Drying Off From The Wet Spot

There is always a sense of profound sadness when you go into one of your favourite places and everything has changed:  it is just like learning that Santa is not real and that it’s actually mum and dad putting the presents under the tree and in the stocking.  But I never, ever, expected to find myself walking out of The Wet Spot, my (ex)favourite tropical fish store, pretty much promising myself to never set foot in there again.

Now managing to stick to that promise is another thing entirely since specialist tropical fish stores are not exactly on every block.  But fortunately for me, and unfortunately for The Wet Spot, I do have the luxury of being able to go to another tropical fish store that while not necessarily as well stocked as The Wet Spot, is closer and much, much friendlier to be inside.

Dare I say it; they actually want to provide service and answer questions and even ask about my tanks.  So why I didn’t just go to The World Of Wet Pets in the first place is now a question that I am asking.  The simple answer is that my daughter wanted me to take her out to breakfast and then she wanted to go clothes shopping and shoe shopping.

And since her tastes are rather eclectic and tend to the used and vintage, we decided to make the trek to the east side of town and have breakfast at the Hawthorne Café and then check out Buffalo Exchange and Red Light.  All in all, she was most successful in her endeavours.

On the other hand, I had a most unsuccessful journey to the other side of town.  My sole reason for agreeing to go to the Hawthorne District was so that I could swing down Cesar Chavez to Sandy and on to The Wet Spot.  This was done after a rather good breakfast of smoked salmon eggs benedict and coffee; followed by the privilege of pretending to be enthusiastic about vintage t-shirts and high heel boots, rare Converse All-Stars and most important of all, the light up Skechers in an adult size.

 Now half the fun of going to the tropical fish store after clothes shopping with a hyperactive eighteen year old is that it is such good payback for that time spent sitting outside the changing room waiting for her to try on all of the clothes she took in, and take pictures and text them to her thirty or forty closest friends:  honestly, there are so many flashes from the changing area that it looks like the night sky over Baghdad during the bombing.

She has long curly red hair that the 275% humidity in The Wet Spot immediately “poodlizes” and she ends up with Texas Big Hair.  Having sweat beads running down my arse crack from the heat and humidity in the store is a small price to pay for her turning into Fifi.  And for some reason, even though it was still a mild 60 degrees outside today, the heat and humidity inside the store was far worse than usual.  The store was not even crowded today either which is rather unusual on a Saturday afternoon.

And yet, I could not get any help from the employees. I consider it a major victory that I even managed to get the churlish individual running the front counter to even acknowledge my presence.  Of course the acknowledgment was accompanied with a deep sigh to make sure that I understood how much I was inconveniencing her. But I have an eighteen year old daughter, and one who used to be eighteen, I can slough off the deep sigh, stamped foot and pouty lips and go back for seconds any day of the week.

The second time I went to the counter I did not even warrant this treatment and was ignored for several minutes.  This was probably to show me who’s the boss.  So I went back and camped out by the fish tank from which I really wished to purchase some of its piscatorial contents along with several other (not inexpensive) items to help buffer my discus tank.  I was then in danger of getting whip lash as employee after employee went by and refused to help.  It was suggested that I go ask for help at the front counter – hmmmmmm, how well did that work the first two times?

And identifying Wet Spot employees is not difficult as they tend to be individuals with a preponderance of body art, piercings, funky hair and wearing a t-shirt proclaiming that they “work” at The Wet Spot.  But trying to get one of these individuals to actually stop and help is a whole other issue. So I ended up putting most items back on the shelf and bought the one thing I knew that I could not get that day at World Of Wet Pets  and then me, myself and the not inconsiderable wad of dollars in my back pocket and pissed off back across the Marquam Bridge.  (No worries though, I did not forget the daughter.)

When I first started getting into aquariums and tropical fish ten years ago, a trip to NE Portland and The Wet Spot was an adventure and the experience of going into the store made me want to get more and more into being an aquarist and really getting into the art and science of having fish as pets.  And it is a commitment of time and money – do not be under any illusion about that.

And a large quantity of that money has been spent at The Wet Spot in my attempts to recreate something that Takashi Amano would be proud of.  Thousands of my hobby dollars have been gratefully given over as I strive to create something special.  But several years ago, I began to find my trips there less and less productive.  Getting help from the help was not so easy.  And so it progressed in a downward spiral.

It is a shame really. There is so much that they do right.  Their website is awesome and the weekly blogs spots are brilliant.  The store has an incredible selection of fish:  African Cichlids, New World Cichlids and discus fish, tetras of every imaginable flavour and colour.  But if no-one will give a customer the time of day then it is all a waste.  I used to go to The Wet Spot twice a month but now it is more like once every three months or so.  And this is all due to what I perceive to be a lack of service in the store.

Everything has to revolve around service in something that specialized.  This was apparent when I went to World Of Wet Pets this morning and got the fish that I originally went over the bridge to get.  As soon as I walked in, I was welcomed by name and asked about my fish tanks.  We discussed what I was looking for (and why) and my Cory Cats were procured and my discus tank is getting cleaned by them even as I type.

There were also some new plants that came in last week that she showed me and so I got several new types of plants for the two planted aquariums and we discussed some of the issues that have been plaguing my tanks; most notably buffering the discus tank to keep the pH low enough.  This has been a growing problem as my wood has aged.  They will now stock the black water extract for me that I like to use.

We then discussed what I was looking to do later on in the summer to the tanks and the girl took some notes so that if she or Eric got something in that I might want such as a rare discus fish, they could get hold of me.  This store probably gets 80% of my fish dollars now and it looks likely to be getting 100% of the dollars soon.  And to think that I discovered it by accident… what now seems to be a most fortuitous and happy accident.

Every Now And Then ….

I completely forget that I have lived in America for the past thirty four years and when someone asks me something in American (yes, there is such a language)  I answer in English.

This morning I returned something to Fred Meyer to be exchanged.  The lady at customer service was, as is usual at Fred Meyer, being extrememly pleasant and helpful and we completed the exchange (something smaller for something larger; unfortunately) when out of the blue she asked if I wanted to keep the old bag.

Being deep in thought at the time, as I am want to do, I replied “Oh, I got rid of ‘er years ago!”

“The Most Important Thing To Remember About Area 51 ….

Is that there were 50 other Areas, man:  50 other Areas!!!!!”

I work with a rather paranoid, retired air force top sergeant who reminds me of this all of the time; and he should know.

There Is A God

But is he a loving deity or a malevolent and pernicious fiend?

From this merging of two of the five basic food groops:

Plus This

Created this superfood group

Feeding the multitudes with five loaves of bread and two little fishes is like sidewalk sideshow magic compared to this miracle!!!!

Prime Time Tub Time

For a long time, Robert Crais has been an author who I eagerly wait on for each new novel.  I really like what he does with his main characters – especially the warrior/monk-like private eye Joe Pike.  What is very important to know about Robert Crais is that he got his start as a script writer and among his credits are shows such as LA Law and Hill Street Blues:  shows that were renowned for the quality of the writing.

Joe Pike is, as regular readers know, the silent (in more ways than one) partner of private detective Elvis Cole.  Both are decorated vets with Cole being a former Ranger and Pike a former recon Marine and this tends to play into the stealthy force way of dealing with problems.  The author has maintained that he will not sell the movie rights to Joe Pike and Elvis Cole:  but should he ever do so, I see Brad Pitt as Pike and George Clooney playing Elvis Cole.

Robert Crais is very tuned into the Southern California crime world and understands the inner workings of how things appear to work, and how they really work, on both sides of the border.  And dealings on both sides of the border are the subject of his latest novel:  Taken. 

Now this novel would be worth a write up just for its plot and the brilliant noirish quality of the story and its characters.  It would also be worth a write up to discuss some of the political issues of the day that Mr. Crais deals with in all of his novels and the manner in which they are infused into the story. 

The case in this story revolves around illegal immigration and its ramifications.  It is a story of predators and prey.  It is a story about strength of character and moral lassitude.  It also has a sub-plot about family decisions to enter the country illegally carrying down a generation or two to create problems.  It is a story of humanity and inhumanity. Just these reasons place it well above any normal detective novel.  But then there is a twist. 

This is not a plot twist, but a plot presentation twist:  three quarters of the story is told on a reverse timeline.  It is brilliant.  The story is based around the decisions made by the four main protagonists and then traces the reasoning behind each decision.  And it works: brilliantly.  This is my favourite Robert Crais novel to date.  But be forewarned; I say that about every novel he writes since it seems that he is still evolving as a writer and the evolution is carrying over to his main characters.  So what do you have next for me, Mr. Crais?

Tnemelpmis Tuot Tialla Ne’s Euqin, Euqin, Euqinimod

“Oooh he was such a lovely man.  ‘E always carried my groceries into the house for me, what with all my arfritis and such.”  How often has such a statement been made to an earnest looking bottle blonde television reporter (looking suitably, and intensely, earnest in her post interview facials that are edited into the piece).

This is while she interviews “Elsie the Nosey Next Door Neighbor” who was justifiably dischuffed when body after body is dug up from the dahlia beds next door and it turns out the person who prides herself on being in the know knows not a thing. 

But what makes a serial killer become a serial killer?  I have to admit that I have given this at least three to five minutes of careful thought.  And I did consult with my youngest daughter who considers herself to be somewhat of an expert (as all 18 year olds are on pretty much every subject) on such things as nature versus nurture:  she watches as many episodes of Criminal Minds as humanly possible, so she must be an expert on evil!

Of course, according to Tipper Gore and the PMRC all metal music is evil:  let me re-iterate that – it is eeeeeeevilllllllllllll. Televangelists and others from the south with big hair (male and female) also maintain that metal is the root of all societal decay. 

Not wanting to Reign In Blood on their parade for the decline of Western Civilization, I do sort of, kinda like, wonder what metal albums the Greeks and Romans were listening to as their societies imploded (Ozzy is definitely old enough).  Breaking out the big book of serial killers and reviewing it, (I had to tear it away from the daughter’s grasp) there seems to be a timeline on the emergence of serial killers.

It is really from the period of the 1960s onward that serial killers seemed to emerge en masse.  Now many attribute the rise of rock music, hallucinogenic drugs, and pervasive violence in social media as being the prime factors in the creation of your bog-standard serial killer.  And to some extent I would agree with all of this.

But was there a Genesis, so to speak, an epochal event that forever changed the world?  In the late 1960s, Charles Manson talked about “Helter Skelter” off of the Beatles’ White Album as being a call to arms for him.  However, bearing in mind that “Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace” on that album too, I really don’t hold much credence in the Beatles being the root of all that is evil in the world. 

But just to digress for a moment, I will mention that I was stuck on an elevator one time listening to a Muzak version of “Octopus’s Garden” and that really made me fuck-off angry and ready to kill. (Who would’ve thunked it that massed strings could be worse than Ringo Starr singing.)  It was even worse than listening to Mantovani’s orchestral stylings of “The Girl From Ipanema”; so just maybe there could be something to the music theory after all.

Analyzing the musical releases of the early 1960s, I came across one piece of music that stood out from all of the rest.  And I believe that this is the Ground Zero of serial killer creationism.  My brother-in-law even told me that a Marine Corps officer (and they like explode if they tell a lie) told him that while he was on maneuvers with the British that he had heard rumours that the SAS locked new recruits in rooms and bombarded them with this song over and over to induce a killing frenzy.

It is even whispered that Al Qaeda uses this particular song to brainwash new recruits in to becoming suicide bombers and even uses this song as the ring tone on the cell phone detonators.  I was as shocked as anyone else to learn that extreme jihadists understood extreme irony.

The secret to the Chicago Bears stifling defense (notably consistent since the mid 1960’s) is also rooted in this song.  Its message is so powerful that Dick Butkus pulled his own front teeth out in anger just because he hated their shape after listening to this song just once.  The Philadelphia Flyers have played it more often than Kate Smith’s version of “God Bless America” and they are always the most violent team in hockey.  Bobby Clark (the dirtiest Flyer ever) even has the lyrics tattooed on his inner thigh; or so it is rumoured.

It was this particular song that was the inspiration that Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne were searching for when, in the late ‘60s, they were deciding to take Black Sabbath in another direction when their first attempts to be a Memphis soul band (with horn section) failed and they decided to hang up the powder blue tuxedoes in favour of black, black and more black.

I am talking, of course, about the song “Dominique” by the Singing Num.  I went to Catholic School and I know that a nun can be a massive trigger to violence of an extreme kind.  How many serial killers were tortured in childhood by nuns with yardsticks and metal edged rulers a la Jake and Elwood Blues?

Supposedly Manuel Noriega held out for more than a week as US PyOps people bombarded his (not so) secret hideout with heavy metal songs:  AC/DC and Van Halen were rather popular at the time.  Of course Van Halen has now lost all metal credibility as they have Kool and the Gang opening for them on their comeback tour.

What is not known is that originally the plan was to just play “Dominique” over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over:  or about the fifteen to twenty minutes it would take for Noriega to insert meat skewers into his ears and twist.  This was ruled out since US invasion forces did not have strong enough protection to keep the Singing Nun out of their own ears. 

And there was a theory circulating throughout the Pentagon of the possibility of completely reversing the magnetic poles and ripping a hole in the space/time continuum when the Singing Nun’s dulcet tones collided with the Holy Water infused mortar and brickwork of the Vatican Embassy where Noriega was “hiding”.

The Singing Nun, Jeanine Deckers, was, by all accounts, a truly lovely lady who led a very difficult life after releasing her album and making an Ed Sullivan appearance; and who eventually took her own life in a suicide pact with her female lover after leaving her convent.  However she made the devils music when she wrote her song about the founder of the Dominican Order.  There is even a video of happy nuns – singing.  It’s like the Stepford Wives do Mass.  It gives me the collywobbles just thinking about it.

It would take very little for this song to inflict itself upon the subconscious of a weak willed person and send them over the edge and become a mass-murdering machine?  In fact, let us do a quick experiment.  Lock yourself in a dark room and put that song on YouTube or iTunes and play it as loud as you can three times.  Then look at pictures of kittens and bunnies and puppies.  I bet you are imagining them all fucked up, aren’t you.

So back to my original thesis:  serial killers are made by man, not by God.  It is nurture over nature.  Of course the fact that the trigger could well have been created by a woman of God would be a giant cosmic joke. 

While you ponder on this and then rush out to get a copy of “Dominique” by the Singing Nun to see if I am correct (you won’t even need to play it backwards), I am going to rush out too and pick up some shotgun shells, ramen noodles and several cases of extra-soft toilet paper.  This is so that I can barricade myself inside my apartment and protect myself as I may have just triggered a global conflagration the Mayans couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

“Dominique, nique, nique s’en allait tout simplement
Routier pauvre et chantant
En tous chemins, en tous lieux, il ne parle que du bon Dieu”

 

Nwahs Yadhtrib Yppah

 

 

 

And The Band Played On …..

“There was too much brag and not enough seaworthy construction.”  Sir James Bisset, on Olympic and Titanic.

I really am not a person who covets things (even though I managed to convey that in my previous post) as I grow older.  This lack of desire should not be confused with a lack of interest though.  As my mum has gotten older, she has constantly asked me what “things” do I want her to put my name on to inherit when she is gone.

Inevitably the items that I most want are family treasures – but not of the material type.  I would love to have things like my granny’s air raid warden helmet and gas mask.  I would love to have my granddad Fred’s swagger stick.  I already have my other granddad George’s fire helmet and his whistle.

But, as this is the 100^th anniversary of the Titanic sailing from Southampton, the item that I would love to have more than anything else are my great-grandfather’s papers to work as a baker on the ship.  My mum has these in a safe and they do have my name on them.

After he signed on to be a baker, my great-granny had a premonition of disaster and she refused to let him go.  I bet he never doubted her inner voice again.  This same granddad also made it through four years of trench warfare in Belgium in the First World War:  some people just live charmed lives.

This Is Not About Adult Toys, But About Toys For An Adult

As an adult, I probably have a greater love for toys than I even did as a child:  and I loved toys as a kid.  In the spirit of full disclosure, and to illustrate my understanding of the human condition, I should say that I loved my friend’s toys much more than my own.

This stems from my well meaning and much loving parents* who thought that it would be really cool to give me Christmas gifts like a microscope, or a telescope in the hope that I would become the next Louis Pasteur or Carl Sagan.  The only positive results gained from this was that I discovered that the lady across the street wandered around her upstairs stark naked and that the family dog gets really irritable after you have removed a certain number of hairs along with a finite quantity of blood.

Dealing with the sciency gifts was akin to Ralphie trying on the suit in A Christmas Story.  Then, of course, there was that awkward moment when my friends came around to see what I got for Christmas and to let me know what they got.  It went sort of like this:  “Gotta nice Scalextric set didn’I – wanna come over and try it out? Dibs on the Ferrari” 

“Sure, I got a microscope – d’you wanna try it?”

“Fuck off”

The Christmas telescope conversation actually went much better:  “Gotta telescope for Christmas”

“Wot the fuck?”

“Wanna see some tits?”

“Fuckin’ brilliant”

As all can tell, we were a group of stimulating conversationalists.  And I never did become a doctor or an astronomer:  just your basic common, or garden, mathematician grounded in the real world with a couple of Sheldon Cooperesque hang-ups.  All one needs to do is ask my daughters about the state of  “eternal dibs” being placed on the left hand spot on the sofa due to its proximity to the television and which is just right for heat in the winter while having a nice cross breeze in the summer…..

But now we should get back to the toy story and discuss my fascination with Lego and Subbuteo and Meccano and Scalextric and toy trains and plastic model kits and, of course, my favourite Warhammer and Warhammer 40k figures. 

I had a fantastic childhood (that is it contained no imagined pain or childhood trauma) and got to do tons of really fun stuff with my dad like go to work with him on a Saturday morning and get to play on scaffolding (you know, it’s like a giant play structure set in the middle of mud) and hangout with his Irish labourers and drink tea and learn to play cards and read their “Playboys” and try out a whole host of new words of the Anglo-Saxon variety and such.  It was a great time to be alive.

But in terms of toys, my mates had all the best stuff.  Mark had the uber-cool train set in his attic (and his British Rail trains ran on time too).  Michael had the Scalextric set with tons of F1 cars.  Wayne had the Subbuteo table football; which, sadly, is no longer made as it has fallen victim to FIFA ’12 and its progenitors and others of the video game ilk. 

Setting up a soccer stadium complete with green cloth football field (carefully ironed so the ball did not get deflected by the folds; an art form in and of itself) and playing just the correct team was a labour of love.  I had a Spurs team, an Aston Villa team and an England team which I carefully saved up for so that I did not have to use either of the generic red or blue teams that came with the Wayne’s basic game. 

My friend, Keith, still has his Manchester United team in a glass display cabinet. And I know that Simon has a collection of Tottenham Subbuteo teams that defies logic and caused great envy.  My teams disappeared during the great move west (probably fell off the back of the covered wagon).  I finally did gett the opportunity to get a Subbuteo set when I was about 30. 

However my ex-missus was fuck hopeless at the game and there was nobody else to play with.  It was sold by the ex in a “flog the woz-a-hubby’s shit” yard sale (along with all of my plastic model kits, a rather valuable collection of Poste Militaire 75mm metal figures and a stellar library of modern literature). Now that Subbuteo is no longer made, the set I had is now worth far more than I paid for it: and I am sure it is worth many times the sofa change it was sold for.

My mate Mark’s trains were simply amazing.  His attic was converted by him and his dad so that it held an HO scale multi track layout that they built up over about three years.  I was able to run it pretty well by the time I moved to the US.  I don’t know if I would ever want a train set that complex – but then again I do not have adequate space for such a noble undertaking.  If I did build up a train set it would have to be N scale:  as all can see, this has been given some thought.

At least Mark was the boffin type and he always competed with Keith and me for the top marks in just about every subject.  He was rather intrigued by my microscope and when we left for the US, he took careful possession of it and used it regularly up until his untimely passing several years later.  He also approved of the telescope and its ability to focus on the mysteries of the universe and the sights within 27 Glebe Road as well.

Michael was the Formula 1 expert of our group and his Scalextric set went from a basic figure eight set to being able to build a replica of Spa or Hockenheim or, better yet, Silverstone over a couple of Christmases.  Silverstone was our local track and we used to ride our bikes out to the track and hide them in the ditch and sneak in under the fence by Stowe. 

I saw the British Grand Prix for both F1 cars and superbikes several times this way.  And we used to crash the practice sessions and check out the pits as well:  Barry Sheene and James Hunt were brilliant to all of the local kids – Nikki Lauder was a prick!  Funny thing though, Michael and I did not have the urge to sneak into the local medical center and watch the doctors do their thing (if it had been nurses it might have been a while different story) or see how they really used their microscopes to great effect.  And Michael never did come over to check out really cool shit on a glass slide: literally in the case of one “experiment”. 

Now, at the age of 48 ½ (as one approaches the later mid-life stage the ½ seems to be important once again like when I was 5 ½) I am still intrigued by these toys that my mates had and which my parents declined to allow me to experience.  I did have a Subbuteo set for a while and it was a lot of fun while it lasted.  And yes, the ex was a useless player but my mates and I would set it up down at the pub and play while sucking down a few bevies after playing a real game of football.

An N scale train set would be nice, but I really don’t have the finances, or the space, to create the railroad tycoon type layout which I envision in the warped hell that is my mind.  It is a good job that I have small thoughts on this subject as I am planning on using N scale trains (one day) in the distant future when the childlike parasites that I spawned will no longer be divesting me of vast quantities of cash.

And speaking of the distant future (what a transition – my English teacher just got a warm tingly feeling and she does not know why) there is my awesome collection of Warhammer 40K figures from Games Workshop and also from their Forgeworld affiliate.  It is with these toys that I ease the imagined pain of childhood toy neglect and the crashing disappoint of getting a new school sweater (hand knitted by mum no less) for Christmas instead of the new Spurs shirt:  and I already had the shorty shorts and the mullet so the shirt was all I needed to look like a pro!

*Should anyone not realize, my parents were wonderful people who did everything possible to ensure that I would be all that I could be.  On the other hand, I was a speccy little ingrate who wanted to nothing more in life than to be a window cleaner, grow potatoes in an allotment and play with toys.

So, Like, Where’s The Naked Slave Girls?

In a fit of madness,I took my oldest daughter and her fiancée to see John Carter Of Mars (lest anyone should confuse it with John Carter of Sheboygan, Michigan for instance).  Now I was not expecting Shakespeare in Space or something along the lines of a Scorsese or Kirisawa masterpiece; and I was not disappointed in that respect.  But neither was I expecting a film that made Thor and 2012 seem like a Scorsese or Kirisawa masterpiece.  Hell, this made Wild Wild West seem like French New Wave cinema.

How bad was this movie?  Here is a brief overview.

Mars:

A really cool flying machine gets attacked by another really cool flying machine; these are the bad red human Martians and the good blue human Martians – 5 minutes and so far so good.  Mark Strong (de rigueur bad guy) makes his first appearance looking kind of like Dame Judy Dench in The Chronicles of Riddick – complete with diaphanous robes.

Suddenly we are in 19^th century US:

A guy with great looking hair is walking around looking earnest (very important that) wanting to send a telegram.  Then he is dead. Boring talking bit but with salient plot points take place ending with Edgar Rice Burroughs starting to read journal resulting in a Wayne’s World style flashback

Doodlooo  doodlooo doodlooo  doodlooo

Now it’s 1868 in the Arizona Territory

Malcolm (In The Middle)’s dad is now a cavalry commander and wants the guy (John Carter) with the great looking hair to  return to being in army.  John Carter says no as it will mess up his hair and he runs away.  Hal chases him then they run into Apaches (with great looking hair) then they run away from Apaches and hide in a cave that frightens the Apaches.

Then John Carter is on Mars:

We have some experimentation with adjusted gravity that seems to come and go as the situation dictates in the plot.  Then a bunch of green Martian arseholes find him and take him prisoner but their leader is really cool (possibly because he let the Boondock Saints go?).

Then there is more aerial fighting between the red and blue human Martians over the top of the green Martians and John Carter decides to flex his newly found strength to save the princess who looks like she has been tanning with Snookie at the Jersey Shore. But at least she didn’t send out a message saying “help me Obi-Wan.”

Finally, I thought, at last we are getting to the misogynistic Edgar Rice Burroughs naked slave girls – but this is a Disney movie so no naked slave girls.   The princess stays a princess and John Carter and her escape with a misunderstood green Martian and a dog-like marketing tool with a turquoise tongue.

John Carter’s hair still looks good and he talks in a deep voice and he makes the guy who played Thor look like Olivier.  Someone then yells “It’s a trap” (but it wasn’t Chris Griffin).  There are more battles and a journey of self discovery leading the Princess to go back to be a Princess who has to marry the bad guy: all while Mark Strong morphs everywhere.  (I kind of lost the plot about here since my daughter and I were wondering if the person in front of us was having an autistic moment or masturbating vigourously since he  kept rocking backward and forward in his seat at this point of the movie.)

The mandatory gladiatorial scene allows John Carter to look earnest, make basso profundo statements while promising to save the noble green Martian.  He then earnestly saves the noble green Martian (Willem Dafoe) without worrying his windblown tresses.

Then it is time to save the princess.  There is a fight between the good blue guys and the bad red guys and the sudden arrival of the green Martians who have learnt to fly the air machines in about two minutes.  The bad guys get what they have coming to them.  JC gets the princess.  All is right in their world because both of them have perfect hair.

Then we are back in 19^th century America:

The last five minutes is actually pretty good (that is the five minutes after the battle) and the only real issue I have with the end is that it sets up a sequel which, if there is a loving God, will not be allowed to happen. 

I got yet another Disney Princess movie (Mulan on Mars) - when what I wanted was …. naked and chained slave girls.  I suppose a Pixar version of Tarnsman of Gor will be next.

More than anything else the movie plot just seemed like the writers and the director sat around and had a nerd-boy weekend and watched the Star Wars movies, and the Riddick movies, and Gladiator and picked up the most trite and tired cliches they could find in each.  There was really nothing original here whatsoever.  It was a Disney fantasy formula special.  It really should have been called John Carter Of Persia Catching A Strange Tide While Returning To Witch Mountain.

On a scale of 1 to 5 naked and chained slave girls, I can only give this movie a ½ naked and chained slave girl rating as it was really bad – laughably bad even.  This is two hours of my life that I want to forget rather than get back.

Despotic Thought For The Day: It Is Better To Suck Than Blow

It is I, your Beloved and Revered Leader, checking in with all of the little people in my life and to bring awareness to the world of another potential issue of mechanical malfeasance that has been noticed by yours truly (your Beloved and Revered Leader).

It seems that the Central American dictators in the second floor palace above the abode of your Beloved and Revered Leader seem to be using a leaf blower to clean the floors in their palace rather than a vacuum cleaner.  At least this is what the noise and vibrations emanating from above seem to indicate. 

Either that or the younger brother of the deposed despot has modified their Hoover in much the same way he has modified his vehicle.  I can picture the vacuum now with blue LEDs, a coffee-can size muffler and some NOS.  The handle probably only works in the full on pimp slouch position while talking on a cell phone and wearing a Marc Ecko baseball cap sideways.

Oh well, at least it doesn’t have a stereo installed (yet).  BUM BOM BUM BOM BUM BOM BUM BOM.

And a special “Beloved and Revered Leader” shout-out goes to Cousin Vladimir in Russia.  It seems that the early returns show that he is once again setting records all over the country.  His performance in Dagestan is especially breathtaking in an area noted for its exceptional 98% voter turnout.  Exit polls showed that he was getting strong voter returns from the pet donkey, chicken and “people who died in the 1970’s” demographic.

Well done Vladimir, very well done indeed.  You serve as a noble example to all of us despots:  the Beloved and Revered Leader gives you his best wave of nom-denominational benediction.