Bleh

What's been going on? I don't even know. Go check out Analyze
Everything for pics of Kansas waterfalls and stories about asian
clams. And hopefully a picture of the first wild black-footed ferrets
in Kansas in a long, long time.

Otherwise:

- We're buying a house. Four bedrooms, 2 baths, in town, nothing
much happening in the yard, no garage but a 2 car carport. Across the
street from a Catholic school (Am I ever going to get away from
Catholics? I'd convert but I loathe religion). Best positive of the
house is that it is in town, but number 2 is the incredibly huge
kitchen. Ok, incredibly huge is an overstatement, but this kitchen is
easily twice the size of our kitchen in grad school, with tons of
counterspace and a huge pantry (wow...just...wow). We move in April
23rd, and I can't wait. I'm borderline desperate to quit driving so
much all the damn time. We're going to turn the yard entirely into
natives and garden. I've actually got all kinds of plans involving
solar heating and geothermal and damn near every other crazy scheme
you can think of (using greywater maybe?).

- Morel Hunting. So who's been doing this? Sightings are starting
to come in from Missouri and Kansas, so I thought I'd do a little
hunting last weekend, but I was totally shut out. I suspect finding
the first one will be the hardest, because I'm not even sure if I'm
looking in the right places. Basically, native woodlands with some
moisture. While I think we'll definitely get in on the morel action
this year, I think we're also going to buy a 'mushroom log'. They
sound fairly easy to maintain, and the prospect of having an abundant
supply of shitake mushrooms is pretty appealing. Let me know if
you've done this and how successful/easy it was.

- The baby decided to be extra cute this weekend, which was pretty
good timing, because both grandma's got to see him. For some reason
he's not really crawling yet. Almost seems like he's just unable to
get good enough traction on the ground, because when he's in my arms,
I'm pretty much his own personal jungle gym. The kid loves, loves,
hanging upside down. He's kind of a little monkey.

- Top Chef. I never thought I would watch this show, but I have
been, and despite the unbearable awkwardness of it (as compared to the
professionalism of Iron Chef's similar competition), the show is
fantastic. I can't help but compare Top Chef to "The Next Iron Chef"
and find Top Chef inferior. The competitors are less confident, less
experienced, and the judges seem very unprofessional. Also, some of
the competitions are pretty bogus. I'm rooting for the guy with the
weird mohawk-type hair.

- The Darjeeling Limited. In my opinion, this was probably the worst
movie Wes Anderson has made. Which actually sounds bad, but isn't,
because this movie is fantastic. This guy just makes unbelievably
good movies. I didn't think Royal Tenenbaums could be topped, but
then The Life Aquatic happened. I'd actually probably put this movie
as dead-even with Bottle Rocket, but since Bottle Rocket was the first
indie film I 'discovered' on my own, I still like it more.

- I am Legend. Disappointing. Will Smith can act, really well, and
unfortunately a pretty lame script killed what was a good film. The
next sentence is a spoiler, so stop if you want to watch the film. In
particular, I think every single thing that happened after he was
knocked unconscious kinda sucked, and everything before that was kinda
awesome. The script-writers should have read World War Z.

- The NBA: I don't care about the seeding in the West right now.
There are 5 legitimate contenders for winning the Western Conference:
Phoenix, San Antonio, L.A., New Orleans, and Dallas. Yes Dallas! Are
you kidding me? That's the last team the Spurs want in the first
round.

- College Basketball - Well, Tyler "Mr. Will"
Hansbroughuruhgoghghrogh showed his true colors against KU by playing
like ass and falling down a lot. That guy winning a national player
of the year award is an embarrassment to those awards. Yes, the guy
plays hard, but he's TERRIBLE!!! I'm starting to think Mark Madsen is
getting embarrassed by the constant comparison. Who honestly thinks
this guy is better, in any way, than Beasley?

Mind dump

Response to comments:

-  So apparently "Konrad" took issue with my statement: "And not one of the Republican candidates have the moral integrity or intelligence of a garden slug."  Specifically, he seemed to think that I should have more precisely defined what a garden slug is.  "Konrad" then went into a long and detailed explanati--- I'm going to spare you the details and just defend myself by saying A) a garden slug is a slug in a garden...duh, and B) Konrad, you're an idiot (If that's even your real name).  But thank you for commenting!

-  For those of you who wondered and commented (that Konrad character again), my friend is apparently going to get out of the hospital soon.  

Music coolness:

 I get bored an unproductive in hotel rooms, so here's the music I've been cramming down my ears, you might not have heard of all of it:

 -  Rilo Kiley  Silver Lining and Portions for Foxes.  I really dig Jenny Lewis, she did some solo stuff that was awesome too.  Both of these songs have good sounds, but I don't necessarily understand all the lyrics to Portions for Foxes.  Are foxes a metaphor for composters/decay?  I don't know.
  
 - White Stripes  Icky Thump and You Don't Know what love is.  Is there any real doubt that the White Stripes are the greatest mainstream musical act currently in existence?  I guess it depends on whether or not Modest Mouse qualifies as 'mainstream'.  I think not, since most of their really good stuff is pre-Float On.

-  Paramore Misery Business (and acoustic!).  Probably my biggest guilty pleasure is pop-punk bands.  I really liked Blink 182 and Less than Jake and now Paramore and essentially the entire
lineup from "Fueled By Ramen" is filling that gap.  Paramore essentially sings the same songs as Britney Spears (in terms of topics), but apparently guitar and attitude count for a lot in my book.

-  Dashboard Confessional  Vindicated.  I forgot about this song, even though I really like it, then I stumbled upon it last week.  I hoped this would lead down an interesting avenue of new music, but it turns out Dashboard Confessional are border-line incoherent and sort of a bunch of losers.  So that sucked.

-  Sparklehorse Sick of Goodbyes.  Actually, I could have picked a bunch of songs from Sparklehorse.  They're part of the Cracker-Camper Van family, and they are weird and beautiful.

-  Cute is What we Aim For Curse of Curves.  That's just a stupid name, but the song isn't bad.

Other stuff:

 -  Apparently there is no pretense internally that the Guantanamo Bay detainees are real people.  There are a lot of people who like to divide the world into *good* people and *evil* people.  If you're one of those people, then you can't possibly refer to the Bush presidency as anything but evil.  He has overseen the widespread kidnapping, imprisonment, and torture of people from all over the world.  That's either evil or you don't believe evil exists.  That's all the options there are.

-  Apparently the movie Jumper sucks.  So much so that someone had a 'Dead Poets Society' moment.  I'll be honest, that's kinda what the first three years of graduate school did to me.  

-  So I've been trying out Opera on my work laptop for the past couple of months.  I've got to say, it kinda sucks.  Everything that's in Firefox is here too, but everything seems to run slower, and right now, as I type this, the browser seems to have real problems dealing with the Blogger "edit post" window.  Things keep re-arranging, and shifting and damnit if I am not getting real close to ditching it altogether.  Other stuff is just more annoying to use, like the password wand or the history.  

-  NBA:  This is supposedly the greatest season in NBA history.  So why am I losing interest faster than at any time in the last 5 years?  Because the model franchise for great basketball (the Suns) threw it all away.  Look, Shaq is everything that is wrong with basketball recently:  He whines when he doesn't get enough shots, he can't dribble or shoot, he has no team loyalty, he takes credit for the success of everyone he plays with, he slows down the game, he has always benefitted from ridiculous officiating, and he takes off half the season.  Why would the Suns want to get that?  The Spurs lead this wave of up-and-coming basketball teams that focused on skilled basketball, great on-court chemistry, and planning for the long-haul, but it certainly seemed like the Suns were on their way towards succeeding the Spurs as the best team in the league.  How bad could the off-court chemistry with Shawn Marion have been?  The two teams most poised to rip the West out of the hands of the Spurs were the Mavs and Suns, but now, purely by default and raw talent, the Lakers are clearly the best team out there.  And I hate the Lakers.  No wonder the NBA is losing me.

What's been happening?

I almost forgot my password to this blog. Dang it has been awhile. Let's get right to it:

- First of all, my good friend K revealed himself to be 'openly hostile' by sending me a link to the game tower defense. I'm going to warn you that clicking on that link is like clicking on crack cocaine. I'm serious. I didn't look up from my computer screen for three days, and that was only because a catastrophic flood inundated the biological station, forcing the loss of internet, phones and septic systems (ew!).

- About that flooding: Lake Texoma, she is over her banks! I may not be teaching a class on Invasive species this summer after all, since the profs are supposed to arrive in 17 days and right now the road to the station is flooded over in 4 places, the phone and internet is out, the septic systems are backed up, and there's a pretty good chance one of the dorms is going to be flooded out momentarily. I'm conflicted about this. Overall it is a bad thing. The station needs the money from such a class, I need the money (and experience), and I've spent a ton of time and effort getting everything ready.
On the other hand, I am extremely busy and I would love to not leave my very pregnant wife for two weeks. I'm also not sure what exactly I'm going to do if the floodwaters are still high, as a big part of my plan revolved around surveying boaters...and all the boat ramps have been under water for the last month.

- Job stuff: Did anyone not get the memo about my new job? I'm officially leaving academia after about ~10 years of collegiate life. Regrets? Yeah, a few. On the whole I think I've had a good run at attending and working at colleges, but I wish this last had gone a lot better. The job I left was, without a doubt, one of the most depressing times I've had since I left high school. This, fortunately, was in sharp contrast to my wife's experience working at the same place (in a very different capacity), so there's been some weird feelings about leaving.
Basically, I felt as if I was living in a dark tunnel for the last 6 months and seriously debated seeking professional assistance while the wife was enjoying her job, her co-workers, and the great joy of not having to drive to work.
The new job is in state government. I really have no idea what to expect.

- Looking for a house stuff: So I'm living in my parent's basement. This is not good times. Don't get me wrong, the basement is wonderful. There's a lake out the back where I can go fishing, there's a cute dog that is extremely happy to see us, and there's a really, really big TV (talk about a culture shock after 8 months of no cable).
But we need to get our own place. The problem is there is literally nothing available to rent that is remotely affordable. There was a tornado and over a thousand people were displaced into the area we're moving. The rentor's in the area have apparently responded by raising the rent to astronomical levels. A 2 br, 1 ba, 800 square foot house costs $800 a month! The house is ugly, doesn't come with any appliances, and the kitchen is a piece of shit. $800 a month. And this is in a tiny little town in Kansas. We could buy the house with no money down, and pay less than 500 a month on the mortgage. Annoying.
We will probably end up buying something.

- Harry Potter: So as some of you know, I have not read the Harry Potter books, and I had only seen the first Harry Potter movie. I've been generally dismissive of the entire idea, believing it to be A) annoying and B) a cheap version of Lord of the Rings. However, anyone who continued listening past those initial reasons would have heard me also say that I suspected I would love the books and didn't want to get involved until they were all out.
Particularly tuned in readers may be recalling that the final book in the series hits bookstores this month.
I'm sure we can all see where this is going. On Sunday we watched all 4 of the movies available to rent, and today we saw the latest movie (Order of the Phoenix). I read the first book in 3 and a half hours on Monday, and the second over a slightly longer period on Tuesday. I've held off on buying another book today.
Let's sum this up: These movies are unprecedented. There has never been anything like a 5-part movie that remained cohesive. Unless you want to count TV shows (in which case Firefly looks beautiful), the movies alone are unique. I have no idea how this has happened, but I suspect it has to do with the writer having unprecedented control.
Secondly: The books are a little disappointing. The movie paints a rich tapestry that appears to be just barely explored. I anticipated this being like the Lord of the Rings. The Tolkien books contained an astounding amount of information, from which the movies could include maybe half (often much less). The first two Harry Potter movies contain 90% of what is in the books, to the point I was surprised when anything was even slightly different. My usual rule is Watch the movie before you read the book because books are almost always interesting even if the movie has given something away. In the case of Harry Potter, I'm not how the book became so popular without the movie. The book leaves a lot to the reader's imagination, which of course for me is now tainted by the movies. I can't imagine what I would have 'seen' if I had read the books without seeing the movies, but it wouldn't have been what the movies show. Basically, I'm astounded that this stuff became so important that they had to make movies about it.
In summation: The books are ok, but the movies are fantastic. And yes, I'll still be reading all the books.

My Quick Review of Pirates III

Apparently, episode three of Johnny Depp selling out to the man (in this case, Disney) is going to be an on-going saga.

And by on-going, I mean, never-f***ing-ending.

So in case you missed the last one, here's the brief recap:

Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightly made googly eyes at each other. Johnny Depp (uh...Jack Sparrow) said goofy things, waved his hands around in the air, and just generally acted completely amoral. The ship's sergeant said stupid things. There were some really ridiculous fight scenes. Good guys became bad guys, bad guys became good guys.

And there was a really big squid.

Whew. I quite enjoyed Pirates II.

Now, about Pirates III. There's this one scene maybe 1/3rd of the way into the film. I don't want to spoil it for you, but Jack Sparrow is dead. Oh shit. I just spoiled it for you.

Anyway. This scene is a little trippy.

This the best thing in the whole freaking movie. Why? Because it unabashedly acknowledges that nothing makes a damned bit of sense.

Look, filmmakers. I like style in a film. Really, I do. The first two Pirates were all style. This one is too.

But could we please, please have a little bit of internal consistency from film to film? I mean, I really got the feeling that every single thing in this movie was made up on the spot. A lot of the movie seems to revolve around freeing a particular character. Once free, this character is never mentioned again.

Uh what?

So to recap: There is one interesting scene in this movie, a lot of stupid special effects, a fair number of overly dramatic flourishes, and the kind of internal consistency that seems to suggest cause and effect are random dreams of a heroin junkie.

My rating system is based on the amount of money (up to ten dollars) that I'd believe the movie-going experience was worth.

I'd give Pirates of the Caribbean III a $7 rating.