Author: andy

Posted on

Nine Days of Potter

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

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.

Maybe I’ll even read the books when Meg does.

Posted on

Review: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

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.

What else has he directed?

Four movies.  The other three, besides this one, are Ratatouille, The Iron Giant and The Incredibles.

Seriously.

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.”

Posted on

What’s a “blower motor resistor?”

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.

Regardless, I was pretty proud of myself.  🙂

Posted on

New Brewing Toys

While I received quite a new wonderful gifts for Christmas this year, I thought I’d mention a few of the brewing-related ones here.  Firstly, as you see above, my talented sister was kind enough to design beer bottle labels for us!  Two different versions, both of which look quite good (though the “hop”-containing green one is probably my favorite), and labeled “Andy & Brooke’s Linsenbrew.”  How exactly we never thought of “Linsenbrew,” I’ll never know, but I certainly got a kick out of these.  I’ll probably only use them on beer batches I save for aging, and for those I take places or give away (these three are destined for my cousin, for example), but I’m very glad to have them!

In other brewing news, we got some additional equipment that I’m looking forward to trying.  We got two wort chillers, which are essentially just “radiators” that pump cold water through copper tubing that you put into the wort after you boil it for an hour.  It’s important to cool the wort down as quickly as possible before adding the yeast, and up until now, we’ve usually filled the sink with ice and cooled it down that way (frequently taking 2+ hrs…).  Now, we have a means of cooling it down much more quickly, which will cut down on brewing time considerably.  We’ll probably use one of them for beer, and the other we’ll use for Brooke’s yogurt, which also requires a cooling step before you’re done.  Each chiller has slightly different fittings, so we haven’t decided which one will be used for which purpose, but regardless, we’re looking forward to giving them a try.

I also got a bottle drying rack, similar to this one.  Usually, I just clean each bottle and let them dry upside-down in laundry baskets.  This is a “functional” solution, but isn’t exactly ideal.  I usually need around 45 bottles cleaned, with the remaining beer going in 1 L or 2 L bottles.  This drying rack should take up far less space and leave the laundry baskets available for…you know…laundry…

Finally, we got a Chinook IPA beer kit.  This is a kit I’d considered doing awhile back but hadn’t tried it yet.  The key reason I wanted it was because it only takes around 6 weeks to make, while other IPA varieties like to have 2 months fermenting, followed by bottling and conditioning.  The last IPA I made got quite a bit better with an additional month of aging so, while I thought it ended up fine, it sure took a long time to be “drinkable.”  Hopefully, this recipe solves that issue.

So yeah, got some new toys for Christmas to feed the beer brewing needs.  I may get a chance to brew this one on New Year’s Day, but could push it off a bit, yet.  Then, we need to start thinking about what the next batch will be, likely either a Cream Ale or a Czech Pilsner.  We’re trying to get a recipe that’s radically different from the others we’ve made, as the Dunkelweizen that just finished tastes pretty similar to some of the others we’ve made.

Posted on

Happy Holidays

From the Linsenbardt family to yours, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Be safe and have a good time with family and friends this season!

Posted on

Tour of St. Louis Breweries Update

Since moving away from St. Louis in May, 2010, a ridiculous number of new breweries have opened, mostly within the “midtown” area. This explosion in the St. Louis brewing scene has been important enough to make national news in New York Magazine, among others. Of course, all this happens after we move away, but now that we’re back, we can finally partake in some of their wares.  I assume they are springing up because St. Louis does a good job with their water supply (in support of Anheuser-Busch…).  At the very least, I’m glad they’re mostly springing up in the City itself instead of the various surrounding municipalities.

Last night, I went along with old college roommate buddy, Tony, to Perennial Artisan Ales, located in an old Coca-Cola plant that has since been converted to lofts.  Tony lives above the place, so he goes down for a fresh pint from time to time (likely more often than anyone should…).  The neat thing about this place is that they really focus on different beer styles with odd flavorings, so they are purposefully trying to make a distinction between their beers and others in the city.  Their on-tap roster consists of a Southside Blonde, “Saison de Lis” Chamomile Saison, Hommel Bier, and Abraxas (a Mexican Chocolate Stout).  Each week, on Thursdays, they host tastings of some new beer they are unveiling, done on a small, 5 gal scale.  Basically, the head brewer just does what any home brewer does and then, if it’s good enough, they consider scaling it up to a full batch.  They just invest a little bit in materials to test it and then get their customers to tell them whether it’s worth production or not.  Last night’s was a Rye beer that tasted quite good, though the color left much to be desired (i.e. it wasn’t the most attractive beer I’d ever had, but after you taste it, you forget what it looks like).

I tasted a few of them.  The Hommel was the “hoppiest” beer they had, so it’s the one I ended up buying for the evening.  I tasted their Chamomile Saison, which was pretty fascinating.  Chamomile is one of those flavors/scents that you recognize, but can’t always name, but believe you me, you could tell it was in this beer.  The flavor was good and very distinctive.  They also have a Strawberry Rhubarb Tart on occasion.  I can’t begin to imagine what it would taste like.

But that Abraxas.

Wow.

Seriously, it may be one of the best beers I’ve had in a long time.  And I didn’t go there thinking I’d like it that much.  The closest descriptor I could come up with as I had some was “it tastes like Christmas.”  It was chocolaty, but wasn’t overwhelming.  Its texture was definitely stout-like, but not too thick.  The beer was 10% alcohol, so I didn’t want to have a whole one and then drive home later, but geez did I want one.  They sell wine bottle-sized versions of their beers that you can take home, but it was going to be $20 for that one.  Perhaps after Christmas, I’ll grab one so Brooke can try it.

Their location is about as far south in St. Louis City as you can go, and they aren’t in what I’d consider to be a very good location.  I certainly hope they survive, at least long enough to keep their production going there and then sell their beers through bars in the city.  These guys are offering what few others are and are truly innovative, I think.

After having the beer at Perennial, I went upstairs to Tony’s and he shared some Black IPA he and his brother brewed awhile back.  Truly spectacular.  I don’t think I can let him have any of ours because his is far better.  That, or we’ll have to switch to full mash brewing techniques…

When Meg was staying with her grandparents a few weeks ago, Brooke and I checked out another new brewery, Urban Chestnut, and were pretty pleased with that one, too.  They are located closer to SLU, so their building is a bit easier to get to and probably a popular destination with college students and other loft dwellers from that region of the city.  Their offerings are a bit more standard, with a variety of German-inspired beers to choose from.  We tasted 5 or 6 of them, and then got a pint each.  If I recall, the Pilgrim 7 was Brooke’s favorite, and I ended up having a Holzrauch, which is German for “wood smoke.”  Now, this isn’t a beer I would ever attempt to have a 6-pack of, but it was so different, I had to have a full pint.  In the end, I think it would be best consumed with food, rather than just sipped, but it was still very good.

Overall, I’d say I preferred Urban Chestnut’s location (they have a very nice covered outdoor area with a fire pit and wood chips down, to let you sip your beer by an open fire…a nice touch!) over Perennial’s, but I preferred Perennial’s beers over Urban Chestnut’s.  Still, the important thing is that St. Louis’ brewing scene is getting even larger, making our move back to the are all the more fortunate.

Posted on

The Value of Content

I watched “Page One: Inside The New York Times” on Netflix Sunday.  It’s a documentary that focuses on the NYT as an institution in news reporting in the United States and the world, but also discusses the changing face of media (e.g. blogs, Twitter, etc.) and the ability of just about anyone to put out “unfiltered” news directly to the general public, as in the case of the WikiLeaks debacle from last year.  The documentary is pretty interesting, though I think they “bounced around” a bit more than I would prefer without any good transitions.

One of the recurring themes in the documentary was the battle currently being waged between “Old Media” and “New Media.”  For example, you can go to practically any news blog now for your news as many people do, but practically all of them just re-word and re-post the same information that was originally presented in the NYT.  Thus, the regular consumer of news gets their information for free without every having to visit the NYT website or pick up a paper, and therefore, the NYT never gets any ad revenue or subscriber fees from the reader.

Which leads to the central question of the documentary: how long will this be sustainable?  Or, re-worded, how long can the New York Times, and institutions like it, survive in a “digital world” using their traditional economic models?

I heard a related story on NPR last week talking about Amazon and Apple (but mostly Amazon) and how the European Union is investigating them for antitrust violations with regards to e-book prices on their respective stores.  These two companies essentially dictate to the publisher how much money they will sell their books (typically around $10), while the publishing companies used to be able to charge quite a bit more than that for a hardcover new release (let alone the fact that they set the price, not the distributor).

Now, in the case of the Times, I’m not really sure what the solution is.  They have already taken steps to increase revenue by charging for their website, and I think that’s helping.  At the very least, they’re making an attempt to survive the transition into digital media.  Likely, as tablets broaden their reach to consumers, they will be able to charge for their app, or access to stories, effectively turning tablets into digital NYT readers.  There is certainly money to be had if you produce a good app, and the NYT has a pretty decent one.  It’s unfortunate that a lot of people out there don’t understand where news comes from and that most of these blogs a). don’t actually investigate their own news (they just re-post it from other sources), and b). frequently have some kind of agenda, so it may not be as objective as it should be to be considered capital-J “Journalism.”  There is a value in actual news and people are willing to pay for it: the NYT just needs to figure out how to sustain the same standard of Journalism while operating under realistic expectations of what the public will pay for it.

In the case of book, movie, and music publishers, though, I think they need to adjust their model quickly.  For example, if one considers a new-release book at Barnes and Noble, it’s likely it would cost you $20 or more.  It simply doesn’t make sense to charge $20 for a digital copy (as publishers would love to do).  The same thing goes for movies: I’m not going to spend the Bluray price of a movie for the digital version.

Now, those full prices don’t typically occur for movies and books because of the digital systems that have grown up to deliver the content for you.  For a new movie like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, you’ll spend $22.99 for the Bluray and you’ll spend $14.99 for the digital version, so there’s some premium for the physical copy and some discount for the digital copy.  In video games, this typically isn’t the case, however.  When the newest Call of Duty game came out on PC, it was $60, regardless of whether you got a physical disc in a box or if you downloaded it.  With games, though, there has been something of a “relationship” developed between the publishers of games and the retailers (e.g. Gamestop, Wal-Mart, etc), where the publisher could offer a discount on a digital version, but in order to appease the brick-and-mortar retailer, they keep it the same price so you still may go into their store.

Ultimately, “Old Media” needs to realize that they can’t support the distribution systems that they used for the past few decades.  This is starting to happen with books, where locations like Borders went bankrupt because they couldn’t make the transition to a digital age.  Companies like Gamestop are starting to make the transition, offering a digital streaming service not unlike Netflix Instant.  Companies like Wal-Mart will probably just stop offering games and movies, eventually, but they’ll survive because they sell other things (among other reasons).

But the publishers still have much to worry about.  Their teams of editors, binders, layout people, and so on and so forth.  Teams of people that were needed in order to lay out print for publication or to set up distribution chains for each product.  Or that were needed to design the inside of game manuals.  Or to design the cases that your DVD or Bluray came in.  These are all things that just aren’t (as) necessary in a fully digital world.  You don’t need to worry about distribution when you can just sell it on the internet to everyone.  However, publishers are still trying to charge additional money on the digital side in order to support these folks on the physical side of their product.

Now, my solution to this problem is to increase the cost of the physical media and further decrease the cost of the digital one.  If there’s anything apps on the iPhone or Android have shown developers, it’s that selling your product for $1 means that you’ll sell to additional people, and you’ll make your money back on volume.  I mean, if you could just buy a new release movie for $5, would you do it? Would you even think about the purchase?  Would you care if you only watched it one time?  That’s cheaper than a single ticket to go see the movie in theaters.  If new movies, digitally distributed, without any special features were $5, I think they’d sell more.

But again, publishers should still hang on to their “physical media” production scheme, as there will still be people that want an actual Bluray disc.  And I definitely know that there will be people that want a physical book, rather than an e-reader form.  But wouldn’t more people buy books if they were $5 for a new one, rather than $20?  Sure, pay the premium if you want a nice, hardcover, bound, indestructible copy of a book for your collection, but don’t make people that just want to read the book help finance other people’s need for a physical copy.

There’s a somewhat longstanding psychological “principle” in gaming related to the $100 price point.  Once any gaming console hits $100, then many consumers won’t even think about the price.  It’ll become an impulse buy.  A similar phenomenon happened with the Wii when it released, and it cost $250.  But at that price, it was cheap enough as an impulse buy for many people just to play Wii Sports.

“Old Media” publishers need to find the “impulse buy” price for their products.  In the case of movies and books, I think $10 is a fair price to charge, but $5 is the “impulse buy” price.  Once publishers start selling their wares down there for a digital form, I think they’ll make their money back on volume, and only then will they survive.

Edit: I read this article from Slate today, discussing Amazon and its tactics that end up hurting brick and mortar bookstores.  I particularly liked this line:

But say you don’t care about local cultural experiences. Say you just care about books. Well, then it’s easy: The lower the price, the more books people will buy, and the more books people buy, the more they’ll read.

Yup.

Posted on

Review: The Muppets

My history with the Muppets doesn’t really involve The Muppet Show, per se.  While it’s a show I’ve seen countless clips of over the years, it’s just nothing I’ve ever been a huge fan of.  My memories are of The Muppets Take Manhattan, Muppet Babies and A Muppet Family Christmas (which we had taped one year and watched religiously each holiday season).  So my interest in the new film, The Muppets, stemmed more from the way it was made rather than the subject matter itself.

Jason Segal (of “How I Met Your Mother” fame) stars in The Muppets, but he also co-wrote the screenplay.  He discussed it on NPR last week, which piqued Brooke’s interest and further solidified the fact that I/we needed to see the movie.  The article discussed a range of things, but the points that were of greatest interest to me personally was that they wanted to make the movie with as little CGI as possible, and they wanted to produce a comedy that relied on “old fashioned ideals,” rather than most of the other comedies out in theaters today (e.g. anything by Judd Apatow…not that it’s a bad thing, but it’s nice to see an intelligent “family comedy” from time to time).

The movie itself centers on Segal’s character (Gary) and his brother, Walter, who is a Muppet (Note: it is not explained how, exactly, this happened.  Brooke and I wonder whether Walter was adopted, or whether Gary was, as we never see the parents.  I’m hoping I never have to explain this kind of genetic splicing to Meg someday).  Walter goes with Gary and his girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams), to Hollywood to see the old Muppet Theater, something that Walter had dreamed about since he was a child.  Once they get there, they find out that an evil businessman (Chris Cooper) wants to buy the theater and tear it down to drill for oil, leading Walter and the gang to round up the other Muppets to organize a telethon to raise the money to buy it back.

It was great seeing all the memorabilia around the theater, including old photos and clips from the old Muppet Show.  As I mentioned before, it’s not like I watched the original show all that much, but it was still neat seeing that history displayed with such reverence on the big screen again.  The movie seemed to be reaching back into television history to a time when a show like that could make it on television, where in today’s world, the only way you’ll see Kermit The Frog on prime time is if he’s on an island or is living in a house with strangers.  Many of the themes in the film could be considered “traditional,” but in this presentation, it seems more like “timeless” than anything.

The movie was also pretty funny.  Not really “laugh out loud” funny or anything, but definitely chuckle-worthy and amusing.  The self-referential humor was the most entertaining to me: stuff that may fly by a kid, but would still be funny to an adult.  Chris Cooper would say “maniacal laugh…maniacal laugh…” rather than actually laughing in that evil way, for example.  Or that they would “travel by map” to get from one location to another quickly in the story (like taking a car from the U.S. to Paris).

I was a little disappointed that they didn’t give the actors more to do, however.  Amy Adams was in it from the beginning, but didn’t really do much until the last half of the movie.  During the telethon, there were almost countless cameo appearances, but while you saw folks like Judd Hirsch and Neil Patrick Harris answering the phones, they didn’t have any actual lines of dialog (while others like Zach Galifianakis and Jim Parsons were a bit more prominent).  It was obvious that the writers brought people in from multiple generations, so there would be cameos from people practically anyone would recognize (who the heck is Selena Gomez, anyway?).

But, this was a movie about the Muppets: not about the humans.  And in the end, you’re left with a “feel good,” entertaining movie that brings a lot of familiar faces back together, and together for the first time.  They did a great job with this movie, and they did it without 3D and with barely any CGI, proving that you can still tell a great story and make a great movie for kids and adults that only involves puppets and a few supporting people.

In today’s world (and if the previews before the movie are any indication, where almost all the previews were for upcoming CGI or 3D movies…) that’s certainly an accomplishment.

Posted on

The Wheels on the Bus

Washington University School of Medicine, where I work, doesn’t have what I like to call “cheap parking.”  If I recall, it’s something like $60 or $70 per month to park within a few blocks of the building I work in, and personally, I’d rather spend that kind of money on video games or beer.

However, as part of their sustainability initiative, Wash U pays for all students and employees to have a yearly St. Louis Metro pass.  This means that, so long as I have the pass and present my University ID card, I can ride any bus or any MetroLink (the above-ground train system) for free.

Unfortunately, though, while the MetroLink has a reasonably decent reputation with regards to cleanliness and timeliness, the MetroBus system doesn’t.  And furthermore, we don’t really live anywhere near a MetroLink stop where I could hop on, at least, not in any convenient manner.  Therefore, I’m riding the bus.  The “scary, dirty, slow,” bus.

To be fair, I’m only riding it in the evenings.  Brooke is driving me to work in the mornings, then dropping Meg off at daycare and then finally going to work herself.  Most mornings, this isn’t a problem, though there’s something of a “sweet spot” in timing that we try to avoid.  If we leave the house by 7:40 am, or after 8:15 am, we can get me to work in 15 min or so.  If we leave anytime inbetween, it’s closer to 30 min.  Yay, St. Louis traffic.

But in the evenings, I’m riding the bus.  Brooke picked me up for the first week or two, since I didn’t have my bus pass yet.  This “worked,” but Meg wasn’t exactly happy having to sit in her car seat for nearly 45 min every afternoon.  It’s made things much easier now that Brooke can just bring her straight home.  My bus trips tend to take 20-30 min in the evenings, so it isn’t a huge deal.  As long as I leave before 6:00 pm, there are buses running just about every 20 min to the stop(s) near my building.

The buses themselves are alright.  They aren’t all that dirty, and while I haven’t exactly figured out the best time to go outside to wait at the stop, I can’t really say that they’re consistently late or anything.  The bus stop where I get off the bus is on Kingshighway, so after I get off, I still have to walk a few blocks before I get home.  Right now, it isn’t an issue, but once we get a foot of snow on the ground, I may think otherwise.

I do want to address the “scary” part of the city bus stereotype, though.  Is the bus full of rich, white, Americans?  Nope.  Lots of African Americans, lots of Hispanics, lots of elderly people, lots of low-income people…and lots of other people inbetween.  Heck, on the ride home last night around 5:30, white people out-numbered black people 2:1 on my bus.  Was I a bit apprehensive the first time I rode the bus, looking down the aisle at the various “characters” that I’ve been told would terrorize me over the last decade?  Yeah, I probably was, to some extent.  Now, after a few weeks, it’s pretty easy and I don’t give it a second thought.  And, to be fair, there are seemingly “well off” people riding the bus as well.  Perhaps not as many, but they’re there.  In total, it’s probably the most diverse place you’ll find in the greater metropolitan area.  And they just want to get where they’re going each day without much fuss, just like anyone and everyone else.

I guess I think it’s important that I ride the bus, partially to show others that it really isn’t all that scary, and partially to “walk the walk” when I talk about sustainability.  Mass transit, overall, is a good way to save money and help the environment.  It takes cars off the road and reduces demand on gasoline.  Because there are fewer cars on the road, that means fewer cars that go to scrap yards some day, fewer tires that go into the landfill, and fewer emissions that go into our air.  Generally speaking, using mass transit is an ideal way that people can do their part to help the environment.

There are plenty of people around that think we should all use mass transit more often, but these same people wouldn’t be caught dead on a city bus.  The city bus isn’t good enough for them.  The city bus is dirty and dangerous and they will only use services like MetroLink, or like the Metro system in Washington, D.C.  Rather than submit to riding the bus, instead, they will drive their car that 4 miles and park it, even though the amount of time spent doing so is equivalent to riding the bus.

I’m sure I’ve told people in the past that I’d use public transportation if I had it.  And for many years, I didn’t consider the bus to be “public transportation.”  To me, and to many others, I’d argue, “public transportation” equals “light rail,” while “riding the bus” equals “only for poor people and minorities.”  Maybe it goes unsaid, but that’s the general impression I get from other people when the prospect of “riding the bus” comes up.  However, the only reason light rail systems like MetroLink exist is because there were enough people riding buses for that distance that it made financial sense to build a rail system.  Thus, the more people that ride buses within the city of St. Louis, and other communities, the more likely municipal officials will be to finance more light rail systems.

Therefore, I’m trying to “walk the walk” after “talking the talk” about mass transit.  If I can do my part to ride the city bus, I’ll do it as long as I can.  It saves me money and it saves my wife and kid time that they don’t have to be in the car to pick me up every day.  Win/win.

But in the end, if the bus is good enough for the other people that ride it, the bus is good enough for me.

Posted on

New Brewing Setup

Since moving in a few weeks ago, I’ve slowly been trying to get all my beer brewing materials moved to their ultimate destination in the basement.  One of the perks to living in this house is the double-sink down there, allowing for soaking and cleaning of bottles and other brewing gear without the need to take over the kitchen sink.  Unfortunately, however, the sink was clogged up (likely from whatever painting and plastering materials had been cleaned previously in that sink…).  Anyway, I think I’ve got it mostly cleaned out, though running water through it over the next few weeks will probably help dislodge whatever’s left in there.

Regardless, I set up our large folding table next to the sink and have stacked most things either on it or under it.  I probably need something a bit better for all the bottles, but for now, this will do.  I also ran an electrical cord around so I could plug in an old computer stereo set to listen to music and podcasts while working in the basement.

For my birthday this year, Mom and Dad got me an outdoor propane burner and a large, 5 gallon brew pot, which I finally got to use last week.  Obviously, I can only use it outside, but I can already tell this is a better way to go than using an electric oven.  It’s usually very easy to get a “boil-over” using the electric range, but with gas, it’s very easy to back off with the heat to slow down the boil.  Thankfully, it was a beautiful night last week to brew outside.  I’m probably not going to be so lucky when I’m out brewing in February, though…  😛

Last, but not least, here’s our first beer in the new place: a Dunkelweizen.  It’s still bubbling away downstairs and should be ready for bottling early in the week after Thanksgiving.  Brooke’s hard apple cider is already in bottles and should be conditioned well enough by Thanksgiving, however this Dunkelweizen will probably not be aged long enough until Christmas.  I think we’ll probably try to get another one fermenting within the next week or so.

Anyway, I’m excited about the new setup.  Should make it easier to clean up and get some brewing done without having to get the kitchen cleared up in time for brewing.  Hooray, beer!