Sarah and I went to Blockbuster Video to get a movie to watch last night.  We wanted to watch Ghostbusters.  It's been quite a while since I've seen it, and she's never seen the whole thing.  Blockbuster had Ghostbusters 2, but not the original.  Why would you carry the crappy sequel but not the original?  It boggles the mind.  I found out that the employees of Blockbuster have no say at all in what videos the store carries.  Pathetic.

I want me some Ghostbusters.

The Bell Museum, Minnesota's natural history museum on the U of M campus is showing a few campy old sci-fi movies outside and last night they showed the 1953 thriller The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.  Well, this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up, so I decided to make an afternoon of it. I rode my bike to campus where I had coffee and read my book for a couple hours - delightful.  Around dinner time I rode to the downtown Minneapolis Farmers' Market, bought a VERY tart apple and some pull-apart bread then rode back to campus to find a grassy area to sit, eat, read, and maybe nap.

I had forgotten just how many squirrels there are on campus.  In one 360 degree sweep I counted 11 squirrels.  No wonder there have been rumors of a squirrel conspiracy to take over.  I've heard stories of squirrels on campus running onto people's legs and even grabbing at bags people were carrying.  True?  I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me.  I have no love for those fuzzy-tailed rats.

It was cooling off, so I decided to spend the last hour before the movie started in Espresso Royale Cafe.  I spent tons of money and time (and as much time studying as not) there in college.  I was amused to see a couple people there that were there nearly every evening ten years ago.  One of them was reading Applied Somethingorother Geometry.  A riveting read, surely.  I like that shop.  Laptops seem to have made the place a little less inviting, but it's still a decent coffee shop.

Then it was on to the movie.  Since it started sprinkling, they moved it inside.  Here's the plot of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms:

• Nuclear test (Project Experiment) in the Arctic awakens a dinosaur
• The one surviving scientist who sees it is called crazy
• Nobody believes him except the pretty young paleontology professor's assistant
• They find another person who saw the beast after it attacked a boat
• The beast has an appetite for buildings and boats... 'cause it destroys/eats them
• This is enough to convince the professor and they figure it is heading for New York City
• Chaos and destruction in New York.  Eats people, buildings, and cars
  
• After shooting it, the army learns its blood has a lethal pathogen, so they can't blow it up.  Oh no! 
  
• Fortunately, the scientist from scene 1 is a nuclear scientist and he says that they can kill it by shooting it with the radioactive isotope
• The beast appears in an amusement park and is somehow stuck inside the track of a roller coaster... so proceeds to eat it.
• The radioactive isotope arrives, and is conveniently shaped like a little missile to fit on the end of a rifle.
• The scientist and a sharpshooter have to ride to the top of the roller coaster to shoot the beast
• They escape before the coaster burns.
• The beast destroys the roller coaster and collapses.
• The end.

I would love to know how audiences received this movie in the 50's.  It was pretty goofy and got lots of chuckles from the audience.  It was a pretty good time.

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Now I'm off to the state fair.  Since I have more of an appetite for wandering around for hours, I'll go and spend the morning there and Sarah will meet me in the afternoon.  I think I'm going to take in a live show of Midmorning with Gary Eichten and his guest, Senator Klobuchar.  Should be fun... yes I am a news and public radio geek.

Simple pleasure - goofy dreams
Peace

Sarah and I went to go see the new Indiana Jones movie last night.  It was pretty entertaining, but there were quite a few "What?!" moments.  I am willing to suspend my belief in physics to a point, but after a while it just gets silly.  As Sarah said in her entry, the movie was like a mix between National Treasure and X-Files.  It was also pretty clear that this was a George Lucas movie.  Fortunately, the dialog was better than the new Star Wars movies, but I was pretty amused when Harrison Ford said, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

I was pretty seriously thinking about a lazy morning, but decided to go on a club ride instead.  They do a Memorial Weekend ride each year with well over 100 people attending.  It was great to see so many cyclists in one place.  I did the 48 mile loop, and had a really good ride.  I stuck with the faster people in that group and we pushed ourselves, trading positions at the front of the pace line.  By the end of the ride, I felt like I could have done the long loop, but was still pretty satisfied with the ride overall.

Now it's time to sit for a bit before going to Julie and Ed's wedding.

Simple pleasure - pushing hard into the wind
Peace

This evening Sarah and I went to go see the movie Across the Universe.  Yes, I like Beatles music and who doesn't?  Still, I was a little skeptical about this movie.  I was very pleasantly surprised though.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Now I just wish I hadn't lost my complete collection of Beatles albums on MP3.  Crap.

Yeah, this movie is worth seeing.  That is what I have to say.

Simple pleasure - holding her hand while walking home
Peace.

I am to my job as Lily Von Shtupp is to men, tired.

I drove those damn trucks for over 11 hours today.  It wasn't until about 3pm or so that I started getting crabby.  Before that I was just tired.  I am tired of those cars, tired of that place, tired of listening to the same stupid comments from my coworkers, tired of the brainless work, tired of stupid comments from the boss, tired of cigarette smoke.  I just wanted to go home and take a nap and be away from it all.  But I couldn't do anything about it, and that's why I was reminded of the lovely Lily Von Shtupp.

I don't remember what I said in my last post, and I don't particularly feel like going back to check, so if I repeat myself... whatever.

I packed one of my backpacks full of clothes, camping things, books, and my computer on Wednesday and rode with my heavy load downtown St. Paul to catch a bus up to White Bear Lake.  45 minutes of air conditioned city bus riding was nice as I had to ride about 20 minutes to 35E.  I was a little concerned about trying to hitchhike with my bike and a backpack since space would be an issue with whoever picked me up.  On the other hand, how crazy looking could a person with a bike and a helmet be?

After standing at hwy 96 and 35E for an hour (and turning down a couple short ride offers) I finally took a ride to North Branch about 20 minutes down the road.  It was pretty hot outside, so the AC in the car was night, and I figured getting to North Branch would be more likely for me to encounter people actually heading north.  The woman who picked me up was once an elementary teacher, so we had things to talk about.  I then sat for about 45 minutes in North Branch before a guy in a big Lincoln SUV picked me up and offered to take me the rest of the way.

It turned out that he was heading up to Lake Vermilion, where he manages property (cabins) for rich out-of-staters.  He had just dropped off some old Texas oilmen down in the Cities for medical appointments.  He said that he either lives or sometimes works on an island just past Center Island in Lake Vermilion and has rescued windbound canoe groups from Camp Vermilion.  Funny.  So we talked about camp, about the development that is going on like crazy on the lake, complained about rich people and greediness/selfishness in regards to things that should be public, iron range history... it was pretty interesting.

So just under two hours of waiting to hitch up to my family's place, and with a bike no less.  That wasn't too bad.  I was a sweaty mess after I biked the last 8 miles or so with that big heavy pack on my back though.  Yuck.

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It was great visiting the family at home.  Though my little sister graveylump and her boyfriend Rick were pretty busy, we got some really good visiting time.  I think she was pretty happy to be home for a while and to have a chance to spend time with family.  Rick is a good guy too.  Those two seem pretty happy together.  Burnell's friend from college, Russ, was also visiting at the same time, so there was some good sittin' on the deck, smokin' cigars (them), drinkin' wine, and talking about just about everything.  He's a very interesting guy, and it is nice to have a place to visit/stay in Montana.  It was really nice to have all that time visiting with family.  Despite all sorts of family drama in the past, I am pretty fortunate to have such a nice family.

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The Free Range Film Festival was great.  We got to two of the three sessions this year.  There were hundreds of people there, and the barn was packed with enthusiastic film-goers.  I could do a film-by-film review but that would get boring.  Suffice it to say that for the most part the films were pretty good and that I am looking forward to going back next year.  Good stuff.

Simple pleasure - laughing with family
Peace

Because I am a nerd (and Sarah only slightly less so), we are about to head out the door to go see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  I've gotta say though.  I am pretty tired at this ungodly hour of 11:30.

I'm gettin' old...

goin' to see Harry Potter...

and contemplating a HP costume for a book release party.  What?

Simple pleasure - nice cool sheets in the cool night air
Peace

EDIT:
I'm glad we went to go see the movie, but I wasn't the biggest fan.  It took me a while to figure out just what it was, but I think what it comes down to is that they're trying squeeze 600+ page books into 2-hour movies.  What is cut is what i think I like the most about the HP books, character development and motivation.  One of the wonderful things that Rowling does in her books is pack them full of details and give even very minor characters personalities that the reader can't help but relate to in one way or another.  All the details she crams into the stories is what makes them so rich, and their absence, I think, is what made this movie in particular so flat.

It was funny going to the theater.  We drove by the theater to see a line of a couple hundred people waiting outside.  We parked and made our way to the back of the line, which was then making its way into the theater.  The place was packed full of teenie-boppers all texting, talking really loud, running up and down the aisles.  The average age of the audience was a little bit younger than for when we went to that theater to see A Prairie Home Companion.  There was cheering and clapping throughout the movie.  It was pretty funny.

Sarah and I signed up for Blockbuster online a little while ago.  It is nice I suppose.  They don't have the vast selection I would like, but there is plenty they have that I will watch that it's not such a big deal.  Anyway, after we got back from Ireland, Sarah put a bunch of movies about Ireland in our queue.  Last night we watched Michael Collins, about the Irish revolutionary leader during the 1916 Easter uprising and civil war.  Good movie.  Good story.  Movie criticism and all, blah blah blah.  Early in the movie, something troubled me though.  Eamon de Valera, the president of the Sinn Fein (or the like)  kind of rubbed me the wrong way.  I couldn't put my finger on it for a long time.  Then I got it.

The President of the future Republic of Ireland is a Death Eater!  He's Professor Snape!  I was just waiting for him to give someone to detention or to instruct his fellow revolutionaries to put away their wands.  But it didn't happen, and Michael Collins died.

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The cat has been going nuts.  She always wants to get outside - not that she really goes anywhere.  All winter long, she would occasionally stand by the front door and meow wanting to get out.  Well since it has gotten nice, she is constantly at the door, begging to get out.  Her meows per minute rate has gone through the roof.  C'mon cat, all you do is roll over on the sidewalk, and then creep around the corner.  Her M/m, I predict, is only going to up too.

That is all for now.

Simple pleasure - lots of strudley stuff on the coffee cake
Peace

So I'm curious. What do you think it will ultimately take for the U.S. (and perhaps industrialized nations in general) to change course?

Background. After going to the anti-war rally yesterday afternoon, Sarah and I watched Who Killed the Electric Car?  Basically, the movie was about automakers developing plug-in electric cars for the mass market.  The cars were developed, leased by many people in California, and then the automakers let the leases expire and destroyed them all much to the chagrin of everyone who drove them.  The movie placed the blame for the demise of the plug-in electric cars on...
the oil industry (buying and killing the best battery technology)
auto companies (who would be forced to admit that all of their cars aren't good, if their new electric cars are so good)
the government (for being beholden to big business)
consumers (who are apathetic and will usually eat what is fed to them)
and
the hydrogen fuel cell (which is glamorous, but has plenty of issues, and though would be clean is ultimately [according to the movie] a less viable and efficient form of energy to power cars)
There may have been one or two other culprits they named, but I don't remember off hand, and these are most of them.

This lead to a discussion between Sarah and I that started with the question, "Why would a company kill a project that all signs showed would be very successful (not to mention the fact that it would be a huge step forward in combating global warming)?"



While I want to see the revolution come, I think the powers that be would be able to crush nearly anything that threatens the status quo.  I believe there will be worldwide (or at least continental-scale) calamity before any real changes come about, and at that point it may be too late.

So, what do you think it will take for us to change course?

National Treasure is a bad movie. Do not watch this movie. We got this because we figured it would be a fluffy movie. Yes, it was fluffy. Yes it was bad. Yes I am dumber now.

Eeep.