What's so special about a dog? Marley & Me has the answer. Of course, all dogs in movies are special, and your dog is also special. Dogs in general are special except Cujo and that mutt of yours that shat and pissed everywhere in your house while tearing things up. Of course, that can also describe the adorable Marley.
It's a movie of how a dog touched the lives of its owners as they grew from a couple to a family. You know how that works: meet cute, go over the good times, show the trouble with the dog, go over the bad times, the kids show up and overtake the dog, they grow up, they grow older, the dog grows older, the dog will die. Then the lights come up and the little girls behind you are sobbing their eyes out.
Was watching Nova last night on PBS. It's been a long time watching anything on PBS. It was about the last Mars missions. It's pretty cool to explore another planet. They said the next mission will be the Mars Science Lab. That'll be cool to hear about that in the years to come.
There's a lot of fancy CG effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons. There's the site of a Brad Pitt growing younger as he ages. There's a riveting attack on a German U-boat. There's a wonderful, old-timey gag on lightning strikes. And there is Cate Blanchett -- young and old.
There was the CG effects, and it dominated every scene of the movie to a point that I had to think about what wasn't real and was. Then I thought about how they pulled that off. Did they put Brad Pitt's head on a kid? A midget? Or was he completely built up as a CG model like Neo in the later Matrix films. The most intriguing CG was the your Cate Blanchett. How did they graft her face on that body so seamlessly? Or did they digitally stretch and shape her to look young and svelte?
The effects really got in the way of the story. It was a short story from F. Scott Fitzgerald, but was mainly written and adapted by the guy who did Forest Gump. It shows. Benjamin Button seemed to go from one thing to the next just as Forest did. So the story was rather meager. It was filled with love, but was so boring.
And it was long. The problem was that Brad Pitt is in his 40s and when he reached the look of his natural age, the movie was already two hours old. We followed that dude to the grave and it felt like it.
It also had an unfortunate framing device of the old Cate in the hospital dying and her daughter (Julia Ormand!!!!) reading Benjamin's diary in New Orleans as hurricane Katrina bears down on them. You get too worried about the present to enjoy the past. I'm hoping Julia Ormand made it out of New Orleans to safety.
Just not that good and intriguing. A disappointment from Fincher (!) whose last film was very, very good.
The year is almost up. Pretty soon the ball will drop from Times Square and the New Year will be here! To celebrate the passage of this year, let's all have some fun and take a look at the Aztec calendar.
"Quit? You know, once I was thinking about quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer, all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and I won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I'm sure you have a good reason to quit. So what are you dying from that's keeping you from the finals?"
Lance Armstrong (Lance Armstrong), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
It's a good time to be a skater in SoCal. If you know anything about skateboarding history, you know that pool skating became huge because of the emptying of pools in the 70s. Now we have more houses being abandoned because of the housing market turmoil, and once again we are having an emptying of pools. I wonder if people are flying planes to find the hidden gems.
All throughout The Day the Earth Stood Still you just know that Keanu Reeves is an emotionless alien and not just for the character he plays, but for his acting.
If there was one movie not worth remaking, it was the original, The Day the Earth Stood Still. It's not that the original was a great movie not to be tinkered with, but that it's message of peace, love and kindness among men can be told in hundreds of ways that something original can be created without rehashing the old. The original is a classic sci-fi film, and it has wonderful sci-fi elements. To update to now means to mash up sci-fi with the CG thriller action idioms that dominate Hollywood movies today. To update to now means to take those precious rhythms of the original story and flatten them to a monotone of contemporary dreariness. To update to now means to make a very forgettable film. The original was not.
In the original, the viewer was active in confronting the need for change. In the latest, the viewer is replaced by the plaintive wail of a character expressing that things can change. In the former, it is left to each one to devise whether change can happen. In the latter, the need for change is just another story moment. It is groveling which hurt the latest. That character seems to whine too much. In the original, we must change because we are confronted with the need to; we the viewer are asked to act. The latest makes us passive, and it makes us fools. No more whining about it.
Went to DC to get some lunch at an all you can eat Filipino buffet. Picked up CapitolSwell at his house which is just down Connecticut Ave. Driving down the street and everyone was Sunday driving. What's wrong with people! I pass them, but realize that it's because of all the traffic cameras there to ensnare hapless motorists. Damn. I just hope that they were under repair as there was a maintenance vehicle with one of the boxes open while we cruised through at around 40 mph.
In these tough economic times, one has to scrimp and save one's money to make ends meet. If only money grew on trees.
Well just use today's link to print your own money. Monopoly money of course, but it's always fun to print out thousands of dollars on your printer. You can even use it to make your own game.
I always compile this list before the end of the year. While looking over my posts of the movies I saw in the theatre, I was surprised that I had a lot of 2 stars even from the ones that were "good." (I'm looking at you Dark Knight.) I'm also surprised that I saw very few movies. A rough estimate is about 60 this year whereas last year was probably around . I still a few reviews to post, but those films are just average or below. So here's my list of 4+ star films.
The poster for Four Christmases features the stars, Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, bound up in ribbon. You wish that you were bound up yourself to help avoid seeing this movie.
It's about a couple, living in sin, not married, because they can do what Sally said, "Make love on the kitchen floor," whenever they want. What they want is to avoid their relatives for Christmas by jetting out to Fiji. Unfortunately, not all goes according to plan. They end up having to go to all their parents' house to visit for the day.
The parents are each divorced, which means that the couple doesn't want to get married because they'll just end up as their parents. Of course, with Christmas they get a warm welcome and realize perhaps being just a couple isn't so worth it. The movie re-establishes traditional family values of marriage and kids as the end all be all of a loving relationship. Who cares? You knew that was coming. The stories were never funny enough. There was plenty of star power. In fact I was pleasantly surprised to see the boy named Sue show up as a reunion for the Swingers dudes.
Eh! I just didn't find this funny or worth it at all.
Okay. Here's one of the things I got for Christmas. It's the IJN Haruna from Hasegawa in 1/700 scale. It's a full hull model which I don't have any experience at doing. The last full hull model I attempted was my brother's Bismark and that burned down in flames.
She's a very interesting ship. She's sister to the Kongo, whose name lives on in the JMSDF Kongo DDG-173, a modern day Aegis guided missile destroyer. This is another class of ships I want to build.
If we were living in one of the Commonwealth nations that owe their existence to the UK, then today would be our Boxing Day. Instead we live in the US and today is returns day. Or finding a better gift day. Or getting ourselves the gift we wanted day.
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
Choices made by business leaders yesterday affects what is happening today. These leaders only see the present and the near future, but don't imagine anything long term. They do craft business plans for that but honestly does it make sense that ten, fifteen, twenty years these plans all go exceedingly well? Probably not, so they innovate to make things work out. Yet, that innovation is only helpful for the present, and like a butterfly flapping its wings in China, you can never predict the repercussions of innovation will spread.
The pension plan was meant to ensure that the workers of a company was guaranteed a level of income well he retired. Health plans were also provided by the business leaders. These benefits to the worker were meant to stave of some form of social care and socialism by the government. It forced the business to be the ones granting workers benefits. The business leaders smiled because it weakened the worker's leverage. They are now dependent on the benevolence of the business leader who can hire or fire your and provide the benefits.
Yet, these obligations are too generous, and the business leader doesn't want to spend money on them. It makes them unprofitable.
Years ago, the Democratic president wanted to provide universal health care to the US. It was business leaders who didn't want to push for it. "We will end up losing money to ne'er do wells who don't work for us," they reasoned. Now they are coming to the government because they can't afford paying obligations that could've been ameliorated by universal health care. Couldn't these business leaders foresee that the obligations would've been spread around to every business and that their costs would've come down? Could they not see that having the burden of paying health care costs is making them uncompetitive with foreign companies who have their workers subsidized by government providing benefits? Are these business leaders smart?
I hear the distant thunder-hum, Maryland! The Old Line bugle, fife, and drum, Maryland! She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-huzza! She spurns the Northern scum! She breathes! She burns! She'll come! She'll come! Maryland! My Maryland!
The Mason-Dixon line divides the North from the South. Today, the winter solstice divides the tilt of the earth. We are gonna get a lot more sun starting -- NOW!
Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. She'll bring you cheer. Or darn, why can't Santa bring me something like this for Christmas? I guess I have to do these things on my own.
"But somewhere out there, something is watching us. There are alien forces acting in ways we can't perceive. Are we alone in the universe? Impossible. When you consider the wonders that exist all around us...
[long and rambling]
...voodoo priests of Haiti, the Tibetan numerologists of Appalachia, the unsolved mysteries of 'Unsolved Mysteries.' The truth is out there."
Special Agent Fox Mulder, The Simpsons, "The Springfield Files"
I like winter more than I like spring. I love autumn most, but that's for another post. Check the archives.
When the days get shorter and the nights get longer, it feels natural. The quality of the light also is comforting. When the days get longer and the nights shorter, it is discomforting, and the quality of light is artificial.
From here on out, it will be an unnerving day to day existence until the awesomeness of summer.
The ever shrill, Paul Krugman, takes the financial service industry to task eviscerating those jokers with a beautiful op-ed in the NY Times. This is awesome and sums up my feelings about the fraud perpetrated on the world that the market is run by smart people. They are only smart in that they make us all dumb for believing them. What a bunch of immoral, greedy bastards. The devil works there.
I don't know if I had already wrote about this experience, but it's amusing enough to generate two posts about, if I did.
Awhile back, I was getting out of Itsuki-chan in the parking lot of HomeDepot. A middle aged lady was driving by and she was rolling down her window.
"Where do you plug that in?"
"Excuse, me?"
"Where do you plug that in electric car in?"
"Oh. Sorry. It's just a normal car." A regular combustible gas engine, but fun all the same. She had mistaken my car as one of those fancy electric cars. Perhaps she's never seen a Mini Cooper. They are rather rare in the area, and they do not look like other cars.
In the US, mini's have plain old gas-guzzling engines, not that they are gas-guzzling, but they run on plain old unleaded. In other countries, there's a diesel version. Now, they're constructing an electric mini which is interesting. Perhaps if there's enough interest, you can buy one of these in the near future.
The penguin movie, not Happy Feet, the other one. Not the surfing one, but the documentary starring Morgan Freeman. Yeah, that one. It's got the classic Bugs Bunny Merry Melody where he takes chilli willie home except he's from the circus. Yeah. You remember. Funny, right? Ha ha. Penguins, they're the rulers of the world. When aliens come, they'll all fly away. Urr. Sorry, that's dolphins. Penguins will something, something, something. They'll claw your eyes out. Penguins.
To watch Wall St. come crashing down is very fascinating. It makes you angry and sick thinking about it all. The more you think about it, the more "the market" seems to be a big scam. It's greed I tell you. There is no higher goal within "the market." It's just to make money for myself, and if you so happen to make money with me, then good for you, but I can't care if you do or not.
While I understand that "the market" gives us jobs and makes the world churn, I hate it for how indescriminate it is. There is no hard work there. It's plain luck and who-you-know that'll make you money. You bring to "the market" your sense of morals and it will reward you with what it sees fit. It's too bad that those who choose the life of working "the market" are unscrupulous bastards.
Lots of memories about going to the library when I was younger. Picked up my reading habits there: books on ghosts and haunted houses, lots of serial comic strips -- Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, Marmaduke, and choose your adventure stories.
Those choose your adventure stories were the dumbest because I only got four pages before dying. And I would always die by some cave in or falling off a cliff or perhaps being killed by the basilisk. Yes, it was that stupid.
Today's link is for you to craft your own adventure. Choose your choice or make a new selection. Just go have fun.
I'm sitting at home waiting for the right time to head on over to the post office to pick up a package. I wish they would open at 8 am rather than a half hour later. I have to stay at work later than I would want to just because of the opening time.
In this day and age, the US postal service is a throwback to earlier times when letters were all important. Now, it's just email, text, or IM. When will it be e-packages, text-packages, or IM-packages? Send my figures to my 3D printer so that I don't have to wait so long.
Anywhoo, with the holiday coming up (9 days of shopping left), you better mail out those packages if you need them to get to their destination before Christmas morn.
If you talk about overpriced, highly stylized personal electronic equipment, the companies that jump to the fore are Apple and Sony. They are the two companies that take pride in making consumer electronics that you want to touch and own, to display and fondle, and to have. They make things sexy. Except Apple beats the pants off of Sony when it comes to the unsexy part of the equipment.
Look at the design choices that Apple has made into their plugs and chargers. They still reek of elegance. Look at the design choices that Sony made for their plug and charger. Rather, look at the lack of a design choice. That PSP may look cool, but I just want to plug that thing in a hole in the ground so that I don't have to look at that ugly.
When will we finally get other consumer electronics makers thinking about the whole experience of owning the junk we buy. Thank kami-sama for Apple. They force others into thinking about design. Let's just hope the others decide to think all of it through.
Hey. Check this link out and see how many of imdb.com's 250 best films you have seen. I think the first link is to my score to which you can compare yourself to. I think the seed will take this one. And the second link is a static link to reference my score again. If you're feeling bold, post the static link to your score in comments, and we'll all have a laugh.
"The worst thing that ever happened to me was on Christmas. Oh, God. It was so horrible. It was Christmas Eve.
I was 9 years old. Me and Mom were decorating the tree, waiting for Dad to come home from work. A couple hours went by. Dad wasn't home. So Mom called the office. No answer. Christmas Day came and went, and still nothing. So the police began a search.
Four or five days went by. Neither one of us could eat or sleep. Everything was falling apart. It was snowing outside. The house was freezing, so I went to try to light up the fire.
That's when I noticed the smell. The firemen came and broke through the chimney top. And me and Mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird. And instead they pulled out my father. He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney... his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck. He died instantly.
And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus."
It always ends with a kiss, but do they always continue as a couple? Probably not as the fun was getting to the kiss. It's all down hill from there, and it will end real badly. When will someone write the romantic comedy of the breakup?
Remember the Night stars Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. It was released in 1940 a few years before the two stars made memorable cinematic pleasures with Double Indemnity. The movie was also written by Preston Sturges. If you will recall, Sturges directed and wrote The Lady Eve, one of the greatest screwball comedies, for Ms. Stanwyck. What is there not to like about watching this flick?
I haven't seen it though. It's one of the few Stanwyck films that I haven't seen. You know, I think there may be a DVD version out there. I should track it down. But for today it's being shown on TCM at 6:00 PM. I've set my DVR. I can't wait.
My daily commute has bail out route that is light ridden, but not heavy in traffic. You just have to know when to make the change. I chose poorly today. It looked normal, but as little as a hundred yards did it slow to a crawl. At least you can see the cause.
"I'm interested in upgrading my 28.8 kilobaud Internet connection to a 1.5 megabit fiber optic T1 line. Will you be able to provide an IP router that's compatible with my Token Ring Ethernet LAN configuration?"
Here's a first -- a link of the day that doesn't take you anywhere. Of course, if you had a problem with any previous links of the day, then you may have thought that those took you no where, and you have already seen a BrowserMetrics link of the day that doesn't take you anywhere, special. But I promise this link doesn't take you anywhere of note, because it ends up at some domain name seller who is parking this domain name waiting for someone, maybe me, stupid enough to buy this domain. Get me Homer Simpson.
I am a Slumdog Millionaire only because I know the answers to the questions you ask. I don't know everything. I know enough from my experiences, and not enough from my lack of experience. I am street smart if not book smart. I am lucky that things that happened to me are things that are easily to remember: the worst outhouse in Mumbai, the religious riots, Fagin, the three mouseketeers, etc., etc. I use this too my advantage. If there was a wall with pictures on it, I would've used that too. I am smart that way. I am a slumdog millionaire, and I know that my answers are correct because I am loved.
I don't believe in capitalism as preached by this country. I think the markets are run by greedy people who only believe in the here-and-now and not the long term future viability. And we follow them, because we think they are smart. In reality, they are dumb and we are fools for following them.
Perhaps in the future, we will be less susceptible to the cons of the financial industry.
I link to the New York Times more than any other site in my daily links. I wonder if it's because I am lazy or if I find there stories and articles good. Most likely, it's because it is one of the first stops in the morning to read, and if you don't have the daily link already pre-loaded a post, then you'll post almost anything looking for something interesting. I haven't pre-loaded posts in a week, so I'm scrambling to find you, my dear readers, something interesting to read.
It's been cold this past weekend, and only is it supposed to warm up again. So, with the cold and with some snow, we turn our ideas to winter sports namely snowboarding. I haven't been in the last two seasons. Two winters ago was the warmest that it has ever been; I think I rode my bike one warm January day. I wasn't even thinking about snowboarding that winter. Last year, it was more of the same except that the final weeks in January and February were cold enough, but I was too lazy to want to go ride.
Maybe, if we had a late season like they do at Riksgransen I would've ridden more. Not until the end did I want to carve some s-turns over freshly groomed slopes.
Soon, perhaps today, I will write my review of Slumdog Millionaire. It's the feel good hit of the season.
Today's link is to Billy Mernit, a romantic comedy screenwriter and studio reader. Mernit gives good tips on writing screen plays and for selling screen plays. I've been reading his blog for a while now, because I like knowing about the romantic comedy genre. I don't know why. Must be because I am a fool for love. Also, it explains why I like those high school romance comedy manga.
The Japanese navy at the start of the war with the United States had the best naval aviation fighters in the world. Still, with her production and capacity, America took over those superlatives and beat the IJNA in less than five years.
I just bought a PSP to play my Macross Ace Frontier. Shopping for gifts, I think I'm actually on my own gift list.
Starting it up I had to configure it for the first time. I need to set the date. I need to set the time and time zone. I need to choose a user name. All this is done using the controls of the device. When it came time to enter a name, I was trying to type on the screen! WTF! There's no touchscreen on this thing! For the price, that sucks.
Anywhoo, it's one of the worst experiences trying to use the built in web browser with only a control pad. URL entry is torture. I suggest you give the prisoners in Gutanamo free internet access, but the PSP as their input method. They will confess to killing JFK just for want of a normal user experience.
Thank the kami-sama for iPhone for soon every handheld device will adopt the touch screen.
Picking up a meme from CapitolSwell I had to go deep into the recesses of my mind to remember both the first and the last. The first, because it was so long ago. The last, because I don't remember buying CDs anymore.
First: The Beastie Boys, License to Ill Last: Thievery Corporation, Radio Retaliation
Bah humbug, because I'm tired of quoting it chapter and verse. Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol. Here's a the link to project gutenberg's version. It'll help you get it on your iPhone to read.
"Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even including—which is a bold word—the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven years’ dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change—not a knocker, but Marley’s face."
I haven't started shopping for the holiday season. It seems we've made a pack to only by the kids a present, and also to buy siblings, but none for anyone else. That's like a really sad Christmas. This economy is making us all into Scrooges. I have to strike some people from my list. Maybe you?
I'm probably gonna use the new Amazon iPhone app to do my Christmas shopping. Or maybe not as I hope to get all I need before the end of next week.
"Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail."
They should've helped pass health care reform in the early nineties, but now, it's too late. The titans of industry are bunch of narrow vision people. How are these guys worth millions?
My cousin, Bob, has gone car free. He's riding a bike. That's the way to commute. Who needs the hassle of owning a car? Who wants to save money? Be more healthy? Fossile fuels are for sucks.
Someone in Hawaii is pushing for electric cars. That's an even crazier idea. He should be pushing for more bikes. I can't imagine a more perfect place for a cycle culture. Sunny and warm every day. The islands are pretty small: you can take a bus around Oahu, so the distances are not very far. You can always hop off and go for a swim if you're sweating too much. A more casual attitude. Frick. That's pretty awesome now that I come to think about it.
Hmm. This link of the day post went off on a tangent. I guess it happens when you're scrambling for posts in the morning over coffee.
Australia is as big as the continent and takes as long to get to the end as it does to get from Darwin to Sydney. Now I don't really know if that's true, but it sounds like something you would say to make your opening statement sound masterful. I don't know about the geographical relationship between the two cities, and I don't know if it would take just three hours to travel between them. Go google-map it and find out. I just needed a hooky opening line for this review.
Australia's hook is that Nicole Kidman, a bonafide aussie, plays an English lady who arrives Down Under to pursue her dead husbands dream of being a cattle baron. Just like other Westerns of the American Old West. I can think that Kidman tries to tame the wild Outback, but it is the Outback that she breaks her and she embraces it as she embraces the young heart of the aborigine kid. Kidman starts as the classic duck out of water. I think she would eventually become like Barbara Stanwyck in Forty Guns, "a high riding woman with a whip," but only in my dreams.
Then there is the sexiest man alive for 200x, Hugh Jackman. Water caressing is sun baked body. Whew. Who wouldn't fall for that? He should've been dumping the bucket of water on himself for the entire movie. The girls would've loved that.
The movie is long, but moves. The cattle drive does wonders to make it work. Yet, the commercials and the trailer led me to believe that this was Pearl Harbor all over again. The attack on Darwin were pretty much over in minutes and appeared in the finale. I expected more.
Overall, it is a much better movie than I anticipated it to be. I don't think it would go on to be an Oscar contender, because it felt too much like a Lonesome Dove or other CBS sweeps week western.
Slipped me notes, under the desk While I was thinking about her dress I was shy, I turned away, before she caught my eye I was shakin' in my shoes whenever she flashed those baby blues Something had a hold on me when Angel passed close by Those soft fuzzy sweaters, too magical to touch To see her in that negligee is really just too much
I don't know about this site, but for any Star Wars geek, it's URL is one that provides sheer pleasure. I'm actually smiling. Or if I was a dead stormtrooper, then I would be frozen in rigor mortis, not smiling, but with a funky smirk on the face. Now where did I put that blaster of mine.
I was searching for pics about the great pyramids of Giza, but found this one from inside some other pyramid. Perhaps in Mexico. Who knows? What I did find on the search for the great pyramids of Giza where some guy building his roof with the help of friends. He also uploaded via flickr uploadr How do I know? Because of the wicked weird double caption it does -- fucking lame software bug.
Twilight is the movie version for the first book by Stephanie Myers in her teen-angst vampire series. It already has an intended audience built into it, one which I am not part of. I've seen most of the adaptations of book series: The Lord of the Rings (the gold standard), The Chronicles of Narnia (boring), Harry Potter (exciting). This is the first that I have not read any of the books upon which the series will be based. I am an outsider which colors my reaction to the movie.
I don't really care for vampire stories. They are not my usually scare-fest fare. I prefer haunted houses and ghosts stories to creep me out. The only vampire story I like is Stephen King's Salems Lot, because it had a haunted house, the old Marsden place, in it, and it was sufficiently creepy enough to keep me up till the break of dawn like many of the ghost stories I read at the time.
So vampires kind of bore me. They are too emo for my taste. The lead vampire in the film is too broody and conveys his angst with furrowed eyebrows. He reminded me of Brenden Fraser. Then there is the head vampire who reminded me of Tom Cruise's vampire Lestat. This was a brilliant casting decision. Although, less broody than the lead vampire, his angst was summed up in his choice of becoming "vegetarian." Why must I want human blood?
The movie probably satisfies the fans of the book. They get to see the characters in the flesh which they could only do in their imagination until now. I now understand how it is to be an outsider to these fan movies. I can't fathom what emotions the readers of the book are investing in the characters and story of this film, but I know that theirs are assigned with great heart. I can't really give a good review, because I don't really care about the story. As a movie though, it seems to be an opening chapter: incomplete and waiting for the next to arrive. I don't think I want to see the next one.
"Imagine me needing someone. Back on Earth I never did. Oh, there were women. Lots of women. Lots of love-making but no love. You see, that was the kind of world we'd made. So I left, because there was no one to hold me there."
George Taylor (Charlton Heston), The Planet of the Apes
