Puttering in the Study

"Best Dad in the Galacse" - Grayson's "fiction picture" of his daddy

Last week Grayson brought home this picture of me he'd drawn at school.  He explained to Jamie that it was a "fiction" picture (as opposed to nonfiction - he's learning the difference in his reading).  I thought the explanation was so hilarious I filmed him this morning explaining it, and that was even funnier.  Download MOV00120.MPG

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

  Collin and Parker (Collin especially) was very worried about what had happened to Spock at the end of Star Trek II, and I was fortunately able to explain that all was not lost - there was always Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (it's really fun to listen to him tell everyone he';s watching it - and he has to say the entire title really fast).  He and Parker really liked the third movie, with the exception of the destruction of the Enterprise, which Collin went into hysterics over (again, it's really nice to have kids, because they get more upset about the Cowboys losing and the Enterprise blowing up than I do).  Again, he immediately started asking if they were going to get another starship (he gets the difference between spaceships and starships very well, by the way).  So after we watching ST:III Saturday night we loaded up Sunday with popcorn and all of us (excepting, of course, Jamie) watched Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home start to finish last night.  They liked it okay, and were of course very excited at the end when the new Enterprise-A made its appearance (they think that it is the original, fixed).  They liked the whales, and of course knew all about them since they've seen Shamu at Sea World.  One glitch was that Parker didn't understand why people were calling Spock "Captain" since "Qwirck" is the captain.  I had to explain that Kirk is sort of captain and admiral and Spock is called captain, but he's not "the" captain.  All of which is completely clear now, right?

Anyway, good weekend for my up and coming Star Trek junkies.

Continuum - John Mayer

I really liked Mayer's first two albums, and while this is undoubtedly good stuff, it's not as catchy, and will take a little while longer to sink in.  Not quite what I wanted, and I'm, not sure I'll have the patience to listen to it enough to see if it's something I'll end up really liking.  He's apparently trying to do depper into blues and avoid the lighter pop that has been so successful for him, but that's sort of what I liked. 

Western Days for Collin & Parker

  Today is "Western Day" at Collin & Parker's preschool, so Jamie got them boots and hats today.  They are so excited about getting to wear them they were up early this morning, and looking forward to a fun day.  Jamie will be taking more pictures today when they get to ride a horse and see animals at the petting zoo, but I took these of them next morning while Collin working on Grayson's Batman laptop and then in the study with a real cowboy's headgear (I have no idea why Collin has that look on his face).

T.R.O.U.B.L.E. - School pictures - 2006-07

    The boys just got their pictures in, and if this isn't trouble, I don't know what is.

Casino Royale - Ian Fleming

Just finished rereading Ian Fleming's original novel, which was the basis for the recent movie.  I've had the paperback since I collected all of the 1960's paperbacks of the Bond novels in high school (this 1963 edition set me back 40 cents 25 years ago and is now valued at around $19) and hadn't read it since then.
On rereading it, I realized that my impression of the movie's Bond as accurate to the book wasn't quite right - Bond's character as cold, ruthless, and new to the job is not really in this book all that much.  He's a  veteran of WW II (the book is set in about 1952) like everyone else, and cold and ruthless to an extent, but surprisingly naive about his opposition and sentimental about Vesper when they go on their vacation after defeating Le Chiffre.  He already has the polish that the movie's Bond lacks at the outset (his obtaining it inexplicably quickly as he heads for the casino is one of the movie's weaker points).  None of this is a negative about the book or the movie - just some differences.
The book also struck be as a bit dated - not just in how women were treated but in overall tone.  It wasn't quite what I remembered, but then, it has been a quarter of a century or thereabouts since I read it last.

Twin Peaks: Season 2; Star Trek - The Motion Picture; Star trek - The Wrath of Khan

Busy week in the study watching DVDs.  I started watching the Twin Peaks Season 2 DVDs Thursday night (episode 8) and got through episodes 9-12 and most of 13 Saturday and Sunday (the end of 13 is one of the series' high points and I have been waiting literally seventeen years to see it with a good image and sound, so I'm saving it for tonight).  Image quality is awfully good - too good in fact for Lara Flynn Boyle's complexion, which, it turns out, is loaded with freckles.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, but she looked as pale as Sherilyn Fenn on video. 
Next up was Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which I watched with Collin after he watched me do some work on my Enterprise model.  He wanted to see what the hangar bay looked like so I put it on starting with the drydock scene and we just watched it the rest of the way.  The movie remains cold and has some really awful acting (or inexplicable directing) but it is much better with the improved effects, sounds, and some extra scenes, primarily those with Spock explaining to everyone exactly what's going on.  The impression I had after watching the original series recently was reinforced - Spock is the best character and Nimoy the best actor - he's what everything seems to hang on. 
After watching TMP, I asked Collin and Parker if they wanted to watch another one and they said yes, so Sunday we watched Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan beginning to end.  The liked the combat sequences a lot, and really seemed to enjoy the movie.  By the end they were very concerned about Spock dying, and wanted to know if he was really dead ... so we started right into Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock, but only got about fifteen minutes in before dinner, so I'll post on that when we finish.  This was the second time I'd watched TWOK on DVD, and the first watching it immediately after TMP, and the difference is amazing.  From the uniforms - which finally look like uniforms - to the sets,  and most importantly to the script, the movie is a breath of fresh air.  These are like real people, and the movie just breezes along with humor and believable acting.  Again, the acting ranges from really good to okay (with the notable exception of Shatner's "don't mince words Bones - tell me what you really think" line which remains inexplicably bad.  It's just a good movie - and what I noticed at the beginning of 3 last night is that it's even better (I may be in the minority there, but the special effects are terrific, the script good, and the characters and acting well done).
Anyway, a good weekend in front of the tube.

Captain Horatio Hornblower - DVD

C.S. Forester's Hornblower novels have been favorites of mine since 1978, when I started reading them after learning that Hornblower was one of Gene Roddenberry's models for the captain on Star Trek (the original captain, Christopher Pike was modeled on Hornblower.  Kirk, on the other hand, was definitely not - but the character of an isolated ship captain remained the focus of the series).
This 1951 movie adaptation of the three central books of the series (Beat to Quarters, Ship of the Line and Flying Colours) has been a favorite for a long time (originally because it was about Hornblower - more recently because it features Virginia Mayo - who is actually not terribly well dressed or coiffed during the film, and it still stunning) and when it finally came out on DVD I pre-ordered it.  I wasn't disappointed - although they are virtually no extras, and it has only mono sound and a 4:3 screen ration (which is actually a plus in the movie room, since it means the picture is about double the size of a widescreen movie).  The picture and sound quality are good, and I really enjoyed watching it again.  It shouldn't be confused with Ioan Griffud's Horatio Hornblower, which is better all around (except for the romance, but again they left off one book before this movie starts, it hadn't actually started yet), and Peter Weir's Master and Commander is a far more accurate and realistic version of essentially the same story as the first third of the movie (again, sans the romance), but it is still a solid, enjoyable movie that I never get tired of watching.

From the Earth to the Moon - DVD

I decided that I'm fortunate to live in Tom Hanks' world - because every time the guy does a good movie of a historical event, he takes the back story and turns it into a painstakingly accurate HBO series.  Thus Saving Private Ryan begat Band of Brothers, but before that, Apollo 13 begat From the Earth to the Moon.  (Which raises the tantalizing question of where we'd all be if Hanks had starred in Boogie Nights.  Probably better not to ask...)

Anyway, I was initially disappointed in the series, since the episode intorductions (by Hanks) were a jarring reminder that this was Hollywood telling the story.  Instead of BoB's opening narrated by the actual soldiers, making unclear whether this was a dramatic recreation or the real deal (hey, I can suspend disbelief when I want), each episode of FTETTM is opened by Hanks, followed by an interminable opening credits sequence.  The music and the special effects pale in comparison to Apollo 13, and while there is nothing wrong with the episodes, and I learned a lot, they are (in my opinion) hampered (initially) by having every character played by a character actor that you know.  And it was apparently a requirement that everybody have played somebody else on Apollo 13.  And that no episode could include the dramatic high spots of any space mission - the launch, the landing, etc.  But by the end of the second episode, as you get used to the rhythm of the series, and understand that it's not going to be Apollo 13 - the series, you start to see some standout work, including that by the guy playing Frank Borman, the woman playing his wife (okay, it's Hanks' wife and in black & white she's impossibly hot for the mother of two grown sons, but then again I saw a documentary on Apollo 8 not long ago and she was actually even hotter than that.  And blonde.)  And the unnatural focus of the guy playing Neil Armstrong piloting a Gemini mission, or the obsession of Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 13 (and all this time I thought Michael Collins was the guy with the reason to have issues), and so on and so on.  The series really kicked into high gear with Apollo 12, which was I later read the best-rated of the episodes, and which was just what we space nuts wanted to see - three guys that understand where they were and were enjoying it like you thought they should.  The lunar landscape work (including an uncredited appearance by the real-life Apollo 18 lunar module - I just saw the rest of the Apollo 18 spacecraft in Houston and there was a noticeable gap where that bug should have been) was phenomenal, and I ended up really looking forward to the episodes towards the end, including watching as the astronauts learned to be geologists.

The series wasn't perfect, but it was very enjoyable, and I bet I'll it be even more the second time, when I realize what is and isn't coming.  It's a really fine piece of work.  Now if I could just convince Hanks to play Raymond Spruance at Midway, we could get not only an accurate remake of Midway, but a HBO series about the Pacific War.  Tom, are you reading this?  Tom?

Darwin's Radio - Greg Bear

I downloaded this book from e-Reader several months ago to read during our Europe trip last fall, and finally finished it last night.  It is a well-written but relatively opaque sc-fi novel about an apparent disease that turns out to be a major step in human evolution.  As I said , it's well written and I particularly liked the lead couple, but I quickly got lost keeping the various agency scientists straight.  Not to mention the science, of course.  I just think you have to feed this sort of thing (like history in The DaVinci Code, for example) to redares in bite-sized pieces when telling a story.  The same thing came up over and over, and I never did really follow the underlying science.  Up to a point it provides needed verisimilitude - but after that it's just confusing and frustrating.

An okay book, but it ought to say something that I'm not looking at getting the sequel.