El Burro Volador

Lately I have been fighting off an addiction, and my success has been less-than-total.  Much less.

The object of  my recent fascination is a free(ish) web game called Wee War.  It is one of those turn-based strategy games, where you move troops around the map, then wait for your opponent to do the same, receiving an email when they have done so and it is again your turn.  To some people this may sound excruciatingly slow – and I can assure you that it is, especially when the action heats up and the game could be decided on any given turn.  I think my secret affection for delaying gratification contributes mightily to my enjoyment of this game; I really enjoy those times when my anticipation “lengthens and flames” as Pablo Neruda put it.  And each of those those “It’s your turn” emails is like a small gift.

This is also one of my first experiences playing games against friends over the internet.  I am currently engaged against both Dylan and Ezekiel, and am faring a little better than I expected.

The upshot of all this is that I am constantly fighting the temptation to check my email at work, an activity frowned upon by the overseer.  Luckily, my opponents also have jobs, so I expect that they will be able to sneak in no more than a turn or so during their work day as well, and this helps me resist the urge.  Also, now that I have cut back to four days a week at the mines, I always have plenty of work waiting for me, which helps curb the desire to slack off.

The big news around here these days has been Rebekah’s hideous injury.  I haven’t posted about it because I’ve been trying to find out how it happened; the Duck is keeping her bill shut on this one, for some reason.  It seems to have happened at her workplace, but if it was something as prosaic as having tripped over yarn, then why would she be so tight-lipped about it?

I’m betting it has something to do with one of those old ladies that are always hanging around the store.  Loitering.  Lurking.  You can tell they’re up to no good, always squinting at you from behind their spectacles, sizing you up.  My number one suspect is Gladys.  She and her buddies Ethel and Hortense have always struck me as being shifty, and I’m sure they’re at the bottom of this.  I won’t rest until I bring them to justice, or at least key their respective buicks.

Gladys is crafty, though, and has gotten the better of me once so far in my investigation.  Yesterday, as I was following up some leads at the yarn store, I ran into her and decided to see if I could surprise it out of her.  I opened with a pleasantry, something about the rainy weather, then, with no further warning, I struck: “Why’d you attack Rebekah?” I demanded.  I figured that even if she dissembled, her reaction would give me some clue as to her motives.  I also kept an eye on Ethel and Hortense, who were nearby, just in case one of them let something slip.  I have to acknowledge Gladys’ wiles, though – without so much as a flinch, she acted like she couldn’t hear me, even going so far as to fiddle with the dial on that strange, clunky ipod of hers, like maybe her music was too loud or something – as if I couldn’t see that she only had one earbud in, anyway.  I decided to get tough, and yanked that earbud right out, so she wouldn’t have any excuses. “You can listen to Coldplay later,” I shouted “now tell me what you have against Rebekah!”, but she pretended to be having a hissy fit about her ipod, and several of her gang were closing in on me, so I decided to beat feet – if they put me out of action too, who will get justice for Rebekah?

I’ve decided to stay away from the yarn store for now, to let the heat cool down, but I’ll be back, maybe after hours this time, until I find the evidence I need to put these old biddies behind bars…

Actually, I haven’t been to the cinema since Watchmen, but Rebekah and I watched a couple movies here at home.  Our latest Netflix was Happily N’Ever After an animated number.  We began watching it yesterday, only to have Rebekah give it the hook after about ten minutes.  We subsequently ordered Appaloosa from our cable company and were much happier.

Afterwards, I began to ponder the differences between the two films.  Even in the little we saw of Happily, it was loaded with that knowing, meta-fairytale stuff that has worked recently for Hoodwinked and the Bajillion-dollar Shrek franchise.  Fairytale-as-self-parody.  Have we really reached the point where irony and self-consciousness are traits to deliberately cultivate in children?  Of course not.  The irony and parody in the successful iterations of this concept are for the jaded adults dragged to the theatre with their kids, while the kids can, for the most part, ignore that stuff and focus on charming characters, silly situations and an overall storyline that, to some extent at least, follow a classic arc (a “whodunnit”, in the case of Hoodwinked). It turns out that writing stuff with this dual focus is tricky, and a formulaic cash-grab like N’Ever After appeared to be fails to keep these two qualities balanced, in this case by going overboard on the meta-narrative and coming off as an exercise in “we’re so clever”-ness.

Appaloosa, on the other hand, was a simple genre film and labour of love.  It is a typical western about two gunmen hired to keep the peace in a frontier town, and a vivacious widow who complicates things between them.  There is little attempt to jazz up the narrative with improbable twists or to “reimagine” genre conventions.  On the other hand, the production and performances are strong, and everything has been done right.  Ed Harris’ name is all over this one – he plays one of the protagonists, directed the picture, co-wrote the screenplay (adapted from a novel), produced it and recorded a song for the soundtrack (he has a Johnny Cash-like singing voice, in case you’re curious).  This was clearly a personal project for Harris, and he delivered a sound and satisfying western sure to please fans of same.

Today I haven’t been terribly busy, I am just feeling lazy, so I will confine my blogging efforts to continuing the categorization of old posts.  Tomorrow, though, I’d like to actually do some writing in the morning, so maybe I’ll be interesting then.

I originally thought I would be spending a large chunk of today gaming with this new group I’ve met down in Loveland, but instead I am called in to work.  Also, there are certain domestic projects requiring my time.  So, I have decided to be lazy and just dash off this quick post advertising my new efforts to categorize old posts so that they are more accessible to readers old and new (we actually have gained a reader or two recently).  Check out some oldies but goodies, if you are so inclined.

One thing I suppose can always be said about David Carradine – he was unpredictable.  It is almost impossible to fit his long, strange career into any kind of coherent statement or story.  He worked with some of the finest directors of his era, and he was in appalling B-movie trash – sometimes he lent class to bizarre projects like Q or Circle of Iron, at other times he seemed to be dragged down by the general slovenliness of “films” like Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II, which I suffered through one Saturday morning as an adolescent, mostly because it had David Carradine in it.

He was instantly recognizable from his roles as Bill and Kwai Chang Caine, but often turned up where you least expected him – he did guest shots on literally dozens of television shows over the years.  He started out doing westerns and wound up being “typecast” as a kung fu master.  He seemed perpetually laid-back and cool in his interviews, but his personal life seemed full of tumult, with divorce after divorce and the occasional well-publicized drunken shouting match or other substance-abuse-related incident.

And now there is the bizarre conclusion to this complicated and erratic life.  I’d like to honor David for his talent as an actor, and recognize one of his great gifts – he was willing to commit fully to parts that other actors might have found silly or shallow.  Take the time some day to watch Q or Death Race or Circle of Iron or Kung Fu or Kill Bill, and you’ll see what I mean.  If you’re of a more serious turn yourself, The Long Riders might be a better way to memorialize this odd and turbulent man.

Yesterday I was writing about “No Easy Way Out” by Robert Tepper, which just got booted from the playlist, and I couldn’t remember whether it had graced the soundtrack of Rocky III or IV.  So I asked the internet, and it cleared matters up for me.  As I was thinking about the fourth Rocky movie, however, I experienced an idle curiosity about Dolph Lundgren, the tall Swede who so memorably played that movie’s antagonist, the towering Ivan Drago.

Dolph had followed up his success in Rocky IV with a turn as the title character in the 1987 live action He-Man movie, personifying the animation-and-action-figure powerhouse.  He even became the first of a trio of minor actors to portray Marvel Comics’ famous vigilante “The Punisher” in 1989.  He had one more significant role, as the villain in Universal Soldiers, before becoming a typical “B-Movie” leading man in after years.  “What is ol’ Dolph up to these days?” I wondered, and, with nostalgia in tow, I headed to his imdb site to find out.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that he was involved in four projects that were labeled as “in production” – he was definitely keeping busy.  Then I recalled his role in I Come In Peace, where he played a maverick cop determined to stop a serial killer – who turned out to be an extraterrestrial engaged in harvesting human – brains? hormones? something like that – to synthesize into what was apparently the hot new street drug on his home planet.  Yep.  Alien drug dealer.  Total ripoff of “Macbeth”, right?  Hoping to uncover more of such strangeness, I looked at his current films.

I immediately hit paydirt with Command Performance.  The plot synopsis: “When the Russian premier is taken hostage at a rock concert in Moscow, it’s up to a drummer, an ex-biker, to save him.”  Wow.  This reminds me of the classic 1980′s Nintendo game Bad Dudes which began with the narration “The President has been kidnapped by ninjas.  Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?” before placing the player in the role of a street brawler recruited by the secret service to rescue the president.  I didn’t think there were any writers left that could craft such…zany?…premises.

The second and third entries were disappointing – from a weirdness standpoint anyway.  Dolph is apparently teaming back up with Jean-Claude Van Damme for a new entry in the Universal Soldier franchise.  Meh.  Then there is Icarus, one of those movies about a hitman who wants to quit, but his shadowy employers won’t let him.  This popular movie premise is perhaps ill-timed: viewers will probably fail to empathize with the character – “He should be grateful he even has a job in today’s economy!”

Then I took a gander at Dolph’s most recent project.  It is called The Expendables.  The title was promising – deniable mercenaries on suicide missions and so on.  The first thing I noticed was “written and directed by Sylvester Stallone”.  Cool.  I’ve always had a fondness for Stallone’s work, and thought it was cool that the two were teaming up again.  Then I scrolled down and saw the cast and just about fell out of my chair.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.  In the 1980′s, this was a dream pairing that never happened, probably because no studio would greenlight a budget big enough to pay both of these megastars.  And if they had, it certainly wouldn’t have had enough left to pay any other stars.  I guess times have changed, though, because Millenium Films was also able to cough up the dough and get  Mickey Rourke, fresh off getting jobbed out of an Oscar for a movie about pro wrestling.  Oh, and Jason Statham.  And Jet Li.  The sheer amount of “guy” credibility amassed in those actors is stupendous, but just to make sure, they hit the b-list hard as well.  Dolph Lundgren.  Danny Trejo (What, you don’t remember him?  Have you ever seen a Robert Rodriguez movie?  He was the scariest guy in that movie).  Hell, even Eric Roberts.  Then, during a brain-storming session, they realized how they could cram in that last extra bit of machismo and toughness, and cast “Stone Cold” Steve Austin (of pro wrestling fame) and Randy Couture, a former heavyweight champion mixed martial artist.

For the sake of completeness, I must report that Brittany Murphy is also in this movie.  Probably because she wanted to be in the best movie ever, and 8 Mile is not aging as well as she expected.  Seriously, though, she gets some awesome points for this.

Anyhow, I now await the advent of this movie like fundamentalist Christians await the rapture and Michael Moore awaits the opening of new all-you-can-eat buffets near his house.

Reading Nietszche is a strange experience.  He is very intense, and his prose is a bit clunky, so It is slow going, but I find much of what he writes thought-provoking and thus worth reading.  Also, I have finished his second Untimely Meditation which was more interesting than the first, as it concerned humanity’s relationship with history instead of just ripping on one of Nietszche’s academic rivals.  The third in the series promises to reveal yet another side of Nietszche – the softer side of the ubermensch, if you will – as it was written in praise of one of his mentors/heroes, Schopenhauer.

In other news, I have done a little more tinkering with the ipod playlist.  I turned up the Cranberries No Need to Argue and Bury the Hatchet, which were pretty well-loved by me back in high school, and promptly added them.  In accordance with my ipod conventions, two songs had to go in order to put off the day when the ipod reaches capacity.  This day is approaching fairly quickly now, as the free space on the ipod is now measured in megs instead of gigs.

My first cut was one of the more difficult so far.  For the first time, I cut a Springsteen song from the playlist.  the song in question was “Reno”, which had frankly been dodging the “not safe for work” criteria for awhile.  The song describes a sexual encounter between a widower and a prostitute, and while I totally get the song’s emotional focus on the emptiness of what is ultimately a desperate attempt to cope with loss, the level of detail is a bit more than I am comfortable with visitors to the shop hearing – especially since some of these are children and families.  I have been defending this track to myself on the grounds that it is a very unobtrusive specimen, not involving shouted profanity or anything, but I am caving.

The other cut was easier.  “No Easy Way Out”, by Robert Tepper, is an unusually synth-driven piece of 1980′s  jock rock from the Rocky IV soundtrack.  I typically get a little boost from the uplifting orchestral themes in these movies, and a lot of the pumped-up rock is decent workout music, but this particular song just doesn’t hold up well when you’re not “feeling the burn” or “pumping iron”.

So, it’s official.  I have won my first major victory in my fight to leave auto-detailing behind.  My strategy at the moment seems to be to find an assortment of part-time jobs to gradually replace that income, cutting back at the lot as I do so.  While I have yet to land a process-serving client (though a few attorneys have seen my card), I have landed my first part-time job, and it pays enough to let me spend one less day a week running the ol’ steam extractor.

Yesterday I firmed up an arrangement to facilitate a roleplaying club for homeschool kids in the area.  Apparently, one of the moms had had a good experience hiring someone to run games for her child in California, and wanted to repeat the experience here.  I interviewed for the position and managed to beat out other candidates primarily because I had experience working with junior high kids, I think – and that education degree finally pulled its weight.  So now I get to run the same games I was doing every Tuesday night, except I get paid a decent wage to do so.

In addition, I seem to have made a good impression on the homeschool parents, and they have been really helpful about putting me in touch with various ways to access the homeschool community in general.  I may be able to pick up some more work tutoring and/or teaching in the Options program.  We’ll see.

I’m still planning on taking Thursday off this week to hunt up clients for my process-serving business.  Yep, things are heating up.

I can be superstitious at times, so I won’t post in advance about the important meeting I have set for today – but stay tuned.