Author: John Winkelman
Something Beautiful for the Holidays
I recently visited Orisinal for the first time in a long while. He has posted a new, winter-themed game called Winterbells which is just challenging enough to keep the attention-span deficient quiet for a little while.
All People Are Critics. Some Are More Critical Than Others
Today I wrote my first movie review.
One of the big, ongoing projects at work is development on Spout.com, a movie discovery and discussion website. Several of my friends are regulars, so I finally bowed to peer pressure and created an account for myself. My user name is “Grasshopper”.
The first thing I did was to rate all of the movies I had seen. Simple enough to do — find the movie, and assign it a number between one and five. Before I knew it, I had rated over five hundred movies, and I am now up over a thousand. And that isn’t even counting all of the TV series and individual television episodes which can be rated; those would probably push me into the 2,000 range.
Normally I try not to shill for the projects I work on, but this time something unexpected happened: I had fun. I went through and found movies I hadn’t thought about in twenty years or more. Some of them were good, many more were mediocre or bad. Some of them made me feel quite nostalgic, accompanied by an odd sense of deja-vu wherein I could remember where I was and what I was doing when I watched the movie. Poltergeist with my brother and step-brother in Louisiana. Robocop with my brother, at home laying on the living room floor. The Crow with friends immediately after I returned from Russia. Star Wars with my Mom and brother in a movie theater in Jackson. The Razor’s Edge, sitting home surrounded by stacks of books.
Martial Arts is the only film genre I watch with a seriously critical eye, and I watch a lot of martial arts films. If I post a review of which I am particularly proud I will announce it here. In the meantime, browse around and see if you rediscover any old favorites.
On Being Sick
Today I am sick. My skin aches. Reality snaps out of focus when I move, and back into focus when I stop. I am not dizzy, precisely, but there is a sense of vertigo whenever I move my head — vapor trails of instances previous to the movement. My body feels like it doesn’t…quite…fit.
Clench your jaws. A little tighter…
tighter…
Right there! That is what my back muscles feel like.
I hear an odd tinnitus-like ringing that I usually associate with pressure in my head. If I remain still it gets a little louder as I drift into the aether, and a little louder, but never really loud, and then when I blink, reality snaps back into focus with an electric buzzing sound.
My throat feels swollen, so swallowing is difficult, especially when I lay down. Thus, sleep is not as refreshing as it might be. The kinds of meds that help this are the kind which keep me awake all night, so I can either be awake and feel crappy, or awake and feel REALLY crappy.
Oddly enough the bruises that I know I have, don’t hurt.
And so to bed.
More Crime
I just finished updating the Grand Rapids Crime Map here at es.o. There are 14 new incidents, bringing the total to 64. After a relatively quiet early autumn, things are back in full swing here in the Big City with the Small Town Feel
Muskegon State Park
At the beginning of the month Cynthia and I drove to Muskegon State Park and spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon wandering the dunes, looking at the lake and chasing birds.
The WWII submarine USS Silversides is moored to the south bank of the channel which connects Muskegon Lake to Lake Michigan.
The right place at the right time: I just happened to snap a photo of some terrists infiltrating our defenses. Let this be a demonstration that a patriotic American Citizen, armed only with a semi-obsolete digital camera, can be a buffer between the Axles of Evil and the Free World!
The clear sky and late fall sun made the dunes bright enough that they were hard to look at.
The lee side of the dunes had a little more variety. In particular, lots of plants covered with tiny burrs.
This is the Muskegon-to-Milwaukee ferry, sitting undefended at the edge of Muskegon Lake. If those terrists capture the Silversides, they could cause untold damage to our Freedom (© 2006 USA) — No! Our God Given Right (© 2006 USA) — to cross the Big Lake on a boat! I will immediately propose a bill to extend the Terrists Dressed Like Ducks season to the entire year!
The knife-edge of a dune. This photo does a good job of demonstrating how bright and contrast-ey everything looked.
A view from the big lake, looking back along the channel to the east.
Cynthia and I decided that this is a snow bunting.
Facing north from the breakwater. State park, as far as the eye can see.
Cynthia walking along the dunes on our way back to the car.
A Walk by The Lake
A few Sundays ago Cynthia and I went for a long walk around Pickerel Lake, near Cannonsburg Ski Area in West Michigan.
We picked a beautiful day — clear skies, light breeze, with an invigorating chill in the air. This shot is facing North from the walkway.
I didn’t know there were beavers in this part of the state. This one appears to have been busy.
The trees the beavers knock over are quickly turned into sustenance for all sorts of strange things.
On the north side of the lake is a large pine grove, thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers circa the 1920s.
Earlier this fall the grove was turned into a labyrinth. Cynthia and I wandered into it, and decided to obey the rules and find our way through to the other side. It took us about half an hour. Though we could see the whole maze from any point in it, the rope which defined the boundaries was difficult to see clearly. A path which appeared promising from one angle often tapered down to a point with no way through.
At one point a single thin sunbeam made its way into the maze at the perfect angle to illuminate a single strip of bark on one of the trees. From a distance it looked like a flame.
Another shot of the lake from the East end, facing into the breeze.
Mmmm…Little Tiny Birds
Thanksgiving: Cornish game hen, cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes, salad with home-made dressing, French bread, cranberries, and mincemeat and red raspberry pies.
And Sleep. Lots of sleep. And quiet. And skies so clear the Milky Way was bright enough to navigate by.
And family.
And more food.
And more sleep.
Happy Anniversary to Me … and my house
Yup. One year ago I signed the papers, forked over the cash, and added several keys to my ring.
My only opinion on the subject at the moment?
“Maybe I should vacuum something.”
The Latest News in Books
Things have been pretty busy the past month or so, but I have managed to find time to crack open a couple of new books.
The first one was The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. This is not the first alternate history book I have read, so it felt just a little cliche. Then I remembered that this was one of the first of that sub-genre, and in that context is was BRILLIANT! Basically, America lost WWII and was divvied up between the Germans (east of the Mississippi) and the Japanese (west of the Rocky Mountains), with a no-man;s-land in between. The stories are told from the point of view of several characters, Japanese, German, and American.
Next — and one I am still working on — is the ecological thriller The Swarm by Frank Schatzing. The overall plot is nothing new — the abused Earth begins fighting back against her tormentors — but the specifics of the story are fresh and engaging, and the characters are sympathetic without being preachy.
Finally, the one I just finished, and one which caught me by surprise: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Normally I am aware of when interesting books are published, but I didn’t hear about this one until after the fact. McCarthy has (finally) published a post-apocalyptic novel. He has written several apocalyptic novels — Blood Meridian being the most obvious — and now he has written the book he was meant to write. The entire novel follows an un-named father and son as they travel west from the mountains to the coast of southern California in an America gone to nuclear winter where nothing is left alive but human beings. Gangs of cannibals roam the remains of the world and a can of peaches is the most magnificent meal to be hoped for.
There is nothing dignified or romantic about the end of the world here — everything is ash and rain and snow, and a simple thing like a shopping cart losing its wheel can be a life-or-death experience.
I read The Road too quickly the first time — punctuated by moments of having to put it down and let my emotions settle — and I will probably pick it up again around the holidays.
Thomas Harris has a new book coming out in three weeks: Hannibal Rising, the story of how Hannibal Lecter became one of the greatest literary monsters of the twentieth century. Saying I am looking forward to this one is an understatement.
That’s all for now. I want to get in a solid hour of reading before I go to bed. I suggest you do the same.