This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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 Oh. My. God. I absolutely loved this. I didn’t think I would. And it started out a little slow, but just kept building. How can you not like a move with trained squirrels?? The colors were all bright. Johnny Depp was increadibly creepy as his Michael Jackson wannabe Willy Wonka. And the Oompa Loompas were just funny.
OK, now some of this probably wont’ age well or survive multiple viewings. And you probably have to be in the correct state of mind. Now, Brandy said the correct state of mind for this movie is essentially “altered”, preferably “highly altered”. Or something like that. But since I pretty much always am a bit off, I was in the perfect state of mind. Especially after several days of not enough sleep as I went on my little adventures last week. I was probably on about half the amount of sleep I should have had when I saw the movie.
I am sure that helped.
But I was laughing pretty much straight through, and so was Brandy. Amy was too, but I suspect she was laughing at different things.
There is not one moment of this film that can be taken seriously. There is no super thrilling plot. No suspense. No real character development. No sense that you really CARE what happens to any of the characters. No mystery. None of the things that normally make one really get into a movie. But it is just FUN. If you try to think about it too much, it won’t be fun. But if you just let yourself, it is an enjoyable journey. As Brandy told me, a somewhat disturbing enjoyable journey, but hey, aren’t the most enjoyable ones always that way?
I am posting this right now from my dried out Treo 650! I let it dry for just about a week. Then Amy put the battery in while I was still away. It worked!!
Well, mostly. There are a couple of drying spots visible on the inside of the screen. But not bad. Worse, if you are on the phone you can barely hear the other person unless you use speakerphone or a headset. But I usually use a headset now anyway.
So all is good! The Treo yet lives!!
As I mentioned in the last post, I unexpectedly was stuck at Dulles airport. It was getting kind of late, but I figured I’d call Rebecca and Chris anyway. I was in the general DC area, and of course my dad is also there, and my friend Al, but both are further away from Dulles, and as I mentioned, it was late. Rebecca and Chris have been known to stay up late and live relatively close to Dulles. Besides, I hadn’t met Gideon yet. So, a call was made.
Last time I was stuck at Dulles and I called them, they weren’t available. Out of town or something. This time, thery were home, and Chris came to get me. They offered a place to stay for the night, but between having to get up at like 5 AM to be back at the airport in time, and my allergies to their cat, I figured a hotel was the best bet.
But I did get to spend a couple hours with them. As Rebecca already posted yesterday, I did indeed meet Gideon during her impromptu WRCT Day. Gideon was great. Big head and all. He sat with me very nicely, played with my tie, and was generally a happy little fellow. Apperantly he threw up on Al when they first met. I did not get that honor. But I think I can live with that.
Also got to catch up a bit with both Rebecca and Chris. The last time I’d seen them in person was way back at my House Cooling Party well over a year ago, and certainly well before Gideon. So it was very good to visit, even if it was just a short chance visit.
Sorry I didn’t get to see all the other DC folks. I’ll need to actually SCHEDULE a DC trip sometime, not just get stuck at Dulles for a few extra hours.
And of course, you all COULD just come to Florida. :-)
This last week had a variety of fuin travel adventures. I will briefly catalog them.
Barely made it to Orlando in time for my flight becuase of all the traffic leaving the cancelled space shuttle luanch. Traffic on the Bee Line… er… Beach Line… was going like 10 or 20 miles per hour most of the way. Then there was a long security line. Very long. Finally ran up to the gate when they were supposed to be almost done bording.
Sometime while I was going through the security, the status of the flight was changed from on time, to delayed. Unspecified delays. (Turns out to have been weather.) I had a connection with only a one hour gap. The plane wasn’t even at the gate yet.
I had Brandy and someone at work looking to see if I had other options to get to the northeast. Pickings were slim. There was one flight Brandy found on another airline heading in the right direction, but by the time it was clear my connection would probably not be made, it was gone. So, based on a decision from work, I went ahead and got on the flight. To Chicago. I was going to Connecticut.
Of course, I got to Chicago after my flight to White Plains, Connecticut had already left. And all other flights heading back to the northeast were already gone, or already had dozens of people on standby from other flights to the northeast which had been canceled due to weather earlier in the day. So, I’d be staying in Chicago over night.
I figure I’ll head to the airport Hilton. It is late. They have me scheduled for a 7 AM flight back out. I know it will be a little more, but it is right there. So I go there. They are booked for the night. I go back to the little hotel board. I start calling places. They are ALL booked. I was not the only one stuck in Chicago because of weather delays in the northeast. Eventually, after calling most of the places on the board, I found one with vacancy. An EconoLodge half an hour from the airport.
An EconoLodge. It took half an hour of waiting for a shuttle, then half an hour of riding, then half an hour of getting checked in, then I finally got to lie down in my EconoLodge room. It had a bed, but no broadband. It was kind of icky. But it would do. And I would only be there for about four hours.
In the morning, after dragging myself out of bed and catching the 4:30 AM shuttle I got to the airport, went through security, and then, a few minutes after I got to the gate… Delayed. The meeting I was supposed to be in Connecticut for started at 9:30. I would not have made it even if the flight left on time. I was on the phone with folks from the office. In the end it was decided after we got on the phone with the clients to do a conference call and do a bit of the stuff that could be done without me in person, then reschedule the rest for 24 hours later. As it turned out, I was actually able to do the whole conference call from the airport. We didn’t end up leaving until almost 4 hours after the flight was originally scheduled.
Got to White Plains mid afternoon. Got to the hotel I was supposed to be at the night before. Basically crashed for a couple hours. Then got up and went to buy a shirt since I was at this point already supposed to be on the way home and hadn’t been planning on more days. Food followed, followed by a normal nights sleep, then the meeting in the morning. We finished a little early, partially because we’d already done some of it the day before.
So, it was off to the airport, four hours before my rescheduled flight. (Returning a day later than originally planned.) Hopefully they would be able to get me on an earlier flight. Uh, nope. So, four hours sitting in the cramped terminal at White Plains. I read some magazines and some of my book. But that was it. Then, of course, an hour or so before the plane was to leave, it was of course delayed.
And once again, there was only a one hour layover scheduled. This time in DC. The flight was delayed, then delayed again, and again. They said there was a chance I could still make my connection, because flights out of DC were also heavily delayed. Uh huh. Well anyway, somthing like 7 hours after I arrived at the airport, I was on the way to DC.
And of course, when we touched down in DC, the flight back home to Orlando had left 20 minutes earlier. So, I was stuck in DC.
Being in DC, I called Rebecca and Chris, and was able to see them for a few hours. (I’ll post about that in a bit.)
Rebecca and Chris offered a place to stay, but I am allergic to their cat, and had an early flight in the morning, so I grabbed a hotel again.
In the morning, finally, a flight went as scheduled, and I was home a little while later. About 36 hours later than planned, but OK…
And that was my adventure this week. Woo!
Just under an hour ago, as I was driving away from work to go get packed for my trip, I was listening to CNN on the XM Radio and got this news:
STS-114 Shuttle Report | Mission Status Center
1732 GMT (1:32 p.m. EDT)
SCRUB! Today’s launch has been scrubbed for today due to a problem with the ECO engine cut-off fuel sensors. A problem with these sensors was noted during the fueling tests on Discovery earlier this spring.
From the sounds of it, looks like this will be more than a one day delay too, so I should be back before they try again. (Although they are not going to make an official annoucement for a couple more hours.) Everybody seems to be thinking this is not a short turn around event though. They have until the end of July for this launch window. After that, they have to wait until September.
Oh, and one more thing, someone please get Kira Phillips off the TV. I don’t usually watch CNN in the daytime since I am at work and all, so I don’t know how she usually is, but she has been asking some of the stupidist questions I have ever heard. Let Miles O’Brian handle this by himself. He isn’t the best in the world, but at least he sounds like he knows what he is talking about. (To be fair to Kira, she did say this was not “her area” at one point, but still…)
 We got back too late from the space center on Saturday. Everybody was sleepy. Amy was already asleep. And this story was six 25 minute episodes. So, we skipped it for the night.
The next night, there was still some debate. We knew it was a 2 disk set, and would it be fair to watch the first part while my mom was visiting, but the second the next week, after she was gone, thus leaving her in suspense? But thankfully, it turns out all six episodes are on Disk 1. Disk 2 is all special features it seems. (So I put it way in the back of the Netflix Q.)
But when we got back Sunday, it was late again. So we decided to split things up a bit. Rather than attempt to watch all six episodes in a row we ended up watching one, then the next day three, then on a third day the last two episodes.
I feel a bit guilty for subjecting my mom to three days of this stuff. I mean, it can be fun, but that is a lot. This was a very famous story, and for the era (originally aired in November and December of 1964) it was considered to be pretty good. But the pacing is slow, the effects laughable, etc. But that was to be expected.
The quick summary of the story is here.
We did get to see some fun scenes with Daleks all around London. And the historic moment of Susan leaving. She was the first companion to ever leave. And she was the Doctor’s Granddaughter and all!
And basically, he just marooned her on Earth, with no way to get back to him or to their home planet or anything. It was because she had fallen in love with some guy and was “now a woman” and all that, and needed to start a life seperate from her grandfather. OK, fine, but… basically, he abandoned her on a planet that was not her own with some guy she had known for less than a week.
Oops.
It was fun. I liked laughing at some of it. But like I’ve said before, I’ve always had a bit of trouble getting into the first Doctor.
Anyway, that is it for the First Doctor episodes available from Netflix. Next up, the Second Doctor, and Cybermen!
 After I first saw the tadpole with legs, I would check in occationally. The next night, he was no longer in the tank. He was climbing up the walls next to the tank. The tail was gone. He was all frog. I called him Legolas. Leg. Get it? Ha!
Anyway, he was a tiny cute little thing. About the size of a dime. He would turn his head and look at you he would climb around. If you got too close, he would hop away…
For a couple days, he hung around the general vicinity of the tanks, and would occationally get back in the tanks. After that, I couldn’t find him any more. He hopped away somewhere, now a free frog, no longer needing to be confined to the tanks in which he was a tadpole.
Legolas, out in the real world. Good luck Legolas, against all the things out there that can eat or otherwise hurt frogs the size of a dime.
Meanwhile, at least one other tadpole is growing legs. It so far hasn’t climbed out of the water, but it will soon, I can tell. Last I looked, its back feet were ready, but the arms still hadn’t seperated. But they were close. I expect it to probably start crawling out while I am away on my trip.
There may be more. But those are the ones I have seen for sure. The rest are still very much tadpoles, swimming around like crazy, but no legs yet. I’ll be keeping watch!
 This weekend, one of the things we did since my mom was in town was go and do the whole Kennedy Space Center tour thing. It was fun. I wish we actually could have spent a bit more time. That was my fault of course, for not being ready to leave the house Saturday until after noon. I could have spent more time at some of the exhibits and such, and we didn’t see everything. Of course I liked the exibits of actual artifacts and such with the little explainations to read and such. Amy on the other hand liked “Mad Mission to Mars”. Some sort of odd floor show with a robot you watched with 3D goggles. That was an hour of my time that will not come back. But the kids in the audience all loved it, which was of course the point.
Anyway, this brings us to my friend Matt and what is his fault. The Shuttle Discovery (seen here as it appeared the closest we got on the tour) is due to launch tomorrow at 19:51 UTC. But Matt scheduled a meeting in Connecticut for Thursday morning. Which means that at 19:51 UTC tomorrow, I’ll be on my way to Orlando to catch a plane to Connecticut. Actually, if I’m on time, I should just be parking at the airport about then. If I was at home, or even at work, I could just step outside and have a pretty good view. (Not as good a view as driving up to the space center, but still…) While there is a chance I might if I’m lucky happen to be someplace where I can see something, most likely not.
Thus, unless there are a couple days worth of weather or other delays, I am going to miss my first shuttle launch since I moved down here. Boo! Hissss! This is all your fault Matt!
(Just kidding Matt, business is business… I understand. Sniff! And of course, unless something happens to this one, there should be a next one a few months down the line, and I’ll see that one. And perhaps we’ll go somewhere that we can see it fly over while heading for a landing next week… of course, that is scheduled for the middle of the day on a Monday, so maybe not.)
Current STS-114 status can of course be seen at Spaceflight Now updated in pretty much real time as things happen.
 Saturday morning UTC (what other folks around here would call Friday night) Amy wanted to have one of her movie nights. Since the movies both Brandy and I have from Netflix right now are not 9 year old friendly, we agreed. But the DVD Amy has from Netflix right now (some Punk’d episodes she has cause one of them has Hilary Duff) is one she decided she did not want to watch right then. So she picked one from the ones we already had. Shrek 2. I’d seen it in the theater, and Amy had bought the DVD long ago, but I hadn’t actually watched the DVD yet. So we did.
I think I still had more fun with the first Shrek, but the second Shrek was good too. It was just cute. Nice cat. Nice donkey. A few ogres. Brandy fell asleep. My mom had not seen it before. It is fun trying to catch all the references in it to various other things. Some are obvious, some you have to look for.
Anyway, I wouldn’t call Shrek 2 a masterpiece or anything. I probably would not be choosing it myself for a second or third or fourth viewing. One was just fine. But if someone else, like the resident 9 year old, chooses it, I certainly have no objections. It is fun, and a good way to kill a couple of hours.
I have the day off today. (And Monday and Tuesday) because my mother is visiting. So I was walking along talking to her out on the lanai. We were talking about something that was going wrong with the pool skimmer thing. I realize that I still have my ear thing in my ear from a phone call I’d had a few minutes earlier, so I decide to take it off and put it in my pocket.
I hear a splash. I look to see if it is another frog jumping in the pool. It takes my eyes a few seconds to find it, then my mind a few more to comprehend what has happened. My Treo 650 is in the pool, at the bottom of the deep end. It had fallen off my belt clip when I’d removed the headset. A half second later, as my mom continues to talk, not realizing anything has changed, I dive into the pool, fully clothed and shod. I get the Treo, bring it up, immediately remove the battery, and now it is drying by the side of the pool.
They say in these sorts of situations the only hope (and it is slim) is to let it completely and totally dry out both inside and out before applying any power to it. So it is sitting in the sun trying to dry out. In a minute I will take it apart like the site says and try my best to dry the inside. It was underwater for maybe 10 to 15 seconds. And no, Treos are not even remotely water proof, I broke one with sweat alone before. So I do not expect it to ever turn on again. Although it is worth letting it dry and trying it before throwing it in the trash.
And this is exactly why I now pay an extra $4 a month or whatnot for phone insurance. If it is indeed dead, I will be able to replace it for around a $50 deductible rather than the full retail price of a Treo 650.
But still, this sucks.
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