The Year of the Rabbit, 2011

In observation of this being the Year of the Rabbit, I put together a list of 6 films from over the past 60 yeas, each of which somewhat involves rabbits in one way or another:

Harvey (1950)
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
Alice in Wonderland (1985)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Open Season (2006)

I'm know there's more out there, but those were the first 6 that came to mind...

Safeway Reinvents the Gregorian Calendar

Safeway usually hands me coupons with my receipts. The coupons mostly wind up being for products I don't even use. The Safeway I typically frequent also sells Jamba Juice and after my last purchase I actually received a $1 coupon from Safeway to use the next time I wanted to buy a smoothie from any participating Safeways. Of course, coupons have fine print. The coupon stated in a couple places that it would expire on 04/30/10 and that the limited time offer would end 4/30/10, but the fine print said the coupon would be valid until 4/31/10. Where this 31st day of April is coming from I have no idea. Even when it's a leap year, there's still no April 31st!

Easter Cookies for the Movie Lover

With Easter 5 weeks away and the month of St. Patrick's Day not even here yet, my local grocer has already put packages of Pillsbury® Ready to Bake™ Bunny Shape® sugar cookies on the shelf. Look familiar to anyone? Yup, the bunny looks like a pink-colored version Frank from Donnie Darko. It even has the bent left ear! Can you hear the box asking you, "Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?" Can you!?!

Disappointing Catwoman Home Video Spine Cover Art

The Catwoman Blu-ray case cover art is similar to that of the DVD case cover art with the exception of one major flaw: the spine is missing the title. The Blu-ray release's spine has the Blu-ray and Warner Brothers logos, but no title, no "Catwoman". Instead, the customer is met with this black gap of "white space" on a titleless spine!

Disappointing Galaxy Quest Home Video Front Cover Art

While browsing Amazon, I noticed a significant change from the regular Galaxy Quest DVD cover art and the Galaxy Quest Deluxe Edition DVD and Galaxy Quest Blu-ray Pre-order cover art. The regular Galaxy Quest DVD cover art has Tim Allen in the middle, which makes sense since his character, Jason Nesmith, has the biggest role in the movie, but the Galaxy Quest Deluxe Edition DVD and Galaxy Quest Blu-ray Pre-order cover art show Sigourney Weaver in the middle, which is great if you're a huge Sigourney Weaver fan but doesn't seem to accurately portray the magnitude of Jason Nesmith's role in the film.

Disappointing Futurama DVD Box Set Case Door

I pre-ordered "Futurama: The Complete Collection 1999 - 2009" and had it picked up at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con. It was a 19 DVD set housed in a hard plastic Bender bust, mostly cylindrical in shape. The bust came in a box in order to give the impression that Bender's head was preserved in a liquid-filled jar even though he is a robot.

In order to get the bust out, the back of this box had to be opened. Once opened, a curved piece of foam could be found attached to the inside of the back of the box, a rubber attachment in the shape of an antenna could be found in the top plastic keeping the top of the bust in place, a DVD booklet and a letter from the series developers could be found underneath the bottom plastic keeping the bottom of the bust in place, and a hand-numbered sticker could be found on the lower right corner of the door on the back of the bust (this is because it is a limited edition and only 500 were made). The door was a hard curved plastic piece, the hinge was on the left, and there were 3 plastic latches on the right to keep it closed. The bust had a niche aligned with the middle latch so that a finger could be inserted in order to pull open the door.

The door was already open when I opened the back of the box. I closed the door to help prevent any of the DVDs from falling out as I removed the bust from the box. After I closed the door, it wouldn't open again. The middle latch was fine, but the top and bottom latches were keeping the door closed as I pulled on it from the area of the niche. I finally had to insert nail files in the thin gaps of the top right and bottom right corners of the door in order to get it open. Not a user-friendly experience at all! DVD cases should be openable without the use of tools not included in the boxed set.

You Just Can't Buy Good Grammar Anymore

I had bought a green shirt at Sears this year. They had a few to choose from because St. Patrick's Day was the next upcoming holiday at the time. As much as I like it, it is grammatically incorrect:

Kiss me
im
Irish

The fact that the latter pronoun wasn't capitalized was not as bad as the fact that it was missing the apostrophe, so it didn't really say "I'm" Irish, it said "im" Irish. "Short" i, m. "im". It's not even a real word, it's just a syllable.

Disappointing HVD News Article

I stumbled across an HVD news article by Tudor Vieru on Softpedia. All it did was brag about how great the capacity of an HVD was compared to other optical disc drive media types. It mentioned NOTHING about the HVD's transfer rates being faster as well!

Disappointing Timer

The Trudeau Magnetic 60 Minute Timer operates very similar to any other wind up kitchen timer with a seemly useful feature added to it. In case the name didn't give it away, it's magnetic. Where, may I ask you, are most magnetic devices in the kitchen found? Survey says vertically attached to the refrigerator. Okay, now, everyone, start cooking something, wind up your Trudeau Magnetic 60 Minute Timers, place them on the refrigerator, and leave the room until you here your timer go off...

Well, I certainly hope you all had a fire extinguisher handy and didn't burn the whole house down before making it this far into the blog. The Trudeau Magnetic 60 Minute Timer works just fine horizontally but, given enough time, fails vertically.

Not What It Looks Like: Grasshopper Pie

I made Grasshopper Pie last night, and I hope I don't ruin anyone's appetite, but after I was done, I noticed what appeared to be a huge glob of snot stuck to my shirt. In actuality, it was just a light green splotch of some of the pie. Makes me wonder if some of those nasty-looking Hollywood special effects are really edible or even quite delicious. Maybe the next time I see something totally and unrealistically gross on tv or the big screen I'll grow curiously hungry.

Unoriginal: Romulan Defensive Missiles

In Star Trek Deep Space Nine Season 7 Episode 1, "Image in the Sand," the Bajorans find out the Romulans inhabiting their 4th moon are armed with plasma torpedoes which the Rolumans claim are for defensive purposes. The Bajorans refuse to allow the presence of such weapons to remain. Does this sound like the Cuban Missile Crisis to anyone or is it just me? History must be repeating itself again...

Body in Bronze: "Standing Male Torso" by Ken Whitaker

I purchased "Standing Male Torso" from Ken Whitaker in his studio at Earthworks, edition 1 of 12. The statue plus its polished granite base come to a total of just over 14 lbs. It was a piece the artist was fond of too and kept in his own home.

At first glance, one notices that the left leg is positioned ahead of the right just a bit and the left pectoral muscles are a bit more tense than those on the right. It makes you wonder what exactly the rest of the body must have been doing during this pose. What feelings are being conveyed here by the stance or myotonia? Is the torso standing defensively? I prefer to imagine this body as being tall in a sense and full of pride...

Body in Bronze: "El Tiempo No Se Detiene" by Lorenzo Quinn

Today I received a box from Rafart Gallery. It contained "El Tiempo No Se Detiene" by Lorenzo Quinn, and that alone would have been enough to satisfy me, but it also came with a very nice receipt and book. Not a booklet but an actual hardcover book, and the book came with a DVD, too! The book seemed more so a gift than a catalog. Altogether, it made quite a pleasant surprise... The piece itself, translated as "El Temps No Es Deté" or "You Can't Stop Time, was two bronze hands coming together along their sides, open and palms facing up, one left, one right, and both distinct. The sculpture extended a bit up the forearms and the forearms were capped off with flat, gold-colored, metallic ends. About 5 1/2 lbs, and I'd say slightly smaller than life-size. Examining the piece, we see the texturing he likes to use. It not smooth and sleek like some artists. No, instead, he builds more character with his texturing, more life... Included with the packaging was the sand to be added to the hands in order to get the full effect. The book that was included contained a picture of it with the sand as does a book I purchased on Lorenzo Quinn. Based on the pictures, it appears to be a very pale and soft sand of just a single shade. Perhaps the sand has to be so fine in order to escape the narrow funnel of an hourglass. In the pictures, the sand is both on the hands and below, having slipped right through, reaffirming the as always straightforward message behind the piece, behind its title... The book I purchased has many opaque pages highlighting his great works but it contains impressive translucent pages of his artwork as well. The book also shows pictures of his public works and pieces from his private collection.

"Five Engineers"

I was looking at art today when I saw a picture titled "Five Engineers" (Concept in Progress). It was supposed to have the chief engineer from each Star Trek series: The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise in that exact order. This places the character of Miles Edward O'Brien right in the middle, and they didn't even have him in a DS9 uniform, he was still in his TNG uniform. How is he supposed to be accurately portraying an engineer from the DS9 series while they use a picture from a preceding series?

World's Smallest Bank Teller or Missing ATM Test Scenario?

This weekend being the last weekend of the month, I set out to pay off all my monthly bills like I usually do, one of them being my cell phone bill. For whatever reason, the card swiper wasn't working, so I began my journey to the nearest ATM, towing return and pay in cash.

The closest ATM for my bank was a standalone unit located at the university down the street. As I proceeded to use the interface, the display threw as many offers and advertisements onto the screen as it felt I had the patience to put up with and I did my very best to ignore them all but the sentence, "Ask inside" managed to catch my eye. "Ask inside"? Did the bank stuff a teller inside this machine? Did they want me to break into it and talk to somebody? It was obvious that the answer to both of these questions was, "No," but an assumption about the location was made when a more appropriate message would have been, "Ask your local branch."

Dumbest Scientists Ever

In the movie, "If Looks Could Kill," one of the devices developed by British Intelligence is explosive chewing gum. It is explained that the gum must be chewed and then combined with the silver wrapper. Okay, wel what if you have silver fillings in your teeth? What then!?! What then!!!

Body in Bronze: "Adam's Arm" by Frederick Hart

Today I received an artist's proof of "Adam's Arm," a bronze sculpture by Frederick Hart. I love the detail in the arm, the veins bulging out, the muscles stretched and tense. It's no wonder some people compare it to the right arm of Michelangelo's "David". The space between each finger just leaves more room for Hart to show off the great amount of detail work he puts into his pieces.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like Hart's beliefs that artists should return to the themes and passions of artwork from the past, a style that sometimes appears to be dying out. I don't feel like the art of the past is being phased out, I just feel that so many more forms of art are being integrated into our society but that there will always be room for each of them, even if they are not all equally appreciated.

The piece is what I would consider to be life-size; it's larger than my own, but I'm not a very big guy to begin with so there! Since it was from a casting of the right arm of his "Adam" sculpture, you can really only appreciate the piece from the front of the side, not really from the back at all unless you were truly all that interested in the inscription around the back of the base, so I wouldn't recommend using this as the center piece in a room unless placed on a pedestal that automatically rotates.

One question I've been asked about the piece is "How much does it weigh?" About 18 lbs, that's how much! :D

If you like books, you can find the piece in "Frederick Hart: The Complete Works".

Body in Bronze: "The Thinker" by Holly Van Hart

I am now the original owner of "The Thinker" by Holly Van Hart, purchased from her in person. :)

It is an oil painting from Van Hart's award-winning Rodin series. The colors she used give the statue more of a bronze hue whereas in person the sculpture looks more black. I feel like her use of such browns and the occasional light blue really helped to bring out the details of Auguste Rodin's "Le Penseur". The angle she painted it from gives the audience the sense of being physically close to the piece but that the figure is too lost in his thoughts to even notice. A person admiring this piece can feel the propinquity of the statue while, at the same time, the artist has preserved the distance of the man whose mind appears to be elsewhere. An excellent contrast and a great use of perspective that emphasizes the emotions behind Rodin's work.

http://www.hollyvanhart.com/1/details/TheThinker_OilPainting_by_HollyVanHart_30x24.htm

Justifiable Spending: Art

Art, a subject not everybody appreciates or understands. You might be deep in thought when somebody interrupts with "How is that art?" I feel like there are always two parts to a piece of art that make it valuable: the piece itself and what it invokes in you. The price of artwork may vary, increasing over time, but the actual value, that is variable. It may appeal to your current mood and make a lasting impression, but it can also be like going to the grocery store when you're hungry: you're going to buy your food differently than if you weren't. Some people purchase art because they like it and others do so as an investment. If have recently decided to do so for BOTH reasons. Moreso as a hobby that has the potential of making me a reasonable profit in the future. I mean, if your typical collector keeps a piece for an average of 27 to 30 years, I might as well buy something that I will be able to enjoy for such an extended period of time (or longer)! I have an eclectic taste for art, but I have decided to keep my collection along the lines of a specific theme which I am quite pleased with. I call it 'Body in Bronze'. Bronze just seems so solid and ageless, preserving, and the human body is something I'm sure we all can relate to. These impressions of the human body can cause admiration or even sympathy amongst a full spectrum of reactions. Now that's what I call talent! That's what I call communication! These pieces speak to us without even using words! They can be beyond words! It's like visual, tangible, three-dimensional, alingual POETRY sometimes. Needless to say, I'm very much so looking forward to this new beginning for me...

Chiquita Banana - Part II

Inspired by this morning's post, I did a little research into the Chiquita banana jingle that hopefully you are already familiar with. Originally introduced in 1944, it has been rewritten a number of times, most recently in 1999. I prefer the original over today's, but I will list a few different versions I found.

I'm Chiquita banana and I've come to say
Bananas have to ripen in a certain way
When they are flecked with brown and have a golden hue
Bananas taste the best and are best for you
You can put them in a salad
You can put them in a pie-aye
Any way you want to eat them
It's impossible to beat them
But bananas like the climate of the very, very tropical equator
So you should never put bananas in the refrigerator

I'm Chiquita banana and I've come to say
That you really shouldn't get yourself run down this way
You must have nutrition and to get it right
You should really eat some fruit each morning, noon and night
There are vitamins and minerals
In whatever kind you buy-aye
They not only are nutritious
But they also taste delicious
You'll find by eating fruit you'll have more beautiful appearance and complexion
They're Mother Nature's beauty treatment to help you look perfection

I'm Chiquita banana and I've come to say
To a fellow's heart your stomach is the way
It's an ancient formula you must admit
And we'll put it to the test with a banana split
There's some ice-cream in the freezer
That way purchased just today-ay
These bananas that I'm holdin'
Are so flecked with brown and golden
Oh, I think I see a beauty, now you're talking, she's a honey, how'd we miss her
And her banana splits are something, they make me want to kiss her

I'm Chiquita banana and I'm here to reveal
The way to spot a great banana is on the seal
Let the blue Chiquita sticker be your guide
And you'll find a better tasting banana inside
People see the blue sticker
And think Chiquita tastes better
It says Chiquita's better before you bite
And just one taste of my banana says the sticker was right

I'm Chiquita banana and I've come to say
I offer good nutrition for you every day
And when you buy Chiquita you will always know
You've got the best bananas anyone can grow
Underneath the crescent yellow
You'll find vitamins and fiber
Instant energy to feel good
Our bananas make a meal good
It's a gift from Mother Nature and a natural addition to your table
A wholesome, healthy, pure banana, look for Chiquita's label

I'm Chiquita banana and I've come to say
I offer good nutrition in a simple way
When you eat a Chiquita you've done your part
To give every single day a healthy start
Underneath the crescent yellow
You'll find vitamins and great taste
With no fat, you just can't beat 'em
You'll feel better when you eat 'em
They're a gift from Mother Nature and a natural additional to your table
For wholesome, healthy, pure bananas, look for Chiquita's label

Chiquita Banana

I got invited a couple places last night, including a Monday Night Football party and a Mexican bar. Unfortunately, I didn't check my messages until after the game, so I just went to the bar with my friend. Towards the end of the evening, they had a drag show there, which I've seen them put on before, but tonight, the two opening ladies were dressed like the Chiquita banana, I swear. Glittering fake fruit on their heads and all. Maybe it was some sort of Carmen Miranda impression...

Further Embarrassment: The House Key

As previously mentioned, our house's previous tenants were a family of 4, including 1 teenage daughter. My roommates received the keys to the house and one would go to me. One key would let me in and out at my leisure, whenever I pleased. That key would be... green, with little dragonflies and sparkling flowers on it. Yes, I inherited the daughter's old key and the promise that my roommates would make me another copy when they got the chance. They did! In fact, now I have like 4 different keys to the house. One for this door, one for that one and one for that one and one for that one. What does someone need so many different keys for? Why not one key to rule them all? All roads would lead to Rome. Simplicity would be restored. Things would make sense.

The Other 15%

I recently moved into a house with my roommates. It was previously owned by a family of 4, a mother, daughter, father, son kind of deal. My roommates of course took the master bedroom as their own and decided to use the downstairs bedroom as an office which of course left me with either A) the daughter's old bedroom or B) the son's old bedroom. The daughter was been in her teens and had painted her bedroom to match her drapes... which were ORANGE and MAGENTA! Well, we were planning on repainting the place anyways but I preferred the dimensions of the light blue room. It wasn't until my first night in that room that I discovered a little hidden surprise. Stuck to the top of my ceiling were these little, light green, glow-in-the-dark, star-shaped stickers. Not just one here, one there, but all over the place, like a blanket of stars above me as I tried not to think about them. As my eyes scanned up, down, side-to-side, confirming that there was an incredible amount of them, I noticed the corner by the closet didn't have them. I figure about 85% of the ceiling had them, and that one corner, that 15% of the ceiling didn't. If you're going to cover so much of the ceiling, why not cover the whole thing? Why leave 15% bare? I mean, if they ran out, don't you think they would have purchased more to complete the job? The world may never know...

Disappointing Kingston 4GB USB Flash Drive

Okay, so who hasn't ever stood in line having nothing better to do but glance over the specials dangling before you? As I waited to make my purchase at the Fry Electronics I frequent from time to time, there it was, a Kingston 4GB USB flash drive and priced at under $20. Kingston hasn't always been my favorite brand but I had been needing a larger USB flash drive and USB 3.0 won't be on the market for a while so I picked myself up one these guys. Not the smallest flash drive but nice-looking. An opaque black along the sides with a translucent red on the top and bottom. I plug it into one of my PCs to transfer some data expecting a night red glow near the back of it and I was way off. Instead, there was a faint, green light up close to the port where it was plugged in. Who makes these sort of cosmetic decisions? Well, at least it looks damn good when it's not transferring files, right? Then it comes with this dinky little keyring thing that just looks way too small and flismy for such a big flash drive. They're fine for their smaller USB flash drives and it's probably just a standard one they use for all their flash drives no matter the size but I personally think they should either just throw in a bigger keyring or nothing at all. I mean, the thing is so small that it's really only good for hanging the drive on a little hook as opposed to actually attaching it to something like a real keyring.