random bits

[cellio]

Sunday night we went to see the Narnia movie (finally). The previews were mostly aimed at kids, with one notable exception (The White Countess); that was an odd combination. One of the previews was for Hoot, which appears to be another in the theme of "these kids, and only these kids, can save the world (or their small part of it)". I find that while I'm willing to suspend that sort of disbelief in a fantasy or SF millieu -- Narnia, my recent D&D game, and a number of novels boil down to this plot -- I am usually unable to do so for stories set in the real world. So Hoot came across to me as dumb and lame, even though I was sitting there waiting for Narnia.

A doctor friend was recently opining that "some guy" is responsible for about 80% of ER visits from violent crimes, and if we can just find him we'll all be better off. "For instance", he said, "you get reports like 'there I was, sitting on my front porch at 3AM reading my bible and minding my own business, when Some Guy shot me!'". Err, this might be more challenging than he thinks.

I caused a telemarketer to violate the script this weekend. I was lured in by him pronouncing my name correctly, so I didn't immediately detect his true nature. Then he said "I'm calling from the PA Pro-Life Commission" (or some such) and I interrupted and said "you really have a wrong number". He stopped mid-shpiel and apologized. Negative points for calling in the first place but positive points for not persisting. And maybe this one will actually put me on their do-not-call list.

A random thought: in this age of global communication, when giving an email correspondent your phone number it is polite to mention your time zone. On the internet nobody knows you're a dog, and also, nobody knows you're in Bangladesh. Or wherever. Fortunately, Google can answer these sorts of questions pretty easily given the phone number, unless it's a cell phone.

Saturday is a local SCA event, Dance and Romance. It's a free event (pot-luck food) at Pitt, and as the name implies, there will be a lot of dancing. Ensemble Rigodon (that's On the Mark's SCA identity) will be doing a short concert, and lots of us will undoubtedly be playing dance music all day. Should be fun!

Comments

Re: Some Dude in the '80s and '90s

[cellio]

I think you're right about Some Dude. Street people don't have long active lifetimes, I suspect.

How'd you like Narnia?

Overall, it was ok. The animation was beautiful. The story was clearly pitched exclusively to kids rather than working on multiple levels as (IIRC) the books do. (Note: it's been 25 years since I read the books.) That said, they did a good job of telling the story and building the emotional moments. (I wonder what it was like for someone who didn't know how the Aslan thing would play out.) There was the usual complement of bad battle moves, but that's normative so shrug. The monikers (Edmund the Just, etc) weren't really justified on-screen, so that was a little strange. Overall, a decent movie, though I probably won't rush out to see the next one if they film it. DVD rental, sure.

See also comments to selucid below.