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Review: Aquaman

Monday, December 31st, 2018

I went and saw Aquaman yesterday, at an impressively early 9:30 am screening. I momentarily baulked at the ticket price…

But then remembered that the film was going to be awesome and couldn’t throw my cash at the attendant fast enough!

The cinema was crazy big. I dutifully sat in my assigned seat (N-16) and when the projector started I was the only person in there! But then I noticed the first half hour or so were just adverts (including many social engineering PSA’s: exercise more, don’t stay in the sun, start a savings account, etc.) and sure enough the locals knowledgeable about such things shuffled in just before the main show.

Aquaman is about a fish-powered dude that fights a lot and seems to wish he was actually a professional wrestler. I’m not going to spoil the overall plot here but I’ll say it starts off strong and within minutes I was intrigued:

Aquaman’s powers are a cross between Superman and Yoda and are frankly absurd (why is he bulletproof?!?) but you won’t question them because after the crazy start the film quickly evolves into madness and then ascends into bonkers territory.

This was my face during the political scene between the aryan riding the zeuglodon and the Viking riding the dragon:

And then when they introduced a pretty redhead fish girl and the film briefly stopped being about fish and became Indiana Jones meets Jurassic Park I was slackjawed.

This was my face when the murlocs (from World of Warcraft) turned up:

But it wasn’t even close to done! When a futuristic city sequence that makes Blade Runner look like the scribblings of a child was followed by a space battle that featured not one, not 1000, not 1000000, but every fish I was just roaring at the screen with joy:

There’s much to love about the film. Its visuals and design are astonishing, its script unfettered by tradition, its actors unconstrained by expectation and it’s easily got the best depiction of cetacean armies fighting a billion crabs that have ever been printed to celluloid.

It makes you feel every emotion, from love to hate to glee and yes, to terror. It’s unfettered fun, and easily gets my highest recommendation. Best fish war film ever by a mile.

Immediately afterwards I languidly strolled over to the Game Center and found a coin-pusher machine:

I was so full of DC comics appreciation I had to win a card, and quickly targeted this Batman that was right at the edge:

As you can see it was about to drop! So close in fact that a shift of only one atom would have caused it to fall…

…

…it only cost me $25 to ‘win’ it 🙂

Posted in Animals, Art, Books & Comics, Miscellaneous, Movies, Science, The Unknown | Comments Closed

2018 in Photos

Thursday, December 20th, 2018

Distilling a year into ten photos is never easy, but this year was particularly tough. Furthermore whilst this post tends to prioritize vacation shots, that’s only because I’ve sorted them way better than the normal day-to-day photos, so there’s probably a few gems that should have been here that aren’t.

The year began, as it usually does, in Oz:

Bernard and I went on a lengthy road trip from the Southern Ocean all the way up to Newcastle and had a blast on the way. We even ran into notorious Australian terrorist Ned Kelly at one point:

In March KLS and I went to the city for the first of three trips this year. It was cold but fun, and we lived like the urbanites we are for a few days:

Our first international vacation was to Scotland, otherwise known as the prettiest country on Earth. This was one of those dream vacations we’ll never forget, and in our little car we saw the length and breadth of the highlands and hebrides islands and enjoyed one amazing day after another, like the puffins on Staffa:

Or the standing stones on Orkney:

Or even just eating fish’n’chips at the northernmost town in Great Britain:

During the summer Bernard and Lakshmi visited! Here we are deep in a dungeon:

We went on another vacation too. After a brief stop in Portland for Florence’s wedding (insert heart emoji here) we jetted off to Hawaii for fun in the sun… and a hurricane!

The first four days were beautiful and warm and sunny and we spent a lot of time at or on the beaches. But then this happened:

And next thing you know the beaches emptied and people wrote SOS in the sand:

As you know we were lucky and the storm dissolved before reaching us. But that was certainly an interesting and memorable experience, and one I don’t want to soon repeat!

I’ll end with a shot of my lovely friend Yossie, which just shows you don’t have to go to exotic places to take photos you’ll treasure forever:

So thats the year in a nutshell. A good one; a memorable one. I hope you enjoyed the blog in 2018.

What’s next? Well in a week I’ll be in Oz once again, and mid January I’ll be flying from Sydney to Tokyo where I’ll meet Bernard for a week of otaku madness. I think it’s safe to say there’ll certainly be some photos worth seeing here in the next few weeks…

Posted in Animals, Art, Australia, Blog, Cats, Family, History, Miscellaneous, Trip | Comments Closed

Zebra Riding?

Tuesday, May 1st, 2018

Many years ago when we went to Hawaii we were driving to the volcanoes on the big island and drove right past a paddock with a Zebra grazing in it. It seemed to be kept just like a horse, and it had some sort of equipment (a bridle?) on it. We were quite fascinated, didn’t take a photo (this was pre-smartphone), and had planned to stop and take a better look on the way home. However on the way back… it was gone.

Was it a pet? Did someone ride it? Apparently that’s unlikely… but not impossible.

That’s a photo of German soldiers riding Zebra over 100 years ago in Africa. In some german colonies in Africa horses were a luxury, and soldiers would sometimes ride Zebra instead. Apparently this wasn’t common (and some of the several photos may have been posed) but there are records of the beasts being trained and used as mounts. Here’s another photo from that era:

Zebras are not ideal mounts for several reasons:
– They are smaller and have weak backbones compared to horses
– They are very aggressive, even to the point of attacking humans
– They are very difficult to train
Basically, zebra aren’t domesticated, and training and riding them is a novelty. It’s difficult and expensive and often futile. But that hasn’t stopped people over the years, and there’s a wealth of curious images online if you search around.

Such as these:

That’s Baron Walter Rothschild, who famously trained Zebra to draw carriages. In the 1920s he even used them to drive him to Buckingham Palace to show them off! (He also had a galapagos tortoise mount, but thats another blog post…)

That’s another zebra carriage, this time in India in 1930. It’s a beautiful photo, but could that tiny fake horse have been happy drawing a gang of Thuggee cultists around at the end of a whip?!?

Another photo from early-20th century British colonial Africa, in which a stereotypical explorer dazzles the public back in England with photographs of his derring-do as his zebra mount jumps a stick held 10 cm from the ground. These photos seem to counter the claim zebra are unrideable, but those that have researched the topic say that methods of training in those days were brutal and cruel and cared more about the (typically wealthy) owner showing off the beast than it being an effective work animal.

That’s not to say the practise has faded away…

That was taken only 5 years ago in Texas, and you can find many similar photos online of people in America and around the world that take the time and patience to train zebra for either riding or dressage. It’s neither easy nor as effective as training horses (apparently their aggressive streak is hard to train away…) but if you’re the sort that likes to show off…

So back in 2007, that zebra we saw may have indeed been for riding! Maybe when we drove back and it was gone it was because the owner had saddled up and gone for a trot! And since zebra are very long-lived (up to 40 years!) there could be a zebra-rider trotting around Hawaii even today!

When I return to Hawaii I’ll keep my eyes peeled…

Posted in Animals, History | 1 Comment »

Ten Things I Saw At The Fair

Friday, August 18th, 2017

I went to the local fair today, and this post is a sample of what I saw. Since I do these every year I’m guessing it’ll seem familiar, but I always enjoy going… even in the middle of a biblical rainstorm 🙂

As usual the circus was there. They had all sorts of animals on show including these guys, camels ($10 per ride!), kangaroos and even apparently tigers (who were locked in their coach). The pretty carny-girl was cutting carrots in silence and bagging them for sale ($2) as a gaggle of goats looked on eagerly.

I couldn’t work out the theme of the scarecrow exhibit this year, but this was the winner. Is he holding cotton candy? I took this photo shortly after I arrived and the rain had started to fall.

I liked this horned sheep. He actually comes from Delmar, so he may live nearby. The sheep-shearing show (which I enjoyed last year) was canceled due to the weather, and the barns for livestock were full of miserable damp people and happy dry animals!

This satanic decoration – about 2m in diameter – was in the circus museum. It’s nose flashed like an evil angler fish, trawling for the souls of children. There were several like this, each as nightmarish as the others.

The art contest never disappoints but I wouldn’t have expected that string-and-nail art would win the 13-17 age bracket! Maybe I should try to make something like this?

The photography section includes a category of photos taken at the fair. Next year I should enter one of these…

This is a screech owl. He’d been shot and left to die, but was rescued and now has a pin in his wing. He was a short stubby beast that looks like he’s been through the wars but that’s only because he’s molting. He loved posing for the camera, leaning toward the lens every time 🙂

As you know I love the rides. Because it was overcast all the lights were on, which was great, but because of the rain (and the fact almost no one was there) very few were running. This photo was taken shortly after I arrived, but when I returned to the midway a couple of hours later most of the rides had closed since the rain had become too heavy.

This was probably my favourite thing of the show: two baby porkers in a pen with a fantastic Charlottes Web themed piece of art on the wall behind them. I had to contort myself to get the above photo, and am pleased how it worked out. The piglets were hyperactive; it was a momentary miracle that one flopped down and feigned resting long enough for the photo 🙂

I missed the start of the circus, and only saw a weird silent clown and the trapeze artist. By this point the intensity of the rain was incredible, and the sound of it falling onto the big top roof almost drowned out the audio. It also meant they couldn’t do the animal shows at all, so the whole performance was quite short. By the time it ended the puddles at the entrance were so large and deep they were unjumpable. My entire shoe was underwater as I walked through, and I gave up caring 🙂

Everywhere was wet. It had become impossible to avoid puddles, and even my umbrella was useless (the rain cane through and ran down the handle). Most of the vendors and food stands had closed up, and I sloshed my way to the rides for another gander but turned back when it was clear they had closed as well.

I’d been here in rain before, but not like this!

It was obviously time to leave, and on the way out I saw some truly miserable people with no umbrellas or rain gear and sogged to the core. I waded through a temporary river toward the carpark chuckling to myself; I’d seen more rain these two hours at the fair than in the entire two weeks we were in Ireland!

But I like rain, and I like the fair, and as always had a pretty good time 🙂

Posted in Animals, Art, Blog, Miscellaneous | 2 Comments »

The Tsuchinoko

Wednesday, June 21st, 2017

It’s time for another cryptid post, or in today’s case a ‘UMA’, since that’s what cryptids are called in Japan (it stands for Unidentifed Mystery Animal).

Ladies and gentleman, the Tsuchinoko!

First reported in the 7th century, the tsuchinoko is a snake-like creature about 60 cm in length. Rarely sighted, this creature is said to be native to mainland Japan (Honshu) and is either just an animal or a supernatural creature depending on who you ask.

Tsuchinoko are said to be able to jump, can apparently move very quickly and may even have a poisonous bite. The more unusual attributes of the creature include rolling along with its tail in its mouth, teleportation (in a literal flash of light) and even intelligence! Some say the creature can speak and is very deceptive, often telling lies to obtain its favourite drink: alcohol.

There seems to have been a surge in interest and sightings of these beasts in the last decade or so, elevating it from myth into a full-blown cryptid. Some notable sightings in western Japan lead to well-publicized (but fruitless) searches and in one case even a skeleton (that was a simple snake). In 2008 one district in Japan – possibly as a tourism stunt – offered a $1 million reward for anyone who found one!

As with the flatwoods monster (which I blogged about a few years back), tsuchinoko are quite popular in video games, either appearing by name or as an influence in games including Castlevania, Metal Gear Solid, Pokémon and numerous RPGs.

So what is this thing? Do they really exist? What could have inspired it?

Take a look at this photo of a skink, which I present in its original form and with the legs edited out:

Looks a bit like our tsuchinoko doesn’t it? It seems likely therefore that the origin of the beast first drawn and described in the Kojiki in the 7th century was just… a skink!

That said, this hardly explains what an old woman in Okayama saw in 2000. The tsuchinoko, she said, had a human-like face and paralyzed her with its sight!

Maybe there’s two creatures here: the skink relative and an evil demon snake. What do you think?

Posted in Animals, Miscellaneous, Nature, The Unknown | Comments Closed