Now, this is not a film that I’m particularly interested in, though it does seem to have reasonably good reviews. The reason it caught my eye is that I recalled seeing the same film on the schedule of our local discount theater. It is still showing there right now (well, at 7:10 tonight). I see a lot of movies at that theater. It’s $2, and not up-to-date, but for a lot of movies it’s just fine, and makes for an inexpensive night out.

So, what has me troubled is that we now have the DVD release of a relatively well reviewed film being rushed so much that it’s going to squeeze out these discount theaters. There have always been straight to DVD releases, and DVD release schedules have been compressing,  but there has always been enough “first run” content with enough of a gap to keep the discount theaters stoked with content a few weeks behind the multiplex.

Not sure if this is going to be the new normal or this is just an isolated case, but I hope things balance out in a way that preserves a place for the “cinema poco costoso” (blame Google translate if that’s horribly wrong)

Oh and the kicker? Yes, you read the label correctly, it’s organic!

The Toaster Revolt of 1997

So, I’m getting a bagel this morning. Little did I know I was about to witness the worker’s revolt of 97.

I get my nice sesame bagel, head over to the bagel biter, slice it in half and and turn to go to the toaster. This is one of those commercial conveyer-belt toasters. Anyway, there are about 10 people around the toaster, this 1 woman, whom I’ll refer to as Norma Rae, is pontificating to the cafeteria guy, (we’ll call him Jambo), on how much of her precious break time is being wasted dealing with this toaster. People are putting their bagels, bread, muffins, puppies, etc into the toaster, staring at it for a minute and taking their item out, looking at it and shaking their heads. It seems the toaster isn’t so much as toasting as it is warming.

Ok, so normal person would say, “Oh, darn” and run the bread product through again until the desired toastedness is achieved, but not your average corporate citizen, no! The folks are standing around, ganging up on the poor cafeteria guy, “What’s wrong with this thing?, “Why aren’t there 2 toasters?”, “Why do my shorts keep riding up?”. Poor Jambo is just trying to get to the knob to turn the thing up a little, but Norma won’t let him get by. She continues her assault on defenseless Jambo while one of her compatriots, whom I’ll call Brain Donor, is repeatedly PRESSING the temperature adjustment KNOB. So Norma is quizzing Jambo on why there is only 1 toaster, Jambo is mounting his only defense, “I’m just a contractor, the corporation supplies the equipment”, Donor is continuing to press the knob, wondering why it is having little effect.

Meanwhile, another party, whom I will name MacGyver, swoops in to retrieve his bagel. Mac discovers that his bagel is being blocked in the output tray by another. Being the resourceful guy that he is, MacGyver grabs the tongs, removes the offending bagel, placing it on a plate to the side of the toaster, and takes his own bagel, slipping away stealthily. Well, Mac had no idea what he had done. You see, this bagel belonged to Norma, she had finally disengaged from Jambo’s jugular to get her tasty bagel. Much to her horror, someone…or something had removed her bagel from the toaster and placed it on….a plate! “Did someone take this out?”, Norma demanded. “Who did this, did it fall?” “Is this my bagel? Who’s is this? Mine was a sesame? Is this mine? Who took this out?” My mind was reeling from the assault. It was all I could do to weakly mutter “that’s mine” when Norma pointed at my bagel, which was on its second trip through the toaster.

Well, I got out of there just as Norma was looking for something to make protest signs with and Donor was wondering what the pretty red things inside the toaster tasted like. I heard a distorted scream of pain as I left the cafeteria.

Cut to this morning. I’m wandering around the same cafeteria, with the same (or reasonably the same) toaster. There’s a nicely printed and laminated sign hung next to the toaster. This sign reads:

“Please do not butter item before placing in toaster”

Really?

Coincidentally (?) there is also an errant satellite that will be shot down during the aforementioned eclipse. Also neat.

I see this going one of 2 ways, either completely uneventfully, or horribly, horribly, wrong.

The former option probably doesn’t require much exposition. Missile, Satellite, Boom. It’s the latter, and far more interesting option that is not quite obvious, so I’ll lay it out for you.

Some aspect of the eclipse will cause the missile to fail to impact the target. It may be that the alignment of the Earth, Sun and Moon causes a slight change in the gravitational field of the Earth that messes up the guidance system, or maybe just a rather important Navy officer gets distracted by the spectacle, not important which. This error causes the missile to continue traveling through space until it finally strikes our poor, defenseless Moon. The resulting explosion is enough to fracture the little planetoid into several chunks. As the eclipse subsides it reveals the shattered Moon to the horrified population of the earth.

Over the course of the next few months, the orbit of our own planet around the Sun is affected by this change. The Earth’s path becomes more elliptical bringing us both closer and farther away from the Sun at the extremes. The result is stifling summer temperatures and brutal winter conditions. Over time, the climate degrades further and further and we are periodically peppered by the smaller chunks of debris from the moon.

Eventually, the increased radiation from the close proximity to the Sun mutates those who spend too much time outside into bloodthirsty zombies (there are always zombies). The population dwindles as more of us become, or are consumed by, these zombies, and the environment becomes increasingly toxic.

Finally, despite the efforts of a plucky oil drilling crew, the largest pieces of the moon come crashing into the Earth, instantly wiping out huge chunks of the remaining populace. This event pushes our orbit even farther out of alignment resulting in complete, yet spectacular, destruction as we collide with Jupiter.

I’m sure everything will be fine, but would it really hurt to just push the missile launch off until tomorrow?

Read more at Gizmodo or PostlerFerguson.

Don’t miss the pic of the Brain Piercer, um, I mean, Ear Groomer

This drug comes from the Borrachero tree that grows wild in Colombia, so it’s not exactly hard to get. Here’s an article that describes the situation. One especially amusing excerpt:

“We probably should put some sort of fence up,” jokes biologist Gustavo Morales at Bogota’s botanical gardens, eyeing children playing with borrachero seeds everywhere.

“If you ate a few of those, it would kill you.”

You should “probably put a fence up”? Ya think?!

“Ok, kids, go out and play, but remember to stay away from the zombie tree! Don’t want you filling up on brains and not being able to finish your dinner!”

I know most of you read this and think “So what? They’re just a bunch of monkeys”. Well, you must understand that this is just the beginning. Don’t forget that many years ago, some enterprising caveman did the same thing, and look where we are now. Soon they’ll figure out the wheel, then fire, all of a sudden they know how to make steel. My biggest monkey concern used to be that an infinite number of them would get together and write Hamlet, now I have to worry about them building an Abrams Tank.

This especially concerns me as all my apocalyptic home defense plans are based on the very real threat of Zombies, and to a lesser extent, robots (see previous blog entry). Defending against super evolved commando monkeys is an entirely different thing. Most notable is the fact that we live in the woods. This, of course, means lots of trees which are perfect for slowing down large robots or confusing lumbering zombies. But these monkeys live in trees. They’ll be leaping about the treetops dropping grenades that they made this morning on the house, it’ll be a slaughter.

I’m going to have to make some changes.

For example, take this nice little video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ok, robots dancing, cute. Several robots in a synchronized dance number, hmmmm, still cute, but a little scary, so now they’re working together. Um, ok.

Now we move on to this one, which is what happens when you mix technology and beer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ok, so I know I’m not the only one that sees the obvious potential for destruction there. Notice the guys head is about an inch off the concrete several times. Still, it must be fun, and what’s the harm in that?

And in this video, we see that the same idea as above has started to show up in amusement parks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is the final preparation phase of the robot’s plan. Watch that video again, only this time imagine them smashing the poor occupants into the ground or tossing them into the air. Basically the same video, but with more blood and screaming. Well, more blood anyway. Also notice that there are several of these death machines lined up like, …. um …. maybe soldiers. I’m sure that they don’t have legs under the ground.

And if you’re wondering what this all might look like, just watch “Terminator” again, or maybe this Chemical Brothers video will be enough of a reminder:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lastly I’ll leave you with a little snippet I wrote in our forum in response to the first video:

“I bow before the Robot Overlords” he says while bowing deeply in front of the orderly row of metallic soldiers surrounding the leader.

“I swear loyalty to you and offer my life and body up to your service, use me as you will.

He bows even deeper, extending his hands to the floor, knuckles first, a highly subservient position. The precise alignment of his joints triggers the mechanism contained within his tunic to release 2 high density Triarum grenades into his hands. The rings fall directly over his thumbs, which he instantly extend outward to release the pins. He stands.

Miles away a woman and a boy stand on the pad, a Ferrocopter idling quietly behind them. They hear 2 sharp explosions. A single tear rolls down the woman’s cheek. She puts her hand on the boys shoulder and they turn and walk slowly towards the copter. “Let’s get started” she says to the pilot as they board.

Whether this is fiction or prophecy remains to be seen. I’ll be down in the basement loading magazines.