This post's fractal is called Opposites Flower. I picked it because I really like the shape, the stark black and white contrast and because today's blog entry has two parts. Hope you enjoy them both.
Should I review a movie or complain about the time change? I couldn’t decide which one to do for this blog entry. In the end I thought, why choose? I’ll do both!
First the time change . . .
I think I’m in the minority for actually liking the time change (at least the one where we “Spring Forward”). The sun was coming up way to early (even in March) and I thoroughly enjoy being able to remain asleep until the alarm rang--for a few days at least until my body adjusts and I start waking up ahead of the buzzer. I cheered when the Feds moved Daylight Savings Time from the last weekend of April to the first: I loved all that extra light in the evening (and actually took advantage of it to go walking and spend time outdoors).
You think I’d be happy that they moved DST to the middle of March but no--it just annoys me! Moving the change to the middle of the month seems unnatural somehow--not to mention it plays hell with some programmed devices (but more on that later). DST was begun to help farmers get more work done by giving them more light to work by later in the day (although I think that’s a “City Feller” notion: I’ve never known a farmer to schedule their work by the clock.) The last expansion of DST was done to increase spending (which, oddly enough, actually worked!) and reduce auto accidents (which statistics say worked as well--but don’t ask me to prove it--this is a blog not a news story.)
The Feds say they made this new change to save energy. I just don’t get that reasoning: sure households may use less energy in the afternoon and early evening but all those savings will be eaten up by the additional energy consumed in the morning. We already proved that way back in the 1970s when President Nixon mad DST a year-round thing. That proved to have no effect but they had enough sense to overturn that after eighteen months. Dunno if that’ll happen with this new Law (and, honestly, I’ll probably get used to it quickly enough).
But there’s one thing I will never, indeed can never deal with: a few years ago Robyn and I bought this bitchin’ alarm clock with all kinds of cool features: it has large numbers (easy to read without glasses) Weekday and Weekend alarms and it even gets the time from the Naval Observatory and automatically resets itself whenever the time changed.
At least it did before the new laws were enacted . . .
Our clock has a huge down-side we weren’t aware of when we bought it though: we can only set the Time Zone. For the next four weeks the thing is an hour slow. Come the end of October it’ll be an hour fast and I’ll have to remember to hand-adjust the alarms so we can get up on time. The alarm clock cost less then $25 so I suppose we could just toss it out and get another one but I hate to throw away something that is still in perfectly good shape. Ah well--that’s what I get for being thrifty. What cannot be cured must be written about in a blog . . .
Now on to the movie review!
Wild Hogs debuted with huge box office last week (March 2) and still made almost 30 Million dollars in the second week of release. The critics didn’t savage it nearly as badly as Ghost Rider but I didn’t see a truly “positive” review anywhere. Still, an on-line friend told me it was the funniest thing she’d seen in a long time and so we decided to go take a look for ourselves.
But before the review a word about the Cinnemark Theater at the Huntington Beach Bella Terra Mall. For the second week in a row we tried to buy tickets to a later show--only to be given tickets to a movie that had already started. True, both movies had almost twenty minutes of previews so we didn’t miss any of the actual movie but neither of us enjoy struggling to our seats in a darkened theater. It puts us in a bad mood for the rest of the show. That being said, back to the review!
Wild Hogs is the story of four upper-middle class suburban men who ride Harleys and pretend to me a motorcycle gang. The “boys” escape their problems at home by taking a road trip to California, running afoul of a real motorcycle gang and finding redemption while saving a small town in New Mexico. If it sounds like a recycled Three Amigos it is--and this movie wouldn’t know an original joke, character, or plot twist if said item came up behind to took a bite out of its butt.
Tim Allen plays Doug--a former bad-boy but now suburban dentist who now works too much, has high cholesterol and can’t relate to his wife or only son. His character is mostly recycled “Tim Taylor” (his character from Home Improvement)--right down to the grunting and monkey noises (although, Thank God, the fascination for power tools didn’t make an appearance. Martin Lawrence plays against type as Bobby--a failed writer who can’t control his family and is completely under his wife’s thumb. William H. Macy plays hapless computer-nerd Dudley: he can’t ride his bike, make his computer work right--and especially can’t score with the ladies. John Travolta plays Woody--a guy the others think has it all--but they don’t know his swimsuit-model wife is divorcing him, he’s lost his clients and is going to lose his house--and can’t even get the best of a ten year old kid.
Along the way they encounter Marissa Tomei--who plays Maggie, a small-town waitress who inexplicably finds an attraction for Dudley and Ray Liotta plays Johnny, the leader of the “real” bikers intent on making the Wild Hogs “pay” for their crimes. There are a few interesting sideline characters they meet along the way that are actually pretty funny--but I won’t spoil the best parts of the movie by giving any more away.
The plot is completely by-the-numbers: listen closely under the soundtrack of 70s and 80s arena rock and you can almost hear the clockworks clicking along. Most of the jokes are telegraphed and the performances are purely phoned in. Still, it’s a “fun” movie: grab some popcorn and park your brain at the door. It’s a nice-enough diversion for a hot afternoon or to rent at the video store once it finally comes out on DVD--which shouldn’t be too long.
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