I didn't know it ever left...

Opium cultivation returns to parts of Afghanistan

Opium poppies are being grown this year in parts of Afghanistan where last year there were none, but overall cultivation of the drug will decrease slightly, the United Nations said in a report on Monday.

It's as if there's a worldwide demand! Bonus:

Aside from leading the world in opium output, Afghanistan has become the biggest producer of hashish, or cannabis resin, turning out between 1,500 and 3,500 tones a year.

How pragmatic the ultra-conservative, anti-West, anti-intoxicant Taliban is when it comes to monetizing the rest of the world's desire to get high.

Russian comedians soon to have new material

Hey, guys, we already tried this and it didn't work all that well:

Russia's parliament on Friday gave preliminary approval to a law creating color-coded terrorist threat alerts, a measure rushed forward in the wake of the Moscow airport bombing that left 35 dead and raised questions about the country's ability to handle attacks.

In fact, we're dropping it:

The proposed law is modeled on the U.S. system instituted after 9/11, which Washington announced Thursday it would be abandoned by the end of April and replaced with a new plan to notify specific people about specific threats. Critics had complained the general color alerts were unhelpful.

Learn from our mistakes. After all, we're the United States; we screw up often, especially when it comes to security theater.

Gun Snobbery

Oh, god. Why S&W? WHY? OK, I get the "Hey, the Taurus Judge is a runaway bestseller and we want to get a piece of that action" why, but ugh, that is an ugly revolver. I wish Smith & Wesson would avoid such modern travesties, at least within their revolver lineup. 

Maybe I'm just getting even more old-fogie-ish than I usually am.

Ex Libris

Well, I've finally married my wonderful Garm. Yup, he's stuck with me. And my wonderful Garm's wonderful parents gave us the best wedding present ever: an entire wall of bookshelves. "Entire wall" doesn't really do justice to the scope. The bookshelves literally stretch the width of the entire house. That's right. We've figured it up to about 166 linear feet of shelf space. And we've almost filled it up already .......

We began measuring months ago. There were charts and graphs and some more measuring as the piles of books in corners grew. The goal was to make the most use of the largest single wall in the house, so that we could combine both of our libraries into one place. After a while, the was a good deal of hoping along with the measuring.

Once home from our lovely honeymoon we settled in then took our happy, literate selves up to Ikea, home of all things for the home (some assembly required). We weren't sure how all of the bookshelves that we knew we needed were going to fit into the back of Garm's truck, but those clever Sweedes, they're so good at flat packing that everything fit with room to spare. Seriously, the next time I need to pack a suitcase, I'm finding a Sweedish person do help me! Here's what the truck looked like:

We got home and I had to go to work, leaving Garm to assemble 6 full sized Billy bookcases, one half bookcase, a DVD tower, and a TV stand. While I was walking dogs, he was busy in the garage, and this is the result:

It's amazing, how packages so small can be coerced into being such significant bookshelves. Each one is over 6 feet tall. Garm was so excited he even dragged the first three in and started arranging some of our books on them:

When I got home that night, I helped him carry in the others, and we began sorting the books onto them. SO MUCH FUN! I've had some of my books in storage for years and years, since I moved away from Newnan the first time, and they've stayed in storage in a closet at my parents' house while I was overseas with the Peace Corps, then they moved to the closets and under-beds at Garm's house. Finally, they're breathing air again!!

I had to go to work again the next day, but was able to help Garm get the electronics started. There wasn't too much I could help with this,
and I mostly just left him alone to untangle that, checking occasionally to make sure he didn't accidentally get strangled in the nonsense. He got it worked out, thankfully, and in time for the Auburn game, even. That evening he also secured the bookshelves to the wall and started putting the history and non-fiction out.

I came home to a lovely mess of books all over the house, and quickly set to work pulling out more boxes and fitting them in to where they belong. We have the books sorted by category -- fiction, anthologies, children's, literary criticism, general non-fiction, religion, mythology, poetry, history (by time period and then by author), biography, and political science. Poor Garm, he was exhausted but I was just so excited that I kept pulling boxes out from under beds and putting them into their respective areas. The history section was probably the most difficult, and I let Garm do all of those, though I did try to help. Getting the books into both chronological AND alphabetical order was such a chore ... I will never, ever shelve a book in that section: he can do it for me! I'll build a book drop first!

Exhausted, sometime in the middle of the night, we finally had to go to bed. The next morning, Sunday, I went back to Ikea with my BFF so she could browse the home of all things for the home (some assembly required) and I could pick up a couple more wall shelves. Garm and I decided that to give our wall o' books a truly built in feel, we would join the Bill bookcases over the TV with some matching wall shelves. We got 4 shelves on our original trip, enough to make 2 joining shelves, but we realized that our TV does not need to be mounted, like we originally thought we did. We also realized that the extra 5 feet of bookshelf was going to be crucial.

Especially since while I was at the bookstore, Garm found 2 more boxes of books under a bed I missed the night before in my excitement and exhaustion. These books, mostly history and non-fiction, required that we rethink where those sections ought to go. So, when I returned home from Ikea we mounted all 6 of the shelves and made 3 shelves above the TV, with the resulting effect of a single, custom unit. Garm claims he was 3/8" off on one of the shelves, but I defy you to find a flaw in these pictures!! Once we rearranged mythology, religion, and moved the yearbooks for the umpteenth time, the bookshelves are finally complete! Can you believe we managed to get our living room from this:

to this:

in just a few days? We've been looking forward to these ever since I announced to my new betrothed that I came with a dowery of a library as extensive as his own. One neat side effect were the duplicate books. Garm and I often had the exact same book, and we collected the doubles to turn in for credit at our local used book store. They'll only let us turn in one box at a time, so we have to make 6 trips to get them all gone. We've even been able to replace a few paperbacks for hardbacks, then turn the paperbacks in! Of course, if we keep lucking out and getting such good credit off these books, we may be needing more bookshelves sooner than we thought ....

Autumnal Candles

So the blog has been slacking a little. My bad. I'd like to blame the long hours at work in the horrible horrible heat, but mostly it's due to a slight writer's block and an epic laziness.

And of course so much of our time is taken up with wedding preparations. Mostly, those preparations are nothing to blog about, but this one is!

In an effort to keep costs lower, I decided to make my own centerpieces for the reception: gel candles. I'd had this idea in my head for a while, and last week Garm helped me to make that idea a reality. I'm so happy with the results that I want to do this again and again.

The overall theme of the wedding is fall, and the reception is at a restaurant that overlooks the Chestatee River. The candles I pictured in my head were basically frozen scenes from a river in fall: small river rocks on the bottom, fall colored leaves, berries, pine cones and acorns. Originally, I was thinking of just gluing those in place and filling the containers with water, then putting floating candles on top; however, when I did a bit of research on making gel candles I learned it wasn't too complicated. So I threw caution to the wind, covered the kitchen surfaces in cardboard, and bought the materials. More expensive than water and floaty-candles, but well worth it!


So, here's how it was all done!
Step one was to glue the wicks to the bottom of the bowls with a glue gun. I then added the rocks, and then glued the silk leaves and berries where I wanted them around the outside of the bowl. I didn't want them to get too close to the wick. I didn't bother gluing the rocks in place, figuring (correctly) that the gel would take care of that for me.

Step two was melting the candle gel. The first batch took a long while to melt because we were very cautious with how much heat we used. There were lots of warnings about the gel being flammable, so we started with the lowest setting and waited a while before turning it up, then up some more. We did finally figure out the optimum setting on the stove for melting the gel without exploding it. This was also the step where we got to add the scent. That's right! My candles smell like cranapple spice! The gel felt really funny on my fingers; I had to tear it out in bunches from the tub it came in, and I'm still finding little pieces of it in the kitchen.

Step three, as you might imagine, was actually pouring the gel. We learned a lot in this step. I learned that my precautionary step of heating the candle in a sink of hot water was unnecessary. I learned that an extra step of tying the wicks to a pencil resting across the top of the candle was necessary to prevent the waxy wick from melting and collapsing in the bottom of the candle. I also learned that the hot gel melts the hot glue, so I need to find a better way to affix the suspended objects away from the wick. And I learned that hotter gel makes for a more bubbly looking candle, while the cooler gel, when poured, makes for a clearer candle. Garm was wonderful in this step: holding the candles steady for me while I ladled hot gel into them and helping me get a uniform look. He's also very very good at tying the wicks onto the pencils so that they won't fall off again.

Step four, logically, was allowing the gel to cool and solidify again. I filled the sink with cool water and ice cubes to encourage this process. Above are two cooling candles, wicks still tied to pencils. Once the gel was cool, we wiped off the excess gel from where it had dripped and remelted it for the subsequent candles, cut the wicks, and stood back to admire our handiwork. They turned out exactly as I had imagined, which I think is pretty amazing. I had so much fun doing these that I want to do more! We even burned one to be sure they'll work, and they, in fact, do work as candles. Success!! Garm brought out his lightbox to get some nice shots; here are the best of those.

My Fall River Candles:

British Bluegrass??

So there's this great new band out there. I found them on Dave FM, and got hooked listening to the one song they played. So of course I did what any new fan would do: I got the album and set up a new Pandora station.

According to Wikipedia, Mumford and Sons began playing together back in 2007 and released their first album, Sigh No More, last year. It crossed the pond this year and has frolicked (do the English frolick?) its way up the charts and into our radios. The single I fell in love with, Little Lion Man, has a catchy chorus that isn't inane (coughkatyperrycough)  like so much new music out there. Also, who is rocking a banjo nowadays? Not enough artists, that's for sure.

M&S are listed as Indie Rock or Folk Rock, but the combination of instruments is begging me to call it Bluegrass Rock. But they're more than just the instruments. The lyrics and harmonies are darker and more serious than you'll find over the traditional airwaves. Broken hearts, revenge, regret and the state of your soul are all themes in their music. And yet there's something hopeful in the songs as well: "Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life."

All in all, this is a great new sound, and I recommend that if you're sick of the same 20 songs on the radio, which all sound the same anyway, to give these guys a listen.

Paper, Ink, Glue

Almost $500 worth of wedding invitations. Certainly more than the sum of their parts. . .

There's no crying in football video games!

Alabama video game nerds mock Tim Tebow in special edition cover

I chuckled. Also, I really miss football. Just a couple more months, thank FootballJesus Tebow.

Site issues

We're going through some site-code updates/housecleaning at the moment. All will return to normal shortly.

I hope. 


UPDATE: Everything's working the way I want, other than the massive space in the first post on the page. I have no idea why it's like that, but I'm working on it. 

New Blood

Just to prove that this little blog o' mine is still ticking, I decided to make a post. Genie Junkie and I have neglected Garm Howling for quite awhile, but hopefully that will change in the future. Recently I thought about this minuscule corner of cyberspace and wondered if I should create some new content. Fortuitously, my fiancée Kat mentioned that she'd like to start her own blog. I pounced on the opportunity and (short story, long) now she's going to cross-post here and at her own place: A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That.

So we have some new blood and soon, Cthulhu-willing, some new content as well.

iPad

iPad
iPad iPad
iPad!

Wake Up Sheeple! (or, How Buzz Aldrin is going to find you and punch you in the face)

I just read have just been enlightened by some truly amazing work. Really. I mean it. Of course, it's COMPLETE crap, but. . . it's an amazing job: easily, without a shadow of a doubt, in the wackjob-conspiracy-theory hall of fame. A sample of the masterpiece to which I refer:

It is important to note that the room in question was numbered 217 in the Stephen King version of The Shining. For unknown reason's Kubrick changed it to 237.

Those unknown reasons are about to be come known.

Danny is literally carrying a symbolic Apollo 11, on his body, via the sweater, to the Moon as he walks over to room 237. Why do I think this?

Because the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is 237,000 miles.

The real truth is that this movie is really about the deal that Stanley Kubrick made with the Manager of the Overlook Hotel (America). This deal was to get Kubrick to re-create, in other words, to fake, the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

EUREKA! 4 pages may seem long, but trust me (and why shouldn't you?) the words just fly by. In no time at all YOU WILL JOIN ME WITHIN THE RANKS OF THE ENLIGHTENED. Read the whole thing.

Need a bigger boat

I guess I abstractly knew that such a thing existed, but now I have a burning desire to be cited for "Unlawful Possession of a Great White Shark." I'm not sure how, but I'm pretty sure being able to say that I was cited for unlawfully possessing Jaws would enhance my life in many ways.

it'd be even cooler if the shark had a fricken' laser

So, you’re thinking of buying an AK-47?

Or AK-74? Or AK-101? Or AK-107? Or AKMS? Or any other Kalashnikov? If so, you should check out this introductory guide to the wonderful and often confusingly varied world of (semi-auto civilian) AK's. It's written for the novice enthusiast rather than the already-initiated, but for many people, the article will be quite helpful in explaining the basics. For example, the Father of Garm has a vast wealth of knowledge regarding handguns, but his knowledge of rifles is much more narrow, a fact he readily admits, which is why I've already sent him the above link.

Kudos to Cheaper Than Dirt for putting this on their site; I'll be sure to pick up some accessories from you next time I'm in the market for them.

Way too close to home

That's where this chart hits. It's easily the most simple chart of its nature I've ever seen. Who says trying to figure out to what genre of metal the band you're listening to belongs has to be a complicated and argumentative procedure.

No reason

Awesome

Just Awesome

Wonder Woman Review

The new animated Wonder Woman movie is good, heck it’s just about perfect.

First off, the animation is great, a nice blend of the JLU style and Anime with detailed eyes and shadow. Combine that with fairly top-notch voice acting and the characters become solid with ease. Wonder Woman’s origin story is quickly setup up with a bloody opening battle between Aries and the pre-Diana Amazons that puts the body-count in the double digits in the first five minutes. This opening battle is actually clever in putting the motive in a cast of Amazons, along with Aries, which drives the rest of the story.

It’s not a difficult plot to figure out, so the makers did something pretty smart. They invested in the characters. Aries is not some bahahahah villain, but has real reasons for what he does. Steve Trevor, who’s a little odd sounding just like Captain Malcolm from Fire Fly since Nathan Fillion voices him, is not just some chauvinistic idiot. Wonder Woman is not a man-hater, nor a naïve girl. Every time we come to a fork in the road for character they make an unexpected but good choice. And there’s banter, romantic comedy level banter mixed in with the decapitations.

Then there are the difficult choices. They introduce the bracelets verses the arrows instead of a rifle. They subtly suggest Wonder Woman’s mother intended for Trevor to find the island. The invisible jet is never explained, and that is wise since an explanation would only draw the viewer out of the story. So deftly, are these choices made that when the bookworm Amazon comes up with a key magic phrase to save the battle it is barely noticed—we’ve been hearing her spout on about reading ancient books the whole movie.

Then there are the battles: Monsters, nukes, automatic weapons, zombies with meat-puppet ninja skillz, and a whole heck of a lot of butt kicking. One problem you always face is how the hero is suppose to be threatened by the villain. Make him or her more powerful than Superman or Wonder Woman and they become fairly impossible to beat, but this Wonder Woman shows the guile of a warrior while being super powerful. So, while Superman slugs it out in battles that we really can’t see him losing; Wonder Woman manages to be in the fight of her life without relying on some McGuffin to pull out the victory.

All in all, this feature is a triumph. Buy it, rent it, support it. But be warned, this is a hard PG-13, and not for the kiddies. It’s simple, heroric, and not one part of it carries the shrill “I’m River/Buffy/Echo and I’m a suffering and abused” that some might implant in the Princess of the Amazons. She is a warrior born and a woman. This movie says men and women need each other, in life and in the fight against evil. Good story, good message, great fun, trust that you will laughing and clapping like a kid at the circus.

Status of socks: officially knocked off.

(This post is actually by genie junkie; he's lazy or technophobic or something, so I posted it. Also: Yeah, the WW movie kicks all kinds of ass. -Garm)

Well, that's just unfortunate

Talk about taking the wind out of your sails. Here I am, all geared up to read an exciting story about girls engaged in a pillow-fighting tournament, when I see something in the "related stories" section that just ruins the whole experience for me.* In case The Sun realizes what their automatic story fetcher has juxtaposed, here's a screenshot:

(click to embiggen)

*(After typing that I realized, again, that yes, I'm a selfish, selfish person.)

Taken: a thinking man's action flick

New to the screen is the Liam Nelson fueled Taken, which pits a retired "preventer" (read: bad mother) against ethnic mobsters who have stolen his daughter to sell into prostitution.

Sort of Daddy Knows Best meets Man on Fire, Taken starts out slow and picks up pace. Brian Mills retired to connect with his Californian daughter, who he barely gets to see at her birthday before the shrewish ex-wife starts busting his chops. Husband number two is a rich Nancy-boy that trots out the pony birthday gift making Mills' carefully chosen and wrapped gift a quickly forgotten trinket. All this middle-aged divorcee's issues nicely setups up Mills' character, skills, and emotional state. He will do anything for his daughter, even take a security job for a pop star just to ask her how his little princess can break into the singing business. Even letting himself be manipulated into agreeing to her trip to Paris.

So, said princess is taken by Albanian mobsters while on the phone with the father. He springs into intelligent action collecting evidence, reaching out to contacts, doing his homework. This is a prudent older gentleman, who doesn't even yell that much--and he barely repeats himself. Some leads don't work out, but quickly his efforts lead him to the grittiest levels a PG-13 rating should allow.

The skill craft is good. He's not superhuman, he's not a daredevil, his combat is subtle and realistic by movie standards. Car chases are practical if not a little fanciful, and the big stunt is what appears to be a live stuntman falling what must be the absolute distance limit. Sometimes he's lucky, sometimes he's quick, but Mills' eyes are always one step ahead of the viewer--watching who gives the order, noting who's got the key, measuring the distance to the next bridge.

Mills' says, "no," at first, to a 17 year old going to Paris without adults because he's not an idiot. But also, he's not the cool dad; in a word, he's kind of conservative.

And the negative characters in this film are kind of a conservative hit-list: the poor parent/mean ex-wife, the bitchy pop star, the pampered slutty influence on the daughter, the corrupt bureaucrat that enables crimes, the illegal immigrant gang, the French, and the evil, decadent Arab sheik. And oddly, it is the daughter's own values that seem to give her the few breaks she gets.

Taken doesn't have that "hero moment", it has cold blood and a warm heart. Not flashy, not abig popcorn movie, but way more refined than you'll get in most genre flicks.