Month: September 2008

The Moth

Show number seven. Charlie-centric. Before I started rewatching the TDTVS episodes I would have told you that season 1 was my favorite, because it was new and it was interesting getting introduced to the characters. Now I’m not to sure, maybe because I already do know their back stories…

Ironman was waiting on the front steps today thanks to the UPS guy. I watched it tonight and it is just as good as I remembered. It is so good that I can overlook one of my pet peeves in action movies, the clich?d car wreck scene that destroys dozens of cars when just a few would get the point across. The one thing I couldn’t overlook is the hiring of an actor that was unsuited for the role or they changed the direction of the role and kept the same actor in the part (hey, maybe he was the producers brother-in-law or something.)

You are saying to yourself, I’ve seen that movie, the casting was spot on, what’s this guy talking about? There is this scene late in the movie where Obadiah Stane is berating this scientist guy because he has failed to recreate the mini “arc reactor” needed to power the Iron Monger suit. They shaved the head of the scientist guy in such a manner as to give him a typical male pattern baldness look. Was it in an effort to make him look more scientific? I’m surprised when this film was first released there weren’t members of the SPODAAAS (Society for the Prevention Of Discrimination Against Androgenic Alopecia Sufferers) protesting the not hiring of an actual bald actor to play this pivotal role.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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House of the Rising Sun

Season 1 Episode 6 and at first glance the title seems all wrong because Sun & Jin are Korean not Japanese, but after watching it through you realize the word Sun is not for the center of our solar system, it is for the character of Sun. It showed us someone who has seemed meek in the first 5 episodes is actually a woman of surprises and quiet power.

Tonight I discovered that I can not count. That’s not entirely true, I can count, I just should learn to start at one like most folks, not zero. I have finished cropping and tweaking this weekend’s Post Office photos (no snappy captions just yet) and when I uploaded them to the gallery I noticed that they filled the whole page, which is 4 columns of 6 rows. When we laid out a plan in which order we wanted to do Saturday’s POs we started numbering at 1 and worked our way up. No problem. When we got home and I filled out the Sunday POs on the map, I started right where I left off on Saturday and ended at 23. This is why I said twenty three yesterday. I forgot that we actually snagged a Post Office (Number Zero) on the way to the beach on Friday.

Hey wait a minute, one of the famous LOST numbers is 23, coincidence, I don’t think so…

Started down, still down.
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82,000 White Rabbits

Tonight we watched episode 5 of 82 of TDTVS. It was the one we should have watched on Friday, but we weren’t home, we were in Myrtle Beach and I forgot to bring the DVD.

Finished up the weekend today by taking the long way home and snapped 10 more PO Portraits giving us a total of 23 for the 3 days. We are now 93% finished with the project and all that remain are the ones right around Charleston and the 6 military bases in the state.

Somewhere west of Branchville the Emperor cruised past the eighty two thousand mile mark, so when we got home I gave him a well deserved royal bath.

Started up, went down, went up, down again, still down.
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Regular Season Wrap

The FRS are finishing out the the last of their 162 game regular season today. Ordinarily these last three games with the MFY would be very meaningful and have every Sox fan (and Yankee fans too) on the edge of their seats, this year it is different. The Red Sox clinched a Wild Card Playoff spot several days ago and the Yankees are not going to the playoffs for the first time since 1993. I am sitting here listening to the broadcast and most of the time I’m not sure who is batting and who is in the field. Not because I’m not paying attention, but because both teams are playing the scrubs.

I started listening to this afternoon’s game, but quit for a bit because I had something else to do, when I tried to reconnect I couldn’t get back to the Boston web site. I couldn’t even get to MLB.com. I guess a lot of people took advantage of the daily or weekend pass for MLB TV and they overloaded the servers.

When I first checked the Boston home page this morning to see what they planned on doing about yesterday’s rain out, I noticed an advert to buy some Red Sox playoff gear. I’m not sure if you can read the hat, but it says “2008 Division Champions.” Someone forgot to check their facts because that ship sailed on Friday when the FRS lost a squeaker to the Yankees 19-8. If you clicked on the link you got to see the gear the Sox really earned, the much coveted “Wild Card” or “I Kissed My Sister” hat.

Myrtle Beach

We are staying in a place called Sea Crest in their 15 story tower with a room that has a balcony. From the room you can see the beach, but you can’t hear the surf over the 20 water features in the kiddie pool. And even if you could shut off the water there would be the music from the bar to contend with…

I didn’t really pay to close attention to all the hotel had to offer, because if I had I would realized that the place didn’t offer in room internet. My first clue was when I opened the wireless utility and there wasn’t any signal labeled with any variation of Sea Crest. There was however about a dozen unsecured connections, several with real good strength, labeled Hotel Blue, a 15 story neighboring monolith.

We went for a big loop drive today and took Post Office pictures, a baker’s dozen. We also took a walk on the beach, went to a Greek Festival, looked at the fishies in the Ripley’s Aquarium, didn’t watch the FRS (they were rained out), took a nap, bought some souvenir t-shirts and when it got dark we drove a feww miles south and west for a nightcap, one more Post Office.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
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Gas Strand

Tomorrow is my birthday and Monday is Donna and my anniversary, so we decided to get away for the weekend. Last week we made reservations at a hotel in Myrtle Beach. This week, for what ever reason, gas became scarce around these parts with half of the stations in Aiken not having any gas and the ones that do, usually only have regular. The gas station at Krogers has had a line 20 cars long in both directions for the past two days. Maybe they have premium?

Yesterday we checked the Myrtle Beach newspaper online and they had an article about the gas shortage, but they only mentioned one station that was out of gas and the rest of the story was more general about the whole southeast region having availability issues. We started to question as to whether we should make the trip. One thing that was making us want to go was we had put a non-refundable one night deposit down on the charge card. But we didn’t want to get 200 miles away and not be able to find enough as to gas to get back home. So this morning we decided to go get some breakfast and check to see how easy we could find some gas in Aiken. There was already a line at Kroger and the next couple of stations we passed had bags over their pump handles. On the west and north side of town gas was a little more plentiful. We stopped at one northside station and filled up the tank as we were a little below a half a tank. All they had was regular. We almost decided to pack it in and go home, but agreed to go up to I-20 and see if those stations had gas. If they didn’t we would just turn around and go home. Of the the 4 stations at the interstate only one was pumping gas.

Screw it we said and pressed on. If worse came to worse we could always turn around at Columbia. About 45 miles into our trip we pulled off at an exit for a snack break that only had one gas station. They had gas, all grades, and no line. The station is several miles from a town of any size, so the only people who get gas here are the few folks who live out this way and the random interstate drop-ins like us. Not enough people I guess to create a critical mass of panic making everyone keep topping off their tanks when ever they see a gas station with a line. When we got to Myrtle Beach, everybody has gas. When we spoke to someone at a welcome center she said the only place that was out of gas was the one mentioned in that online article we read.

When I filled up this morning in Aiken I had been 170 miles and the tank took 6.5 gallons meaning that my time running mid grade netted a 26.3 MPG average. That might be slightly less than my usual average with the normal premium gas, but seeing as I haven’t really been keeping track there is no way to tell for sure. When we got to Conway, at the first gas station we saw, I stopped in to fill up with premium like Mr. Mazda wants me too. There was still a little over a half a tank left so the car only took 5.4 gallons, but we had been 194 mostly interstate miles. That resulted in an average 34.7 MPG! Usually all interstate driving results in around 32 MPG, must have been that magical mixture of a half a tank of mid-grade and a half a tank of regular…

The real reason for the higher MPG was probably because I didn’t drive at my usual speed. Normally I set the cruise for an indicated speed of 80 MPH which means I have an actually ground speed of 75, my typical five miles an hour above the posted speed limit, today I set the cruise at 75 so I was probably moving along at right around 70 MPH.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
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Walkabout

Episode #4. On the island Locke, the great white hunter, kills a boar and pre-crash, off the island, we see he was a loser in a wheel chair. At one point he is talking on the phone to a woman named Helen who we are led to believe he has a relationship with, but it turns out she is a phone sex operator who John is paying just to talk to. Later on in the series, his back story shows that he does end up in a real relationship with someone named Helen, who I don’t think was a phone sex worker. If it turns out she was I’ll be sure to let you know.

Tuesday night I needed to collect something from friends, when I called to see if I could come get it, I got their answering machine, so I said call me back if it is not too late. Of course they called back in the middle of this weeks new episode of House. I asked if it could wait a half hour. When I did go over after the show they asked how it was. They are fans of the show, but in DVD form because there never seems enough time to see it in real time. I told them that I didn’t enjoy it as much as a lot of the other episodes. I couldn’t put my finger on an exact reason though. I wasn’t until the next day when I read Polite Dissent’s review. Here is the first line:

This was not so much an episode of House as it was a parody of an episode of House – and a parody which seemed to be written by someone who’s heard about the show, but never actually seen it.

If you are like me and can’t figure out why you didn’t enjoy the show, read the rest of the review.

Started down, went up, still up.
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