Author Archives: Richard

Brussels – 0

It’s been several years since I traveled to Europe. I’m not getting any younger, so I felt it was time to go back while I’m still young enough to enjoy it. Being able to afford it now helps.

Why Brussels? Mostly because it’s a little off the beaten path. I also considered London and Paris, but decided against them as they are too common. I wanted someplace more on the unusual side – so people would want to hear my travel tales. Belgium is known for two of my favorite things – beer and chocolate – so I’m sure to have a good time. Also, English is spoken quite regularly there, and there are direct flights from my nearest international airport.

Planning, though, can be a pain.

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Pond in a Jar 10

Well, after nearly two years, it’s still alive! Can’t say I could call it “thriving”, but there are three little snails in there. None of them are visible in the photo – but you should be able to pick out a bit of hornwort that managed to survive getting crowded out by the other plant. The one that we watched grow from a little seedling – and is now trying to push against the lid. Some parts of it are not doing so well (no idea why the leaves are spotty and brown (and I don’t really care)), but others, as you can see, have a nice lush green color.

Still plenty of that ugly fuzz, and not as many swimming dots as before. I hope that’s a seasonal thing. I’ll try and catch some more when I get water for the next topping off – which won’t be too long from now; evaporation in the summer heat is noticeably lowering the water level.

A different viewing angle this time.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Big Clock (1948)

George Stroud (Ray Milland) is the editor-in-chief of “Crimeways”, essentially a print version of a “True Crime” podcast that’s earned a reputation (and its market share) for identifying the guilty before the police can. He’s trying to take a well-earned vacation with his wife, but his bully of a boss, Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton), pulls him back to take charge of a new story – a model who did some work with another magazine in Janoth’s publishing empire has been found dead in her apartment. George is tasked with finding the killer RIGHT AWAY before they have to call in the police.

What Stroud doesn’t know – but we viewers do – is that Janoth is the killer. The model was his mistress, and he killed her in a fit of anger when she broke up with him. What Stroud does know is that after he believed he got fired and missed his train to head out on vacation, he went out for a couple of drinks to drown his marital troubles – and wound up meeting the mistress, visited a few drinking establishments with her (and doing things that made him memorable), and then saw her back to her place before heading off to join his wife. And all the investigating he’s doing is making it more and more likely that he’s going to be nailed for the murder.

A rather interesting set up for an early “film noir”, isn’t it.

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At the Halfway Point

Well, not literally, the teams have already played Game Number 81. But it’s still close enough, and the usual time to take a break and assess the season so far.

There’s the usual chatter about Surprises (Tigers) and Disappointments (Orioles), First Half Award Winners – and can they keep it up in the second half (Cal Raleigh), which teams will be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline….but I’m not enough of a fan to speak with any sort of expertise on any of that.

With regards to the All Star Game, we’re so used to interleague play that the prospect of seeing the stars of the two leagues facing each other holds no special attraction to many fans. And 24/7 sports media coverage means we’ve already had the chance to at least become familiar with any star players (even if we haven’t seen them in a game).

As much as some might try to, making the actual All Star Game exciting is a wasted effort. Forcing things so that every player on the rosters – all 70 (is that how many there are these days?) of them – gets into the game means there’s not that much chance for excitement (we were lucky this year). Paul Skenes won’t be staring down Aaron Judge with the game on the line in the late innings…. Heck, the high point of the whole thing is the player introductions – which FOX made a mess of as usual. You had those nice little name and team graphics for the starters; would it kill you to have them for all the other players, too?

Is it really necessary to analyze the Home Run Derby and give us all sorts of pointless stats and “takeaways”? Let the thing be nothing more than what it is – a fun, cool, awesome – and pointless – thing. But a “Home Run Derby” as a tiebreaker is a stupid way to end a game. I understand why they had to do it, but you still can’t make me like it. Especially since there was no hint that it was how a tie would be resolved in the broadcast of the game. By the way, how is the final score recorded in the record books? 6-6? 7-6? 10-9???

At least they didn’t have those garbage special “All Star Game Uniforms” and let the players wear their actual, normal ones during the game.

BOOK REVIEW: Service Model

Service Model
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Tor Publishing Group
Copyright 2024 by Adrian Czajkowski

If Charles the Valet-Bot were programmed to feel boredom, he’d probably be bored out of his mind over the constant repetitiveness of his tasks. There’s never a single change in the daily routine; his misanthropic hermit of an owner is content to just sit around his estate watching TV all day.

Until one day when Charles starts finding unusual reddish stains everywhere. He slowly comes to the conclusion that his owner was murdered – and he’s the murderer. This means he must report to Central Processing to be reprogrammed, since one cannot have killer robots on the loose.

This starts “Uncharles” (as he now designates himself) on a picaresque odyssey across a post-collapse landscape, searching for another master to serve – and trying to make sense of all of this.

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Sound Familiar?

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us…

 

– Excerpts from the charges against King George III in the Declaration of Independence.

Hydrangeas

Not as vivid as some, but you can at least get a hint of the variation possible.

They’re in full bloom as I write this. Bushes three feet high or so, with huge clusters of bright pink or vivid blue flowers – with every shade in between (even a sort of pale yellow green at times). Sometimes even on the same bush. I don’t know why – probably something to do with a genetic quirk in the plant coupled with some soil chemistry. I could look it up, but seeing them has sent my thoughts in another direction.

Traditionally (at least in the US), light blue / sky blue / powder blue has been used to designate a boy at a birth celebration. Pink has been used to denote a girl. If you follow the news as much as I do, you cannot help but notice that there’s a lot of stuff about people who don’t exactly fit into the normal “boy/male” or “girl/female” boxes. Instead of Blue or Pink, they’re purple.

When we see the varied colors of hydrangea blossoms, we don’t consider them to be different plants, do we. So why shouldn’t we do the same with all the variations in people? Why waste the effort to force them into just one or two “colors”, when the variety is much nicer – and more natural?

Jaws at 50

I find it odd that one of the best and most important movies of all time never seems to get the respect it deserves. It spawned sequels and knock-offs, launched the careers of not just Steven Spielberg but John Williams, invented the “summer blockbuster”, and even gave rise to “Shark Week”. Get people talking about it, and they’ll soon agree it’s one of the greatest movies ever – or should at least be in the discussion. But come back to them the next day, and ask them to make a list of the Greatest Movies Ever…….

I think there are a couple of reasons for this neglect.

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Great Moments in Basketball History

I’m not a basketball fan. I can just about follow a game, but I have only the basic knowledge of the sport that one who glances at the sports news every day manages to acquire over the years. For example, I know that the NBA Finals are in full swing – but I couldn’t tell you what teams are involved.

But if you check out the “Book Reviews” page here, you’ll see that I’m a fan of history – and sports history. Recently (inspired largely by Joe Posnanski’s Why We Love Baseball and Why We Love Football), I started wondering what events and incidents would – or should – be included in a list of Great Moments in Basketball History.

There are plenty of lists out there – but I’m taking a much broader view of what belongs.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Great River

The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi
Boyce Upholt
W.W. Norton & Company
(c) 2024 by the author

The Mississippi River is one of the longest rivers in the world. Add its many tributaries to it – the Ohio, the Missouri, the Tennessee, the Arkansas, the Red – and you’ve got one of the greatest river systems on the planet. Upholt concentrates on the “Big Muddy” itself, giving a rough history of how people have used and tried to control it.

It’s not a perfectly linear history; like the river itself, he meanders quite a bit. A quick look at how people decided on what would be the source of the river gives way to the geological history of the river basin, which goes right in to its ‘discovery’ and exploration by Europeans. Then comes its role in the development and growth of the United States, complete with steamboats and river rafts. And then it’s back to the past as people start wondering about all those odd mounds that seem to pop up all around the river.

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