Shoup Airlines

Batman Begins his Invasion of the Body Snatchers in Chinatown, Gattaca

I’ve had nothing better to do of late…

Batman Begins with a much darker and deeper storyline echoing the Batman of late 80′s comics. Christian Bale dons the cowl this time around and resurrects Gotham’s protector from the desecration that was George Clooney/Val Kilmer. If you thought Tim Burton’s Batman was good, you will thoroughly enjoy this one. Michael Caine plays the perfectly doting, yet very adept Alfred, while Gary Oldman embodies a young and skittish Sgt. Gordon. That’s right, I said Sergeant. And of course, what summer blockbuster would be a blockbuster without leaving it open for a sequel? I think it’s in good hands, but we all know the rule about sequels. They just better not screw up one of the best evil-doers in the business of evil-doing!

I had always been dubious of Invasion of the Body Snatchers but I think that was because I saw a small bit from the 1978 version and wasn’t impressed. The 1956 version is actually pretty good for 50′s era sci-fi. You’ll sit there scratching your head, because you know you’ve seen the main character, Dr. Bennel before. Then it hit me, Kevin McCarthy played a funny bad guy in Innerspace, but he’s also one of those guys that just permeates everything cinematic. The movie plays paranoia to the hilt as pod spawned doppelgangers take over the town, and no one believes the genial doctor. Even better, the DVD contains an interview conducted by no less than Tom Hatten!! Who, you ask? If you grew up in SoCal during the 80′s, you’ll remember this grey haired, turtleneck wearing dude that hosted a Popeye the Sailor cartoon show on KTLA, giving tidbits of trivia and history before each cartoon! Yeah, same guy.

Delving more into the old film noir classics, I watched the less old and less classic film noir, Chinatown starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. Jack played his usual somewhat seedy and sinister self which is always talented, but gets old when that’s all he does. As for Faye, I’ve never understood why anyone likes her, this movie just burns that question further into my brain. On the other hand, John Huston plays an excellent millionaire with devious intentions for 1940′s L.A. Come to think of it, when did Huston ever play a bad role? Overall a good movie with an interesting story, just some poor choices in the main roles. Current film noir scores, for those keeping track at home, 1-2.

Last (I heard that collective sigh!), we take a look at the movie that gave us Uma and Ethan, the married couple. Gattaca is set in the “not so distant” future (gee, I’ve heard that one before) where we’ve messed with Mother Nature, once again, and now control the choices for genes our children will have. A new racism sets in against those conceived naturally, “deGENErates.” This came out way back in 1997 as the cloned sheep, Dolly, was making her debut and creating all the ethics debates. Funny, that all seems trivial now compared to the stem cell debates going on today. If you push all of this aside and just watch the movie for the pure sci-fi, then it ends up being an okay movie. It kept my interest long enough for only half a crossword puzzle. Hey, I just realized in typing this that the movie title contains only and all the DNA components: G, C, T, and A. Hmmm, coincidence?

Sprinkler #4

The bugs, realizing that winter is encroaching, once again pushed for backyard dominance. The earwigs launched another sabotage mission on the sprinklers, partially succeeding Friday. I think I caught them in the act as they were only able to take down three heads. What I found disconcerting though was the fact that the earwigs had come UP through the water line this time. How? How in the world could they have gotten into a closed water system? And if so, that means they’re in the entire house’s water system!!

After clearing the battlefield, I went about repairing the sprinklers and trying to find how they were getting into the system. They finally drew blood as I attempted to unscrew a head and the wrench slipped causing me to scrape my knuckle across the concrete. Took a big chunk of skin off too. On top of that, the earwigs rendered two sprinklers irreparable. They won that battle.

Today, I came back bandaged and ready for Armageddon. Replacing the two sprinklers, I went to test the system only to find that the wigs had clogged the repaired sprinkler again. I got Armageddon. Not only were the ants waiting for me, but it looks like they may have made another alliance…with a Luftwaffe! I don’t know for sure only because there were no acts of aggression toward me. It seemed the wasps were sizing their adversary up, buzzing in from afar and running high altitude reconnaissance.

Even so, the air wing distraction allowed a platoon of ants to swarm the sprinkler head. A futile attempt at best, but it made me realize this particular sprinkler may be important to them. Unscrewing the head, I found four, COUNT THEM, four earwigs ambushing me from the water line. One even got a pinch off, but my wrench finished him off in gory fashion (I think it had a vendetta for Friday’s atrocities). A quick order of feet finished the rest of the squad off. Now I know #4 is vital, but why?

As I finished clearing the suicide earwig from the sprinkler head, I caught some movement in the corner of my eye. By a freak stroke of luck I saw an earwig crawling from one of the anti-syphon valves for the sprinkler system and that’s when it donned on me. Running over to the valves, I unscrewed all three valves to find a mouse spider trying valiantly to stave off the wigs in one valve, their numbers just too many for him. The other two valves were entrenched with earwigs. I called in for the kill-o-matic spray and leveled the area. There’s enough pesticide in the anti-syphon valve area now to keep away small birds! I purged the system again once more for good measure and found TEN more earwigs in the line waiting to block sprinkler heads.

Thus ended the day’s battle for Sprinkler #4. Wet and battle weary, I was left with several thoughts. Why #4 is so important, I still don’t know. Recon shows the air force’s nest nearby, but not close enough to warrant such sacrifice. An ant hive may be closer and fearful of flooding, that would explain the quick arrival of the ant platoon. I just don’t know. I do know there were tens left dead today, and a patch of land left uninhabitable for all bugs. When will the madness stop? War is hell!

I return to base disgusted, frustrated, and with a truly morbid idea working it’s way to the surface. Would it be wise, nay, humane to unleash the ultimate weapon? I fear she would cause exceedingly too much devastation, but would it shock insect-kind enough to give up their mad pursuits?

The Gallery is finally here!

Some of you may have seen phantom links appearing and disappearing the last week or two and wondering what was going on, or more likely, couldn’t have cared less. Here’s why —->

You now have a Gallery to browse at your leisure, but will most likely use to help procrastinate at work. Some photos are old, some are new, most have comments, but not all. There is still more to come, I just haven’t had the time to put everything in yet.

The programming may still be a bit buggy, but that’s what I get for stripping someone else’s idea. My hat goes off to Keytwo for all his work and help. Be patient if the Gallery starts acting up, but let me know. I haven’t thoroughly tested everything. For those of you using IE, get out of the stone age and download Firefox!

Now, without further ado, I present the Shoup Airlines Gallery!