Ternaugh

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/20/us/politics/house-vote-aid-ukraine-israel.html
 
Thank goodness. Aid to Israel and Ukraine (and Taiwan) passes the House.

IT BEGINS~!

We can blame the director for the constant pouting.

We can blame the director for the constant pouting.

THank you all. A quick update, while there is a concussion, that appears to be the worst that has happened after they did the Catscan and X-rays.

Sending. 

I've been watching a bunch of older films lately (including a bunch of B movies), and I realized just how much I missed the smaller productions of the past. 1984's Night of the Comet, for example, was made for about $700,000 (about $2M in today's money), but grossed almost $14.5M during its 6 week run in theaters.

Well that's a big part of the issue isn't it?  They are spending so damned much on movies now that they have to make close to a half billion dollars just to break even.  That's a ridiculous ask, and lately its been a painful fail.  Yeah if you pull in a billion dollars, that 350 million dollars in delays, reshoots, and rewrites doesn't seem so bad.
 
But if you made the same movie for 50 million, then you made even more money and it doesn't need to make a half bill just to see green.  Famously now, Godzilla One cost a fraction what Hollywood movies do and made huge bank.  It cost fifteen million to make.  FifTEEN, not even 50 million.  And it made over 100 million.  When The Marvels made about that much, it was a catastrophic failure, because it costs so damned much to make.

I lost faith with the temporal cold war plot. I called it quits when Archer pulled a Bobby Ewing, and stepped out of a shower to find it hadn't happened yet. The only thing missing was an, "Oh, boy!"
 
I only re-visited the show again when it was shown on Sci-Fi several years later. Any show that Jeffrey Combs was on as Commander Schram, and the mirror universe episodes in the 4th season were highlights for me.
 
 

Two bits, four bits, six bits, a peso. All for Zorro, stand up and say so!

I got a chance to see the first bit of a little-known animated series called Phantom 2040.  The Phantom is a superhero from the jungles of -- somewhere -- called "The Ghost Who Walks" because he seems to exist everywhere in history. The reality is that the mantle of the phantom has been passed along the generations for centuries. And in this series, set in the then-distant future of 2040, the new Phantom emerges in a near-dystopian cyberpunk-style world. The newest son is a grad-school ecologist trying to save a global ecosystem that is rapidly disintegrating, which unknowingly pits him against a ruthless mega-billionairess and her psychotic son (who usually speaks as though he is conveying the wishes of his ever-present cat, especially when he is being excessively cruel -- in hi8s very first scene he murders his robot butler for no reason whatsoever).
 
In this episode, I found the style of the animation quite interesting and so different from the superhero-cartoon aesthetic of its times that I had to wonder where I had seen it before -- until I put my finger on the source. Which was the legendary MTV adult cartoon Aeon Flux. Those of us who were old enough to watch it will probably never forget the angular, languid look of the series. And while Phantom 2040 was aimed at a younger audience, it shares many themes in common with its predecessor. But while Aeon embraced and even relished the decay in her world (and her eternal rivalry with the powerful Trevor Goodchild), the Phantom is trying to reverse the decay and restore hope to a planet that has precious little of it left. 

Yesterday marked six years of me never having to pretend to be a guy again, and today, like every March 31st, is International Transgender Day of Visibility, so it's a double celebration for me.
 
Being visible as a trans person is important to me for two main reasons. For one, to remind non LGBTQ+ folks that people like me exist and are real people who are part of their communities. The other reason is to help older trans people who think that they're too old to transition know that it's never too late. I started my transition at fifty-two and it's still the best thing I've ever done for myself.
 
So, like the title says, happy Trans Day of Visibility.

RIP Trina Robbins
 
Doggone it--that wasn't supposed to happen.

We were in a lockdown at work for a couple of hours because of what happened nearby this morning.

Wake me up when Trump is put in jail, removed from a ballot, or pays a significant fine with his own money.

Smokey and the Bandit: The second-highest grossing movie of 1977, and it made enough of an impression on me as a child that I could remember all of the lyrics to the songs (I caught myself singing along to "Eastbound and Down"). It's a funny, nostalgic watch. (Netflix)
 
The Black Hole: Disney doing a darker movie, with the crew of the Palomino discovering a ship lost for 20 years on the edge of a black hole. The plot's a mix of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Dante's Divine Comedy. I originally watched this in theaters with my parents, and it's remained a quirky favorite of mine over the years. (Disney+)

We were in a lockdown at work for a couple of hours because of what happened nearby this morning.

We were in a lockdown at work for a couple of hours because of what happened nearby this morning.

I was recognized in faculty meeting today for my students having one of the highest academic growth rates in the district. 

Trans fats are the worst of all. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat
 
Some occurs naturally, but it used to be added quite often.  Nowadays?  Not so much...in part because a few years ago, a line identifying trans fat content was added to nutrition labels.  It was deemed that significant.  
 
Lard is dominated by saturated fats...which aren't great, sure, but they're still a WHOLE lot better than trans fats.  

I think this was the perfect response to a GOP proposal to rename Dulles airport after Trump.
 
Democratic congressmen unveil bill to rename a federal prison after Trump (nbcnews.com)
 
I'm just disappointed that nobody pointed out that renaming an airport after him wasn't so out of bounds, either, as he's likely a flight risk.

This one is from "Thing Explainer", a book by Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd.  It's worth the $24.

"The Eve of War" had shuffled into my Plexamp player on the way home, and I decided to spend the evening listening to the entire album. I've bought it on CD and on hybrid SACD (with both stereo and 5.1 mixes on the SACD layer), and my late wife's LP should be somewhere in the house.