Facebook Etiquette

Currently Reading: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Now, I know there are a lot of you out there who are still trying to get the hang of the whole Facebook thing. It's really not all that complicated and you can have a lot of fun keeping in touch with friends and family. However, there are a few rules you should follow. Watch this short video and pay attention. There may be a quiz afterward!

Facebook - Dos and Don'ts

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You really have to wonder about some people . . .

Currently Reading: God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert

I saw this on Fox the other day and dug up the video. People are just totally clueless sometimes aren't the?

Pitcher out for a month!!

Currently Reading: God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert

Baseball is generally a non-contact sport but sometimes things can get a little rough, especially when it comes to sliding into bases or trying to break up a double play by taking out the guy at second base. Then there are fluke accidents like this one:



From MLB.COM's Chris Haft

Doctors determined Saturday that Martinez, who remains hospitalized in San Francisco after being hit on the right forehead Thursday by a Mike Cameron line drive, must rest a month before resuming physical activity. Martinez, 26, also must refrain from airplane travel for two weeks.

On Friday, manager Bruce Bochy expressed hopes that Martinez would pitch sometime in May.

But, as Giants head athletic trainer Dave Groeschner explained, "the guy has three [hairline] fractures [in his skull] and a pretty good concussion. You have to let that get better."

There's been a lot of progress regarding protection for the batter (helmet, shin guards), the catcher (you name it they wear it), even the infielders (light padding under the uniform). It takes an extreme hit like this to remember the risk these pitchers take. Granted it doesn't happen very often but when it does, it's pretty damn scary.

Cherry Blossoms, Monsters and Aliens

Currently Reading: God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert

Well, I did say I'd try and post blog entries more often than once a month. Of course, I intended to go back to writing them once a week but I just kept putting it off for one reason or another. And you know, I can't even say that I had nothing to write about because we actually DID do some things, stuff has happened, I have topics to write about.

Let's go back a few weeks. You read it in CC's blog already, but I've got some more pictures from the trip to the Botanic Center and the Cherry Blossom Festival. No, wait, that's not entirely correct. I have pictures from the Botanic Center. I didn't take any pictures from inside where the festival events were taking place. All of my shots come from outside, after we looked at the displays and so forth.

First up though, about those displays. Let me tell you, writing in Japanese is REALLY tricky. Maybe that's a bit over-stated. Writing NEATLY? Writing with STYLE? Calligraphy? Yeah, that's all pretty hard. You see people doing it in the movies and they make it look pretty easy, graceful, artistic. Then you pick up a brush, look at the character you're supposed to be doing and, well like I joked after my first attempt, "I tried to do dream but I think I did nightmare." Oh, and yes, I know the pictures don't really match. I took a lot of shots and I'm trying to work them all in.

CC and I each did two fans with Japanese . . . no, wait a second, she only did ONE. Now that I think about it, the lady running the festival did the first one. We just watched. Then I did one, she did one and I did a second one because, again, dream vs nightmare. My second one, mind, came out pretty well but, as to be expected of me, it's slightly warped so, yes, I have a warped mind (insert drumfill).

They had a huge spread of sushi, which CC sampled. Me, I like the kind they DIDN'T have. See, there's two main types that you find in restaurants. The first type is the rolled kind. It's all laid out in a seaweed wrapper, rolled up then sliced. CC likes that kind. Me, I find the seaweed wrapper a bit strong so I go for the other kind which is pretty much just slap of fish on a hunk of rice. Sounds simple and I suppose it is but that's what I prefer. I usually get the salmon but from time to time I go more exotic and get eel instead.

They also had a little origami table. Now, if you go back and scan some of the older posts, back to August or September, you'll see some of the pictures I took at the Tokyo airport where they had a HUGE display of very complex origami. This wasn't anything like that. This was a more hands-on approach. They encouraged you to take a little piece of paper, pre-cut to the right size and shape, and make a small crane. Then you could take that crane, glue it to a bookmark and decorate it. So I did. And it came out rather well I think. I also took the time to make a few frogs in case anyone wanted to use them instead. For whatever reason, the jumping origami frog is the only one I can remember without having to look at the plans. Even the crane, though I've made lots, I have to look at the plan.

After spending some time inside absorbing Japanese culture, it was off to the great outdoors to feed the koi. You'll recall from CC's entry that she bought 4 bags of fish food at the front desk because we've been through this before. They have a really nice koi pond with a LOT of really HUGE koi and it's fun to stand at the edge of the pond and feed them. It generally turns into a sort of koi battle royale though. Then the ducks and swans get into the fray and you're chucking fish food all over just to keep everyone happy.

We weren't the only ones wandering around in the garden of course. There was supposed to be an actual viewing of the cherry blossoms but they peaked a little too soon this year and most of them had fallen. There were still some blossoms on the trees of course and I have pictures of them to prove it but it's not quite the same as when the whole tree is in bloom.

Anyway, back to the koi. We were standing at the edge of the pond, starting a big fish fight, when some of the other people at the viewing came out and were watching us. CC gave them some food so they could join in and they seemed to enjoy it. We had quite a crowd of fish and fowl following us around. Next came a group of younger people, mostly college age I would say. They were also watching us and I could see they wanted to feed the koi too, especially a girl on crutches so I gave them the remains of my second bag. They had a good time. I think if you look close enough you can make out the crutches, if not the girl using them. That's our handy work (the crowd now the crutches). I think even more people gathered around after we left.

I also noticed there were at least two other groups of people getting portrait pictures taken around the gardens. One couple looked like they were having prom pictures taken. The other group was having wedding shots done. Not the usual white gown and tux shots though. They were dressed in some sort of traditional Asian costume (not Japanese, probably Chinese but could be Thai or something like that).

CC and I both had a good time and it wasn't too cold out there. Lots of nice pictures and even a little bit of exercise :-)

That was two weeks ago. LAST weekend CC and I went to see Monsters vs Aliens. If you haven't seen it yet, my advice is to break down and find a place showing it in 3D and pay the extra couple of bucks. It is SO much better in 3D. At least, I THINK it is. I haven't seen it in normal mode so I'm just guessing, but in 3D it was REALLY cool. They didn't spend too much time trying to make things pop out of the screen, which was nice because when they try to make things pop out of the screen, it gets a little fuzzy and my eyes cross and I get headaches. There was one really nice bit with a paddle ball though that almost had me ducking.

If you like animated films or if you like watching movies in 3D, go see Monsters vs Aliens. I'm not going to give an in depth review or anything like that. No spoilers, no pictures, no links. Just go see it. Not like there's much else to watch out there right now :-)

Watching The Watchmen

Currently Reading: Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith

As I mentioned in the previous (and long and rambling) post, we watched Watchmen last week. I've been thinking about it for a while and while I enjoyed the movie and I think it's a good film, I have found a few flaws that didn't come to mind immediately upon viewing. I guess it's the sort of thing you'd file under "something's not quite right about that."

The first incident that I hit upon (there may be others, I've only seen the movie once and it's very visually overpowering at times) comes during one of the prison scenes. Rorschach is in prison, in the lunch line. You can see him right there on the left. Now, the guy in line behind him starts talking about how he's famous and how Rorschach is famous and that's all really just an excuse to get the other prisoners stoked up while he pulls a shiv. So, he tries to stab Rorschach who does a quick turn, flips his tray and uses it as a shield to deflect the knife. Ok so far. Yes, he moves awfully quick but hey, he's Rorschach and he's a psycho so no big leap there. Next, Rorschach punches through that sneeze guard thing there to reach behind the counter. Again, Rorschach is a psycho so we really don't have any problem with that. Behind the counter, there's a french fry cooker. Ok, bad placement, stupid place to put a cooker, but ok, we'll let that one go. Rorschach reaches for the handle, pulls it out and dumps it on the guy who tried to knife him. Ouch, that's gotta hurt. They next cut to a shot of the guy who is down on his knees, screaming in pain, covered in oil that is oozing down over his head and so forth. VERY ouch!

My problem is this: you cook french fries in a basket container. That's what Rorschach grabbed from the cooker. That's what he dumped on the guy. But keep in mind, it's a BASKET! Yes, it would be fully loaded with fries and yes, the guy would get splashed with oil causing him to scream and so forth cause OUCH big time but there wouldn't be SO much oil that he ended up covered in it. Remember, BASKET!

The other problem is a minor matter of a HUGE plot hole opened up by the change in the ending. In the book, a giant, alien squid-like thing teleports into Manhattan and blows up, killing a HUGE portion of the population with some sort of psychic blast. Great. Messy, but great. The idea behind this is that all the countries that were on the verge of war would now turn their concern first to disaster relief and then to dealing with the concept that aliens from another dimension want to attack the earth. Yeah, gotta give up trying to kill each other and focus on trying to kill them giant squid. Gotcha. Makes perfect sense, especially in the world of comic super heroes.

Now, with the movie, the changed that a little bit. Instead of an alien squid, it's Dr. Manhattan who supposedly goes nuts and blows up cities all over the world thus turning everyone's focus on disaster relief and trying to figure out how to deal with a rampaging Dr. Manhattan. So far so good. It's a doable idea, especially given the build-up.

Here's the problem though: Oz uses the heroes' knowledge of his plan to sort of blackmail them into silence. He tells them that if they go off and tell the truth, assuming anyone actually believes them, they'll end up breaking this peace that he's created from the disaster. Now, no one wants to do THAT because we're talking about the whole world being on the brink of nuclear war. So they agree to stay silent . . . everyone except Rorschach. His whole motto is not to surrender, even in the face of armegeddon. He storms out of Oz's hideout, Dr. Manhattan meets him outside and Rorschach pretty much tells the doc that there's no choice. The only way to stop Rorschach from telling the truth is to kill him. Rorschach even says outright to go ahead and do it.

Now, in the squid version, that works. You have to kill off Rorschach to keep him from blowing the cover on the whole squid story that brought peace. But in the Dr. Manhattan version, that doesn't really cut it. Say Rorschach does make it back to New York and he sits down with reporters and tells them everything that happened and they all believe him. Does that really break the peace? No. That shifts blame from Dr. Manhattan to Ozymandias. Instead of having to focus on how to stop the rampaging blue man group escapee, you've only got to deal with the worlds' smartest gay businessman. Well, plus disaster relief.

Thus, Rorschach's death is pretty much unnecessary.


I'm sure at some point I'll see the movie again. I really did enjoy it. But, like I said, it's not perfect.