Game

So, I've moved from "Sigma" to "Alpha" in my hierarchy rating.

Hmmm...must be mellowing out.

Osteoterrorism, and Hellfire.

I note: I am not in any way complaining about results of my Course of Treatment. Anyone who cracks my neck and does NOT then go "Shhh...sshhhh...it'll all be over soon...." is a winner in my book.
No, My back and right hip are boundlessly better. I am not limping, the pain is diminished to a mere reminding pressure, though my chiropractor comments that my right hip does not want to stay aligned.
Well, Jeff, things have changed. Now my LEFT hip is doing That Thing. Next Wednesday's appointment shall be interesting.

It's like taking the car in to the mechanic. The noise that alarms you either disappears, or changes location.
Schrödinger, and the other quantum wrench-wielders, were right.
------------------------------

This church sign has made its way around Facebook and other forums:

Look at the lettering.

This is a fake.

One of my FB friends sez:

The sign is fake but the message is correct. All those people along with everyone else will go to hell unless they are saved by Jesus.

To which I replied:

The sign is incorrect because of intent. It was (likely) cobbled together by non-Christians to "show" what evil haters church people are. It is also incorrect because it is too focused. If the Bible says "for ALL have sinned" our proclamation should be what the Bible says, not targeting a small number of politically iffy groups. And not even Paul said "All those people along with everyone else will go to hell unless they are saved by Jesus." Truth may be in it, but he didn't even put it that way to the idolaters in Athens in his speech on Mars Hill.

While I am having doctrinal issues with the "classic" presentation of "Hell", I fully recognise the need for and Biblicality of Divine sanction of sin. I utterly resist the "Hellfire" type preaching which purports to punch people's ticket. Paul (and the Holy Spirit Who inspired him) missed a golden opportunity in Athens, Greece to firmly present their roadmap to the Eternal Fricassee. As I recall, all of the pronouncements of eternal punishment were instructions to those in Covenant with God (or those who claimed to be). I welcome rebuttal or correction, as I do NOT wish to promulgate what is false. There are warnings about THAT, too.

Man's civilization was cast in ruin....

The year: 1994. From out of space comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction! Man's civilization is cast in ruin! Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn. A strange new world rises from the old: a world of savagery, super science and sorcery. But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice! With his companions Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sunsword against the forces of evil. He is Thundarr, the Barbarian!

So, the major thing is that I do third shift to be left alone, and be able to watch DVDs whilst I print shirts of passing awesomeness. That is somewhat important given that I am fifty-seven, and am fond of animation. This week I have gone through the series "Thundarr the Barbarian", a D&D-type series done in 1980-81 by Hanna Barbera lite, the Ruby/Spears Company. It is rough, but character designs by the likes of Jack Kirby and Alex Toth are in evidence. Toth designed the main characters, Kirby was brought on to do the evil wizards. Modok, anyone?





One of the things that I noticed, besides Princess Ariel, was the fact that Princess Ariel, the sorceress, the one with encyclopaedic knowledge of ancient Earth history...that selfsame Princess Ariel...

is a geek.

Yes, that is a geek.

She has peculiar knowledge, more than shading toward pop-culture. Movies, movie-making two millenia past; you can almost hear a lateral lisp. I do not do the fun-making, no. I find that this little detail adds depth and charm to her character. I will not talk about strong woman this and that; for such, fanfic exists.

If only they had come up with a non-Casio keyboard sound for Thundarr's light sabr...er, Sun Sword. It is a flatulent glissando. It is the first sound you hear before Dick Tufeld takes you away:



But listen to that score, and that tightly written introduction to the story! Tufeld utters not a spare syllable. The closing credits are just the music, and it is taut, not overdone; the single flute note over the strings just gets me. The stories are not mawkish, and they hold all the heroes in emotional check. Granted, it is a "kids' cartoon", but the interplay between Thundarr and Ariel, who clearly is crushing on the oblivious barbarian, is restrained while being obvious. The daring bit is that Ooklah the Mok, the hulking furry comic relief, really loves Ariel, and hugs her at any opportunity.

Do you really blame him?

Voice work is superb. Bob Ridgely, who voiced Filmation's Flash Gordon and Tarzan leads, and who is Mel Brooks' favorite hangman, voices Thundarr. Nellie Bellflower voices Ariel (and Rankin/Bass characters from that era),  Henry Corden voices Ooklah the Mok, and emotes well, though he is limited to grunts and growls. I do not know if Corden hugged Bellflower ("What's Ooklah's motivation, again?"). He also voiced most of the EEEEE-vil wizards.

To be clear: sorceress=GOOD. Wizard=BAD.

Other Voices are Keye Luke, Alan Oppenheimer, Chuck McCann, Nancy McKeon, Joan Van Ark, Avery Schreiber (!), Janet Waldo, Michael Bell, Michael Ansara...Hal Smith does a couple of villains, but is uncredited, but I can tell!

The scripts are quite good, and the rest of the soundtrack soundtrack is sometimes memorable, and the gestalt provides an example of why '80s cartoons were so good. Or something.

But it's not Bionic Six.


It is worth dropping $20 for!

With a knick-knack, crack your back....

Superboy is not a fan of "The Aristocrats".

The weekend was loathsome. I had a lower back thing, and my right hip was a royal pain. I stayed in Saturday and Sunday, having to use a cane part of the time. Being a guy and all, it takes a lot to make me go to a doctor.

This was a lot.

I requested prayers, and they are appreciated. Part of their result was my having wisdom to Go See Someone. I have not been to a chiropractor in some twenty-five years, and the one I went to was the weird bio-whatsis, manipulating pressure points and putting electrodes on my back to let the ants dance on my muscles. Mind you, it worked, but some of it was a tad New-Agey for my taste.

Not this guy. He is old-school. Jeff Besherse DC at the Ardmore Chiropractic Clinic is my guy, now. I've known him for years, used to attend the same congregation with him and all. He did the obligatory X-Rays, and led me into the therapy room, wherein was...The Table, standing at a steep angle. He had me step on the foot pad, and put my face in the face place. he then lowered the table to actual table position, giving me the feeling of prepping to drive the Christian Bale Batmobile. Then the fun began. he had me face left, then right, while he adjusted my feet (this apparently reveals alignment issues). Then I put my face back in the face groove, and he started...adjusting. The table has hydraulic sections that lift and provide better mechanical advantage for his maneuvering, levering, and cracking. The sensation was intense, somewhat painful briefly, and in the midst of his applying pressure, I started to laugh like crazy. The sensation apparently causes the brain to release endorphins, like a good bout of deep massage does.

Riatsila, I completely understand the trapezius thing, now.

This did not take long, and then he raised the table and had me step off and walk back and forth in the room. I did not limp as I did when I first came in, and I felt...GOOD! He explained what my issues were, and outlined a course of treatment over three weeks. The office visits are not expensive, and from the immediate results, I have no qualms about the treatment.

So, hurrah! I feel better. I printed 150 shirts tonight, and did some mug prints that needed doing. I'm productive again!

Again, thank you for your prayers and concern. Things are looking up!

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This is not the exact model, but it will give the idea of the table:

Deathlexia

So everyone has heard. Robin Williams, dead by apparent suicide. Facebook has endless posts and reposts of the news. People commenting "I'm crying...". And I am angry.

You see, I suffer from deathlexia. I do not react to death the way other people do. When someone dies, they're gone. Pffft, like that. It is rare that I react emotionally even to a family member's demise. It took fifty years for me to finally grieve over my mother's death. I have instructed the family that it is OK to continue business as usual should I kick the ink bucket. Don't leave the convention just because, unless you REALLY can't handle it. In a perverse twist, I want to keep doing cons, my ashes enshrined in an aardvark-shaped jar. No explanation needed, lest we squeam our customers away....

So I am angry. Angry at all the tears and grief shed for a man none of them knew. A man with a history of alcohol and cocaine abuse and rehab, a history of depression; a walking target for the Reaper. (I am not judg-ing his struggles, merely reporting them.) All the tears for a man with everything: talent, fame, adoring fans...a man who couldn't take it. A man who gave up. I am furious.

I think it likely that if he was medicated for his depression, that Big Pharma may well have some culpability. Angry about that, too, and that he left his family with a bundle of questions like "What more could we have done...?". I've battled Depression, as has the Dread Dormomoo, at the same period of time. Oh, it was a jolly romp! We didn't give in. We didn't off ourselves. We didn't have fame, talent. money, fans....

I'm angry at the fuss. I'm angry that he did it. I'm angry that people did not effectively share the Good News with him...only enough apparently to provide him comedy-fodder (Williams did a dead-on Ernest Angley). I'm angry that religious freaks like Angley exist at all, turning the Faith Once Delivered into a side show. I'm angry that Williams still (perhaps) had good years left, and robbed us of his talent.

So, weep for Robin Williams. Perhaps it is what he would want. Perhaps he would not care at all. Me, I'll be over here, seething.

And thinking about Christian children being beheaded in Iraq by Muslim liberators. Someone needs to remember them.

Blivets from the Boonies

The D.D. and I went to town yesterday, and we saw a truck similar to this:

fetchmyflyingmonkeys blog

Herself looked at me and said "Body Snatchers".

That's why I love her!
-----------------------

She was in a musing mood as we drove out to The Fish Creel, a landmark seafood place which takes up a measurable percentage of the property in teeny Anderson, AL. We used to go there with her parents, and have not been in nigh unto twenty years. The food was amazingly good. It is under new management, but tastes just the same as years before, even the hushpuppies (with the right amount of onion!) She had fried catfish, and I, a fried shrimp and scallops combo. DEE-lish! The scallops were REAL scallops, too, not punched skate. The staff were excellent, and did not allow our tea glasses to empty. The only downside was Country Crock for my baked potato instead of butter.

So, she was musing, and out plopped this thought:

If racism is thinking your race is the best, then where is the "equality" in feminism?

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Doing a non-Svengoolie Saturday night, and we plan to watch Harlock, the live-action movie based upon Leiji Matsumoto's "Captain Harlock" space pirate character. May do a reviewlet.

Must set up a new Brother all-in-one color printer/scanner-mo-tron. Because Kodak bites.

Tatty-bye for now!

A Godzilla Sans Portfolio, or Matthew Broderick.

The Dread Dormomoo and I did the unthinkable: we went to see a movie on a weeknight. I have never seen a Godzilla movie on the big screen, so we went to our (almost) local Carmike theater, where it was showing for $1.50. So, we both saw the movie, had popcorn and drinks for less than the price of regular tickets. This pleased my Scots soul.

We endured the endless adverts and admonitions to mute our cellular phones, saw the mildly diverting previews (in all of the face shots of "Hercules", Dwayne Johnson looks JUST LIKE Kevin Sorbo).

Enter the 'Zilla. First off, I must say that I enjoyed the movie. The problem is, it did not have the feel of a Godzilla movie. The difference is almost tactile. Being an American production, it is too polished, really, too expansive, which may seem an odd complaint for a giant monster movie. I went to see Bryan Cranston, and was not disappointed. His role as a nuclear engineer whose wife dies in a meltdown of Unspecified Origin was well done, and the long shot showing the complete collapse of the reactor facility is as believable as it is horrifying. Cranston's movie son comes as close to a classic Godzilla suit-monster performance as we will see here, or perhaps a Gerry Anderson marionette series.

My biggest issue with the movie is the lack of on-screen destruction. We are treated instead to a series of faits accompli,  the camera panning past a foreground building to see a trail of destruction. During the Big Finale, we DO get to see some "throw him through the building-fu", but the uncanny valley is uncanny. The FEEL of the effects is wrong. You get none of the dust and crunch of the rubber-suit monster crashing through a well-built scale model building. Heavy on the Fuller's Earth, please! Now, it's just pixels, and it translates that way.

Also,





To resurrect a personal meme, this was a good action movie. It was not a good Godzilla movie. I hear a new one is in the works with Mothra, Rodan, and Kaiser Ghidorah. I'll wait for the $1.50 theater.

Also, there was no apparent attempt to insert music cues from Akira Ifukube, who started the Godzilla music sixty years ago. This smacks of disrespect, although I am sure it was the film-makers' attempt to "make it their own".

America, stop trying to make Japanese monster movies.