Review: 28 Days Later

I saw Shaun of the Dead earlier this year and loved it. I’ve just recently watched 28 Days Later and it’s odd because Shaun, though a comedy, is a more “authentic” zombie experience, inasmuch as a zombie movie can be authentic, anyway. 28 Days Later is rather grim and I enjoyed it (I find Cillian Murphy a strangely mesmerizing presence) but the fast-moving infected in the film never struck me as frightening, more just crazed animals. You almost felt sorry for them — until they got their heads beaten in with baseball bats. This approach to the “enemy” took away from the overall mood of the film but then I realized that director Danny Boyle may have been creating, whether by intention or accident, an homage to The Day of the Triffids. Both stories start the same way — with a patient alone in a hospital after some catastrophic event has struck the world.

Each story then follows the protagonist as he bands with other survivors and ultimately comes into conflict with groups that have differing agendas, so in a way it’s not a zombie movie at all but more of a study in human behavior when people are forced into constant “do or die” situations and there is no longer any established authority to appeal to or seek shelter with.

The “bad boy” military also came off as a bit too convenient for the story and it was interesting to see in the deleted scenes a “radical alternate ending” that imagined the movie going off in a completely different direction with no military present at all (for the record, that ending would very likely have been worse).

It was refreshing to see they also went with a “happy” ending by having Cillian’s character of Jim survive. Several alternate endings were filmed where his character perishes after taking a bullet to the abdomen. Downer endings have become so de rigueur that a happy one almost seems to be bucking the system.

Recommended.

Acrophobia on an alternate world Davie Street

I’ve been remembering a lot of my dreams lately for whatever reason, enough so that I may actually do some research to retain them even more than I do now.

Last night I was in a typical alternate world dreamscape, this time at a huge outdoor theater improbably constructed near the intersection of Denman and Davie Street. The theater was open but did have a roof to provide shelter from the elements. The featured show was a bunch of old men singing in front of an artificial waterfall. Where this bit came from I have no idea. At the end of the performance — which actually felt more like a rehearsal, I moved out of my seat and headed down toward the stage. The seats were a weird kind of jumble that only makes sense in dreams and I found myself inadvertantly blocking the way. This woman standing opposite me seemed to offer a solution, for lo! We were both actually standing on a lift that she could operate.

She did so and we rose up and above the crowd. I was perhaps inclined to offer my thanks when she continued to raise the lift higher than necessary. I am not especially keen on high places so I noted this fact to her in the hope that she would stop. She did not. I then raised my voice to a level one might call “screaming”. My words to her were as such: “Lady, I’m afraid of heights! Let me down!” I continued this plaintive request at maximum volume but she gave no reaction, as if she was utterly deaf or cruelly indifferent.

I should further illustrate the scene by noting the platform that I was on was barely big enough to contain me and it lacked anything to hold onto save for a railing along the front which I flung my arms over, hoping to not plunge onto a singing old man some hundred feet below. When the lift finally reached its maximum height — and that height was impressive indeed — the woman’s hearing seemed to suddenly return to normal and she brought the lift back down.

I was not amused.

The dream broke apart at this point, the crisis ended. The loss of control is a typical theme in dreams. Perhaps I can conquer this one by standing on my tippy-toes at the edge of the Grand Canyon one day.

Cold Running

Today’s run was 35 minutes and I continued to improve my performance:

Total distance: 6.32 km
Average/km: 5:34
Best/km: 5:11

temp-dec8-09

It was also officially™ below freezing but I am finding these temperatures to not be a problem. I heat up quickly and the sweat keeps me warm, if stinky.

There were three other joggers out this afternoon. A woman was running in a very casual manner and was easily passed. A male jogger with a nice red cap was also passed — twice! I assume he was doing the walk/run thing. The third jogger actually passed me around the 30 minute mark. I knew better than to try to catch up but I did notice his speed leveled off once he was safely by me and I kept pace for the rest of the time he was on the trail.

A guy was flying a small radio-controlled helicopter at one of the baseball diamonds, adding another potential threat to the list that includes soccer balls, dogd and gravel-throwing fat kids. I imagine the list of people who can claim to have been struck by a helicopter while jogging is a fairly short one.

The smashed VCR or whatever it was had been cleared away but the microwave was still sitting beside the trail. Curiously, the brown paper bag that had been sitting inside it was gone.

I contemplated going for 40 minutes but I think I’ll wait till next week for that. There was an unpleasant diesel or tar-like smell hanging in the air for the last 10 minutes or so that made the final stretch a bit unpleasant.

Where microwaves go to die

There is always something new to see when I go jogging in China Creek Park.

Today it was litter.

At one corner of the path was some kind of electronics device that had been smashed so all that was left were bits of black plastic and other unidentifiable parts. It may have been a VCR. Why would someone bring a VCR to the park and smash it to bits? I don’t know. Maybe it was an homage to Office Space.

There was also a microwave abandoned along the southern stretch, its door left open and, curiously, inside was a plate holding a brown paper bag. I shall not speculate on its contents.

As expected, today’s run was the coldest yet, with the temperature hovering right around the freezing mark. To spice things up further, wind gusts up to 24km/h were blowing. The trail, especially in the shade, has now become near rock-hard, which means the uneven muddy parts are like trying to navigate mini-stalagmites.

When is the only time you are surrounded by girls and yet have to watch for balls? When they’re playing soccer. Fortunately, none of their kicking sent the ball my way. The spectators were shouting mostly to keep warm, I think. At one point I smelled an odor that was very much reminiscent of a pulp mill and there are no pulp mills anywhere around so the only thought was that it was coming from the port-o-potty at the NW corner of the trail but there was no way someone using it could make it smell that bad. After I ran by the smell diminished, so I was wrong. They may want to put a biohazard sign on the door. Yikes.

The run went well and I kept going for 35 minutes instead of the planned 30. As expected, my pace is still well off what it once was but we’ll see how the next few runs stack up.

Notable stats:

Average pace: 5.42/km
Overall distance: 6.2 km
Best km: 5:18/km

Cool running

3ºC again for today’s run but a bit of a breeze made it feel colder than that. By the time I got to the park I was looking forward to generating a little sweat to keep warm.

The run went well and I noted a small group of teens sitting on the playground equipment. The guys had their jackets off and were just wearing t-shirts. One had shorts. Several looked like they were ready to audition for the part of Jabba in Star Wars: The High School Musical, so I’m guessing they didn’t feel the cold quite the same way as me and my skinny ass.

They also had a very cute dog and the guys both found it so hilarious to pretend to throw the ball and watch the dog run out in the field and stand there confused that they did this repeatedly, including my final lap when one of the knuckleheads stepped right in front of me to throw it after another incredibly funny fake-out.

Still, I posted my best 30 minute run since returning and the right calf presented no issues. My distance for the last three 30 minute runs, with average speed/km (first to latest):

5.17 km, 5:50/km
5.25 km, 5:45/km
5.40 km, 5:35/km

I’m still well off my pre-injury pace but as long as I slowly improve I’m fine with that.

The first half of my run had me seriously considering a toque as my ears got a wee bit chilly but the second half they warmed up sufficiently. We’ll see what they say in my first sub-freezing run.

Time, flowing like a river

Today Eric Woolfson, the creative mind and frequent vocalist of The Alan Parsons Project, died from cancer at the age of 64.

One of the things that sucks about getting older is watching the pop icons of your youth grow old and die and 64 isn’t even old.

The first APP album I bought was Ammonia Avenue in 1984 (on vinyl, of course). I was late to the party but went back and grabbed all of their back catalog and purchased the final three albums they released after Ammonia Avenue as they came out. Woolfson wrote clean, straightforward lyrics that worked without being overly schmaltzy or cliche and his vocals had a strange elegance that I can’t fully describe with any justice.

The idea that he and Parsons might work together again — something I had hoped for — is now lost, of course, so we’ll never know what a new collaboration might have sounded like (much like Rick Wright’s death ended any chance of further work from Pink Floyd after their 2005 Live 8 reconciliation). Time to listen to Eye in the Sky again…

If you are what you read…

…then I’m a guy who jogs and likes to write.

Which would be pretty accurate.

I buy two magazines regularly: Runner’s World and Writer’s Digest. Maybe I just like magazines with apostrophes in the titles. I’ll admit having an incredibly hot guy on the cover of Runner’s World helped persuade me to take a look at the first issue I picked up but I’ve been buying it regularly since (the covers alternate male and female). It’s somewhat surprising how much can be written about an activity that consists entirely of just putting one foot ahead of the other and repeating.

Writer’s Digest is a magazine I’ve been buying on and off for many years but now that I’m writing more I can actually try employing some of their techniques and suggestions. Note: do not ever subscribe to their online newsletter. They spam your inbox like crazy trying to sell you seminars, books and probably Writer’s Digest widgets and toilet paper. I routinely archive without reading so I should probably unsubscribe at some point.

I will occasionally buy other writing or health magazines and the odd issue of Asimov’s of Fantasy & Science Fiction. What I don’t buy anymore are computer magazines (pretty much replaced by the web) and gaming magazines (also pretty much replaced by the web and most have died, besides). I lament several magazines I used to buy that went defunct a long time ago, notably The Twilight Zone magazine (which published excellent short fiction) and Marvel Illustrated, best described as “Heavy Metal without the breast obsession”. Okay, I sometimes also bought Heavy Metal because where else could you read stories where people rode astride giant penises like the sandworms of Arrakis? I also miss Omni. I wish there was still a good general interest science magazine around (no, Discover doesn’t quite do it). Mad magazine is one of the few I genuinely outgrew without even being conscious of it. They probably lost their gestalt when they began putting in real ads to pay the bills, anyway. That’s my cynical take and I’m stickin’ to tingit!

A run in the park

One worrisome note before my jog (which I delayed a day because of it): a few nights ago I woke up and felt a minor twinge in my right calf. It didn’t seem to be the same area that got hurt and forced me to sit out on running for four weeks but it’s the same calf so I was mildly freaked. I waited an extra day and when I ran today there were a few times that I felt the twinge again. It didn’t exactly hurt and it feels fine now, so I’m hoping that maybe I just pulled a random muscle slightly while having one of my increasingly weird dreams.

The run itself was under a clear sky with the temperature a crisp 3ºC. I wore the tights today and feel it was the right call. Because of the colder weather the trail had firmed up and was mostly navigable again. I ran 30 minutes and improved my distance and time/km vs. the last run, so I’m slowly coming back to speed. Definitely not pushing it this, though. 😛 I felt pretty good for most of the run, mostly evidenced by my relaxed breathing. It’s pretty much the canary in the mine for me now. If my breathing is labored, I slow down.

The graffiti on the playground equipment had been mostly removed, too. Nice to see that sort of stuff get dealt with quickly.

Review: Get Smart (2008 version)

I finally got around to seeing the Get Smart remake that came out last year. I thought it was decent as remakes go and probably more deserving than, say, Starsky & Hutch or The Dukes of Hazzard but it wasn’t nearly as good as the source material.

Steve Carrell wisely chose not to do a full-on Don Adams impression. His portrait of Smart is more of a homage and works fairly well. The rest of the cast was fine but none of the other characters really felt much like the ones in the original series. Anne Hathaway’s Agent 99 comes across as snippy and not very likeable, the Chief, instead of being exasperated most of the time, is portrayed as a brawler, of all things. Weird. But the biggest disappointment had to be the villain, Sigfried. In the TV series he is played completely over the top, complete with outrageous German accent by Bernie Koppell (who gets a cameo here). In the movie he is played without a trace of humor by Terence Stamp, who apparently doesn’t do comedy even when he’s in one. Having a serious villain in a Get Smart movie is missing the point by about as much as you can possibly miss a point.

The plot also tried too hard to be a standard action film and all the derring-do detracted from the comedy (though they did include a few funny bits in some of the sequences). The dopey Bush-like president made the movie already feel dated but the biggest problem was the movie just wasn’t funny enough. I may be strange but that’s how I like my comedies — funny!

Still, now that they have the “origin” story out of the way (why do these movies do this? I don’t need to find out how Max became an agent — even the TV series doesn’t show that) I might be interested in watching a follow-up. Even if the cast isn’t as authentic, they are watchable and the potential is there. I give it 6 out of 10 shoe phones.

My dream (directed by Roland Emmerich)

There have been two recurring themes in dreams I’ve had since I was a wee one. The first was being chased by something — mummies, vampires, mean robots but most often vehicles and in true Killdozer style, the vehicles would always be driver-free. Two I recall vividly were a muscle car from the late 60s/early 70s that chased me down a neighbor’s driveway (I escaped by leaping onto the branch of a tree that hung over the end of the driveway), the other a giant-sized dump truck with the front bumper missing, which made it much scarier.

The chase dreams pretty much ended as an adult.

The other theme has been ferry disasters, which I’ve talked about before. Last night I had one of these dreams and as with most of them, it wasn’t really scary, just weird. I don’t recall who I was with but we were on the ferry and as usual, something goes wrong. This time it seemed like some kind of stability issue, which we noticed when the ferry began lurching to the side so severely as to nearly touch water to the passenger deck. Then, while still motoring along, the ship does not one but two complete barrel rolls. Yes, it capsizes twice. But it manages to right itself and we were apparently wearing our capsizing boots and were none the worse for the spinning. But now it was clear the ferry had to get to the terminal and dock ASAP.

The ferry starts racing along through the water and is kind of wobbly, pitching a bit from side to side. At some point I move to the front lounge for a better view ahead and we are entering a winding river-like area that doesn’t actually exist. Perhaps because of the ferry’s excessive speed, instead of attempting to navigate the serpentine path, the captain has the crew shovel more coal into the boiler and guns it toward a giant pile of smoothly-shaped rocks. Maybe it was a hill covered with rocks. Whatever it was, it was clear we were going to jump it.

The ferry hits the hill and scoots up it and out of the water, then flies off the top and soars like a wingless bird. For a few moments as the ship flies through the air we ponder what the landing will be like. But not to worry — the ferry lands upright and everyone’s okay. But not! Because the terminal is dead ahead and the ship is going way too fast! The engines are put into full reverse and the water churns furiously as we speed toward the dock. The ship slows, slows some more and then finally eases into the dock as if this was the end of a perfectly normal trip. Roll credits.

Jogging: now featuring random hate and incitement!

Today’s jog was 30 minutes. It was overcast and about 8ºC, so pretty mild comparatively. I ended up taking the gloves off for the last few laps. This means my hands were getting warm, not that I was running down and trying to punch out another jogger. The highlight was nearly twisting my ankle dodging around one of the mud pit-like corners. That would have made for a truly awesome third run back.

Someone with spray paint and an apparent loathing for authority had been busy at the adjacent playground, as you can say in the image below I captured with my iPod camera:

kc_park

(You can click for a larger version if you like. The text reads “Kill Cops”.)

A charming piece of work to greet the pre-schoolers as they climb up to the slide into anarchy! More anarchy symbols were festooned across the rest of the equipment by whatever blithering idiot did this.

I was also going to post a pic of my dirty running shoes but frankly they just don’t look dirty enough. The forecast for the week suggests drier and colder weather to come so I seem to have lucked out so far as the rain goes on my return to jogging.

In which I apologize to a gizmo

After buying a replacement Nike sensor, I was able to successfully revive my original one. Thank you, Murphy.

Today’s run was done under an overcast sky with the temperature a brisk 5ºC. I still went triple-layered up top and the verdict is two is definitely sufficient for this weather. I opted for shorts this time and though it was a bit chilly en route to the park, I was fine once I’d started running.

It looks like Tiger Woods won’t be whispering me sweet nothings through my nano for awhile yet. I ran for 25 minutes and not surprisingly, my pace was pretty slow. I could definitely feel the stiffness in my legs holding me back but I (wisely) chose not to fight it. I stretched before and after the run. It will be interesting to see how my performance improves after such a long layoff. One thing I’ve noted is my stamina is still quite good — I don’t feel exhausted after these shorter runs. I may try for 30 minutes next. Excelsior!