Author Archives: Richard

MOVIE REVIEW: Krull (1983)

Ah, the early 80s…. In the cinemas, the hot trend was “sword and sorcery” movies. Swashbuckling heroes, damsels in distress, special effects making magic and monsters….. The stuff of legends, brought to life. They were coming out on a virtually monthly basis. To rise above the crowd, you needed something special.

A combined British and American production team thought about it and said, “Let’s add a little science fiction into the mix! And then throw a heck of a lot of money at it!” The result is our subject du jour.

The sci-fi elements in Krull are there at the start. As ponderous narration informs us, the asteroid we are seeing is actually a spaceship, and it’s setting out to conquer hapless worlds. Its next target is the planet Krull, a rather peaceful place consisting of various modest kingdoms. The conquest is well underway as the plot begins.

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Notes on the 2017 All-Star Game

So, FOX Sports is still using that football robot thing to lead in to a baseball game?

Is it just me, or does Alex Rodriguez sound like he’s reading off a teleprompter during the interview segments?

Nice segment honoring Latin Hall of Fame players. I wonder what an All-Time Latino Team would look like.

Anyone see Mike Trout? I know he’s rehabbing from a thumb injury, but he’s been playing rehab games, is the only representative of his team at the ASG, and was voted to start by the fans. He could have at least showed up in uniform….

Hey, FOX! How about showing the names of the reserves and coaching staff as they are being introduced? It would be a nice courtesy to the fans who haven’t seen these players before (and closed captioning is on too long a delay).

How about announcing the full umpiring crew? Pretty much every broadcast (TV *and* radio) takes a minute to run down the umpires for the game….

Finally gotten rid of that stupid “winning league in the ASG gets home-field advantage in the World Series” thing. I understand why it was felt to be necessary, but it’s should have been retired years ago.

Nice touch to have the gold stars with the number of ASG selections on the sleeves of the players. Did you notice that they were all single digits? Robinson Cano and Yadier Molina led the players with eight each (and given their ages, they’re not going to get many more). Looks like Henry Aaron’s record of 25 ASGs is safe (and not just because they don’t have two ASGs in a year anymore). I’m not sure what it says that we have no veteran players still playing well enough to be an All-Star. You have to wonder if all these young players will still be performing at anywhere near the same level in five years…. And how many of today’s players are “locks” on being chosen for the Hall of Fame?

The “in game” chats were kind of neat, but they will get tired very, very fast. Lucky for everyone that nothing was hit to a player while they were being interviewed….

Were the managers allowed to use the Replay Challenge? There wasn’t anything close enough for one, so we didn’t find out.

I wonder if Nelson Cruz is going to get reprimanded for the photo….

A nicely played, crisp, quick game. And not just because there was little offense. Pitchers were ready to pitch, hitters were ready to hit… And no visits to the mound or mid-inning pitching changes. Do you think Commissioner Manfred was paying attention?

Is it “All-Star” or “All Star”?

It was fun, wasn’t it?

Who Actually IS an All-Star?

Well, the voting has ended, and the teams have been announced – the starters as selected by fan voting, and the remaining rosters as selected by the Commissioner’s Office (taking into account fan voting, the need to have at least one representative from each team, and the need to have a balanced roster). To my dismay, I find that I got the number of players on each team wrong. It’s 32, not 35. That’ll show me….

Anyway, one can see the full rosters in many places. These are all listed by position. But what if they were listed by team? What would they look like? Let’s compare them with my selections, and see how off I was. You will also note that there are only 31 chosen players for each team here. The last spot is chosen in one final round of fan voting. We shall see…..

Don’t forget. The actual rosters are subject to change due to players being injured. Mike Trout will still be rehabbing by the time the game comes around; his starting spot has been given to Boston’s Mookie Betts.

NOTE: Italics indicate the starters as chosen by the fans.

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Who Wants to be an All-Star?

It’s been a fun and exciting first half of the season. Teams expected to be average (Rockies) are suddenly amazing; teams expected to do well are, well…. (Giants). Some players are maintaining their usual level of awesomeness (Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw), others have come out of nowhere (Aaron Judge).

With all that, there’s barely time to consider making an All-Star team.

But we must. Now, a few things have to be kept in mind:

1. The fans pick the starting position players and DH.
2. Each team must have a representative.
3. Each team gets a total of 35 players.

Those are the basics. You’ll want at least three catchers and two or three people for each of the other defensive positions. And with #2, each team has *someone* who is having a good season.

With that in mind, what would my All-Star teams look like?

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BOOK REVIEW: Heaven’s Ditch

Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal
Jack Kelly
St Martin’s Press, NY
Copyright 2016 by the author

It was the nation’s first big infrastructure project. A canal connecting Lake Erie (and thereby the Great Lakes and the Northwest Territory) to the Hudson River (and thereby New York City and the Atlantic Ocean). A project vital to the growth and development of the United States, it also brought a palpable sense of excitement to upper New York…. an excitement that would have significant effects not only on individuals, but on the nation as a whole.

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It Was So Hot

Where I live, we’ve just been through the first “heat wave” of the summer. Three days where the temperature was in the mid 90s. Needless to say, people are already whining about how unbearably hot it’s been. Wusses….

My personal approaches to “beating the heat” involve sitting around the house in my underwear (who’s going to see me?), listening to Christmas music (to distract me), and remember that it can be a hell of a lot worse.

It could be as hot as it was in the summer of 1936….

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Walking Tour of Lower Manhattan

Some years ago I was summoned to perform a civic duty at the Federal Courthouse in lower Manhattan. As it turned out, my judgment was not needed on a jury that day. So around lunchtime, I found myself in the oldest part of New York City on a lovely summer day. What else could I do but stroll around and explore? There’s quite a bit of interest there, if you know where to look.

Should you find yourself in Manhattan with half a day to kill….

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Book Review: Dark Matter

Dark Matter
by Blake Crouch
Crown Publishers
(c) 2016 by the author

Since at least as far back as Murray Leinster’s “Sidewise in Time” (1934), science fiction writers have been penning tales of traveling through the “multiverse” of alternate histories. So despite what some of the reviewers might be saying, there’s nothing really novel about Crouch’s novel in that regard. But what is new is that instead of positing another world where the Confederacy won the War Between the States or the Nazis won WWII, Crouch makes it personal.

Everyone has made important decisions in their lives. What college to attend, what job to take, to break up or not to break up with a lover…. Crouch pens a fast-paced action-adventure story based around the individual “alternaties” that spring from the many choices we make.

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Festina Lente

Now that a Special Counsel has been appointed, the cries of “Impeach!” have died down a bit. Having the president out of the country playing with a palantir helps, too. We can all stop, catch our breath, and consider just what it is we are asking for with an impeachment.

You can look up the details of the impeachment process and history just as easily as I can, so I’ll leave that to you.

However, given the situation in Congress, and that Vice President Mike Pence may be caught up in the scandal, it’s worth it for the liberals / Democrats to come up with a long-term strategy. Something other than a simple “Get Trump out as soon as possible” plan.

Should Trump be removed from office, VP Pence becomes President, and he gets to nominate someone to take over as VP. That person must be confirmed by a simple majority vote in both houses of Congress before taking office. Although they are fractured, the Republicans still control both the House and Senate at the present time. It should be considered highly likely that they will force the selection of someone easily pliable, and able to help push through their agenda. The same outcome would happen if Pence is forced out first, and Trump (guided by the GOP) gets to “nominate” a replacement.

If Trump *and* Pence are both run out on the same rail, then Speaker of the House Paul Ryan becomes Acting President – and everything goes bonkers. The Constitution gives absolutely no guidelines on what happens then. Are special elections held right away? What powers does he have? Who takes his place in the House? Who becomes Acting VP? Whatever happens, the Republicans still control Congress, so they will basically have all the cards in this situation.

Arguably the best thing for the Democrats to do would be to let the investigation proceed and the evidence accumulate until the 2018 mid-term elections (Note that it took a year after the first try at a resolution of impeachment before Nixon finally resigned). They can then use the scandal – and the prospect of impeachment – as the driving issue in the campaign. Don’t give the Republicans time to recover and regroup. If they aren’t totally inept, the Democrats should be able to take control of the House. And with a little luck, the Senate as well. That will put them in a great position to control the agenda for the remaining two years, and set them up well for the 2020 election.

In the meantime, they can be the principled opposition, and block everything evil that Trump and the GOP try to do. While it’s tempting to kick Trump out as soon as possible, we probably don’t want to leave his enablers in power. Let Trump and the GOP destroy themselves while continuing to mitigate the damage. It won’t be easy to keep the radical left (the ones chanting “Lock him up!”) in line, but if patience helps get rid of the worst / most reactionary elements in the GOP, it will be worth it in the end.

Unless, of course, Trump’s offenses are shown to be so egregious that we cannot afford to keep him in office one day longer.

 

#Resist

The Eurovision Camp Factor – II

Well, another Eurovision has come and gone. Portugal’s Salvador Sobral won everyone over with his passionate love song, “Amar Pelos Dios”.

But of course, no one watches it for the songs, right? You all want to see wacky staging and crazy costumes!

A few weeks ago, I posted a “Eurovision Camp Factor” scale, setting up scores from 1 (a basic, straightforward performance) to 10 (way over the top in everything). How did the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest turn out?

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