We received our economic stimulus check (aka the GWB Bribery Check) last week. Talk about “staying the course” — what does Dubya do when there’s a putative budget surplus (despite a crippling national debt)? Sends out money! What does he do when the economy slows down? Sends out money! Maybe in his copious free time after leaving office, he can give a try at that all-American pastime: balancing a checkbook.

I think the idea of economic stimulus checks is ridiculous on the face of it, but with some of the mega-expenses around Casa del Shumate lately, it’s not like I was going to turn up my nose at it.

When Michele told me that the check had arrived, I started cataloging all the backlogged expenses, and sighed. I had kinda hoped, way back before my brain shut down and my car exploded, that part of this year’s tax return could go to getting me a new old laptop — not something top of the line, but sufficient to run current software without laboring and wheezing. I had been using a Jornada handheld for the last year and a half (thanks to the generosity of sponsors for the 2006 NaNoWriMo), and it still works well, but the screen is tiny, the keys are tiny, and it can’t run anything but software expressly designed for WindowsCE 3.0.

Michele heard my sigh and intuited my longing (or maybe I said something out loud; I’m not renowned for subtlety) and asked how much something suitable would cost me.

“I’ve got some sellers bookmarked on eBay,” I said. “I could probably get something to make me happy for around $350. But –”

“Get it,” she said.

“But we’ve got the car and the hospital bills. And then I wanted to get storm doors for the front and back doors, and at least one of the kids needs to start on braces, and –”

“There’ll always be things to spend the money on,” she said. “If you got one of these laptops, would it keep you happy for several years?”

“It’d be as good as my desktop,” I said, “and I’m happy with that for the foreseeable future.”

“So get one,” she said.

And that night on eBay, I found an IBM ThinkPad near the end of its auction and put in a bid. The same evening, it was mine for $359.50, including shipping.

Today it arrived: a refurbished n off-lease ThinkPad T41 with a 1.6gHz processor, 512MB RAM, 40GB harddrive, and built-in WiFi. In fact, that’s what I’m typing on right now. The only question mark, as with most used laptops, is that the battery isn’t guaranteed, so I need to give it a test run. Aside from that, I feel very capable and mobile and stuff. So you should just see a burst of productivity from me, as nothing stands between me, free time, and the projects I’ve got backlogged!

(Okay, don’t hold me to that. Really.)

Nathan

It’s been a busy week around Casa del Shumate and the Cold Fusion Media Empire, but you don’t want to hear excuses. Full 52% of blogs regularly have posts which attempt to explain why the blogger hasn’t posted recently, and the other 48% are run by people who pull meaningless statistics out of their butts.

Continuing with The Month of 2, we’ve got Guyver 2: Dark Hero (1994), which is probably better than the 1991 movie, based on the popular anime. So why is the second American movie practically unknown? Star power, baby — Mark Hamill star power.

Also new this week is Decadent Evil 2 (2007), which proves that there’s no genre convention so threadbare (in this case, vampire strippers) that not only will Charles Band use it to crank out a forgettable movie, but he’ll try to build a franchise on it. Bonus: Rod puppet creature included solely as fodder for collectible action figures!

Nathan

Yesterday was my three-month checkup with the neurologist. Hard to believe that it was only 90-ish days ago that I suddenly went numb on half my body, lost my ability to speak or swallow, and couldn’t walk, isn’t it? Good times, good times.

The junior neurologist (the one who does all the work and reports back to the headmaster [ha!]) happened to be the same one that saw me in the U of U ER, so I reminded him of the jaw-dropping question he asked me in the middle of being hooked up to IVs and (ecch) catheterized: “What’s your worst fear at this point?” My answer, of course, was “Dying or being left a vegetable! What do you think?” He admitted yesterday that it had been a very odd question for him to ask.

Neurologists both junior and senior were pleased at my recovery, and more than a little surprised by it. Since they still have no idea what caused my stroke, they grilled me on family health history that might have contributed. Nada. Eventually they just decided to chalk it up as a medical mystery. I’m supposed to come back in another three months for an MRI, at which point they’ll decide whether to keep me on the bloodthinner Coumadin for a while longer, or have me switch to a baby aspirin a day for the rest of my life.

That picture, by the way, isn’t simply something hunted up from Google Images to illustrate this post. No, that’s an actual frame from the MRI I got when I originally ended up in the Davis Hospital ER. You’re seeing my brain! You don’t get that kind of personal exposure in other blogs, do you!

Nathan

The Times Online has unleashed their arbitrary rating of the 100 top movies — excuse me, “films,” because this is the London Times and we have a culture to uphold, you know.

These lists are always ludicrous, but this one’s got some extra ludicrous on top of double ludicrous patties, topped with a ludicrous-seed bun. And although you have to click to subpages for every title from #100 to #4, they’ve thoughtfully retained the biggest chunk of ludicrous right there on the summary page. Go take a look and come back; you should know it when you see it.

.

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There yet?

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How about now?

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Okay, I’m tired of waiting for you, and if you haven’t noticed it already, you probably won’t pick up on it ever.

It’s movie #2. There Will Be Blood.

A movie that premiered less than six months ago.

The #2 movie. OF THEM ALL.

Do you think they’re a little, um, godawful oversure of their opinion on this one? How about we give a movie — ’scuse, film — something like maybe a single year to prove that it’s good enough to be nigh unto God Himself? You get the feeling that film critic James Christopher (somebody get this man a surname, stat!) and his crew of underpaid monkeys are the kinds who gush at whatever they saw most recently, and that by the end of the summer he will have gone through another half-dozen crushes for the 2nd greatest OMG movie evar.

Plus: Rear Window far below Disney’s The Jungle Book? And no Planet of the Apes anywhere? Seriously, what the hell?

Nathan

This week marks the beginning of The Month of 2, a Video Binge that lets me tackle the first sequels of movies I’ve already reviewed. So many franchises, so little quality time…

First up is 666: The Beast (2007), the follow to The Asylum’s 666: The Child, which attempted to cash in on the remake of The Omen. This movie demonstrates a philosophy which turns around the famous line from Spaceballs: “Now you see that good will always triumph because evil is dumb.

And next is Femalien 2 (1998), which largely duplicates the gist of the first movie by having two more hawt aliens come to Earth to search for the one who went AWOL from sampling the pleasures of the flesh. Yes, that does involve chocolate.

Also new is a review of Genetic Soldier by George Turner over at Disposable Lit Reviews.

Nathan

Iron Man pulled in $100 million over the weekend, of which $18 came from me and my two boys (matinee pricing, you know). I’ve never been a huge Iron Man fan, at least not as a primary player, although he was always good as a supporting character in The Avengers and the Marvel universe in general. (That was, of course, before he became a tinplated asshat in Civil War, but let’s not descend too far into bickering geekery here). But I think this movie is definitely one of the better superhero movies, and probably the best possible movie that could have been made for the character.

On top of the well-executed FX that blended CGI and practical effects almost seamlessly, on top of the acting (you can’t really say that Downey “stole the show” if he was the protagonist, can you?), I thought the screenplay did a tremendous job of walking the political tightrope that a movie about a good-guy weapons manufacturer necessitates in our over-sensitive day; it didn’t fall into the opposing traps of “Eww, weapons are icky because war is icky so we should just brandish flowers at those who hate us literally to death” and “Because America is good, all of our weapons are naturally righteous.”

Most summers, I haul my carcass to maybe one theatrical release. But this year, with Iron Man down and Prince Caspian, The Dark Knight and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull all on deck, I might be spending more time at the cineplex. Heck, I may even go to see Hancock. (I will be waiting to see The Incredible Hulk on DVD if at all, thank you.)

Nathan

One of the big items of local hoopla has been the FrontRunner train, a high speed commuter train running the almost 40 miles from Ogden to Salt Lake City, with extensions planned. This had the potential to be a great boon to me; it’s 30 miles from my driveway to the parking lot at work, and that commute usually takes me one hour and at least a full gallon of gas each direction. If FrontRunner could improve on that, then I’d be a happy rider.

The first problem showed up before service began, when I saw the fee schedule. It’s a base $2.50 plus 50 cents per stop, which meant that from the Clearfield station (the nearest one from my house) to the Salt Lake City hub would cost me $4.00 each way. I know that if I factor in oil changes and other maintenance and general wear-and-tear on my car, the FrontRunner fare is still cheaper, but I think the bureaucrats running the Utah Transit Authority have spent too much of their time sequestered from private enterprise. If they want to win customers, they can’t contend that their product ends up more economical once the customer has run calculations at a level usually used for work out one’s tax return; they need to show a clear benefit to their service. Drop the price at least a dollar each way and pick up more riders. After all, it costs them just as much to run the trains empty or full, and even if they had to add additional cars to the train, the fuel costs of getting a six cars instead of four up to speed are absorbed into economies of scale. That’s kind of the point of the locomotive-and-cars arrangement, right? Instead, there’s already talk of a 50-cent fare hike before the summer’s over.

This last week, before they began official fare-collecting operation on May 1st, UTA declared a few days of free rides, so I gave it a whirl on Wednesday. I left home at 7am (which would normally get me to work well shy of 8am) and had Michele drop me off at the Clearfield station, three miles from home. (That would be another issue if I became a FrontRunner regular; either she’d have to drop me there every morning, or I’d have to leave the car to sit in the parking lot all day, or I’d have to get a bike. And even though the latter option would do wonders for me, I’d have to leave even earlier.) I got on the train at 7:15, and I’ll admit to some small satisfaction as the train at times passed the highway traffic out the window. But only at times. Once into Salt Lake, I transferred over to the TRAX line (the intra-city commuter rail) for the six blocks to work as the crow flies (which ain’t how you have to traverse the distance either on TRAX or on foot, thanks to some weird development in between). From the station to points downtown is part of the “free ride” zone, but with the stopping and starting until my stop, I got into work at 8:20am.

That’s a bigger deal-killer than the six-of-one savings of paying the fare; to get to work on time via FrontRunner, I’d have to get up early enough that I wouldn’t lay eyes on my children in the mornings. My time is at a premium before work, and the dubious benefits of FrontRunner just don’t compensate.

Then came the homeward commute. I was a few minutes late getting out of the office (ironically, because I stopped to talk to a co-worker who wanted to know about my free ride experience that morning and my assessment of the efficiency and benefits of the whole enterprise), and missed the TRAX train at my stop. I had to wait fifteen minutes for the next one, which meant I got to the SLC Hub too late to catch the northbound 5:25 and had to wait for the 5:55. Counterintuitively, the trains leave Salt Lake in the evening every fifteen minutes only at 4:55, 5:10, and 5:25; an hour before and after that they run 30 minutes apart, and outside of those peak commuter times they’re on an hourly schedule.

Caught the 5:55 with standing room only — at least half of the people were just checking out the free ride and weren’t going anywhere — and got as far as Layton, one stop away from where Michele was waiting to pick me up, when we stopped at the station, and stayed there. It turns out that the southbound train to the north of us was experiencing mechanical difficulties, and there’s only one track for the entire route, except for the split to the right and left sides of the station platforms. I know that the UTA planners had to deal with a limited amount of space left by the pre-existing tracks that they had built over, not to mention the inelastic clearance allowed by numerous viaducts over the tracks, but still: A single track. That means that any time a single train has trouble, the entire system grinds to a halt.

After fifteen minutes of waiting on the train, I left and called Michele to drive one station south and pick me up in Layton. I eventually got home after 7pm.

So no, I don’t give FrontRunner a good grade, even allowing for free-ride congestion and other unforeseeables. There’s no substantive cost savings for me, especially considering the very definite time costs. The only other possible benefit to commuting via the train would be time to write instead of driving, but if they get as many riders as they’re desperately hoping for, then my standing-room-only commute home is more likely to be the exception than the rule. I can listen to podcasts on my MP3 player as easily in my car as on the train, and I wouldn’t have to stand if I were driving.

I can see the rare instance in which the train would come in handy for me; if Michele needs my car for something, for instance, or if car repairs that run overtime deprive me of my ride home. And they have a family special roundtrip fare of $12.50 (two adults and up to six kids — this is Utah, after all) after 5pm on weekdays and all day on Saturday (the train doesn’t run on Sundays). That might make it worth taking the whole family down to listen to a General Conference session on the lawn at Temple Square on a Saturday and avoid the traffic snarl that downtown becomes on General Conference weekend. But other than that, there’s no real upside for me.

Nathan

I will say this for Dark Corners (2006): It is much better made, and much more ambitious, than most of the direct-to-DVD horror originals that Anchor Bay has released in the last few years.

That said, if you’re going to pull off a lines-are-blurred-between-dreams-and-reality horror flick, you’ve got to have a kick-ass ending that ties it all together and justifies the whole mess. And that’s where Dark Corners peters out (although you get the distinct impression that the writer/director thought he had pulled it together well, and was intensely proud of it).

Nathan

A new podcast before the old one even scrolled off the bottom of the page? Pretty exciting, I know.

This one continues my non-theme from last time, i.e., “stuff Nathan’s been listening to.” Plus a little bit of news about upcoming events. Here are links to those source albums which are available through various outlets:

• Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks - Quality Shout
• Alan Sylvestri - The Clan of the Cave Bear: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
• Five Star Fall - Automatic Ordinary (thanks to some lousy MP3 tagging, I incorrectly identified the band here as “Fluid,” and the CD as “Five Star Fall”; um, whoops?)
• J.R. Bookwalter - The Dead Next Door: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
• Karminsky Experience, Inc. - The Power of Suggestion
• Ennio Morricone - My Name is Nobody: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
• The Brown Derbies - Down Time

Audacity is still giving me fits for no reason I can determine, so the next podcast I put together will probably involve muddling my way through a different auto editing program. And I bet you just can’t wait to be my guinea pig!

Nathan

 

 Tachyon City Podcast #9: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Michael Dudikoff has never fought zombies. Nor have Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rutger Hauer, or Chuck Norris.

What is wrong with this world???

Nathan

This is only half an hour from my house.

Tell me I shouldn’t go. Please.

Nathan

As I whittle my way through this Hammer Film Noir boxed set, it’s gratifying to discover that it isn’t all a downhill slog. Paid to Kill (1954) is a definite bright spot with an arresting high concept story, some honest and engaging noir touches, and a Scotsman excavating a Mayan temple while bellowing into a telephone. What’s not to like?

Nathan

In you’re at all involved in B-movie fandom, you know of The Dead Next Door (1989), even if you’ve never seen it; the story of nineteen-year-old J.R. Bookwalter writing, directing, producing (under the executive producership of Sam Raimi), editing, scoring, and playing a supporting role in his zombie epic on Super-8mm is the stuff of indie movie legend. (My own review of the movie is here; I thought it an impressive work for the resources, though it couldn’t possibly live up to the hype generated for years by third-person word of mouth.)

J.R. has now gotten far enough down on his list of projects that he’s remastered his electronic score for The Dead Next Door, officially to be released next month. (I’ve got it already because I’m special.) If you’ve seen the movie but don’t particularly remember the music, that’s not surprising; it’s very non-melodic, with rhythms and dissonant chords meant to supplement the on-screen action rather than call attention to itself.

You know me; I’m a lover of film scores, and this one is interesting for its function and history. Yes, it’s very keyboard-y, but think of the era in which it was produced; half the pop music on the radio was little more than keyboards with a drum machine and the occasional guitar for contrast. (There’s a little guitar for contrast here, too.) It’s primitive, but this score still compares favorably to some I’ve seen in much more recent indie movies which rely even more on tired, unimaginative chords and textureless tones.

J.R. plans to release some of his further scores (he also did Robot Ninja (1990), Skinned Alive (1989), and Ghoul School (1990)) on his “TempeSound” label, and possibly some others composed for various Tempe productions. If you like sampling rough but creative indie film music, check out this release. the CD’s available for pre-order at Amazon.com, and will also be available at tempevideo.com; it’ll also be available for download at Amazon and on iTunes.

Nathan

$97 Movie Made in Hollywood Kitchen

Stories of millions of dollars spent in producing ten-reel movie features have given the public an idea that only a big company could produce profit-making motion pictures. But Robert Florey, expending $97 produced a picture which is making him wealthy!

IF YOU have $100 or so, plus a few old cigar boxes, a motion picture camera, and a desire to break into the movies—as who hasn’t?—you can be your own director and cameraman and produce a motion picture worthy of exhibition in theaters throughout the country. That is, you can it you are as skillful and economical as Robert Florey, who cut his sets from cardboard and cigar boxes and produced in a Hollywood kitchen, at a total cost of $97, a movie which is being shown in United Artists theaters all over America.

The story’s from 1928. There is, it appears, nothing new under the sun.

Nathan

The ‘fficial Fusion Forum has been limping along for quite some time due to lack of interests. In the more recent week or two, MonsterHunter and I have been putting effort into jumpstarting more conversations. (In fact, some of the material I would normally have posted here has gone over there to help get some critical mass together.)

You are heartily enjoined to venture over and contribute, in no small part because MonsterHunter and I will eventually get tired of talking to each other in public.

Nathan