I’m fully aware that many believe I sit in front of a computer all day and stare at Facebook, posting articles and comments and shirking actual “work.” In actuality, I’d argue that I only have “http://www.facebook.com” on my web browser 15 min per day, on average. On a “busy” day, when I’m in the middle of a conversation/argument, more like 30 min.
How is this possible, you ask? Why, it’s the power of RSS readers!
“RSS” stands for “Really Simple Syndication,” and the idea for it goes back as far as 1995, though the first official version was integrated into Netscape in 1999. In many ways, RSS is what gives blogs the power they have today: the ability for the headline and a brief description of an article or posting to be “aggregated” for easy digestion by the reader.
Note: This very blog has and has always had an RSS function. That’s what the cute little orange icon in the upper-right corner that pops up does.
So here’s the secret: I’ve got 45 different blogs aggregated into my Google Reader account. This means that my phone, my Kindle Fire, my Chrome web browser, and the Reader website itself all tie into a single repository that collects new posts from each of these sites almost immediately after a new article is posted. I’ll wake up in the morning and have 75+ articles to wade through, to see if there’s anything interesting, and I can do this easily on my phone, swiping with my finger to scroll through the list.
Any articles I think may be interesting (based on the title, usually, but sometimes after checking the description), I will press to add a “Star,” effectively bookmarking it for later reading. Then, I can just click “Mark All Read” and my list is cleared out, ready for re-population. Once I sit down at a computer somewhere, or with the tablet, I will then skim the articles I found to be most interesting. And sometimes, I’ll share relevant articles on Google+ or Facebook.
So, quite rapidly, I can skim through articles from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch or the Columbia Daily Tribune without ever having to actually visit the sites themselves, thus avoiding ads and thus saving me time.
And furthermore, you can share articles to Facebook or Google+ directly from most of these blogs, as this is how they generate their traffic. You just have to click “Share” from the page in question, or from within Google Reader. A little box shows up and you write what you want to post, along with the link. And you never have to actually go to Facebook.com to do this.
So yeah, a little “protip:” use an RSS reader of some kind to make your blog reading more efficient. You are more than capable of getting information throughout the day without getting bogged down in Facebook or on blogs themselves. You can, in fact, get work done and still provide useful information on subjects that interest you. It really isn’t that hard…
I read a pretty spectacular article from Forbes.com today about how the MPAA and RIAA are fighting a losing battle against piracy. The article echoes statements I’ve made in the past, though not on this blog (…that I can find, anyway…).
The author is blunt and to the point: the movie industry is being dragged kicking and screaming to a future that practically all their customers want, and they’re losing revenue in doing so. They could make their money back on volume by making their movies a). easier to access, and b). cheaper.
The primary problem movie studios have to realize is that everything they charge for is massively overpriced. The fact that movie ticket prices keep going up is astonishing. How can they possibly think charging $10-15 per ticket for a new feature is going to increase the amount of people coming to theaters rather than renting the movie later or downloading it online for free? Rather than lower prices, they double down, saying that gimmicks like 3D and IMAX are worth adding another $5 to your ticket.
They have failed to realize that people want things to be easy. Physically going to the movies is hard enough without paying way too much for the privilege. Going to a store and buying a DVD instead of renting or downloading is generally an impractical thing to do unless you A) really love a particular movie or B) are an avid film buff or collector.
Here’s the part I’ve been most concerned by: rising ticket prices. Why go to a movie theater to spend $10-$15 on a ticket, plus an additional $10+ on “food?” Granted, I have a toddler so my movie viewing in theaters has decreased tremendously in the past few years anyway, but with the advent of Netflix, I have all kinds of things to watch, and now I have the will to wait until a movie comes out on DVD. Especially when the summer blockbusters are looking more and more like that “Battleship” ad you saw during the Super Bowl. Now, if I could see a non-IMAX, non-DTS movie in the theater and get a medium-sized non-refillable soda for $10? I’d do that. No question.
Finally, the author suggests a solution to this problem: the movie industry needs their equivalent of the gaming industry’s digital distribution platforms (e.g. Steam). Heck, they need Apple’s iTunes. Make buying the product so stupid simple that it takes less effort to buy it than it does to steal it. As he points out, it takes 7 steps to download a movie illegally, and depending on your internet connection, you could have an HD-quality movie in a half hour. If the movie industry would just get behind an Apple or Amazon model of 1). find movie, and 2). click “buy” (for a reasonable price).
Let us recall music piracy of the late-90s/early-2000s for a moment. Back then, you could go on Napster or Kazaa and search to find music you wanted, but you’d easily find tens or hundreds of the same track, each one with different sound qualities. You could easily download a track you thought was good, but after downloading, you’d find actually had multiple “hiccups” in the file. iTunes streamlined the process. Search to download one song that you knew was of relatively high quality and was consistent with the rest of your iTunes library. Moreover, you’d see that you could get a song for $1, but the entire album for $10, undercutting what was easily $15 at most brick-and-mortar retailers. So in many respects, at least with iTunes, there was a chance you’d “up sell” your customer on getting the whole album, rather than just a single song.
iTunes made it easy and people flocked to it. Does music piracy still happen? Absolutely, but now, people have a reasonable, viable alternative that I’d argue most people consider before pirating albums.
Steam did the same thing for the gaming industry, making it stupid simple to download a digital copy of a computer game without having to search through seedy sectors of the internet looking for a pirated copy (that could include viruses or other malware). They can even upgrade your graphics drivers and more for you when you install the game, streamlining the process further to make life for the consumer that much better. Many PC games are released day and date with their “physical media” counterparts. In many cases, you can actually have the game downloaded and then get it “unlocked” at midnight on its release day. For PC games, you can’t get much more convenient. You don’t even have to get out of your pajamas…
If piracy has taught us anything it’s that the movie industry thinks that an audience watching their movies on a computer or TV screen, while that same movie is still out in theaters, is important. If this is really the case, the movie industry should do the smart thing and release movies online day and date with their release in theaters. Charge $10 to rent it, making the cost comparable with a ticket to the theater (though that $10 is then divided up among the number of people watching the movie in your living room).
Obviously, some people don’t care if the movie is in IMAX or has super-duper Dolby Digital Sound or smell-o-vision: they just want to watch the damned movie. They don’t want to deal with crappy popcorn prices. They don’t want to deal with screaming kids or people talking through the whole thing. They don’t want to fight for a decent seat in a packed theater. They don’t want to drive their car and park in a lot. They don’t want to pay upwards of $30 to see a movie on a Saturday afternoon. There are any number of reasons folks don’t want to go to a movie theater, while others still like going. There’s no reason the movie industry can’t cater to both demographics and make money doing it.
So, take heed, Movie and TV Industry. You’re being surpassed by other content purveyors. Make it easy to access your content and I assure you, people will return to you and buy more of your stuff.
And stop taking your anger out on Netflix…that isn’t helping anything…
This is an India Brown Ale in the tasting glass you get for attending the event. Mmmm!!
We went to Schlafly’s annual Cabin Fever event this past weekend at their Maplewood restaurant, the Bottleworks. It’s always held around this time of the year as their Winter Festival, featuring somewhere around 30 of their beers.
Generally, you pay $25 for a ticket (or $30 at the door, but it’s always sold out if you wait that long) and, in exchange, you get a nifty tasting glass and eighteen 2 oz samples of various beers. As it’s wintertime, the beers tend to be “high gravity,” meaning they’re a bit heavier and tend to have a higher alcohol content. They always have a few of their lighter beers on tap, too, but the big draw is their other fare.
Now, you say, “well Andy, that doesn’t sound like very much beer for the money you’re spending.” To a degree, you’re right, but the kind folks doling out the beer are kind enough to a). “forget” to bring along a Sharpie to mark off your ticket, and b). start at 2 oz of beer, and as the afternoon wears on, the volume increases. So in the end, you can get plenty of beer and taste just about anything you want to.
In the Picasa album that’s accompanying this post, you’ll see pictures of the list of beers that were available, including a brief description of each one, and my own marks to show which ones I had. You’ll see that I actually did get all 18 beer tastings…
…but my ticket only had maybe 5 of them marked off… 😛
There were quite a few great beers on that list that we tried. The India Brown Ale (pictured above) was probably my favorite, as it was pretty different from others I’ve had before. The similar, yet different, India Wheat Ale was also pretty good, but the hops didn’t seem to gel as well with the “wheat beer” flavor as it did with the “brown ale” flavor as before. The Raspberry Coffee Stout was also exceptional, with a flavor leaning closer to the “raspberry” than the “coffee,” yet not as fruity as you might expect. I had figured I’d prefer the Strawberry-Cocoa Porter over the Stout, but alas.
The Southern Hemisphere IPA was also shockingly good, mostly because it tasted recognizable, yet different. I mean, it was hoppy, as you’d expect, but the hops they used were something from Tasmania called “Galaxy,” so it turned out to have a very different flavor profile than other IPAs I’ve had in the past. Believe you me, I hope they put that beer in bottles so I can get more of it!
Regardless, the event was quite fun. Granted, the weather turned out to be cloudier and cold(i)er than the forecast had led us to believe, but with some good friends to crowd around and some strategically placed fire pits, we weren’t bothered all that much. That, and high gravity beer tends to keep you all warm and fuzzy on the inside.
By now, surely you have read and/or heard plenty about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). These two bills were heading through the U.S. House and Senate (respectively) and seemed destined for passage as recently as last week, with the first votes coming up next week.
Also, as you probably know, a shutdown of Wikipedia, Reddit, and other popular websites (as well as a host of other “In Solidarity” messages on homepages across the web) managed to galvanize support against the bills that has never been seen before. In a single day, Google.com collected over 7 million signatures on an online petition. Rather than the English-version of the website, Wikipedia redirected you to a list of your Congressional representatives and senators so you could either phone or e-mail them (I sent e-mails to all of mine; heard back from two of them, so far).
I don’t want to belabor how bad the bills are (or now were). They were pretty bad. They were so vague as to allow for entire websites to be brought down, or at least to make it so cost-ineffective to host any interaction with users and consumers (for fear of copyrighted material being posted) that an entire industry of user-generated content would die. I highly suggest you watch the video above if you want to understand the issue fully. If you’re an internet user in any capacity, it’s an important 13 minutes for you to spend.
Mostly, I wanted to address how ridiculously cool it was to see the entire internet united, even if for only one day. For that 24 hr period, this is all anyone was talking about across social networking. For that 24 hr period, people were engaged in the politics of what was going on with an issue that applied to them directly. For that 24 hr period, it didn’t matter if you were a Democrat or a Republican posting on some message board: both political parties supported the bills, and both party’s voters were against it.
We’ve seen something like this before, in the form of the Arab Spring nearly a year ago, where social networking and the internet helped spawn a revolution across the Arab world, in multiple countries, casting down dictators long thought to be invincible by their people. Their citizens got organized, coalesced behind a belief that they could make a difference in their lives, and decided to take action. And in some small way, the internet did the same thing for the people of the United States this week.
Last week’s episode, which I highly suggest you listen to, focuses on manufacturing in China, specifically, of products in Shenzhen. Products from Samsung, Dell, HP, and more specifically, Apple. Mike Daisey is something of a story-teller, so he gets up on stage in front of live audiences and talks in one-man shows. As an Apple lover, he expounds upon his history with their products and how he always sought to understand how his iPad, iPhone, MacBook Pro, etc. worked, even going so far as to take his laptop(s) apart, clean them, and put them back together. Through various circumstances, it occurred to him that he knew very little about how these products were actually made, however, so he took a trip to Shenzhen to visit the Foxconn plant where practically all Apple products are manufactured. As others have reported in the past, he found harsh working conditions, that unions were illegal, and that underage girls were employed in the factory.
More to the point of what I’m getting at, Daisey says that Apple is actually doing relatively well with their manufacturing practices, holding yearly audits, requiring that their manufacturers follow strict guidelines, and so on. Others in China and Southeast Asia, as a whole, aren’t as careful. Some have even suggested that, while these practices are obviously unfortunate, in many ways, it still provides a better living than these individuals had prior to industrialization. And furthermore, in many ways, these countries are currently ascending much as the United States did in the Industrial Revolution. It’s something of a “growing pain” that countries must go through before they can decide what work practices will be most efficient for the company, and most beneficial to the worker.
This issue is something I’ve never associated with the idea behind “Buy American,” or at least, “Buy From Companies You Know Are Providing Some Level Of Non-Exploitative Treatment To Their Workers.” Many (most?) manufacturing plants in North America are pretty good about treating their workers fairly, with some limit on hours worked, over-time pay, a minimum wage, and so on (depending on unionization and other factors, of course). There are a variety of European companies that do as well or better in the treatment of their workers, and I’m sure there are even some in Asia that do right by their employees. While I’m suggesting a focus on looking into the manufacturing processes of companies we tend to buy from, I just see the whole endeavor as another reason to just Buy (North) American.
Up until now, I always thought of it as an economic issue, to keep our money here rather than sending it overseas. Increasingly, this is difficult as manufacturing jobs have all but left the U.S. Even when we “Buy American” in things like cars, they’re only assembled here: all the individual parts are built/assembled overseas. But after listening to this particular story, it makes me consider other reasons to try buying American-made/grown products, where feasible. Unfortunately, it’s probably impossible to buy a TV, an MP3 player, a computer, or a phone that was assembled, let alone built, in the U.S. I guess I’d like to see the “Buy American” ideal extended so it not only encompasses the economic need to keep our money here, but also the need to extend the rights of workers and the belief that each individual has value to the countries that make all the “stuff” we keep buying. Perhaps something like the “Fair Trade” label used on food products from around the world: a certification process companies can apply for to provide some degree of protections for the people they employ.
I dunno. I just never really thought about the concept of “Buy American” as a way to reward companies that treat their workers well. Perhaps we all should.
Edit: In mid-March, This American Life had to retract their initial report, listed above, saying that Daisey had fabricated enough portions of his monologue that they deemed it unfit for their journalistic standards. Generally speaking, things like chronology, specific interviews, and certain details were fact-checked with his translator, Cathy, who told This American Life that it didn’t all happen in that order or in that way. They interviewed Daisey again in the podcast from that week, who felt badly for the ordeal, but wanted to make sure people realized that the things he said are “true” in that they happened at Apple plants: just not necessarily on his particular visit.
A little snow won't dissuade the determined brewer.
For mid-January, yesterday ended up being a pretty gorgeous day for brewing. The sun was shining (occasionally) and the temperature held in the mid-40s for most of the afternoon. Thus, with Brooke and Meg out of the house, I opted to make the Chinook IPA Mom and Dad got me for Christmas.
This time, however, I also got to try out one of our new immersion wort chillers, so I figured I’d take the time to explain what this thing does and how to use it. Generally, you boil your wort (i.e. unfermented beer) for about an hour, and you add hops and other components during that period. However, you can’t add the yeast until the beer has cooled to below 100 F, though preferably closer to 80 F. You need to cool it down as rapidly as possible, so you can hopefully get it into your sealed fermentation vessel as soon as possible, including yeast.
For previous batches, we’ve always just put that big 5 gal. pot in an ice bath, though we’d have to add additional ice and cold water throughout, frequently taking well over an hour to cool down. Here’s where a wort chiller comes in: you run cold water through its copper tubing to act as a heat exchanger, removing heat from the wort quickly as cold water takes it away.
As this was my first time using said device, I had to do a few things first, namely, clean it.
Wort chiller, bathing in diluted white vinegar.
In the process of manufacturing, the copper tubing tends to have coatings of various oils and oxidized gunk that you don’t really want in your beer. Reading from John Palmer’s “How To Brew,” I found that before you use the chiller for the first time, you need to clean it with some kind of industrial copper cleaner, or alternatively, just use distilled white vinegar. The oils and oxidation products tend to come off the tubing in acidic solutions, and as beer is slightly acidic, all that stuff would end up in the beer. Thus, bathing the chiller in diluted vinegar (the stuff from the store is 5% acetic acid) shines it up nicely.
After soaking for maybe 20 min in vinegar, I rinsed it off well and let it air dry while the beer was boiling. When there’s about 10 min left in the boil, I then put the chiller in the brew pot, so the act of boiling would help sanitize the chiller. Though I’d just cleaned it in vinegar, there could still be some “bugs” on the outside of the tubing, so the boiling should take care of it.
Once I’d reached the end of the boil, I carried the pot and chiller down to the basement and hooked it up to a sink using an old washing machine hose.
Looks appetizing, eh?
Cold water going in and through the tube, then coming out the other end. I didn’t have a hose that fit that end of the tubing, so I just make sure to only keep the water pressure at something manageable, so it would stay within the sink.
The wort cooled down in about 20 min. Good deal!
Now that the chiller’s been cleaned before, I shouldn’t have to soak it in vinegar again, though forum posts on the interwebs will tell you that some people insist on cleaning it every time. In theory, all you should have to do is rinse it with water, then put it in the wort for 10 min while it’s boiling, then rinse it once you’re done.
All in all, it was remarkably easy and cut down on some of the total time spent brewing. Now, we’ll just have to wait another month or so to see how the beer turned out!
I’ve heard this argument before: “I don’t hate Dave Matthews Band, but their fans are so annoying!” As in, the music isn’t beyond the realm of their enjoyment, but the people they have to enjoy it with are so terrible that it detracts from the intended experience. The same could be said for a variety of other acts, I’m sure.
Except in the case of Coldplay. Both their fans, and the band, are terrible. But this should go without saying.
Increasingly, I find myself seeing a connection between this feeling toward music and toward religion, especially in the case of Christianity. All too often in today’s culture, I feel ashamed by what seems to be the impression that Christianity sometimes portrays to the world at large. Folks like those above, admittedly from the fringe group, the Westboro Baptist Church. Do all Christians feel this way? Absolutely not. Yet any time they get attention, there are folks out there that think this is what Christianity is all about. Much of the same can be said of Islam, where a few bad apples end up making the rest of the world fear a largely peaceful and just faith tradition.
There are examples like this guy, too:
...neither does he...
Again, I’m sure he’s in the minority, but when pictures and videos of this nature hit the internet or television, the message being spread isn’t “Love” and “Acceptance:” it’s “Retribution” and “Intolerance.”
I think I’m most sensitive to this issue when it comes to homosexuality and the Church. I know a few folks who are gay, and they’re really good people. Personally, I’d love for them to be able to go to church. And I know some of them would like to. But, their impression, based on images like those above, and from conversations they’ve had with other Christians, means they’ll probably never go. These are people that want to learn more and want to get the same experiences that I’ve had throughout my life, but feel like they can’t, because they’ll either be turned away, or at least told that their lifestyle is going to send them to Hell.
Since when are the Christians the ones doing the persecuting, eh?
I’m tired of these folks above representing me. Of having some bearing on how my faith and traditions are perceived by the world at large. These people do not represent the whole of Christianity. Nor does the feeling that homosexuals are evil. Nor does the feeling that women who have an abortion are going directly to Hell. These feelings are indicative of unacceptance, of intolerance, and of hate. In my opinion, they are inherently unchristian beliefs.
To those people that want to quote Old Testament scripture or the Letters of Paul (neither of which are words of Jesus, for the record…), I give you this:
12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. — Matthew 7:12; NIV
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment.39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” — Matthew 22: 36-40; NIV
That is the Christian message, as I see it, straight from the mouth of Jesus Christ. Treat others as you want to be treated. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. These are the important aspects of Christianity, and if you follow these tenets, then you are not only a good Christian, but you’re also a good human being. Unsurprisingly, the Golden Rule transcends Christianity and applies to other world religions, as well. It’s just one of those things you should do. Christians included!
These feelings always get stirred up around election season, when I see self-righteous “family candidates” like Rick Santorum up on a stage, talking about “family values” while denouncing pro-choice women and homosexuality, among other things, all the while representing Christianity on the world scene. I’m appalled by the things this guy says, in the name of Jesus Christ and in the name of the Christian faith, as a whole. I just hope that people around the world don’t think he, and others like him, are representative of all Christianity.
They’re not.
To anyone reading this that has been wronged by people in the name of Christianity, then I sincerely apologize. I just hope anyone that knows me, or Brooke, knows that we’re Christians and we don’t feel the same way as those that seem to represent us.
Famously (or infamously), I avoided the Harry Potter franchise. Not quite to the same degree I refuse to watch Titanic, but perhaps similar. I jumped on the Lord of the Rings bandwagon and figured I’d put off Harry Potter until Meg would be old enough to appreciate the books.
Well, she’s not quite old enough, but now that all of the movies are available on DVD, we figured it had been long enough. Brooke had never seen them either, though she read all of the books, a few more than once. Last weekend, Meg was visiting my parents, so we borrowed the early movies and watched them, starting last Friday night.
Between Friday and Monday, we watched the first five movies. The next three we spaced out due to Netflix DVD travel time. Therefore, in a period of 9 days, we watched 8 Harry Potter movies.
Kinda nuts, I know.
Regardless, I must say that the movies, overall, hold up quite well. The first movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, was released in 2001, so I expected the various CGI effects to have aged to a significant degree, however I found them to be surprisingly decent, even 10 years later. This isn’t to say that the effects didn’t improve over the decade these movies were coming out: the last few, Deathly Hallows Part I and Part II had all the effects trappings of any other big-budget blockbuster.
The acting was always good, yet still improved over the years, likely because the three primary actors, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson were all 11 or 12 when the movies were released. By the time they reached the end, they were all doing very well in their roles and had likely surpassed the adults that had been alongside throughout the series.
Each movie had its own “flavor,” of sorts, to contribute to the franchise. Some focused more on the school experience at Hogwarts, others focused on some specific activity, like the Triwizard Tournament, and later movies (and the books, of course) laid more of a focus on the Good vs Evil aspects that run throughout the series. Thus, the latter movies tend to be much darker than the earlier movies. Also, I felt that the earlier movies were better at being “standalone” features, while the latter movies (Order of the Phoenix and later) flow into each other to some extent.
Speaking of which, Order of the Phoenix was probably my favorite in the franchise. This movie featured a level of “political upheaval” in the fiction of the series that I found to be interesting, and I wish they could have explored it further. Brooke says that there was quite a bit more of the Ministry of Magic (the group that acts as a sort of governing body over wizards and witches) in the Deathly Hallows (the final book, separated out into two movies), but very little of it remained by the book was translated to the silver screen.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I
One interesting bit about watching all of the movies in sequence in a short time like this is that you can observe all of the kids growing up. I suppose it’s part of why these actors were chosen in the first place: their characters first attend Hogwarts when they turn 11, which is right around the age when the actors took on the roles. Each book is supposed to represent an additional year at the school and, while they couldn’t quite keep the movies churning out each year, they still stayed close enough that the actors could have passed for 17 in the last story. If my math is correct, Daniel Radcliffe turned 17 during the filming of Order of the Phoenix, which is the fifth book/movie of the series. Still, looking at the pictures I’ve posted above, the actors have obviously aged during their tenure in the roles.
Overall, I was pretty impressed. I’d expected a bit more “kiddie fare” throughout the series, but in actuality, it was really only persistent in the first movie, and followed into the second one to an extent. The characters “grew up” relatively quickly, so the movies didn’t get bogged down in young-minded storylines to the extent I’d anticipated.
The latter half of the series, though, really seems to ape the “Star Wars” franchise, with Harry being Luke Skywalker and Lord Voldemort as…well…Lord Vader. Much as Luke and Vader were connected by family, history, loss, good/evil, and so on, so were Harry and Voldemort. I kinda wanted a bit more out of the Voldemort character, honestly. He was present the whole time, and he was certainly bad, but somehow, he just didn’t seem evil enough to me. They would constantly talk about their fear of “He Who Must Not Be Named,” yet the scenes we saw him in, he just wasn’t doing much that was particularly…evil. Granted, it’s a children’s series, so you can’t get too dark, but I can’t help but think more could have been done. Watching the movies, I was more disturbed by Dolores Umbridge, the teacher sent from the corrupt Ministry of Magic that is trying to sweep the return of Voldemort under the proverbial rug. I’m sure the books make Voldemort seem more evil than he turns out to be in the movies, but I found him to be a bit lacking. Perhaps it’ll take a few more viewings of the last two movies before I really settle on why that is.
In the end, I still prefer the Lord of the Rings series over this one, though the Harry Potter series was fun, interesting, and well-produced. In many ways, the effects in the first few movies hold up better than the effects from LotR, though they were definitely less complicated (e.g. putting a light at the end of a wand is a bit cheaper than modeling Gollum, let alone developing the technology to create the character in the first place). Order of the Phoenix was my favorite of the movies, though I really liked Chamber of Secrets, despite it being an “early” movie. The later ones got quite a bit more confusing, but it’ll make more sense when I re-watch them in a few years, once Meg’s old enough.
The Mission: Impossible series isn’t really one of my favorites, to be honest, and I’m not really sure why. They’ve always had pretty great directors, a star-studded cast (and Tom Cruise…), and usually feature great effects and acting. There’s just something about it that doesn’t hold up compared with the Bourne series, let alone Bond. I actually enjoyed Mission: Impossible III quite a bit, and even reviewed it (back when I didn’t write nearly as much…oh, to be him again…). The third installment was directed by J.J. Abrams, and his production company was still involved on the fourth and most recent one, which I think serves the movie well. This time out, however, it’s directed by Brad Bird.
So, for a director’s first time out with live-action, he did an unbelievable job. What Bird brought to this film, above all else, was a sense of fun. I can safely say I haven’t had this much fun at a movie in quite a long time. It was paced well, it was witty and genuinely funny at parts, the action consisted of some ridiculous set-pieces spread across Eastern Europe, India and Dubai, and the actors were at their best.
The story itself was somewhat simple, having the IMF framed by a villain set on remaking the world after nuclear war. He steals a set of Russian nuclear launch codes, in hopes of getting the world’s countries to annihilate each other, leaving the Earth “wiped clean” so that humanity can re-build. Thus, due to the framing, “Ghost Protocol” is enacted where the IMF is “disavowed,” leaving them to their own devices apart from the support of the United States government.
The team this time out consists of Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, and their leader, Tom Cruise (the only one that’s made it through all four outings now). Renner and Pegg serve their purposes well, with Renner as something of a “straight man” and Pegg as the comedic odd-ball. I’d never seen Patton before, but she performed admirably. Cruise, of course, is Cruise. He’s always done well in this role, though the last two outings of the franchise, you can see an “aging” in the character, where Ethan Hunt is gradually more experienced, more grounded, and less “action star”-y (like he was in Mission: Impossible 2…then again, that was a John Woo film…).
The set-pieces in this film were phenomenal as well. There’s been quite a bit of news on the Dubai scenes where Cruise is climbing on the outside of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and believe you me, those scenes were ridiculous. Due to movie timing, we ended up seeing the movie in IMAX and that scene alone made the price of admission worth it. There were other chase scenes, a desert sand storm, and your typical gadgetry that made for excellent special effects and a wonderful spectacle, but the scenes in Dubai were glorious. There’s another scene toward the end of the movie where Tom Cruise and the villain, code-named “Cobalt,” are fighting in an Indian parking garage: one of those that is automated to elevate your car through the middle of a tall, concrete structure (kinda like one of these), and then drop it off for you. The choreography to get each actor in the right place as the “arms” carrying cars were moved in and out was very impressive.
My one knock on the movie was with the villain, “Cobalt.” It’s not that he was played poorly, or that the world-ending dilemma wasn’t dire enough. I just didn’t feel connected to the villain to any great degree. He was there, he was sinister…but I just didn’t care too much. Maybe it’s because I know how these movies tend to be resolved. I just wasn’t very engaged by him. The sense of urgency was the threat of a nuclear launch: not the villain himself. It’s something I can overlook, but more could have been done in that area.
In the end, it was pretty awesome. I’m certainly interested to see what Brad Bird does next, as he brought all the fun from his cartoon work to a live action film. It’s as if he said “what’s something we thought we could only do in a cartoon…’cause I want to do that with Tom Cruise.”
Back in Iowa, we had a little issue with mice deciding to keep warm inside our cars. In the Sportage, they ended up chewing on the spark plug wires. In the Scion xA, a dead mouse was found in Brooke’s cabin filter (after it had been chewed through, in building a nest).
Around that time, though, her car’s fan stopped working at all the lower settings: it only worked on “high.” Since the fan still technically worked, and we didn’t want to pay some ridiculous amount of money to figure out what the problem was, we opted to let it go for awhile. We didn’t really need the car in the summer, so much, and if it was crazy hot (or crazy cold, as Iowa tended to be), then it could still be heated and cooled: just somewhat loudly.
Well, awhile back, Mallory started having a similar issue with her Jeep Grand Cherokee, so she and Mark started investigating and tracked it down to the blower motor resistor, which tend to be faulty in Jeeps. She ordered one and had Mark install it. As I happened to be in town, I helped (read: watched…) Mark put it in. In total, it was a relatively simple process, with the removal of the glove compartment being the most difficult part. Thus, I figured “heck, I could do that with Brooke’s car!” A new resistor is around $30, so it would save a ton of cash to do it this way, and I’d pretend to know something about auto repair in the process.
When this kind of thing happens to a car, it can either be due to the blower motor itself, or the resistor. Because the fan still worked on high, it was unlikely the fan motor was the problem. Conceptually, the idea of the resistor failing (the electronic unit responsible for applying a “resistance” to the speed of the fan, thus allowing for slower fan speeds) seemed to be likely.
Well, Brooke’s car, being a small, Scion xA, turned out to be a bit more complicated.
After I removed the glove compartment, it took me awhile to even find the resistor. It wasn’t in the same place as a Jeep, and things tend to be a bit more cramped in a small, Japanese car like ours. The internet wasn’t much help in locating it, either, though I found a few hints (and no pictures…so hopefully this will help some poor schmuck someday).
I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to remove the white panel pictured above, which houses the fan motor itself, as it seemed like the resistor was somehow a part of that assembly. I didn’t have much luck removing it, though. Beneath that panel was an engine relay assembly, and that was a bit easier to remove.
I was careful to write a few numbers on these wires, so I wouldn’t accidentally put them back in the wrong ports. Then, removed the assembly and…
….there it was…way the hell back up behind that white, plastic, fan motor assembly. And, believe you me, I had to contort myself in any number of ways to get into a position where I could even remove the thing. Only took two screws, but getting a screwdriver to fit back there was challenging. After a little maneuvering, I removed the resistor.
So yeah. Not supposed to look like that. Obviously. In general, electronic devices don’t like birds, mice, or nests being made upon them.
In the end, I was able to get the car re-assembled and the new resistor works. $30 fix from the O’Reilly Auto Parts up the street. Took me about 2 hours, though most of that time was spent trying to find the stupid thing in the far reaches of the void behind the glove compartment.
