Movie reviews

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Movies Gail and I have seen in the last week or so:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest: I enjoyed it, though I
found it kind of long. The sword fight on the big wheel was neat, but just
kept going and going… I also found the scene where Elizabeth yells and throws
rocks at Will, Jack, and the Commodore rather weak and out of character for her.
I liked the ending though. Maybe it’s just me, but I think the way they ended
it left it wide open for another sequel!

Superman Returns: Excellent. I like Kevin Spacey as an actor, but for
some reason I didn’t think he could pull off Lex Luthor. I was wrong.
Brandon Routh plays Superman, and he must have watched the original Superman
movie a zillion times as preparation, because he captures Christopher Reeve as
both Clark Kent and Superman really well. When we watched the original Superman
the next day, we were surprised at how many lines in this movie were copied from
the first one.

V for Vendetta: Excellent acting, intriguing story. We didn’t know who
the actor playing V was; turned out to be Hugo Weaving (Elrond from LOTR, Mr.
Smith from The Matrix). He was excellent — you’d have to be a good actor
to pull off a character like that without showing your face (a la Andy
Serkis as Gollum in LOTR, though Gollum’s face was kind of based on his anyway).
Natalie Portman was very good as well, and she had an interesting accent; it
sounded more South African than English at times.

Superman: Apart from the clothes and things like smoking in the office,
it’s not as dated as I was expecting. The special effects weren’t all that bad,
either. Gene Hackman was a great Lex Luthor.

Superman II: I remember this from my youth (I was 11 when it was
released) as being way better than the first one. Boy, was I wrong. The story
was good, but the special effects were really bad. Not just bad, awful.
Not just awful, terrible.
Half of Gene Hackman’s lines sounded dubbed, and after reading the IMDB entry, it looks like they
were. When watching any superhero movie, you have to have a certain level of
suspension of disbelief, but even still, there were a lot of “yeah, right”
moments. Is Lois Lane really stupid enough to jump into the rapids on a hunch?
How could Lex Luthor build a holographic projector while in jail? Superman spent
a long time figuring out who he
was and why he was sent to Earth, and he uses his powers to benefit mankind; would
he really give up his powers for Lois (the hell with mankind!), when (a) she
didn’t ask him to and may not want him to, and (b) they’ve been “together” for
only a few hours? Where did Lois and Superman get the car they drove to the
diner after he lost the ability to fly? Once he decided to go back, did he really
just leave Lois and start walking north again? I’m amazed this movie did well
enough to warrant another sequel, let alone two.

X-Men: The Final Stand: Pretty good. Considering it’s the final X-Men
movie (I believe), it was a fitting ending to the story. Having Rebecca Romijn
naked didn’t hurt either.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: As expected, it’s like watching a live-action
video game. The plot was secondary to the action and effects. I’m not a big
fan of Angelina Jolie, but she pulled off the “action star” role here pretty
well.

Lara Croft: Cradle of Life: Better than the first one, but still not
very compelling.

18 Blocks: Very good. Bruce Willis is convincing as an older cop who
seems like he’s just counting the days until he can retire, while rapper Mos Def
is excellent as the kid he’s escorting to the courthouse. I really enjoyed this
movie.

Blasphemy and irony

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Note to those who might see “Hamilton Tiger-Cats” at the beginning and
skip the rest, that this is not a sports article…

Last Saturday, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats got absolutely smoked by Saskatchewan,
51-8, one of the worst blowouts in team, if not league, history. The headline in
the Hamilton Spectator on Monday was “Oh My God!”. This morning, there was a
letter
to the editor (not sure if you need to be a subscriber to see that)
complaining about the use of this phrase. My first thought when I read the letter,
ironically, was “Oh, good Lord.” (I’m not kidding, those were the exact words that
came into my head. I swear to God.) Is this really worth writing to the
editor about? Do people really
have nothing more important to do than complain about stuff like this? **
It’s just a phrase. Nobody’s calling
to God, asking Him to fix up the Ti-Cats, or asking why He let such a thing
happen. It’s just a group of words that people say when something happens that
shocks them. Next, people will be protesting the old Batman TV show because Robin
keeps using the word “holy” in reference to things that are not, in fact, holy.
Get over it.

** Before you ask, yes, I do see the irony in blogging
a sentence like that…

A few years ago, someone at Sybase corporate sent a company-wide email out
about something, and prefaced the email by saying “Good Friday morning!”, since
it was sent on a Friday. Someone else replied to that email (to the whole
company), complaining that to Christians, the phrase “Good Friday” refers to
a particular day, and not just any Friday, and should not be used out of context.
Good God, For crying out loud, the guy was just trying to be friendly.
Some people will complain about anything.

BTW, when I first typed in the title of this article, I was really tempted to add “live together in perfect harmony” to the end, but decided against it. Made me laugh though.

Fern

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We went to Fern last week, and as
expected, we had a great time. The weather co-operated, for the most part; we only
had rain on one day, and only for a couple of hours. We went to the indoor pool
during that time, so we had fun anyway. The guys went golfing (9 holes) on Tuesday
morning. I got one par, and missed chipping in for birdie (would have been my
first one) by a fraction of an
inch. I got to try my new driver out for the first time — the ball went
left a lot, but it went a lot further than with my old driver. Obviously
going further into the trees is less than ideal, but once I figure out
how to hit it properly, it’ll be very cool. I’m hopefully going to the driving
range tomorrow evening with my neighbour (the guy who made the driver), so he
can give me some tips on how to straighten out my swing.

Back to Fern; a summary of things we did:

  • pedal carts and bikes — Nicholas was big enough this year to get the
    carts going
  • Gail and I each tried archery (Gail did it two or three times; I think she’s
    getting addicted)
  • I played 4-way volleyball twice (I think I’m getting addicted)
  • I had casino (blackjack, roulette) and Texas Hold-’em lessons
  • Gail went for a walk (2.5 to 3 km) every morning at 6:30 (I was very
    impressed)
  • Ryan and I played golf — Ryan did really well, for his second time
    ever on a (non-mini) golf course (his first time was last year), and I got two
    pars in five holes!
  • I made it to the top of the “vertical playground”, which is a sort of obstacle
    course that you climb, consisting of rope ladders, poles with wooden spikes that
    you climb, and some tires as well.
  • Ryan went fishing and caught a minnow and a catfish

The vertical playground was actually easier than the rock climbing wall that I
climbed last year. Next year, maybe I’ll try the teeter-totter, which is just
your basic see-saw, except that it’s mounted at the top of a 40-foot telephone
pole.

I didn’t manage to get a ride on Jeff’s jet-ski; whenever he had it out, I
was busy doing other stuff. I also wanted to play tennis but never got a chance,
and we didn’t get the lacrosse sticks out either.

We then dropped Nicholas off at Gail’s dad’s place and Ryan off at my
parents’ place on Saturday, and drove home, stopping to see Pirates of the Carribbean in Barrie
on the way. We also stopped at the Colisseum at the 400
and 407 to see Superman Returns,
but the timing didn’t work out, so
we went home. Sunday we saw Superman Returns at the Imax theatre in Mississauga,
and Monday we tried to go and see X-Men: The Final Stand, but the
theatre had technical difficulties and had cancelled the movie, so we went
to see that tonight. Since Saturday, we’ve also rented a bunch of movies, painted the bathroom and replaced the light fixture, installed a new cover on the
bathroom vent (to keep birds from making nests in there like they did this past
spring), and we’re going to order a new garage door this week as well.

I’ll post mini-reviews of all the movies we’ve seen this week a little later.

A couple of quickies

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The headline in today’s Hamilton Spectator is “New Weapons of Terror”, along with a picture of various bottles: water, hair gel, shampoo, V8, contact lens solution, toothpaste, etc. This is in response to the new airline rules banning passengers from bringing any type of liquid or gel in their carry-on luggage. I’m all for security, and I have no problem getting x-ray’ed and searched before I get on a plane, but this is just getting silly. When we went on our cruise in 2001 (2 months after 9/11), our luggage was searched, and we were forced to break off the little nail file on our fingernail clippers. (Note that we didn’t have to throw it away, we just had to break it off.) Nobody would have batted an eye at a 6-inch sharpened pencil, which is arguably more of a weapon than the nail file.

Here is a funny article about the next step in this “war on terror”. The terrorists may not have succeeded in significantly affecting the Western economies or changing government policies on anything (which, presumably, is at least one of their goals), but I’m sure they’re all having a good laugh at the stupid policies that have resulted from their activities.

On a completely unrelated note, I went out to Quizno’s for lunch today. Man, do they have it wrong. Their food is great, that’s not the issue; their ordering system is just silly. You get in line at one end of the counter and when it’s your turn, you tell the guy what kind of sandwich you want, what type of bread and extras you want, and whether it’s to eat in or to go. Then he makes the sandwich and puts it into the Magic Yummy Sandwich Making machine (aka toaster). You then get into a second line, behind all the same people you were in line behind the first time, and go to the payment counter, where you have to tell the person there what you already ordered. They handle the payment, then cut and wrap your sandwich and give it to you. Why do I need to give my order twice? This is the only restaurant (fast-food or otherwise) that I know of where I have to do this. What’s worse – the first guy doesn’t want your whole order, just the sandwich part of it. If you want soup with it, or a combo with chips and a drink, he doesn’t care. Surely they can figure out a way to handle the customer giving their order once and once only. Every other restaurant in the world can do it…

How NOT to coach

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On the drive home tonight, Bob McCown (my favourite sportscaster) was talking
about an article by Rick Reilly (my favourite sports writer) in this week’s
Sports Illustrated (which I haven’t received yet). (Here
is a link – not sure if you need to be a subscriber or not to read it) It talks
about the championship
game in a kids’ league (9- and 10-year-olds) in Utah. The home team
is down by one, batting in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and the tying
run on third. Their best hitter comes to the plate, and is intentionally
walked to get to the next batter, Romney, who is the worst hitter on the
team. He strikes out to end the game. The kicker (well, one of them) is that
Romney happens to be a cancer survivor who has to take human growth hormone and
has a shunt in his brain. The coach of the winning team defended his decision,
saying that it’s “just good baseball strategy”. Well, sure it is, and I initially
agreed with him. Cancer survivor or no, if he can’t play at the level expected
in the league, then he shouldn’t be playing.

That’s when I heard the second
kicker — in this league, everyone gets to bat, there’s a four-run
limit per inning, and there’s no stealing until the ball crosses the plate. Given
those rules, it’s obvious (or should be) that this isn’t a rep league —
the primary focus of this league is fun. There is no “level
expected in the league”. Because it’s not a
rep league, things like intentional walks shouldn’t happen, and pitching to the
slugger was the right thing to do. Walking him to get to the kid who could barely
swing the bat made it all about winning. Obviously the winning coach never
heard the old saying “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the
game”.

Man, I love summer

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Gail got me quite a cool present for my birthday this year: a
custom-made driver. Our neighbour makes golf clubs, so one day last week, Gail
told me that he had called, and wanted me to come over and give him a hand with
his wireless router, which was giving him problems. So I went over, and he
informed me that I was not there to fix his router, but to have a fitting for a
custom driver. He measured my arm length and swing speed (85-90 mph), and we
chose which type of head, shaft, and grip to use. (Well, OK, he pretty
much chose all that stuff — he gave me some options, then told me what he
would choose, and I gave him a lot of “sure, that sounds great”.) He came by
Tuesday night with the final product. I wasn’t allowed to swing it, since the
grip adhesive hadn’t finished drying yet, but he said it should be OK by
Wednesday evening. I may have a chance to go out to the range with it tonight
(Thursday), but more than likely, I’ll have to wait until next Tuesday morning
when we go golfing at Fern (see below).
I used to
hate my driver because I simply couldn’t hit anything with it. I entered a
“longest drive” competition at Fern one year, and brought my three iron because
I knew I could hit it farther than my driver (though I was completely smoked by
others who could hit their drivers). I took some golf lessons
last summer, and since then, I’ve had better luck with my driver, When I went out
with my dad a couple of weeks ago, it was actually the best club I hit all day.
But it’s 11-year-old technology now (and that’s assuming it was the latest
technology when we bought our clubs 11 years ago, which it wasn’t), so I’m really
looking forward to trying this new one out.

We go to Fern for a week in August every year — this year it goes from
this coming Sunday (the 13th) to Friday the 18th. We’ve been looking forward to
this year’s trip since, well, since last
year’s trip ended. Fern has a ton
of stuff to do for the kids as well as for us. The kids love the
Playvillage, where they have activities all day, as well as free time to just
play. (Note that the kids don’t stay in Playvillage all day, but there are always
things for them to do.) There are also shows, where they bring in magicians and
musicians as well
as a group from the local wildlife center, and they have a hay ride every night,
as well as a zip line,
a couple of big climbing structures, trampolines, and
mini-golf. For kids and adults, there are tennis and
basketball courts,
three pools (two outdoor, one indoor) and a beach, bikes,
pedal carts,
canoes and pedal boats, a 5-hole golf course, batting cages, a 4-way
beach volleyball court (which is a lot of fun), a rock climbing wall
(yes, that’s me in the white shirt), and a few other extreme sports. You can
borrow all kinds of sports equipment, and they have other sports-related
activities; Gail really enjoyed archery last year.
There are other programs as well, like a cooking demonstration with the head chef,
a woodworking class with the head carpenter, mixology, scrapbooking, and
blackjack lessons, an internet cafe (and apparently the pool area is a wireless
hotspot now, though we don’t plan on bringing our laptops anyway) and other stuff
like that. Oh yeah, and all your food is
included, and is excellent. Another advantage is that dinner time for the kids
starts at 5:30, and for everyone else at 6:00, at which time Playvillage opens,
so you can feed the kids at 5:30, then take them over to Playvillage, then come
back and have a nice leisurely grown-ups-only dinner.

In previous years, we’ve rented jet-skis, but Fern doesn’t rent those anymore.
Luckily, my friend Jeff recently bought one (as I mentioned in in the camping
entry), so we’ll have that to play with next week as well. It’s not terribly
cheap, but it’s not ridiculous either, and we have a great time every year. I
can’t wait.

The week after Fern will also be fun. We leave Fern
on the Friday morning, and head north to Gail’s dad’s place in Sundridge. We stay
Friday night there, and leave Saturday morning sans Nicholas, who’s
staying with John and Jackie for a week. On the way home, we stop in at my
parents’ place, where we drop Ryan off. So from Saturday afternoon until the next
Friday, no kids. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but the idea of
going out to a movie without paying more for a babysitter than for the movie
itself certainly has appeal, not to mention not making kids lunches
every day, not fighting with bedtime every night, not worrying
about making a dinner that the kids will actually eat, and so on. Gail and I will
get lots done around the house, see a couple of movies, sleep in on Sunday and maybe
play a round of golf. It’ll be nice.

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Lunch at Harvey’s with Nicholas

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Me: There are four types of kids meals, Nicky. Do you want a hamburger, cheeseburger, chicken fingers, or a hot dog?
Nicholas: A hamburger.
Me: A hamburger? Not a cheeseburger?
Nicholas: No, a hamburger.
Me: OK. Are you sure you don’t want a cheeseburger? Just a hamburger?
Nicholas: Yes, I want a hamburger.
Me: OK.

A few minutes later…
Me: OK Nicky, here’s your hamburger. What do you want on it? Ketchup? Mustard?
Nicholas: No, just cheese.

Queensryche Live

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I borrowed a fairly new Queensrÿche album from the library the other
day, called “The Art of Live”. Kind of a self-aggrandizing title, I thought
(“We’re so good live, we’ve turned it into an art”), but they used
to be one of my favourite bands (as I’ve blogged before), so
I thought I’d give it a try. What a disappointment. Part of my disappointment
comes from the fact that most of the songs are from the last few Queensrÿche
studio albums, which I didn’t really like, and not so much from the first 4 or 5,
which I did like. Even ignoring that, there are other problems: the crowd noise
is almost non-existent (a live album without crowd noise is just weird to listen
to), and there are no backing vocals. This doesn’t matter much for some
songs, but for a song like Anybody Listening, it really loses something
without the backing vocals. I guess Chris DeGarmo was the primary backing
vocalist, since he’s no longer with the band. Hey, maybe that’s the reason I don’t like as much of the new stuff — he wrote all the
songs I liked too. Another weird thing is that on
the song My Global Mind, it sounds like they’ve shut off the amplifiers, or at
least turned the distortion way down — it’s not quite an acoustic version,
but it certainly isn’t as heavy as the original version. I think if it
was a pure acoustic version, it would be OK, but it just seems mixed up
here. Operation: LIVECrime was a pretty good live Queensrÿche album, but this one just seems to continue the downward spiral of a formerly great band.

I also got a greatest hits album by Silverchair from the library, but I
haven’t listened to it yet. I will be sure to keep you, Constant Reader,
informed. (Kind of a Stephen King thing there)

Leave that thing alone

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I read an article on a blog yesterday, where the guy talked about circumcision
— how he needed to get it done to his son when he was about 5, and he
wished he had gotten it done when he was born. He says “I listened to all
that nonsense about butchering and psychological
damage and curcumcision being unnatural. What a mistake.” I couldn’t disagree
more. I don’t believe that circumcision causes psychological damage, but in
general, there is no anaesthesia used, so (I’m guessing – I don’t actually
remember) it really freakin’ hurts. Do you want to cause your son that much
pain, even if there won’t be lasting psychological damage? Not without a damn
good reason — and thus far, I have not been able to find one.

The main argument that people use when arguing for
circumcision is that it allows the child to avoid painful infections that could
require circumcision later in life. When Gail was pregnant with Ryan, we asked our
family doctor about this, and she said that most of the time, proper washing of
the penis eliminates this problem. When Ryan was 3, he could wash his penis by
himself, so it’s not a difficult thing. She (our doctor) also said that people get
ingrown toenails all the time, but nobody advocates removing them at birth.

Another argument I’ve heard (this, to me, is unbelievable) is that if the
father is circumcised, it’s important for the child’s penis to look like that
of his father. Hogwash. If that’s true, then you’d better hope that your kids
all have the same eye and hair colour as their father as well. Quite simply,
people look different — my kids know this. Neither of my sons have ever
asked why I look different than them.

It’s true that in some cases, infections or inflammations or whatever may
cause circumcision to be required in older children, or even adults. But that
doesn’t mean that we should just do the surgery in advance just in case
it’s necessary later. Hey, the tonsils and appendix
serve no purpose in the human body, and they may also get infected (and if an
infected appendix ruptures, it could be life-threatening), so we should
remove them at birth too, right? Gail had her gall bladder removed 12 years ago
because of gallstones, and she’s just fine now, so should we remove all gall
bladders from babies so that they avoid the pain of gallstones? The logic is the
same.

Bottom line: it’s painful for the child, expensive (health insurance doesn’t
cover it), and generally unnecessary. So why would you want to do this to your
child? I don’t believe that circumcision is butchery or psychologically scarring,
I just don’t understand why you’d elect to have it done to your child.

Note: Some people have the procedure done for religious reasons. That is not
an issue for me, which is why when Ryan was born, I simply looked into the
medical reasons to get it done (and found none). As an atheist, I can’t say I
understand it, but if your faith dictates (probably using the wrong word
there) that your male children must be circumcised, then it doesn’t really
matter whether or not it is medically necessary. If you honestly believe that
God wants your infant son to feel that much pain for no medical
reason, then nothing I say in this article will mean anything to you.

Aside: I wonder how many more google searches will hit my blog now
that I’ve used the word “penis”. Maybe I should rewrite this article using
various other words for penis, and watch my readership numbers skyrocket!

Update (Dec 2006): As Yappa pointed out in the comments, there have been studies that show that circumcised heterosexual men are less likely (some studies say half as likely) to get HIV than uncircumcised men. John mentioned in his blog (also in the comments) that Wikipedia lists other advantages, including lower incidence of penile cancer.

Here’s a link (thanks John) to an article saying that the results were so striking that they actually ended the study a year early, saying that it would be unethical not to offer circumcisions to all the men in the study. These results are certainly interesting, and if I lived in sub-Saharan Africa, I would have to seriously reconsider having it done to my kids. However, incidence of HIV among heterosexual non-drug-using men is far lower here than it is there. I don’t regret my decision not to have it done (and if I had another son I probably still would not get it done), but I must take back my (implicit) assertion that it’s pointless and has no benefits.

I still don’t generally agree with removing something just because it might cause problems later. Doctors believe the appendix serves no purpose, and later in life it can become infected, causing pain and if it ruptures, possibly even death, but doctors don’t remove them at birth “just in case”.

Camping trip

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Starting in the late 80’s, a few friends of mine went camping every Canada Day
weekend, and I joined them starting in about 1990. Gail started in 1992 when we
started dating, and we’ve gone every year since (though Gail took a year off in
1999 when she was 8 months pregnant). The numbers of people that went on these
trips kept growing, until we had over 30 people and 8-10 camp sites. A few years
ago, we decided to move the weekend from July 1st to the August long weekend,
which was less busy, and easier to get camp sites. It’s not like interior camping
or anything; one family had a tent trailer, while the rest of us were in big tents
(our tent is big enough for me to stand up in the middle). Just about everyone had
air mattresses to sleep on, and Coleman stoves and barbecues, and some sites even
had electricity, so we’re not exactly “roughing it”.

However, in 2004, we found camping very challenging — Nicholas was only
2 so he had to be supervised every minute, and it also rained a fair bit. We’ve
had a number of rainy camping weekends, and those are just no fun at all:

  • At one point in 2004 we had DVD players going in at least three different
    mini-vans to keep the kids occupied
  • In 1996, Gail and I left a day early because our tent leaked, so everything
    we had brought (particularly clothes and sleeping bags) got wet. That was also
    the weekend my old 1988 Cavalier died, so we had to borrow someone else’s
    car just to get there.
  • Another year, everyone drove into the nearest town and we all went to a
    restaurant for dinner. A completely non-camping-like move, but it had rained most
    of the weekend, and we all just wanted to be dry for an hour or so.

2004 seemed far more work than fun, and so we really had no desire to go the
next year. Some other families felt the same way, and so last year, the camping
weekend was officially cancelled; a few of us rented a chalet up in Collingwood
for a weekend instead.

This year, we decided to try it again, but for a non-long weekend, and so
last weekend, the tradition was resurrected, up at Balsam Lake Provincial
Park.
I’m very glad it was, because everyone had a great time. The weather co-operated
(no rain, not too hot, not too cold), the beach was nice, the lake was warm,
the kids behaved themselves as much as we could have expected them to, everything
went off without a hitch. We had 9 campsites and 33 people — the kids ranged
in ages from a little over a year to 10.

My buddy Jeff bought a Jet-Ski a couple
of weeks ago, so we all had a ride either on it or being pulled behind it on a
tube, so that was a lot of fun. One of the tubes was shaped like a hot dog, and
you’re not supposed to sit on it, you kneel (especially when you’re in
the back). I was behind Ryan, and so kneeling the whole time (it was all of about
10 minutes) just killed my legs — three days later, my legs are still stiff
and sore. Playing baseball last night didn’t help much; they loosened up during
the game, and felt pretty good afterwards, but today they’re as bad as yesterday.
I just hope they’re better before my next ball game on Thursday night. In the
words of one Mick Jagger, what a drag it is getting old.