Edibles in Bins?

While standing in line for a prescription, I noticed this bin. It says, “Taste the Quality, Love the Value.”

It’s filled with hydrogen peroxide.

Here’s another one. It’s filled with wipes. Not as dangerous, but kind of gross.

Dr. Who’s Police Box

Here are a couple other pictures from Norwescon. One could simply be walking down a hallway from the lobby and encounter this:

Close inspection showed this:

I did not try to pull the handle. Should I have?

This is a map of the Ancient Near East I created in college using Pellon. This is much better than using unwieldy cardboard. It can be rolled up neatly, and it costs pennies on the dollar compared to an expensive color map on heavy paper. And if it gets bent, it can simply be ironed, without harming the ink. 

I know that people can zoom in on streams of maps, but they often have a lot of distracting clutter. This really should be the standard way to make maps particular to a small group lecture, since it can easily be taped up without relying on internet connections. And it is ideal for Sunday school. 

Reindeer

I just missed the twelve days of Christmas.

Did a 360

An alert light showed on my dashboard earlier this week. (It turned out to be no big deal.) Then I had a bad dream that I was measuring the air in my tires, and a front tire was ten pounds lower than a rear tire.

I think I know the cause of that dream. So here is a reprise of my post from a previous year.

___________________________

It was rainy today, and I slowed down to what I thought was a safe speed to go from I-405 south to the ramp for NE 8th, to get to Bellevue Square. There is some familiar metal plate in the ramp that is for access to the storm drains or something. I did a slight jink to the right to avoid it.

My car went into a spin to the right. I couldn’t believe it. I turned the steering wheel into the spin, but it went out of control. I admit I kept my foot on the brake instead of pumping it, but the car has anti-lock brakes. Anyway, as the car did a full 180 and I saw other cars on the ramp avoiding me, stepping on the gas pedal might have been inadvisable.

After another 90 degrees, I might have tried the gas a little, I don’t remember. But I felt the back of the car scrape the concrete barrier on the right of the ramp. That’s probably what slowed the spin. I managed to stop the spin at about 360 degrees, but because of the curve of the ramp, the car was still angled a little into traffic. I immediately put the flashers on, restarted the engine (it had probably stopped in the 180 position, so it didn’t matter if I had tried the gas), and moved it a little farther so other drivers would have time to see me as they came onto the ramp.

My immediate thoughts were on how much it would cost to get a rental car as my car was being fixed. 

I got out into the rain to see what I expected to be the mangled rear bumper. I was astonished to not see any damage. Closer inspection showed a scrape about the size of the palm of my hand, revealing tiny specks of paint had come off, showing the primer underneath. Further inspection showed no other damage.

It drives straight, and nothing odd happens when I take my hands off the steering wheel to brake on level pavement. My view is the scrape against the barrier was providential, since otherwise I could have gone beyond 360 and had the right front end of the car hit, and that would have been bad.

At the Bellevue Square parking lot, I found the right front tire had ten pounds lower pressure than the others. This confirmed my suspicion it has a slow leak, losing ten pounds in somewhat over a month.

Oddly enough, this incident didn’t really bother me the rest of the day. What bothered me was going to the Panda Express at Bellevue Square, having to find a place to sit in the lower part of the mall, realizing I hadn’t gotten a fork, then packing my lunch up to go back up the elevator to get one.

Best Book Report on The Great Gatsby

So many teachers are enthusiastic about their students using A.I. to write their book reports for them, I’ve decided to help out by supplying source material. Remember the garbagè in, garbagè out effect.

The Best High School Book Report on The Great Gatsby

(public domain)

Any book report on The Great Gatsby or its sequel, Tendonitis, must answer these key questions: 

1) When Jay Gatsby says Daisy’s voice sounds like money, is that a compliment?

John Steinbeck gives the best answer: “We can’t prove the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg symbolize God.”

2) Did Gatsby make his fortune by bootlegging during Prohibition?

Hemingway, as he rowed, chanted: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  

3a) When Gatsby demands that Daisy say she never loved her husband Tom, what does she answer?

George Orwell replied: When Scarlet O’Hara said “Fiddle-dee-dee,” she was not referring to the Scarlet A on her chest, but to The Red Badge of Courage.

3b) When Daisy strikes Myrtle with Gatsby’s car, is she trying to kill her, or just preserving her own life by not bothering to swerve enough?

Gilgamesh retorts: “Why does Nick Carraway have a bigger part than Jay Gatsby? Why does Faulkner think his mother is a fish?”

4) Why were the soccer leagues underwater in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

Jane Eyre insists, “The harpooner was varsity, not JV.”

There we have it. The definitive high school book report on The Great Gatsby.

Characters in The Lord of the Flies

Gonzo Stuff

This is a random collection of … well, you’ll see.

Ducks

I didn’t do much on the 4^th of July, since it was on a school night, as the saying goes. I took a walk in a park in Bellevue (a suburb of Seattle) and took a picture of ducks.

Click to enlarge

Debris

There was a collision at an intersection near where I work. Some of the debris ended up on a sidewalk. I told a coworker that one of the cars must have spun around a good amount, for part of the bumper to end up there. She replied that someone could have pulled it onto the sidewalk to get it out of the way. She was probably right.

Prices

I looked at a copy of Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth in a used bookstore. On the back, the price was listed as $14.00. The sticker for the used price was $15.99. Huh?

Later, I looked for some vitamin water in a grocery store. They were being sold at four for $5.00. I bought one and was surprised when it cost only $1.10. Those who flunked basic math won’t see the silliness of this.

Skybridge

I saw this sign on a skybridge in Seattle. At first I thought I had to be careful about gaining 8,000 pounds. But it obviously concerns loads of supplies. Shouldn’t the sign be inside?

 Click to enlarge

But the only sign I saw inside was this one. How did I get out? How am I writing this?

Two-Sentence Movie Summaries

I don’t remember who came up with the idea of two-sentence movie summaries that are both accurate and sardonic. Here is my take on this concept.

The Last Samurai: An American soldier decides Japan is more spiritual than America. So he joins a rebellion against the emperor.

The Wizard of Oz: Trying to get home from Oz, Dorothy almost dies on a mission to steal a witch’s broom. Then she finds out she only had to click her heels.

While You Were Sleeping: A woman pretends to be the fiancée of a man in a coma. After he wakes up, she leaves him at the altar and marries his brother instead.

Aliens: A platoon of Colonial Marines gets wiped out fighting the monstrous aliens. Ripley emerges triumphant by using a forklift.

Saving Private Ryan: A small group of soldiers goes behind enemy lines in World War II to retrieve Ryan, whose brothers have all been killed in the war. He decides not to go with them.

Titanic: A couple falls in love on the RMS Titanic. The ship sinks.

Pride and Prejudice (1995): Lizzy must decide who is truly guilty of pride and prejudice as she contemplates the seemingly hardhearted Mr. Darcy. When she sees him wet after a swim, she takes off.

Shane: The gunslinger Shane hangs up his guns to live a peaceful life with a family, including a little boy. He shoots a couple men to death in front of the boy.

The Lord of the Rings: Frodo must destroy the great ring of power to save Middle Earth. He claims the ring for himself, but his finger is bitten off, so happy ending.

Romeo and Juliet (1968): Although their families are literally feuding with each other, Romeo and Juliet decide to marry for love. They both die.

Merry Christmas

Reindeer at Alderwood Mall

 

Alderwood Mall is in a suburb to the north of Seattle.

Movie Review—Suzume

Suzume is a high schooler in Kyushu who was orphaned when she was a little girl. She has been living with her aunt for ten years. One day a young man asks her if there are any ruins nearby. Intrigued, she goes there herself. She sees a lone door standing amidst wreckage. When she opens it she sees an otherworldly realm, but cannot reach it. She also sees a carving of a cat, which see pulls out of the ground. It comes to life and runs away.

After that, a monstrous creature comes out of the doorway, causing an earthquake. She and the young man—Souta—are barely able to close the door and avoid disaster. It turns out the cat was a guardian meant to keep the door closed. Suzume and Souta chase the cat across Japan, trying to shut other doors and prevent ever-increasing disasters.

Suzume has flashbacks of herself as young child, wandering around, looking for her mother. But are these memories? Or is she seeing herself in that other realm?

Suzume ranges from scenes of delicate beauty to looming horrific disaster. This is high quality animation, with good detail and realistic motion, no matter how odd the chase scenes are. What stuck in my mind was the kindness Suzume experiences on her journey: From a young woman her age hauling fruit, to a mother who sees her at a bus stop where the next bus will not come for hours, they all want to help her. Suzume does chores for room and board, which is heartening so see.

The director, Makoto Shinkai, has openly said he was influenced by Super-Frog Saves Tokyo, which also involves preventing an earthquake. That in turn must have been influenced by the Japanese myth of Namazu, the giant catfish beneath Japan that causes earthquakes.

The movie has a couple of weaknesses. I suppose this is where I put SPOILERS. Suzume and Souta spend the movie as travel buddies. Then towards the end she tells her aunt that she loves him. This is very sudden. Also, her aunt becomes unaccountably cruel in one scene and tells Suzume she wasted the best years of her life caring for her. It is unclear if another door guardian is making her say these things, but it is unsettling.

So Suzume is well worth watching. Definitely do not walk out the minute the credits start rolling. For those of you who are Makoto Shinkai fans and love his movie Your Name, have your friends watch Suzume first. It is hard for Shinkai to live up to his masterpiece, Your Name.

Norwescon 1—Supplemental

First a personal message:

Hello, HAZZARD. If you are reading this, it was pleasant to talk to you. You may already be familiar with the Medieval play “Everyman.” If not, I strongly encourage you to read it.

Mark

__________________________________________________

Norwescon is the biggest science fiction/fantasy convention in the Pacific Northwest that has a good focus on writing. Interestingly enough, the subject of AI was big. Although, panelists who spoke about it did not see it as an end-of-the-world development.

What they said is we do not have true AI (artificial intelligence) yet. What we have is machine learning that can do specific tasks. This machine learning is becoming rapidly more sophisticated. A number of editors said they are getting submissions written by these supposed AI programs. They say they can easily spot them.

So it is not a threat. Yet.

As an odd coincidence, the hotel parking lot has a robot security drone. An anonymous source said they had had some catalytic converters stolen out of cars, but this drone took care of the problem.

One conventioneer said he looked out his window one morning and saw a Dalek in the parking lot.

Never fear, there was a real Dalek there.

I thought it would be cool to have designed the security robot like a Dalek. But it might not be taken seriously. The sleek functional look is better.

Star Trek: Voyager—Animated!

What do you mean, you don’t remember the animated version of Star Trek: Voyager? Here is a snippet.

Doesn’t that bring back memories?

Star Trek: The Next Generation—Animated!

What do you mean, you don’t remember the animated version of Star Trek: The Next Generation? Here is a snippet.

 

Doesn’t that bring back memories?

Hey, Hey, We Miss Mike Nesmith

Mike Nesmith passed away yesterday. He was the de facto leader of the pop group The Monkees. Before anyone says anything else, yes, that really was them singing. Because of the group’s origin, and some bad lip-synching in “Daydream Believer,” for instance, the rumor goes around that the four of them weren’t real singers. But yes, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones really were singing.

public domain

They burst onto the scene in 1966 with their TV show The Monkees. It was a show about a fictional musical group. But yes, that was them singing, see above. They went on tour after that first season. Massive crowds of screaming fans showed up. A phenomenon of that magnitude hadn’t been seen since the heyday of The Beatles. After that, they worked hard and became a real band.

Although Micky Dolenz had the voice that was most characteristic of The Monkees’ sound, my favorite singer was Mike Nesmith. My favorite song of theirs is “You Just May Be The One,” written by Nesmith with him as the lead singer. For copyright reasons I won’t put in a link to it, but try to find a version that just shows the band playing, and not goofy scenes with Peter Tork.

Now for a science fiction connection: Walter Koenig was hired to play Chekov in the old Star Trek because the producers wanted to get some of the female audience that liked Davy Jones. Koenig was mistaken for Jones once in a restaurant and asked to sing.

Reginald Barclay vs. the Scammers

I’ve used the name Reginald Barclay on social media. For those of you who don’t know, he was an occasional character on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. He was played by Dwight Schultz, an excellent actor who was known for his role in the old TV show The A-Team, and extra points if you know he did voice acting for The Animatrix, an animated companion piece to The Matrix.

I liked him as Barclay in The Next Generation because he seemed more like a real person than the main cast. He often didn’t know what to do next, or where to go next. His uncertainties contrasted with characters who always knew what to do and who would stride away purposefully at the end of a conversation.

But the people who tried to scam me really were not familiar with the character.

photo by evil_cotton

The dingbats who texted me and sent me an email addressed me as Reginald Barclay, obviously just randomly grabbing names from social media. If I call their dedicated line, they can help me get relief from my student loans by the stimulus forgiveness program.

My name is not Reginald Barclay, I do not have student loans, and anyone foolish enough to call their number will have their phone number sold to countless lists for robocalls.

Whack-a-Gnome

So the latest crisis is a shortage of garden gnomes. Supply chains in general have been stressed for the little fellows, but then the Suez Canal was blocked for six, count ‘em, six days. Great Britain felt the shortage quite keenly. Where is gnome central—the Middle East? The Indian subcontinent? Some part of what used to be called the Orient, where factory workers beat those cute hats into shape? What must they think of Western civilization?

image from satellite ESA Copernicus Sentinel-2

This, of course, brings us to fantasy. Special Unit 2 was an early form of urban fantasy on television. Detective O’Malley was played by Michael Landes. Detective Benson was played by Alexondra Lee. Together, they fought creatures of legend, such as mermen, gorgons, werewolves, and even a dragon, who threatened the human race. Their street informant was a gnome named Carl, played by Danny Woodburn. The series was quite funny and full of action, so I highly recommend it.

But to the point, O’Malley and Carl did not get along. The relevant part starts at 5:45.  (Warning: some coarse language.)

Easter Egg for Future Archaeologists

This egg was at a mall. It was about five feet tall. Future archaeologists may decide we worshiped a large egg at this time of year.

I remember the main character in Quark, an old science fiction show, said archaeologists found that his ancestors in California worshiped a five-foot tall mouse with white gloves.

Mostly Harmless at the Mall

Last Saturday I went to Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, north of Seattle. I was shocked to find the restaurants still open in the food court, but with no place to sit down. All the tables had chairs stacked on top of them, with yellow tape sealing them off. Some metal tables and chairs were outside, but they were all taken.

So I sat down on a rock. This was not as arduous as it sounds; a number of large rocks are carved as horizontal monoliths so people can walk or sit on them. As I was eating, I noticed a seagull just sitting on the grass. It looked right at me as I took a picture.

It turned its head ever farther, as if deciding this human holding an object wasn’t a threat. Then it flew off. I don’t think it was cause and effect; I just happened to get a picture at almost the last second. 

Thank You, Captain Obvious

This was on a table of snacks. One woman said if you can’t figure that out, you deserve what effects they have on you.

In other news, water is wet, and vacuums suck.

The following picture is kind of the opposite of obvious. Notice how the Revival Sermons of Jonathan Edwards is displayed between the females from the Batman series and Wonder Woman.

Click to enlarge

Jonathan Edwards is famous for his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” 

They did this because . . . not sure.

Change Space Force Command to Starfleet Command

Have you seen the logo for the newly created Space Force?

Remind you of something? Look at the logo on Spock’s chest.

(I can’t use the actual Starfleet Command logo. But Star Trek did some black & white publicity photos that they never copyrighted.)

Here’s our chance to change things. At We the People, the site where the White House can be petitioned, I have created the page:

Change the name of Space Force Command to Starfleet Command

To sign the petition, you have to take a moment to create an account. When 150 signatures have been gathered, it will appear publicly on the We the People site. Then signatures could really start steamrolling.

Please let people know about this—Star Trek fans, people who want to throw a monkey wrench into government, friends with too much sitting-around time. Right now, we have to use the link above, but this could go viral. And who knows what will happen?