Monthly Archives: July 2023

July 29, 2023

Movies: Alien Visitors

Last Saturday, thanks to Amazon Prime, I screened a theme-related science fiction double-feature: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) and Arrival (2016). Both are fairly recent films about aliens visiting the Earth on mysterious missions.

The former, of course, is a remake of the 1951 same-named classic — a film good enough to have stood the test of time. Which, for science fiction films, is saying something. The remake suffers in comparison (and because it’s a remake) but considered on its own is an okay SF movie.

Arrival is generally a better film, but I do have a few issues with it.

15 Comments | tags: adaptations, Arrival (film), Denis Villeneuve, Keanu Reeves, remakes, science fiction, science fiction movies, SF Movies, The Day the Earth Stood Still | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday

July 28, 2023

Friday Notes (Jul 28, 2023)

By Wyrd Smythe

It has been almost four weeks since my last blog post. I decided to take something of a vacation to celebrate various anniversaries (the blog, 12 years; retirement, 10 years; buying this condo, 20 years). And to celebrate finally getting some long-standing tasks off my TODO list (such as finally making a will).

Being retired puts a new spin on vacations, though. Being retired is vacation: your hard-earned, well-deserved permanent vacation. How does one take a vacation from a vacation?

Regardless, today is the last chance for a July edition of Friday Notes, so vacation-vacation is over, and it’s back to just being on vacation.

8 Comments | tags: Batman, blogging, dreams, Fermi Paradox, Gotham City, idealism, realism | posted in Friday Notes

July 4, 2023

The Blogging Dozen

By Wyrd Smythe

It’s that time again, my blog anniversary. It’s been twelve years, more than 1300 posts (plus a few dozen pages), and almost two million words (1.7 and change). That’s a fair amount of water over the dam. That said, the river flows a bit slower these days.

This 12-year anniversary comes on the heels of the 10-year anniversary of being retired. While the perceived importance of tens is a very human conceit (you’d expect the Simpsons and Mickey Mouse to attach that same importance to eights), twelves have a nice mathematical importance — there are more ways to evenly divide it: 2, 3, 4, and 6 (compared to the 2 and 5 of tens or the 2 and 4 of eights).

(That nice divisibility is handy with our 12-hour clocks and 12-month years.)

9 Comments | tags: Anniversary, blog, blogger, blogging, July 4 | posted in Life, Writing