Pass The Envelope Please

So here is the promised thought experiment: Tropical island, bomb shelter, life sentence or a spaceflight to Europa. Where you are going isn't really important. The point is ... you are going to be isolated ... like forever. However, the fickle finger of fate has decided that you may take one movie with you from each year of your life. How do you create that list?

I must admit that this train of thought came with the pending demise of VHS tapes. They were being sold on the cheap, and I had wondered what I should buy before they were all gone? The transition was leisurely and ran from 1998 to 2002. Not so much in the next iteration. In 2006, they released Twister on Blue Ray. Baiscally, two years later, DVDs were toast. A buddy (MG) had introduced me to IMDb, and it has a powerful search engine. Show me the Oscar winner for Best Picture in 1973? Show me the nominees? What were to top grossing movies for that year? Now pick just one. It's harder than it looks. Some years, I just gave up and posted HM (honourable mention) for a movie that I just could not remove from the list. I mean, if you take Unforgiven in 1992, can you really leave Scent Of A Woman or A Few Good Men behind? Have a look and see what you think. If you have not seen every film on this ... twice, go back and start over.

So we have several hundred DVDs on shelves in the basement. I never would have guessed in 2003 that storage costs and streaming speeds would allow the "cloudy skies" that we now live under (get it?). My DIL has 27,000 photos (she has cats) in Apple storage. Two terabytes? She uses AI to find the one she is looking for? What a world? For the record, I have 67 VHS-format movies left in my collection. Seven from this list were in there. Not bad.

I.B.A.T.

I have owned or driven probably fifty lawnmowers in my life. The last three, self-propelled. A Craftsman, a Honda and now a Toro. I must say the self-drive on this new machine is a revelation. It has a slider that you hold, and then you just walk, at whatever pace you want. This lawnmower seems to read your mind and just moves away from you before you can take the next step? Hold your arms out as if you are pushing a shopping cart. Walk around your lawn in that pose. That's what it feels like when you are actually cutting the grass. Remarkable.

So, I am cutting the front lawn shirtless, and a busload of supermodels pulls over. They are gawking at my new lawnmower! Back and forth, back and forth I go. I hurry to finish and scurry into the backyard to hide my new purchase from prying eyes. Opulence like this ... can breed contempt. Eventually, they give up and leave. I just never knew supermodels were so interested in fine mechanical engineering?

My Optimum Week

She Who Must Be Obeyed is down in Ottawa with her peeps, so I have been staying close to home. Me and my puppy dog. Walks in the morning. Then, some interior painting while she is away. That goes on right up until I give in to the Bud Lights that have been incessantly calling my name from the fridge. "Meeetch. Save us. We're cold!" I grab the dog, an Orgullo robusta from the humidor, and we languish under the tree on our patio. We watch the birds drink, bathe and copulate in my water feature. Maddie has her limits, though? Things get chaotic when she puts a stop to their frolicking. Rose petals and one indignant male dove come boiling out of the undergrowth. That bird is getting pretty frustrated. He glares at her from the roof of a nearby shed. She comes back all flouncy and proud. Somewhere in all that, I try to fit in a nap (or two). Ah Summer! I keep looking at our list from last week and thinking about the deals I am missing. But then, the pond calls me back. Here's your list. I am not going anywhere.

It was a funny flyer this week. It started out great and then just went dead. $4.50 for Mott's? Cherries on sale for $5 per pound? Couscous is on sale (CG). Yaaak. Just stick to the first couple of pages and your fridge list. Swing by FB for those three-litre baskets.

Speaking of Food Basics. They utilize a crack marketing scheme called the Crazy Eight Extravaganza (or something like that). All the prices end in eighty-eight cents. Apparently, I am to believe they took an extra eleven cents off everything? Now, the savvy market analysts at FreshCo have come up with a surefire plan to counter. The Big Seventy-Seven Event. Guess how it works? WT actual F?

What I'm Reading

Mitch Fountain’s review of Foundation’s Triumph (Second Foundation Trilogy, #3)

2/5: Boy. You assemble three of the greatest living sci-fi authors and say write a trilogy based on The Foundation Trilogy and what do you get? A mess. The first book was a disaster. The second was better but only by virtue of completely ignoring the first book. I had high hope for Brin. He wrote Kiln People for God’s sakes. If nothing else, I will get good story. Not so much. This is a meandering diatribe that tries to kill Hari off with boredom, make Daneel into a God and put some dough into the Asimov family coffers long after the milk cow died. Let the man rest. You want to read Asimov, go b…

GoodreadsDavid Brin

What I'm Watching

A Man Called Otto on Prime - Can Tom Hanks make an awful movie? Folks point to Turner and Hooch but I liked that movie. I liked this one too. Grieving widower contemplating suicide finds redemption in the lives of neighbours he has spurned for years. Best line, he is teaching a girl to drive. She scratches a car while trying to park. "Don't worry about it. It was a hybrid." Four stars.

As It Happened - Tarawa on Prime - Live combat footage showed the Americans what was really taking place to win World War Two in the Pacific theater. It shocked them at home. It is still pretty shocking today. Three stars.

Dances With Wolves on Prime - Time to go back and watch this again, folks. A truly remarkable outing the first time Kevin Costner held all the reins of power. He produced, starred in and directed this epic tale of western frontier. Five stars.

... and finally

Some of the nicest people I have met since moving here 33 years ago, work for the city. I was used to Toronto city workers, who are surly on a good day. Not Guelph? They seem universally happy to have a job and a dental plan. So ... I'm sitting in the kitchen in my underwear (as usual), thinking about a beer and a cigar (as usual). Knock knock knock. Now, I have a policy. If I peek out and find someone standing on my porch with a clipboard or a Bible, they get me the way they get me. I might be naked. That gets them off the porch. Here, it was two mature women and a young thing in a uniform ... so I put pants on. Turns out, two of my neighbours and an Animal Control Officer are tracking a diseased raccoon. I let them into my backyard ... quick search (after they gasped in awe at the magnificence of my gardens IFK) but no Rocky. The young thing (Jen) asked me to call her back if he shows. About an hour after they leave, sure enough, there he is, big as life (huge), sitting on my patio. It's obviously not right. Eye discharge and out walking around in the daytime? I called Jen back. She says she has been following lead after lead on this guy since eight that morning. It's coming on three! After a five-minute search and a very exciting capture, my uninvited guest is whisked off for a well-deserved dirt nap.

Jen advised that he probably did not have rabies, but distemper had been making the rounds this year. She was competent, polite and kind to a troubled soul. (The rodent, not me.) Whew! Alone at last. Off come the pants. Beer, cigar, dog, patio.

Mitch and Maddie