So, when I was, eh, about twelve, there was this movie that came out that I really wanted to see. I really didn’t remember much about it, except that it was a pirate movie and there was a ship that was lost. I think there was an island and a girl, too. I remember going to see it — I also remember that a friend of mine said he didn’t want to see it because he said the trailer gave away the ending (I think he was right, but I didn’t care).
A few years ago, I started thinking about watching it again. I couldn’t find it by googling or wikipediaing anything, even posting about it on this blog didn’t help. I started to think I’d imagined the whole thing!
And then, a week ago Sunday, I opened the Best Buy weekly ad on my computer, and one of the DVDs offered for sale was Shipwreck, a Disney film from 1990, starring Gabriel Byrne. I checked Netflix for it, but couldn’t find it — apparently, it was just recently released on DVD and only available to buy. Disney, you fuckers.
Set sail for high-seas adventure in the classic Disney tradition as a boy named Hakon embarks on an extraordinary voyage! When his ship is sunk by a hurricane, Hakon ends up alone on a jungle island, only to discover his shipmates have been kidnapped by a gang of ruthless pirates. Now he must summon all his courage and instinct for survival to outwit the pirates and rescue his friends. The whole family will cheer this unforgettable, high-spirited adventure!
I watched it this past Sunday — the first half before working at the Bookstore, and the second half after getting home, and, yes, it’s just as bad as the description on the back of the box. The movie’s only saving grace (and that, barely), is Gabriel Byrne as a villainous villain! Also: it’s presented full-frame. What the fuck. I really don’t understand why movies are available in anything but letterbox.
I was a little lazy getting out of my apartment today. I aim to be out my door at 6:10 at the latest, and today I think I was on my way around 6:35. I took my usual route, cutting down an alley perpendicular to Connecticut Avenue, and emerging on the opposite side of the elevator, which, since I had the light, I decided to take. I had the misfortune to be on the elevator at the same time a janitor was polishing it — that tiny compartment reeked of chemicals. I was almost gagging when I staggered onto the mezzanine, but being unfailingly polite, I wished her a happy day.
When I catch a train at Woodley Park, I always turn right at the base of the platform elevator and walk south to the first bench. It’s my experience that boarding a car from this location on the platform will result in disembarking at Grosvenor-Strathmore right at the escalator.
I noticed the ticker says the next train in the direction of Shady Grove is five minutes away, so I take a seat and pull out the book I’ve checked out from the Bookstore (yet another of the employee persk!), Irregulars by Jennet Conant, about the British spy ring in Washington, DC in WWII (Roald Dahl figures heavily). Frankly, it’s an interesting read, but it could’ve used an eagle-eyed editor (pg. 117: “Not only would it give the semi-government-owned British Imperial airways free access to U.S. Airports but also would Britain them to expand its air routes using the very Lend-Lease planes America had sent its ally in its hour of need” — what the fuck does “Britain them” mean?!).
So I’m reading, and I hear that new chime, and a voice says, “Woodley Park customers, attention, Woodley Park customers.” So I stop reading and listen as the voice informs me and everyone else on the platform that, due to a schedule problem, the next oncoming train to Shady Grove would not be stopping at Woodley Park. The train after that, however, would be. So, a train comes in to the station, filled with passengers, and goes right back on out. Some kind at the far end of the platform, who I guess wasn’t paying attention, looked completely bumblefucked.
I glanced at the ticker, saw the next train was two minutes out, and went back to reading. Two minutes, after all, is only two minutes, and hopefully the next train wouldn’t be quite as crowded. When that train pulled in to the station, I noticed the tickers over the doors read “No Passengers”, and I also noticed it was honking, and I also noticed it wasn’t stopping, and, indeed, it didn’t. (The guy at the far end, I’m sure, was completely beside himself).
Finally a third train arrived, and it was rather empty, but more importantly, it stopped. I wonder if the announcement was supposed to have been for the “No Passenger” train, and somehow some wires got crossed and the conductor of the first train thought the instruction was for him to skip the platform. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I was on that train trying to disembark at Woodley Park, and faced with the unpleasant prospect of getting on a very crowded train at Cleveland Park. Ick!
In the dark, early days of World War II, when Great Britain alone stood against the might of Nazi Germany, a naval engagement in the North Atlantic destroyed the pride of the British fleet, and set off a massive ocean-wide hunt for a German battleship, largest in the theater, capable of wrecking havoc amongst the life-line convoys and starving England into surrender.
The HMS Hood had a crew of nearly fifteen hundred, and while the exact cause of the ship’s destruction is still not known (it’s thought a shell pierced her deck armor and exploded in a magazine), what is known is this: that Bismarck fired, and the Hood was so completely devastated, so rapidly sunk, that only three of her crew survived.
Tedd Briggs was one of those survivors. I was sad to learn today that he died October 7th, 2008.
Ted Briggs himself recalled that he was lifted off his feet and dumped headfirst on the deck: “Then she started listing to starboard. She righted herself, and started going over to port. When she had gone over by about 40 degrees we realised she was not coming back.” There was no time, or need, for an order to abandon ship. Hood sank within three minutes.
Briggs was sucked down beneath the sea. He later wrote: “I had heard it was nice to drown. I stopped trying to swim upwards. The water was a peaceful cradle – I was ready to meet my God. My blissful acceptance of death ended in a sudden surge beneath me, which shot me to the surface like a decanted cork in a champagne bottle. I turned, and 50 yards away I could see the bows of the Hood vertical in the sea. It was the most frightening aspect of my ordeal, and a vision which was to recur terrifyingly in nightmares for the next 40 years.”
Hood, launched in 1918, was at the time still the biggest warship ever built. “She was the outward and visible manifestation of sea-power,” wrote Sir Ludovic Kennedy in his book Pursuit: the Sinking of the Bismarck. “For most Englishmen the news of Hood’s death was traumatic, as though Buckingham Palace had been laid flat or the Prime Minister assassinated.”
I’ve been fascinated with the Hunt for the Bismarck for years, ever since I chanced across a documentary on the History Channel. Churchill was so enraged by the defeat of the Hood that he practically ordered the entire Royal Navy to find and sink the Bismarck. This is one of those sequences that you think, “This has to be a movie — it can’t be true!”
Bismarck‘s crew had always drilled on the chance that they might encounter the most deadly ship in the Royal Navy’s arsenal: Hood. When the battle alarms rang, Bismarck‘s crew thought they were being subjected to yet another drill, and when the Hood vanished in a fireball, no one on Bismarck‘s bridge believed what they saw.
Eventually, it was old, obsolete torpedo-bombers, launched from HMS Ark Royal, that did Bismarck in, after they inadvertently attacked HMS Sheffield, which was tailing Bismarck. Fortunately, the brand new magnetic detonators on the torpedoes were faulty, and the torpedoes exploded on impact with the water. Recalled to Ark Royal, torpedoes outfitted with the old (and reliable) detonators, the plane took off at dusk on a suicide mission — they’d never be able to find their carrier again. Each plane dropped its torpedo with no effect, except the last: the torpedo exploded and jammed Bismarck’s rudder. Each and every plane returned to the Ark Royal, at night, safely. And thanks to her jammed rudder, and inability to maneuver except in a giant circle, the British fleet closed in and pounded Bismarck until either they sunk her, or her own crew scuttled her.
The hunt for the Bismarck is one of long-odds, horrifying consequences for failure, and incredible loss. Watching any of the documentaries which touch on the fate of Hood, it’s impossible not to be saddened by the residual horror and shock evident on Mr. Briggs so many years later. However, as sad as I find his death, at age 85, I don’t find it tragic: Ted Briggs got a sixty-seven year extension on his life back on May 24th, 1941, and as it pertains him, I’m sure of two things: he was never not grateful for that freak bit of luck, and he never, not for a single day, didn’t wish the same opportunity for his lost shipmates.
A couple of weeks ago, er, maybe last week (yeah, it was totally a week ago Saturday), we had an 8am meeting at the Bookstore I work at. The entire staff. 8am, on a Saturday. After the meeting, I walked down to the Mall and made my way east towards the Archives Metro stop. As I approached the National Archives, I could hear Martin Luther King Jr. bellowing, “MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF THE COMING OF THE LORD!” A bunch of protesters had scrambled up the scaffolding in front of the building and were blasting the speech. Although I don’t precisely recall, I think the gigantic banner they’d unfurled demanded the impeachment of George W. Bush.
I had a “what the fuck” moment. Talk about closing the barn door after you’ve already burned the barn down.
I moved to DC on June 14th, 2008. I sold my car on July 4th, 2008. For roughly two weeks, I had a car, but as a resident of DC, I did not have DC tags, or a permit to allow me to park longer than two hours in Northwest, or a place to park said car (aside from street parking).
I parked my car at Grosvenor-Strathmore for two weeks. I’d run the Metro up, then drive to work. After work, I’d drive back to the garage, park, and board the train for my part-time job, or for home. If you’re familiar with Metro parking, you’re probably thinking that got pretty expensive. However, you’d be wrong. I parked for free.
How?
Well, first, when I needed access to my car on weekends, parking wasn’t an issue: Metro doesn’t charge customers to park on Federal holidays or weekends. The gate are always open.
During the week it was also just as easy. Metro controls parking through the Smartrip card — or, rather, it controls egress through the Smartrip card, which is required to activate the gate to get out of the parking area. Here’s the catch: Metro doesn’t require a person to scan their Smartrip card to get into a parking facility, therefore, Metro has no way of tracking how long a person has been parked there, without using precious man hours, which, frankly, I don’t see it (or, rather, the contractor who administers the garage) doing.
Where did I park my car? At the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station. For two weeks. For free.
How?
You might think Metro keeps the gates closed at the garages all week long, but you’d be wrong. In my experience, Metro — at least at Grosvenor-Strathmore — doesn’t close the gates before 9:30am. So, if you were to, say, depart the garage before Metro closed the gates, you could essentially park overnight (or multiple nights) for free.
Clearly, it has its limitations. If I needed access to my car after the gates were closed, I’d be forced to pay to get it out (I don’t think I ever had to do that, though). Frankly, I’d be surprised if lots of people don’t use the trick to store their car safely overnight. I know Metro has a spotty record on car safety in its garages, but perhaps because of the neighborhood, or the proximity to Strathmore and the extra staffing with events there, I never had an issue with anyone damaging my car. Of course, I would hardly call two weeks “long term.”
I’ve been a customer of Giant Foods my entire adult life, largely because my parents’ shopped most often at Giant when I was growing up, and so it was that chain of stores I’ve always felt most comfortable doing my grocery shopping in.
When I lived in Timonium, I frequented the Giant groceries in Hunt Valley and Lutherville. I think I first used the Hunt Valley store’s automated checkout lane in 2005, and if you ever want to see an almost entirely automated checkout process, look there. Of fifteen or so checkout lanes, maybe five weren’t automated.
These weren’t like little half lanes, either, these were full, long, checkout lanes, with a belt long enough that you could empty an entire cart onto it without filling it. You’d scan your items at the start of the belt, they’d pass under some sort of sensor-thing and then they’d be deposited at the end of the belt, where you’d bag them up.
Now, flash forward, and I’ve moved to Washington D.C. Here, also, I use two Giants: the first being the store at Van Ness. Being a fellow without a car, I quickly realized how much more comfortable the re-usable bags Giant sells are for people who are going to walk two miles home with their groceries, and it’s an investment I don’t mind making: the bags cost a dollar. When you use one of these bag, Giant takes five cents off your total purchase (per bag).
I’m not going to say it’s a great movie, but it’s a fun movie, it’s got a bit of heart, and once it gets past some of the crazy slapstick stuff in the beginning, it finds its legs. Forget the peeps mentioned in the trailer: the actors who make this film are Tom Cruise, and Steve Cogan. I can’t decide if my favorite line is “I FARM LAND MOTHERFUCKER!” or “Who’s the keygrip? Punch the director in the face!”
WE OWN THE NIGHT
I got about forty-five minutes into this film before I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I popped open the player and put the disc back in the envelope. It just wasn’t doing it for me (although, certainly that opening scene with Eva Mendes … wow).
YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN
I wrote about this earlier this week, but I’m tempted to put it back on my Netflix queue. It’s got surprising substance and depth amongst all the slapstick stupidity.
FOGETTING SARAH MARSHALL
There’s a lot to like about this film: Veronica Mars, er, Kristen Bell. The pop-references (especially enjoyed Billy Baldwin’s parody of David Caruso on CSI: Miami, which reminds me, check this YouTube video) are a delicious icing on the cake that is this movie. Oh, I remember something that I don’t like about this film: full frontal Jason Segal nudity. I’m okay with it in the sense that, in movies overall, there’s a lot more female nudity than male nudity, but, um, personally, I think some full frontal Kristen Bell nudity would’ve done considerably more than compensating for those eye-searing images at the start of this film. (On the other hand, the full-frontal nudity might be unique to the extended cut, in which case I might just want to stick with the theatrical editions.)
I don’t quite know if they got it way right or way wrong. The first paragraph is the one I think is totally off base. I fill my surroundings with soft fabrics? Um — I’ve got a scarf, and my sheets, and the an old brown afghan on my couch. Bright colors? Muted, mostly, although I do have a rather lively kiss kiss bang bang movie poster: it’s lime green! I’m totally about the sweet smells, I’ve got one of those air-plug things … of course, I’ve also got cats, and I’m lucky to take the trash out once a week, so that’s sort of a necessity.
The second paragraph seems somewhat more accurate.
Sometimes, I miss my old apartment. It’s Saturday night — cold, winter. The sun is long gone from the sky by now. I’m planning a relaxing evening with some hot cocoa, laundry, and movies. Saturdays being my only day off, and the only night this week I’m not working or at a happy hour, I plan to spend it bunkered down. Heat up, movies on.
It’s night like this I miss my old two-bedroom apartment, with the somewhat spacious kitchen. Now I’ve got a studio — yes, it has a walk-in closet, but it’s still a studio. My futon is in my living room, or, perhaps, my living room is in my bedroom. It seems like a luxury that I had an apartment with one room alone for my bed. Craziness!
However, I’ve noticed I tend to keep this apartment very clean and organized. Perhaps not “very”, but “mostly.” There’s a tube of balm next to my TV, my vacuum cleaner isn’t put away. My coat is draped over a chair, and there’s an empty bottle of beer on a bookshelf that I really should throw away. Aside from this detail work, my apartment is clean: you can see the carpet, most surfaces are free of dust. The kitchen counters sparkle, the trash is not (yet) overflowing.
Small spaces tend to force one, even as generally busy (and therefore messy) as I, to keep things clean. I hope this habit continues if I ever move to a bigger space!
There’s this great film from the late 90s — it’s vastly under appreciated — that has, to my eternal regret, and the eternal shame of Universal, never been released on widescreen DVD. It’s called Fierce Creatures and it’s by the same people who did Fish Called Wanda — same cast, writers, yada-yada.
It’s been many, many years since I saw it last, and if my dusty old memory works correctly, Kevin Kline — who plays two roles — plays a character who is tasked to rehabilitate a zoo his dad (also, Kline!) has bought. There’s a scene where Kline clambers into a panda exhibit, much to the horror of the zoo staff. Turns out it’s an animatronic panda, and Kline, if memory serves, humps the thing much to the staff’s horror and/or amusement.
The point being, that while pandas look cute and cuddly, you should remember that they’re panda bears. And while Wikipedia stresses that panda attacks on humans usually occur as a result of said panda being annoyed by said human, they’re not exactly your everyday house cat, right?
A college student in southern China was bitten by a panda after he broke into the bear’s enclosure hoping to get a hug, state media and a park employee said Saturday.
[T]he student was bitten on the arms and legs. Two foreign visitors who saw the attack ran to get help from workers at a nearby refreshment stand, who notified park officials, the employee said.
“Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn’t expect he would attack,” the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Stupid stupid stupid.
I mean, I joke about jumping into the Big Cat enclosure at the National Zoo here in DC and rubbing the tigers’ stomachs, but, um, I’m joking. Because while I adore cats, and while I love to see the movements of my own in such larger forms, I know that Big Cats are nothing, in behavior, like my own pets. Plus, there’s the whole scale of things: when my cats bite or claw, they rarely break my skin. Those tigers? Oh, I’d be dead in one swipe!
I did just crack up in laughter at the article’s end (emphasis mine, and mine alone!):
Last year, a panda at the Beijing Zoo attacked a teenager, ripping chunks out of his legs, when he jumped a barrier while the bear was being fed.
The same panda was in the news in 2006 when he bit a drunk tourist who broke into his enclosure and tried to hug him while he was asleep. The tourist retaliated by biting the bear in the back.
Pregaming was a Bass Ale and a Yuengling. If I had any Natty Boh left, I’d probably’ve had one of those, or two!
Walked to Adam’s Morgan around 7:15ish. I have no idea how long it took to get there, and I’m surprised I found the place as easily as I did. This was actually my first time in Adam’s Morgan since moving to DC — I work a lot, and Office happy hours are usually in downtown Bethesda, and Bookstore happy hours are usually wherever our underage employees won’t get carded — and it really reminded me of Fell’s Point, without the water. This impression was particularly clear when I left (around 11ish) when there were actually a lot of people milling around.
Also: let me just nag — motherfucker, when you’re walking in a t-shirt bitching about the cold, why didn’t you put on a fucking coat? Gah! I’m turning into my mother!
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to find any bloggers, in fact, I was about thirty seconds from departing when Jesus and Lemmonex came downstairs looking for people like me: y’know, trying to look like I knew who I was looking for as I scanned the bar area trying to identity blogger through some sort of blogdar.
Sent upstairs, it wasn’t too long before I met Arjewtino, followed by, and in no particular order, and with apologies to bloggers I met but forgot to mention (no apologies for bloggers I didn’t meet — dude, I didn’t know you were there!): Maxie, Deutlich, Doug … okay, at this point, my mind has pretty much shut down. I’m sure there will be more detailed — and sober! — recaps later in the week.
I’ve been up since 5, and my drunk self has an appointment with my bed, if I can manage to drag myself over to it.
6:30am! Do you know what this means? It means I slept in. I usually wake up at like 5:30 at the latest on Saturdays. I think I’m going to go down to the Mall and see if I can find the WWI memorial.
Bloggers I met but didn’t link to last night because my decrepit self wanted to sleep:
Doug, Boztopia, Mb, Joe, and Leon. There were a couple of other new bloggers there, but I’m afraid alcohol and sleep has erased their names and blogs from my head — for now, I’ll call them Elizabeth, dude looking for vanilla tasting liquor, and American U. student.
I think this guy was there, but he would only refer to blogging as something he was mostly “retired” from, so I’m not quite sure.
So, I’m remembering a night in March of 2005, when I went to my first Baltimore Blogger Happy Hour. I was nervous, but it’s amazing how quickly liquid courage makes one relax and enjoy oneself. Baltimore Bloggers are, for the most part, a great group of people — and while that group shrunk and grew, I’m happy to have made such friends, and I’m glad I didn’t give into the doubts assailing me that day before that first happy hour, and went anyway.
Flash forward almost three and a half years, and I’m no longer living in Baltimore — moved south, and now I’ve got an apartment overlooking the National Zoo in DC.
Anyway, tomorrow night is the first D.C. Blogger Happy Hour that I’m aware of — well, I guess it’s the second, but I thought the first one was tonight, but it was really Wednesday, and, damn, two scheduled happy hours in three days? D.C. bloggers must like to drink! –and I plan on attending.
How different from Baltimore Blogger Happy Hours can they be? I mean, I’m pretty sure that some things are the same even across cities, and, um, bloggers tend to lean towards the alcoholic. In my experience, anyway.
I’m hoping some of these high-rolling DC bloggers will be generous enough to buy this DC Blogger Happy Hour virgin a beer.
Also: since I don’t know what any of you DC bloggers look like, I’ll let you pick me out of the crowd –
NOW WITH LESS HAIR!
(well, less hair on top of my head … more hair on my face …)
