The Aerie
Just got back from seeing Minority Report.
If you saw A.I., this has much the same feel: glossy dystopia.
It's a very good film until the last 15 minutes, which feel very much
like they were stapled on just outside the theater and rushed in
through the back door under the watchful eyes of a series of
accountants.
SFX were so-so: I was left unconvinced by the Tom Cruise car-jumping
scene depicted in some previews, but the police jet-packs were kinda
cool.
Some things were hard to fathom. The police would be dropped off by
these hovering conch-shell ships. So they'd descend from above on
cables. As a viewer I would watch, I would see the police descending,
and I'd say "Huh -- I can see the cables." Then I'd realize that the
cables were SUPPOSED to be there, but by that time I'd already
breached the window of reality and remembered I was watching a movie.
Then I spent the next few moments wondering why, if the police had jet
packs, they'd need to be dropped by cable, and by that time I'd lost
track of what was happening.
Anyone in MY field, computer security, MUST see this film. Not for the
overarching "Big Brother" themes in the movie, but for the very well
thought out details. Wanted by the police, Cruise's character tries to
lose himself in a shopping mall crowd. Retinal scanners determine his
identity every several paces. Not in order to report him back to
police HQ, but so that customized advertisements can call out to him
personally, enticing him to buy, watch, or visit whatever they were
promoting. Some very savvy predictions, written by someone who
understands modern fears about data privacy.
On the other hand, nobody with even a rudimentary understanding of
police procedure wrote this film. One or two viewings of "COPS" would
have made it clear that when someone is shot and is lying dead on the
patio, the police are not going to let the spouse throw herself upon
the corpse. Or allow a crowd to intermingle themselves between the
officers, the body, and the putative suspect at the scene. Just
wouldn't happen.
And then there was stuff that was just silly. Okay, so when a murder
is going to occur, the names of the killer and victim are engraved on
a pair of wooden balls laser-lathed out of chunks of wood moments
before. Because, supposedly, the unique wood grain ensures the balls
aren't forged (whatever).
But you can't convince me that, with every second of the essence (one
murder is stopped with less than a second remaining), the designers of
this device are going to dispense the balls by allowing the balls to
roll slowly through clear acrylic tubes, like a novely gumball
machine. You'd carve the things and then phunt! blow them out, still
warm from the lasers, through pneumatic tubes into the waiting hands
of the cops. Who would have already read the names from the
computerized display overhead 30 seconds ago, and would just be
collecting the balls for procedure.
It's flawed, but it's interesting. If you get up and leave the theater
when the label "Anderton 1109" lights up, it's even a good movie.
[1]Last
Long weekend, starting Thursday.
Thursday we were slated to go "camping" at Baker Park, the first in a
series of neighborhood summer events organized by an ambitious local
mom. As much as I support that notion, I am a camping bigot and use
the term reservedly with Baker Park. Picture a series of football-
field sized lawns separated by small stands of desperate brush. A
gravel road winds through each field, sprouting little gravel
driveways every twenty feet. Beside each driveway stands a heavy-duty
wooden table and a circular cast-iron fire pit.
This is not camping. This is a little tent suburb.
But one of my boys felt nauseous on Thursday so I hoped to get out of
attending. The family left us home while he slept, but at 6:00 pm he
woke up, claiming to feel better and anxious not to miss the fun. So,
since the place is only 25 minutes out of town, I loaded him in the
car against my better judgement and we headed out.
But not without a bucket.
We got to the campground but by then he looked a little green. So I
asked the girls at the gate where the "A" campground was, and they
said "Over there to the right." Drove in. Saw signs for B, C, D...
through the J campgrounds, but no "A". Drove around the whole
campground once, by which time the boy was looking perfectly
miserable.
Stopped back at the gate. WHERE is the "A" campground again?
Two teenaged girls in ranger uniforms rolled their eyes at me and said
"Right over THERE, the first dirt road!"
Drove where they pointed. First dirt road. And I'm in a muddy dirt
parking lot next to a boat launch. The boy is green.
Drive back to the station, fit to be tied.
"No, no, right THERE, past the camp station!"
By now I've seen the whole park twice, and none of the rectangular
brown buildings distinguishes itself from the others by being a camp
station. God forbid, of course, they label it with, oh, a SIGN.
Finally I ask, "Do you have a map?"
Scornfully, gum snapping all the while, they hand me the map they
should have offered me when I paid my $3 to get into the park.
The "A" campground is the THIRD dirt road on the right, but of course
you don't count the first two because, well, because those aren't the
road the girls meant! Cha!
I get back to my car, and my son has indeed filled the bucket. Now if
we'd gotten to the campsite just after we ARRIVED he would have at
least had a chance to get out of the car and maybe avoided throwing
up, but now he's sick again.
So we go over to the campsite, clean him up, install him in the tent,
and he falls asleep for the night and misses the fun anyway. Except we
forgot to take him to the bathroom, so about 10 p.m. when we're going
to bed we notice water in the tent. Yellow water.
We clean everything up, hang his sleeping bag over a branch, get the
kids to bed. I'm relegated to the minivan, since we're down one
sleeping bag at this point, and I seriously consider simply driving
said minivan home and sleeping in my own bed. Instead it's 10:00 and
everyone's in bed already, which in my opinion is entirely missing the
whole point of camping: the stars. One nice thing about Minnesota is
that even if you're only 25 minutes from downtown, the light pollution
has eased up enough to make a difference stargazing. So I decide to
stoke up the fire for myself and sit and look at the stars.
But to do that I need to get some firewood. Breaking all the park
rules, I make my way into the stand of trees separating the "A"
football field from the "B". Now, I don't know what's more depressing:
the rule saying that you can't collect your own firewood from these
stands of trees (and, granted, any other rule would leave the stands
stripped bare), or the clear evidence that nobody has ever even tried
to do so. I get the feeling that the regular Baker Park campers
probably don't associate trees with their activity.
In the pitch darkness I push through the thick brush, looking for a
little dead wood to make a little fire. I find a large, fallen tree,
terribly rotten, but one of the upright branches ought to do. I pull
on the branch, and instead of breaking off, the entire tree splits
open.
And there are lights inside.
Tiny little bioluminescent somethings are living inside this rotten
tree. I forget my wood collecting to peer at the things, but they are
so tiny and it's so dark that all I can see are the lights they give
off.
I wonder why I've never heard of this before? I'd think that such a
sight would have amazed anyone from before Edison's time: split open a
rotten tree, and there are lights inside!? What could it be?
I suspect they were larval fireflies, but I don't know. I pushed the
tree back together as best I could and went back to my camp, and
watched the stars with no campfire.
I wake at 5:00 a.m., unable to return to sleep. So I figure, what the
hell I'll get into the spirit of things. Working with damp wood and
paper I start the fire, get it nice and hot, good bed of coals, and a
big pot of coffee and another big pot of hot water. By 7:00 I'm ready
for my fellow neighborhood campers to come out and cook breakfast.
Two hours later there's motion in some of the tents. A little while
after that the neighbors emerge from their tent with coffee and plates
of eggs. I walk over. They have a propane grill going, coffee perking,
eggs scrambling. I go back and mix up some oatmeal with my hot water.
But the shower when you get home from camping almost makes it worth
the trip.
Saturday was spent cleaning up from the campout. Now that my son was
better, my wife and daughter were sick, so I did a lot of the cleaning
up. Saturday night we went to the graduation party of a neighbor down
the block (who several years ago used to babysit our kids before
turning over the business to her brother who continues to this day).
That was a lot of fun, and she was one of those good kids who actually
talks to the adults rather than skipping out with her friends.
Saturday I also finished my huge "clean the workroom" project. I was
so pumped up by that accomplishment that I also managed to get some
images scanned that I'd needed to complete for a while (the wife is
selling some old books online and needed pictures). Also helped my
daughter start her own web page. It's only just getting started, it'll
be an ongoing project across the summer.
Yesterday, Father's Day, was nice. The family gave me my own resin
recliner for the back yard (complete with footrest and side table). I
did a lot of nothing, except help my daughter with more of her web
page. Then we had to enter into the visitation-of-the-families, and my
day was cut short. Two hours at MY folks, three hours at her sister's,
and another hour at HER folks' new townhouse, and back home for bed.
But at least I got my ass outta bed for aikido today!
[1]Last