Some Blog Site

We watched Space Chimps last weekend. We got it from the library, as we have found it easiest to rent/borrow movies from the library than from any other movie places. I hadn’t heard of Space Chimps before, but my wife said that Dove liked it. It was rated G, so I figured it should be okay for the 3- and 5-year-old to watch.

It was almost okay for the kids to watch. There was not much objectionable in the movie, unless your children object to giant carnivorous flowers and vines that try to eat the protagonists. And there’s some bully behavior, which you definitely don’t want your kids to learn. But, of course, everything works out fine by the end of the movie.

But until the kids were sure that everything was going to be okay, the dangerous parts of the movie had the kids moving from their own chairs to my lap, then from my lap to the couch behind me (next to mom). The many-toothed, large-mouthed plants were just the start. It was the long-fanged cave monster, chasing the heroes through the cave, that most affected the kids. But if you stop a movie at the scary part, I think that’s worse than continuing to watch it. If you stop it when they (or you) are scared, you are left with only your imagination. The damage has been done, assuming that it is only a scary part of an otherwise decent movie, and the best way to mitigate the damage is to finish the story.

Of course they make it through the cave okay, and of course the friendly aliens who were dipped into freezing liquid by the bully alien are just covered in a frozen shell instead of being frozen solid. I would not introduce the youngsters to liquid nitrogen after watching Space Chimps, as they may have the mistaken impression that if they get frozen by it they could just break out of it with no ill effects.

At the end of the movie, the kids were laughing and were able to tell me their favorite parts. Their favorite parts of any movie are always the slapstick parts. In this case, it was a chimp falling down on a treadmill.

Jeff Daniels voices the bully Zartog and does a fine job. I had seen his name in the credits and was trying to figure out which character he was, but I could not. Patrick Warburton, on the other hand, is much easier to tell. Maybe his voice is too distinctive, or maybe he gets typecast into these roles. If you know what Patrick Warburton sounds like (especially in other animated films – I’m thinking Bee Movie) then you’ll have no problem figuring out which character is his.

There were enough jokes and stuff aimed at the parents of the kids watching the movie. So it is entertaining for all. I did laugh out loud at a couple of parts, or at least chuckle heartily. Here was my favorite bit (might not be exactly right, but the general idea is there):

Two chimps, Ham and Titan, are in a spaceship heading back to Earth.
Ham, protesting: “But I’m not an astronaut.”
Titan: “Are you wearing aluminum clothes?”
H: “Yes.”
T: “Are you in outer space?”
H: “Yes.”
T: “Are you David Bowie?”
H; “No.”
T: “Then you’re an astronaut!”

“But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north.'”
– Isaiah 14:13

Christmas is a happy time.  One of our night-time rituals is reading books at bedtime.  I’ll tell the kids to pick one or two books each for me to read to them.  The other night, what “book” am I brought?  The most recent Lego catalog.  So we read each page, skipping the detailed descriptions but hitting all the names of sets and minifigures.  I am sure the kids dreamt well that night.

Then today we got a new Lego catalog in the mail. There is a new series in the Lego world: Power Miners. This series has the premise that geological disturbances are being caused by some new form of mineral, and the Power Miners must thwart this threat! It seems to have taken a while, but the concept of Tiberium has crept into places other than Command and Conquer. There is even a harvester set. Rogue crystals are headed to a toy near you.

Having played Guitar Hero, I find I listen to songs differently.   Now when I hear a song on the radio, I will listen for the lead guitar part and will try to picture how well the song would fit into the game and how fun or difficult it would be to play.  Some songs, like Don’t Fear the Reaper, have a good guitar part in the middle but might be rather boring for the rest of the song.  I know they probably don’t need any song suggestions, but it’s fun to think of some.

Another song I thought would be good was Hotel California, but I checked and someone else already thought it was a good idea and put it into Guitar Hero World Tour.  They need more Zeppelin too.  I’m thinking that the guitar solo in Heartbreaker would be the highlight of the game.  And some Johnny B. Goode wouldn’t hurt either.  Ooh… Clapton’s Layla (the fast one, not the slow, unplugged one) would be fun too.  And Sultans of Swing.

Okay, for the last two suggestions I cheated and peeked at Guitar World’s list of top guitar solos of all time.  On a lighter note (pun intended), I also recommend Hocus Pocus by Focus and Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group.

Some radio stations are all-Christmas format, so I usually don’t find a lead guitar part in those.  Although… Christmas Eve in Sarajevo could be a good candidate for Guitar Hero Holiday Edition.

And not to be left out of a trend, the Christian bookstores are selling Guitar Praise.  That way, you can enjoy wholesome fun with the entire family, playing Christian/praise/worship songs on the guitar.

“Give thanks to the LORD with the lyre; Sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings.”
– Psalm 33:2

The new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace is set to open later this week.  The last one, Casino Royale, was good, but it had two problems.  The first was that it was a Sony Picture movie displaying Sony shots of Sony products.  Some parts seemed more like Sony ads than a real movie, such as when he is viewing the Sony security camera footage on Sony TVs using Sony players, or when he is sailing on his Sony boat and he looks at his Sony laptop.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a Sony boat.  But if Sony had made boats, I’m sure they would have been featured prominently.  The other problem is a smaller one, but one from which Tomorrow Never Dies suffered badly: explaining too much to the audience.  In that one, the actors explained what they were doing as they did things.  Very annoying.  At least Casino Royale had a secondary actor “narrating” to help out the audience.  Something like whispering “He has the 5 and 7.  He needs the 6 to win.” to someone else while Bond is playing poker.  But enough with the trivial complaints.

According to one interview I read, Barbara Broccoli, the producer of the Bond movies, has said that Quantum is the name of the Sinister Organization that Bond is fighting.  Quantum is really QUANTUM, an acronym in the tradition of SPECTRE, but QUANTUM is so secret that not even she knows what it means.  So, to help her out, I have some suggestions of what it could mean.

What does Quantum stand for?  Try …

• Quit Using Acronym Names To seem Ultra-Mysterious
• Quest to Undertake Another National Target by a Universal Mob
• Quintessential Underworldly Archenemy, Needed To Upset MI6
• Quarrelsome Underground Association of Nuclear Threats and Undermining Morale
• Quiet, Unassuming Agent Negotiates The Ultimate Movie
• Quipping, Urbane Agent Neutralizes The Underling’s Moves

The last two apply more to Bond than to QUANTUM, but I liked them so I included them.  If you have any more suggestions, please add them in a comment.  Thanks.

“For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.”
– Mark 4:22

At work I use a laptop, and at my desk I have a second monitor.  When my laptop is at my desk, it is connected to the docking station, and I have the laptop screen and the stand-alone monitor both active.

When going to a meeting, I will close the laptop, undock it, and then open it at the meeting.  Occasionally, I am greeted by a warning when I open the laptop.  Sometimes the warning appears after I go back to my desk and re-dock.

Actual un-retouched screen shot of the warning
Click on the image to see it full size.

I tried to set the screen resolution to zero by zero, as Windows XP recommended, but my computer wouldn’t let me.  Plus the warning is wrong.  How could zero be the best display size?  I know I could check the box to not show the message again, but it is just so amusing to read.  And reminds me to put realistic checks in any software I write.

As with most warnings that Windows generates, I will ignore this one too.

“Surely God will not listen to an empty {cry,} Nor will the Almighty regard it.”
– Job 35:13

The same co-worker who appeared in Tuesday’s post also mentioned something else, completely unrelated and on another day.

Did you know there are glow-in-the-dark tattoos? And blacklight (UV) tattoos? I had no idea until my co-worker said that a friend of his had a glow-in-the-dark tattoo. I forget what subject we were discussing and how we got onto tattoos. It’s a skull, I think, made of regular ink but the eyes are filled with the glowing ink. So they appear empty during the day or in lit rooms, but they glow when it’s, umm, dark.

I was going to link to some websites, but most places that show examples of tattoos are not completely family-friendly. So I’ll let the curious reader find those sites himself. But I will say that one of the more interesting examples of a blacklight tattoo was someone who had bones (i.e. skeleton) drawn along his arm and hand and fingers, with the correct bones at the appropriate places. During the day, no one would really notice his arms. But when he would go under a blacklight (say for laser tag), then his arms would appear like an X-ray.

I didn’t see one of these, but I’m thinking the Cheshire Cat would be a good candidate for one of these inks. It seems that the blacklilght ink is fine, but glow-in-the-dark inks can be radioactive and are not recommended. There are ways other than tattoos to have your hands glow.

“So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.”
– Exodus 34:30

Yesterday I bought a reel to store my 100′ extension cord. Until yesterday, it had been sitting in a less-than-neat pile. But now it is organized.

While I was setting up the cord reel, I noticed a warning on the label. It said to unroll the cord before use.  I initially thought “why bother with that?” Isn’t the point of the reel to keep the cord in a nice coil? Why not let it stay coiled, like the garden hose does? It doesn’t complain at all. Then the lessons of how to make an electromagnet came to mind, and I thought there might be something to it.

There is some argument about whether it is induction causing the issue or just the normal heat associated with voltage drop for such a long wire. Normally the heat would be able to dissipate along the surface area of the cord. With the cord wound tightly however, there is much less surface area. Normal household loads for a moderate time should not cause any problems. But I would still be careful not to let any metal go into the core of the cord reel.

“He covers {His} hands with the lightning, And commands it to strike the mark.”
– Job 36:32