Month: July 2017

Western Civilization decides not to fall: Dunkirk tops the Emoji movie.

OK, lemme just say: yes, I am being a snob here. I admit that.  I think that making a movie out of a bunch of the pictographs that you have on your smartphone starts out as a dumb idea, and that I am not giving the movie anything like a fair chance, and that people who liked the movie and it’s OK that they like it because who the Hell am I to judge them? might be justifiably suspicious that I am being a snob about them, too. I cop to all of this.

But it still would have been a bit personally unsettling to have one of the most fascinating movies about war in the last forty years not beat out a movie that has a talking poop icon in it, second week or no. Fortunately for my sanity, Dunkirk beat out Emoji, so I can stop being an elitist jackwagon about it.  You can’t really expect a flick like Dunkirk to hit #1 three weekends running, especially in the summer.  And, as a lot of people noted, there aren’t that many movies for kids out there in the cinemas right now.

So there’s that.

A Chicken and Dumplings Day.

Honestly, it was a slow day. The most interesting thing? Chicken and dumplings. We were figuring out what to do with dinner. I had tossed in some fresh corn to boil because we accidentally had forgotten about the last batch of corn until it was kind of terrifying, and we had some leftover chicken. My wife mused about that for a moment, murmured “Chicken and corn. Chicken and dumplings? Do we have chicken broth?”

Of course we have chicken broth. There’s always several different kinds of broth in the pantry, because I mostly do the shopping at this point (which is why there’s also always one-use Emergency Pork and Beans) and if you have broth you are halfway to recycling your leftovers. As it was in this case. Came out good, too. I do not know how to dumpling well, alas, but my wife does, so I left it to her and it came out nice, with a good heavy gravy. It could have only been better if we were eating it in November, but the weather’s been nice, so… eh?

And that was my day. Chicken. And dumplings. Not very exciting, but tasty.

I should check out All Time Toys in Ellicott City, MD.

Guy who runs the place sounds like a righteous dude.  From Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman’s Facebook site:

Congratulations to Jason Barnes of All Time Toys, who was honored today by the Charles Carroll of Carrollton Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution for his heroism the night of the flood and leading the human chain that rescued a motorist from the floodwaters. Jason is a symbol of the many acts of heroism in the Ellicott City community last July 30.

Website for the store here. It never hurts to give back to the community, you know what I mean?

Come for the argument about whether Han activated the lightsaber for Kylo…

…stay for the sight of people arguing whether non-Force Sensitive people can or cannot activate a lightsaber in the first place.  Which they can, of course.  It’s just that you need to be one of Star Wars’ genetic aristocrats to activate and use one without carving chunks of your own body off*.

There. That should amuse my readership for the rest of the night.

Moe Lane

*While we’re on the subject: they had clones. They had prosthetic limbs that were more or less functional replacements, including pain sensors.  Why didn’t they just grow Luke a new hand.  Or, heck, Anakin a new body?

A molten metal squirt gun.

Nah, I can’t imagine how a molten metal squirt gun could go badly at all.

And, of course, that man is either unmarried, or else has the most patient wife in Western civilization. I’m pretty sure that mine would have words to say about me spraying molten pewter all over the back yard.  Mind you, the first thing would be “How did you survive melting the pewter in the first place, dear?”…

Solid gold Apollo 11 lunar module statue stolen from museum.

Now here’s some gaming fodder for you:

Ohio police say a rare gold replica of the lunar space module has been stolen from the Armstrong Air and Space Museum.

Police in Wapakoneta, in northwest Ohio, responded to an alarm at the museum just before midnight Friday and discovered the 5-inch high, solid-gold replica had been stolen.

Continue reading Solid gold Apollo 11 lunar module statue stolen from museum.