Dragons -- Gorbash!!!

Well, I have found it. That elusive keystone to all things latent in my childhood, that will bring balance to my life. It's name is The Flight of Dragons !

When I was little (perhaps aged 4-9) Bentley and I used to watch this animated movie all the time...this movie about four wizard brothers which commanded not only the four elements, but also dragons of complementary colors. A story about science versus magic. Other than these vague details, I could only remember a few pictures in my mind and that the wizard brothers convened in a floating stone temple in the sky (they got there via dragon, of course). Well, I have been trying to firstly figure out what movie I was trying to remember so earnestly, secondly to obtain that movie. I am not exaggerating when I say that this movie has been in my mind for nearly three years. But, only a faint memory until yesterday! After two devoted hours of imdb searches, message board requests, & random website browsing, I found it yesterday. THE FLIGHT OF DRAGONS, released in 1982, and includes the voice of John Ritter.

Apparently it is out of print in VHS, and a DVD version was never made, so I found a used copy online...only 8-14 days until all of my young-childhood neuroses and repressed angst can spring forth and celebrate alongside me while we watch the best animated movie ever. In order to get ready, I found a 8 minute clip of the opening of the movie on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LudfQsviuw4

The whole movie is actually up in installments, but I must hold out. It will be better that way. More tantric. gehhhh.

Does anyone else know this movie? Please!? Has this entry sparked anyone's memory? Please someone comment.

---> BTW, "Gorbash" is the name of the green wizard's (Carolinus's) dragon. Also the music to this movie is epic. confirmed.

My Drivers Don't Need Updating! -- On Conspiracy

That Scottish bloke John Buchan said that "Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences." A fairly dystopian thought, John, but you do make a point.

Yesterday I watched A Scanner Darkly -- the movie based on Philip K. Dick's novel from the 70s about government plots, a new addictive drug (Substance D), and ultimate paranoia. It was pretty good--not mind blowing--but a well-made movie. It uses digital rotoscoping, which essentially is going back and drawing/cartooning over the lines of real film shots to give the final appearance of a shifting and dream-like visual experience. It is the same stylistic mode of Waking Life.

Anyway, the movie involves this Substance D pill that 20% of the population is addicted to, and as the plot unravels we learn that it is created from an organic compound of a small blue flower. In response to the addictive problems, the goverment has contracted the services of a rehab clinic, which takes brain-dead ex-addicts and gets them to not only beat withdrawl, but also to supply labor. The final revelation is when the main character is assigned to farm work and he realizes that the rehab company is commiting ultimate irony -- they are using the zombie-like ex-addicts to secretly farm the very same blue flower that makes the Substance D drug that got them there in the first place.

So, it's really quite a tangle of spying, misidentity, and paranoia. And, all today, I have been researching laptops to purchase before I begin graduate school, and a parallel struck me. For all the laptop notebooks, you have options for anti-virus software. Software that offers updates as often as three times a day!! In order to keep up with all the viruses and bugs being created. This is nuts. Who is creating these havoc-bringing digital demons? Why must anti-virus software be so expensive?

I propose that the Anti-Virus Software companies (McAfee, Norton, &c.) are subsidizing themselves, in a way. They have a side-team of people working to create these little bugs, just so you have to pay extra for their software to stop the damned things. Three updates a day makes little sense unless you consider this covert cohort scheming away so that the corporate software retains its worth. It is a sort of self-subsidizing master-plan. I know your secrets!

Does anyone read this blog anymore?

Promotion

Hello kiddies -- I felt I should give a bit endorsing Rob, Rich, and Jacob. For those who do not know, they are biking across the country, from Yorktown, VA to Astoria, OR. Just 3 bodies, 3 bikes, and the gear strapped on. Rob is trying to drop blog updates when he can; I encourage you to check them out:

trackrob.blogpot.com

Anyway, thought some might be interested. Best of luck, celerity, and safety to those three. An impressive journey -- and exploratory picnic indeed! Rich is keeping a blog as well: findrich.blogspot.com

They departed yesterday (Sat, May 26). Czech it out!

Natural Selection

I.

Probably not an elemental epiphany,

They say, but rather, those tiny organic compounds

Came on the tail of some gray comet, soaring through the

Atmosphere, to settle contently in a warm bath

And marinate on notions of expansion,

For billions of years. Perhaps our quest for outer space—

Hungry and bold—is nothing more

Than a quest for home.

II.

If legs were once fins, and we breathed deep with gills,

Then who’s the fool who fears the swimming pool?

Could it be that it was us among the kelp, dressed in

That slimy texture, like some night-time avocado lotion?

Well, who would know that such a wholesome rub would be

Washed to the sallow shore and turned to tufts of fur?

The bonobo, the chimp: deceiving imps?

Why should we fear friends so near?

If only Charles were here to tell us what comes next.

Hot fire breath, light boned wings, and lung-gills to boot?

Or some ESP to inform us the route?

III.

And now, the process has slowed, perhaps soon

Obsolete. We champion our very own

Natural Selection with medicine and sympathy.

And honorable technology, hungry and bold

With its runaway resource quest, moves like a global egg hunt,

Rich and happy among the sun dresses and spring picnics.

But we shall sleep surely when the dark Easter night comes.

And that same dumb power that some mock in jest

Will tuck us all in, and lay our species to rest.

-PC

What visions?

I don't mean to discount spirituality, but sometimes I cannot help it. Especially when I read medieval accounts of people having waking visions, falling into rapture, or spasming with the spirit of the Lord. Funny how a lot of this behavior is labeled "Schizophrenia" nowadays.

For example, Margery Kempe. She was a female Christian in the 14th and 15th century who recorded (via a scribe) her visions and emotional responses to God's works. Most of it began after a traumatic childbirth (again, I think less of spiritual torment, and more or Postpartum Depression). Sometime during this period she experiences a full 8 weeks of feverish nightmares and sightings of devils threatening her. At another point she takes a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and is reported to fall off of her horse when near Jerusalem and go into spasms. She attributes all of this to the curious boon of God's love, and how he deals us both pain and joy. I attribute Kempe's behavior to mild-moderate schizophrenia manifested in the repressed and anxious role of a female in medieval Christendom.

Numbers --

A few things:

1) My step-dad's mother was telling me about a bizarre method of cooking fish, specifically trout. With a dishwasher! Simply lay the creatures in the racks, and turn on the normal cycle (I guess?), and the hot water and the steam-cycle cooks it up! I wonder about the smells that would linger in the appliance though? Ehhh... I don't know about you, but I'll stick to the frying/baking method. I think the trout would appreciate the culinary dignity.

2) I learned why one side of the coin is called "tails." OK, so "heads" is pretty obvious, but I never really knew why the opposite side was tails. Well, it turns out that it originates from Merry Olde England. Their early coinage featured the monarch's head on one side, and on the other was a depiction of St. George fighting the dragon. Saint George is their patron-saint, and his legend was dear to the English. A prominent feature of this coin picture was the dragon's tail. So, "tails" refers to dragon ones! I kind of wish we still had dragon tails on our coins.

3) I've gotten to play Drew's Nintendo Wii some these last few weeks -- OH MAN! It is incredible! Everything is so fun to play with the Wii Remote and Numchuck (sp?)...all your actions are mimiced by the video characters. I got to play the Wii Sports game (bowling, tennis, golf, boxing) and Legend of Zelda (bomb-diggity). You know how in movies about the future they have people playing (or just exploring) "virtual reality landscapes" like that? With masks and body suits? Well, this is the first step toward that type of thing! This is the first game system where the relationship between buttons/controls and on-screen action is not arbitrary. There is actually a correlation. When the history of virtual reality is traced, the Nintendo Wii will be a milestone. That aside, it's just so fun!

4) The gas companies have finally won. I wonder if they were on to my trick? So, back when I first started driving in 2000, I was always strapped for gas money. Well, a friend of mine showed me a trick to milk the petrol companies. Basically, as you pump, you let go of the pump trigger every half-gallon or so. You know, kind of like a slowed rapid-fire type method. You have no continuous pumping. Well, back in that day, those pumps weren't especially advanced, and whenever you stopped the pump, a decent amount of gasoline would spill forth (kind of like what was left in the hose). So, if you kept doing this stop-start method through your whole pumping session, you could cash in on the free gas accumulated through all of these "stop-starts." By my calculations, you could get up to as much as 2 free gallons for every 15 gallons pumped. This worked especially well at the really old petrol stations. Alas, I have not found a gas station in a long while where I can still use the trick. The stations have advanced too far, and the pumps have progressive cut-off mechanisms to stop gas flow almost immediately. Remember, how you once would pump gas and when you were done a fair amount would spill out onto the ground in the pump's way from your tank to its resting place? This doesn't happen much anymore nowadays, and if it does, it's only a trickle.