Throwing Spaghetti at the Wall

I'm building more strength on my bicycle, which is proof of the cooler weather, and proof of the iron supplements that I've been taking.

Pedaling to work, on +1 assist, my battery only goes down one bar, and that's when I'm almost at work. There's only one hill where I boost myself at all. I'm getting there in good shape and not too tired.

Likewise, I'm heading home on +1. I can now take the awful hill at +2.

This all means that I'm the one generating more power, which is a terrific thing.

Since it's autumn, I take two autumn bike rides every day through wonderful scenery. I don't much notice it, but here and there, I do appreciate it.

I've not been getting things done, so I got desperate and made a list.

I've acquired some 80's mech anime that I've been wanting to see, unsubbed and undubbed. These are shows that I heard about way back when but were out of fashion when I began hanging with the anime crowd. My only regret is that there are no Japanese commercials.

I shoehorned in Robotech: The Movie (1986). You didn't miss anything.

While I was at it, I did a backup of my Jellyfin server.

I made it to my GI appointment, and then did the blood work required.

I cleared around the AC blower. That area still needs some cleanup, but it's mostly done. Digging out the root balls will be a future chore.

I changed the tire and tube on my road bike. That tire was a bitch to wrench off. I put on a new tire and tube, and it wouldn't inflate, because getting the tire on was so difficult that I gave myself a pinch flat that wouldn't self-seal.. I had to wrestle it off again, swap in the old tube, and then cause another pinch flat. This time, my sealant worked, I hope. As best as I can tell, I would need to do a PERFECT job of prying on the tires in order to use them. I have no idea how I put the original tires on without turning into a raging maniac.

I made it halfway through Gettysburg, only to discover that I was missing half the film, so I had to go back and re-rip the disk. The first half is 2.5 hours long, and the second half is 2.0 hours long, adding up to 4.5 hours.

This week in yard work, I did some edging. This time around, I started with a line trimmer and thought that I'd done well, but when I used a shovel to get under the grass, I found even more grass that needed to come up. This time around, an abused hatchet was my friend. Cutting along the edge line worked surprisingly well.

Getting rid of grass will make show shoveling far easier.

I worked into the side yard, and I've mostly emptied the area around the blower. With a little more work today, that should be clear.

On the other side of the yard, I want to start trimming the overhanging tree. There's a lot of dead branches in there.

In the next few weeks, I should have the side yard mostly settled, and then I can aim for the far back corner, which I never quite reach.

It's been about 4 weeks of iron supplements, and I've noticed some more changes. I'm manufactured more blood. In general, it's easier for me to apply power, for longer, while cycling. Yesterday, I made it to work using +1 assist the whole way, then back again on +1 assist, with only the occasional rise to +2. The ebike maxes out at +3.

At first, my energy levels rose, but now, they are more deepening and broadening.

I've had a few instances of my body chemistry kicking in while working hard, and that's also been interesting. I'm not used to that.

I'd like to continue pedaling at +1 assist for a while, building up more strength and stamina. I feel as if I have quite a bit to restore.

In good news, now that's it's cooler in the mornings, there are far fewer people on the paths. I can go faster.

I need to spend some time riding my non-ebike. Riding that thing is now far harder, and I've already lost some capacity. Getting to work and back with it is now deeply exhausting. 

I picked up Selma (2014) because it looked interesting and cost me $1.

Jenny looked up the film against an accuracy site, and that historial film came in with the highest level of accuracy. That made me sit up and take notice.

We went through Selma last night, and it was a mighty good film. Nobody is a saint. Everybody is a person. They tell a difficult story.

Selma was the focal point of King's strategy for voting rights. What goes in was ambition, and what came out was the Voting Rights Act. This is that sausage making story.

I have nothing but praise for this film. Maybe it's a bit too amber at times, maybe needing more realistic color, but that's small stuff. The rest of it is effective and clear.

This is worth your time.

Films This Week

Back in the day, I heard that Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) was a terrible movie. Most of the time, I find that people were overly harsh with a film, and that there is some fun, but no in this case.

PoT is a generic fantasy film with a Robin Hood theme.

I found that each of the primary actors was in their own film.

Keven Costner acted as if he was reciting the phone book. His performance would have been improved if Daffy Duck had been dubbed in. Unfortunately, he's in so much of the film that he's got to drag it down.

I enjoyed Morgan Freeman when he was on screen, enjoyed his character, and I enjoyed the film that he appeared in.

At the other extreme, Alan Rickman played out villain in an outrageous and furniture chewing performance. He understood the innate schlockniess behind the script, and he went for it, not holds barred. I loved the film that he was in.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio played Maid Marian, and not a very interesting one at that. Hollywood wanted to produce more interesting maiden in distress, so they used ideas by people who weren't screen writers, or actors, or in the film industry at all, and the results played about as well as you'd expect.

The costuming mostly sucked. There were a few brights spots, mostly for Marian and Nottingham, but most of it was peasants are dirty. They even have a mother as a character, and even she is dirty. Fortunately, all those 80's fantasy films had leftover costumes, and they used all of them.

Add that all up, and you get 2.5 hours of footage.

If you're drinking, and you don't mind falling asleep during the fight scenes, this is the film for you.

I rewatched Genesis Climber Mospeada (1983), a mech anime from Japan. I first encountered it as the last part of Robotech. I can't say when I last watched through it, but it's been 30-40 years.

There's little to say for the series. It's story is okay, but even at 25 episodes, it feel both padded and rushed. The Invid invaded earth, our heroes are there to kick them out. Unfortunately, the Invid are heavily armed and capable, so our heroes mostly go from place to place. There's a reason why it petered out after half a season.

This series has a very loose relationship with geography, existing almost entirely in a generic reality, where everywhere is that same generic place. For example, our heroes cross the Gulf of Mexico, head into mountains, encounter Denver, cross a desert, and arrive at New York. While I could win dork points for ranting about this, it's better to just laugh at the absurdity.

The overall level of realism is highly challenged. When it's useful, the plot throws in some realism, but only as its useful.

The animation is tolerable, but no better. The character designs are solid, doing their jobs. The mech and equipment designs are good. The Legios fighter-mech is quite handsome. 

What gives the anime it's name is the armor and cycle combination that can convert into a power suit. That way, you can go fast as needed, or change into a combat configuration as needed. These see the most action of any design.

I had fun seeing all the stuff that got chopped from the Americanized version. Yes, I fully understand why some bits got edited out. Fortunately, I'm a grown up now. 

The show is entertaining in small doses, so it's an acceptable watch if you have the bandwidth. 

I first encountered Hiroko Sakurai while watching Ultraman, and I enjoyed her performance as Akiko Fuji. Later on, I saw her perform in Ultra Q, where she played Yuriko Edogawa, where i just fell in love with her performance. I saw exactly why they hired her. She created such a natural presence behind the camera, expressed all sorts of feeling and attitudes, contorted her face like an acrobat, sometimes switching between emotions from one sentence to next. She was so good at delivering while the film was rolling.

As I've watched more shows from that era, none of the other women come close to her emotional and telegraphic breadth. She's truly go this special thing going on with the camera.

In Ultraman, she played next to Yasuhiko Saijō, who also had the same amazing facial and kinetic skills. When they were acting together, they were such a joy to watch.

She was in more films than I'll ever be able to hunt down, and I fully understand why directors wanted her. She didn't just supply looks, she fully supported whatever scene she appeared in. For the 60's, she was the modern every-girl.

I watched both Robert Downey Jr.'s entries for Sherlock Holmes, from 2009 and 2011.

In my experience, Sherlock Holmes does quite poorly as a film, and to prove my point, Robert Downy Jr. demonstrated it two more times. The very nature of Holmes works against the very nature of films.

To get through these films, I turned up the speed to 1.75x and ignored the action sequences.

In addition to the existential issues faced by all Sherlock films, this film looked like mud on a mud background. The color grading lay somewhere between depressed and suicidal. The costuming, therefore, looked like a depressed suicidal fish. Likewise, the cinematography looked undigestible.

There was nothing pleasing about these films except Downy, whose performance I enjoyed. The actors did their best with the script that they were given and the direction that they received.

I don't know who might like these films. I'm not even sure who the audience was intended to be.