor job of it. For one thing, the original book had illustrations; evidently, those illustrations had captions. The captions were included in the narrative text of the book wherever they happened to fall, which was quite jarring. The book is in past tense, but the captions are in present, so you'd suddenly get this present tense summary of the current action of the book. Also, the book, especially toward the end, is full of typos. It was very apparent that not much time or attention was given to making the book presentable. I would certainly not recommend this edition of the book to anyone, even for the low, low price of FREE.

Abandoned Places: Renwick Smallpox Hospital

A couple of weeks ago, one of my boys had strep throat. We don't tend to give much thought to how serious strep actually is anymore because it's so easily treated. Seriously, antibiotics knock that sucker right out, but untreated it can lead to rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, and toxic shock syndrome (which is fatal), among a few other things. It's nasty stuff, and, as a father, I am entirely grateful to medical science that has allowed us things such as antibiotics.

And a vaccination against smallpox. I think we have a disconnect about how horrible smallpox was and why there was a need for special hospitals just for smallpox victims. At one time, over 80% of children infected with smallpox died. Just in the 20th century (and that wasn't that long ago), up to 500,000,000 (yes, 500 million) people died from smallpox, most of them children.

Renwick Smallpox Hospital (named for the original architect, James Renwick, Jr.) opened in the remote Blackwell's Island area of New York City in 1856. However, the area became a nesting ground for other publicly supported institutions (like a prison and an insane asylum) and became too crowded for a smallpox facility. By 1886, all of the smallpox patients had been shifted to North Brother Island and the hospital had gone to other uses.

By the 1950s, the structures in the area, including Renwick Hospital, were closed down due to being obsolete, and the entire area fell into disrepair. However, in the 1970s the island was renamed Roosevelt Island (from Welfare Island, as it had come to be known), and Renwick became New York's only landmarked ruin after it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. There has been talk of taking steps to restore and preserve the building since the mid-70s but, so far, no significant action has been taken. Only the outer walls and some of the flooring remain.

Here are some bonus photos of the abandoned Rochester Subway, also in New York:

All photos except the first one courtesy of Opacity.

Abandoned Places: North Brother Island and NIMH (a book review)

North Brother Island, situated in New York's East River, was unpopulated until 1885 when Riverside hospital, a smallpox hospital, was relocated there. Eventually, the hospital came to specialize in quarantinable diseases. Because of this, in 1907, Typhoid Mary was brought to the island. She stayed there until 1910 when she finally agreed to take safety precautions to prevent the spread of the typhoid bacteria she was carrying. Upon release, however, she quickly resumed her life as a cook and continued to spread typhoid fever, changing her name as she moved around each time people became infected because of her. As many as 50 deaths may be attributed to Mary. She was finally recaptured in 1915 and returned to North Brother Island where she lived for the remainder of her life, more than 20 years. Shortly after her death in 1938, the hospital was closed.

During the 1950s, a facility for the treatment of drug addicts was built on the island, but it failed to be successful and closed only a decade later.

The island is now closed to the public and is a bird sanctuary. Until 2008, the island was home to one of the largest colonies of Black-crowned Night Herons, but they have inexplicably also abandoned the island.

North Brother Island was also the home to New York's worst disaster in terms of life loss prior to the 9-11 when, in 1904, a passenger steamboat, the General Slocum, crashed and burned causing the deaths of over 1000 people.

Image by Jonathan Haeber and used under the linked license.

Note: The island contained more than just the hospital. It is the entire island that has been abandoned.

I think these photo credits are to Richard Nickel, Jr., but I was unable to verify that.

I wanted to also include Nara Dreamland, Japan's first amusement park. It was modeled after Disneyland and built in 1961. By the time it closed in 2006, it was virtually already abandoned due to lack of visitors. At any rate, I couldn't find pictures that I could verify were available for use, so here's a link instead.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Robert O'Brien

For being someone who doesn't frequently re-read, I've been doing a lot of that lately. But this one isn't my fault. Well, not exactly.

To say that my daughter is difficult is an understatement at best. She's a great kid, but she's a constant challenge. She likes to be busy. She's always planning ahead. And she rejects any and all book recommendations out of hand even though all of the books she loves (like Harry Potter) were suggested by my wife or me. I have to suggest a book many, many times before she's willing to give it a try. One of the things I've done to entice her is to suggest books that I read when I was her age and that I liked. One of the most successful of those suggestions was Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

I first read about the rats when I was about 10, and I remember really falling in love with the idea of a secret lab that made rats as smart as people. In fact, a bunch of us in my class all read the book around the same time, and I remember that there were many conversations centered around  those rats. I don't, now, remember any of those conversations, but I remember having them.

So, without telling her what the book is about, I told her how much I had liked the book when I was her age and suggested she read it, which she did. And she loved it. As soon as she finished reading it, she wanted to talk to me about the book, and I think she probably wanted to have those same kinds of conversations with me that I had with my friends when I was a kid. But that was 30-odd years ago, and I just couldn't remember enough about it to have a satisfying conversation with her. So she asked me to read it again. That was about a year ago, but I did finally manage to do it.

Before I go on, I do want to say that I think this a great book for kids in the 10-ish age range. And not a disenjoyable read for an adult, which may come off as more harsh than I mean it to sound, because I still did like the book. There's just a few things I didn't like about the book, too. They're things I don't like about it as an adult, though, not things that a middle schooler would be bothered by.

That said, the biggest issue I have with the book is that Mrs. Frisby, ostensibly the protagonist, is nearly superfluous. If the goal in writing a book is to create empathy for the main character, then O'Brien failed. Not that you don't care about Frisby, it's just that who you really care about are the rats. It's like O'Brien had this story about the rats but decided that either it was too long for a "kids' book" or too mature. Maybe both. So he took that story and inserted it into the Frisby bookends and just gave us the rats' story as background. The Mrs. Frisby bit isn't long enough to be a book and the rats' stuff is too long, so I wasn't really satisfied with either story. Not to mention how he leaves the story of the rats hanging at the end, because the story about Frisby was over, and he had no good way to continue on with the rats.

Also, in light of the rest of the book, Frisby is not a believable character for me. She is supposed to be a normal mouse, but he presents her, basically, at near the same level as the rats, who are supposed to be much smarter, possibly smarter than humans, so, basically, Frisby is just too smart for the world he has presented to us. And while I get that he needed her to be the way she was since we're seeing the story through her eyes, it doesn't really make sense within the confines of the story.

The other thing I found annoying was Frisby's convenient capture by Billy so that she could find out all the information that the rats needed. I mean, have you ever tried to catch a mouse? It's not like you can just sneak up on them.

Those things aside, though, it was still an enjoyable (and quick) read and, as I said, a great book for the 4-6th grade age range. Now, I just have to wait for my daughter to finish re-reading it (because the day after I started it, she was assigned the book in class!) so that we can finally have that talk about the Rats of NIMH and how cool they are. And, really, they are cool.

The Secret Life (a movie review post)

I first read "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" when I was in middle school. I don't remember being all that impressed with it at the time. There was no "man! This is the best thing ever" kind of moment. However, it is a story that has stayed with me through the years. Even though there was no "wow!" moment, it failed to fade away, whereas many stories that I'm sure I liked better at the time are completely gone from memory, as if I never read them. I've never bothered to go back and read it again, though. I just left that impression of the story from when I first read it hovering around in my mind.

With that in mind, my immediate reaction to hearing about the movie was, "Oh, that would make a great movie," and the trailer, with the part where Ben Stiller steps out of the arctic scenery had me convinced.

And, really, I didn't think there was anyone more suited to pulling off a "Walter Mitty" type than Ben Stiller.

At this point, of course, many people would be rushing out to read the short story before seeing the movie, but I strongly resisted that urge. For me, more often than not, having read the source material ahead of time is a good way to make me dis-enjoy a movie. So that's how I went into Walter Mitty, with a vague impression of a story I'd read 30 years ago.

This will be very spoilery, by the way, so be aware.

I think the movie starts out fantastically. There are all these moments where we shift into Mitty's imagination without realizing it until he snaps back to himself. It meshed well with my vague impression of the short story, and Stiller was great in those scenes. What I really liked, though, is the reaction from the people around Mitty. Especially the stuff from Ted Hendricks (played by the excellent Adam Scott).

Unfortunately, the daydreams get more and more fantastic as the movie goes along leading to an epic battle between Mitty and Hendricks through the streets of New York as they fight over a Stretch Armstrong doll. The power of the earlier scenes is that the daydreams are (mostly) normal. They are the kinds of things that anyone would wish they had done instead, things like asking the girl out or telling off your obnoxious boss. So, in the early movie, it's not always clear when he's gone off in his head until he snaps back to reality, and that stuff works really well. The fantastical stuff works less well.

Still, even the fantastic stuff, the superhero fights, would have worked well in small doses if the film had stuck to Walter Mitty being this guy that just goes off in his head. However, to make the point of the movie, Mitty eventually moves off into a real life adventure full of fantastic moments. Like, you know, getting attacked by a shark or skateboarding near a volcano while it's erupting. These things made me uneasy with the movie, and, although I was enjoying it, I wasn't fully enjoying it, because it just didn't feel right.

Of course, what I kept wondering was whether it was because it wasn't fitting with my perception of the short story.

To be clear, I enjoyed the movie well enough. I especially enjoyed the ending moment of the movie. But I was still feeling... unsettled... about the whole thing. Okay, that meant I needed to find a copy of the short story so that I could figure out if that's what was causing the issue. And I did that, and the short story and the movie are not really alike except that the movie takes the concept of the story and turns it into a movie. After all, the short story is only a few pages long and is about a trip into town with Mitty and his wife (Mitty has no wife in the movie. In fact, that is part of the conflict in the movie, Mitty wanting "the girl"). There is no revelation in the short story that life is better lived than imagined.

The departure from the source material didn't really bother me. Well, there was some botherment in that the movie changed the point of the story, but, really, that was okay overall. But it was still bothering me. The movie, that is. After a lot of thought, it finally settled in me what it was:

The idea of the movie, which is right there on the poster, is that you should live your life, not daydream about it. And, really, I get that. There are those things that we should not just wish we did, you know, like ask out the girl. What's the worst that's going to happen, after all? She'll say no and you won't go out with her which you're already not doing so just ask her out already. However, telling off your boss is not necessarily the best idea in the world. Not if you want to keep your job.

Of course, part of the idea of the movie is that you shouldn't want to keep your job. Your job keeps you from the things you are dreaming about, so you should just take off and do those things. It's a message that's impossible for the "normal" person to do. I mean, here's the thing, in the movie, Mitty is this 40ish, single guy with much more money in his bank account than the average person. We do see that he's concerned with money and somewhat compulsive about tracking his money, but, really, he's doing okay and has thousands of dollars available to him, so, when he decides to take off, he's able to just do it. Most of us (I'd guess 99% of us) can't just do that kind of thing. And he's single with no kids. So, like, if I was a real asshole (language, I know), I could just wipe out my family's finances, abandon my wife and kids, and go live life as the movie suggests. That's what it would take, ruining the lives of the people in my family. And that's where almost all of us are, and, I suppose, that's why the movie falls apart for me: it supposes that any of us can just (ought to, in fact) get up and do the things we've always dreamed about. And, maybe, some of us could. If we're real assholes. Because it would take abandoning our families, jobs, responsibilities to do it. Then, therefore, this idea of just taking off becomes another dream that we can't actually attain.

Not to mention that upon quitting your job and taking off, you suddenly become without an income source and, eventually, you're going to be screwed. I'm not thinking it's likely that it's going to be all that easy to get a new job when you just abandoned your previous job.

I suppose, in the end, I would have liked the movie more if it was actually about a guy that was constantly losing himself in his daydreams instead of being about a guy that learned to do the things he always daydreamed about. I think there was probably more to be said in the story they didn't tell rather than the one they did, one that is actually told all the time. It would have, at least, been kind of unique.

The acting was good, though. Stiller was great. I loved Adam Scott. Kristen Wiig was Kristen Wiig, which is great if you want Kristen Wiig in a role, because no one plays her like she does. Kathryn Hahn was also pretty hilarious. Sean Penn is... well, he's there, which is what he's supposed to be. Patton Oswalt was amusing; that whole story line is interesting and goes along with the idea of the movie which is both good and bad, I suppose.

The movie was enjoyable, for sure. It's good. It's just not great. I mean, telling people to live their dreams is all well and good -- I'm for that -- but, if that's going to be your message, I think you ought to tell people how to do that in a realistic way, because taking off for Iceland and all the rest of what follows is hardly something that's going to work out for most people.

Ironbivalence

One of the things that Marvel has done so well with their series of movies has been to keep the characters true to their comic book origins. I say Marvel in the sense of the movies that Marvel has done, not in the sense of all of their characters (because, if you look at what Fox did to Wolverine and will be doing to him again this summer, you will find that non-Marvel companies have not handled the characters quite so faithfully). With that in mind, I was looking very forward to the Mandarin as the villain in Iron Man Three.

The Mandarin, for all intents and purposes, is Iron Man's nemesis. He pre-dates the Iron Man comic book just as Iron Man does [Iron Man made his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39, the Mandarin in issue #50], so I was expecting something... well, I was expecting something epic. Iron Man's greatest foe and all of that. That is not even close to what Marvel delivered with this movie, and I can't say more than that without offering spoilers. Let's just say that I was... disappointed with the Mandarin, especially given that it was Ben Kingsley. Not that Kingsley didn't do a great job; he did. I mean, he was fantastic in the role that they wrote for him; it just wasn't the role I wanted to see him in.

Here's the thing, for most of you out there, the vast most of you, the most of you that didn't spend more than a decade reading Iron Man comic books, there will be no issue with the role of the Mandarin at all. See, it works great in the movie. Which is what causes my divergence of opinion. On the one hand, I'm disappointed with the portrayal of the Mandarin, but, on the other, Iron Man Three was completely enjoyable to watch and has a lot going for it. In my head, I know that the continuity that the Marvel movies is setting up is not the same as it is in the comics, but that doesn't change my emotional reaction to it. The "why did they change that?" reaction.

Of course, it's comic books, and, maybe, they didn't change anything. It is conceivable that the Mandarin will still become who and what he is in a later movie. Or, maybe, he's that, now, but they're just hiding it.

As for the movie itself, it was quite good. Robert Downey, Jr. was amazing as always. It's a more personal movie than the previous two in a lot of ways. Tony is dealing with... issues, mostly brought on by his experiences in New York during the alien invasion in The Avengers. For much of the movie, he's effectively alone without any armor, and it was interesting to see Tony operating as a person rather than an iron man. Downey pulled that off with what appeared to be effortless ease.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle were respectable in their roles. Even Guy Pearce was adequate. Okay, probably more than adequate, but I really don't like the guy, so, when he plays a villain, he gets an automatic boost from me in that regard, so I actually have a difficult time in telling whether he's doing a good job or not, because I'm not going to like him anyway. I'll know that he can actually act if he ever bothers to play a good guy and he can make me like him. And, as I stated, Ben Kingsley was amazing. He really was.

Iron Man Three is slightly different in structure than the other two. It starts with an opening narration, and I don't tend to be fond of narration in movies. Of course, it ties in with the way the movie ends, which almost makes it worth it, but not quite. It also starts and, then, jumps back, which I'm also not fond of, but, at least, it didn't do a "three days earlier" or anything like that.

Also, the CGI is a bit... clunky... in this one. I didn't know why until I got home and looked it up: ILM did not do the effects on this one. Now, that is something I completely don't understand. ILM did the effects for both other Iron Man movies and The Avengers, so why switch when Disney owns ILM, now? And Iron Man. If it was that they (ILM) were too busy with the new Star Wars, I could understand, but they have at least half a dozen films coming out this year that they're doing the effects for, so having someone else do this Iron Man seems odd to me. Oh, well, I'm sure it was cheaper. It's always about the money, right?

So, yeah, as a movie, I liked it. It's great, in fact. But that doesn't stop me from being ambivalent.

Let's go on Vacation! Part 2: The Menu

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures of any of this part of the trip, mostly because I was busy cooking and, then, eating the food. It just didn't occur to me to tell someone to grab the camera and take any pictures, especially since I'm generally the guy taking the pictures. Maybe next time though.

What to eat on a vacation is always a big deal. Okay, so it may not really be that big a deal to most people. Most people eat out all of the time anyway, so eating out while on vacation is rather expected. However, we don't eat out all that often. We don't even eat out once a week. Even counting pizza, I don't think we eat out more than a couple of times a month. Of course, camping isn't exactly about eating out, but we also didn't want to spend a week eating cheap, crappy hot dogs and stuff. Besides, hot dogs cost more than, well, all but the expensive cuts of steak.

Don't believe me? Go check it out. Generally speaking, at least at Safeway, hot dogs run about $5.00/pound. In my mind, that's freaking insane. Chicken doesn't cost that much. Pork almost never costs more than that, and, just this week, I got some really nice New York strip steaks for $4.99/pound. Why would I even consider paying that kind of price for hot dogs when I can buy steak instead. By the way, lunch meat is the same way (even bologna), which I can (kind of) understand but not really. It just goes to show what we're willing to pay for convenience.

I suppose my family is not very convenient. Actually, I know this to be true.

In the end, camping food ended up being very much like home food. That was the decision, at any rate. But let me put this into context: this was a camping trip with the in-laws (my wife's father and step-mother), and  they were rather difficult to pin down about how the whole eating thing was going to happen. Let me put this into more context: for years, they have taken my kids camping once or twice a year. When they go camping, they've always done the typical thing: eat lots of hot dogs and s'mores; they weren't really prepared for how we were planning to eat, and, I think, because we (my wife and I (really just me)) aren't into the whole camping thing, they figured we wouldn't know what to do when we got up there. However, having a stove, a real stove, to cook on is one of the reasons I wanted a cabin. A stove and a bed, see. So they brought lots of hot dogs. And bacon. And marshmallows.

We brought real food.

Needless to say, they ended up eating with us for most meals. Most means all of the dinners and about half of the breakfasts (we didn't really "do" lunch (there was never any need, because breakfast was so big and good no one would be hungry until around 4-5:00 anyway)).

 By this point, I bet you're wondering what, exactly, we had for our dinners. Well, let me tell you!
Tuesday: rib eye steak, salad, bread
Wednesday: pork fajitas w/ sauce that we made, homemade ice cream (pineapple coconut)
Thursday: spaghetti, garlic bread (there was supposed to be salad, but, um, the refrigerator kind of froze it, so there wasn't much left worth eating (I did give it my best shot, though, but I just couldn't do it))
Friday: grilled salmon, salmon mac (mac 'n' cheese with salmon mixed in), kale chips (one of my favorite things! (it's something I make from fresh kale, not something we buy)) [and my father-in-law provided grilled chicken]
Saturday: hamburgers (I make the best hamburgers. Seriously. We kind of can't go out for burgers anymore because of it.), homemade buns (and my wife makes the best hamburger buns (we also make pretty much all of our own bread (except sourdough)), yam fries

Those were our evening meals. The in-laws were astounded. They decided that camping is better the way I do it. And it was nice to be cooking for people that appreciated my cooking (as opposed to complaining about it (as my kids do (because they still think sugar and carbs are the best things in the world))).

In no particular order, the breakfasts were
ham and cheese grits (the in-laws had never had grits before, so this was a new experience and, unless they were lying (and I'm pretty sure they weren't), they really liked them -- grits, good grits, are not the easiest thing in the world to make)
blueberry pancakes (homemade with fresh blueberries, of course (my wife doesn't like pancakes, but she loved these))
biscuits and sausage gravy (my favoritist breakfast in the world! (when it's done right))
French toast (my kids' favoritist breakfast and made with homemade bread (it's awesome))
All of these were accompanied by scrambled eggs and bacon (except the French toast, which just had bacon, because it's already covered in eggs). The last morning was just scrambled eggs and bacon as we were trying to take as little back with us as possible. We succeeded in eating all bacon, but we had to tote eggs home again.

All of that and there were 'smores basically every night. That made my daughter, especially, extremely happy.

So there you go... who wants to go camping with me next year?