70/2079. Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)
I think we should all just consider this the official sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. All the toons are awesome, and thanks to >Roger, the script can skip explaining to the audience why they operate on a unique set of physical rules in a world of humans and just get on with the business of making stupid jokes.

71/2080. The Secret Land (1948)
This needed a better title. I'm already having a hard time remembering this is a contemporary documentary about a post-WWII military operation in Antarctica.

72/2081. Dear Evan Hansen (2021)
Yee-ouch. I had a hard time understanding how this plot even works on the stage. And all the critics were right: The plot is bad enough if Evan Hanson is played by someone who looks like a child, but it's unforgivable for an actor who looks ready for a mid-life crisis.

73/2082. Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)
I love the deliciously low stakes of these Downton Abbey movies. Should we accept a house in France? Will the film crew scuff the floors? It's pleasant to be reminded that not everything is a life-or-death situation.

74/2083. Brother Nature (2016)
No offense to Bobby Moynihan and Taran Killam, but there wasn't a second of this anti-buddy comedy when I wasn't thinking, "In a perfect world, these parts would be played by Chris Farley and David Spade." Hey, man, I get it. We're all doing the best we can with what we've got.

More to come.

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PROLOGUE, PART FOUR

Striker One punched the goblin in the throat. It felt good. At least it felt good to Striker One. The goblin probably would have had a different opinion if it had still been capable of thought.

Many other races assume that androids do not have feelings, but this is not the case. What is happiness if not a biochemical recognition of satisfaction? And Striker One was very satisfied with punching the goblin to death. After all, that was his purpose in life.

Unlike the meatbags who spent their too-brief lives wondering why they had the misfortune to come into the world, Striker One knew exactly why he had been assembled. He was a first generation soldier created specifically to defend the interests of The Helpers. To this end, Striker One had been constructed stronger and smarter than an average humanoid of his size. His creators had made him good at his assigned role. Too good, in fact. It was the extra smartness that had proved to be the problem.

Although The Helpers considered themselves equivalent to other pharmaceutical corporations, in order to maximize profits, they had allied themselves with the solar system's most notorious gangs of slavers and gun runners to extend their reach, offering synthetic concoctions to non-androids for off-label uses. That was the root of Striker One's troubles. It was one thing to kill a sentient creature attacking The Helpers directly. That was justifiable self defense. However, it was another thing altogether to sell a neutral sentient creature the means to do itself fatal harm. Wasn't that murder?

Asking such questions had gotten Striker One the wrong sort of attention. He was judged to be malfunctioning and was ordered to undergo a factory reset. Instead, he had fled. His programmers should have seen this coming; self-defense was his highest internal directive. If the galaxy was big enough for only either The Helpers or Striker One, Striker One was always going to choose the latter.

Which is what had brought him here, to this goblin-infested bunker in the woods.

"That was the last of them," he called to his companions. "Resistance has been neutralized. You can enter safely."

The human, ysoki, and lashunta stepped through the doorway with unnecessary caution. "I thought you wanted to keep one alive," said Cobryn.

"No, I wanted to interrogate one," corrected Striker One. "They chose not to talk."

"They also didn't build this place," said Sahara. "It's far too advanced for them."

Quig enthusiastically scampered to a large console against the far wall. "This is some fancy communication equipment. Goblins love to take things apart. I wonder if it still works." Quig threw a few switches. A speaker crackled to electronic life.

"You have reached the radio, good," said a heavily modulated voice. It was impossible for Striker One to tell if the voice's owner was male or female, much less what race it might be. "Since you have proven that you can work as a team by defeating the goblin infestation, we can now begin the work I assembled you for: the destruction of the Three Families. It's time for a heist."

Striker One paused wiping the goblin blood from his hands and frowned. Killing a bunker full of goblins to defend his companions had been justifiable self-defense. But a heist? That was stealing. And stealing was always wrong.

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57/2066. Piccadilly (1929)
Nine-tenths of this silent movie plays like a love-triangle drama with thriller elements. Then, at the last minute, it becomes a murder-mystery/courtroom drama. My biggest complaint about it is a complaint I have with many silent films: the scenes of people "talking" that pad space between the dialogue cards is just wasted time. Fast forward through those, and it's reasonably watchable.

58/2067. New York Ninja (2021)
This 1984 movie footage was re-discovered, edited, and released for the first time in 2021. The plot barely makes sense, but that's not really the point of these sorts of these indie 1980s martial arts flicks. If you like that sort of thing (and I do), you'll like this.

59/2068. Do the Right Thing (1989)
True confession: I'd never seen a Spike Lee joint before this. For whatever reason (probably related to my early dislike of Spike's 1980s Nike sneaker salesman character), I didn't think I would like them, that he wasn't going to create anything I wanted to see. I admit now that I was very, very wrong. This film is genius and really does have some very important things to say about American (and human) life. Sorry about that, Spike.

60/2069. Varisty Show (1937)
This is a pretty typical Warner Bros. musical of its era: a thin melodrama plus some very stage-bound performances. It's short enough not to be a waste of time, but it's also hardly must-watch territory.

61/2070. Daughter of Shanghai (1937)
In the first scene of this crime drama B-picture, human traffickers very graphically throw their cargo out of a plane to their deaths. That certainly sets the stakes! I wish they'd kept the identity of the evil mastermind secret for a bit longer, but there were still a couple of enjoyable late twists.

62/2071. The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947)
What's shocking about Miss Pilgrim is that she thinks women should be treated as equal to men. What's charming about this is that she doesn't change her mind when she falls in love with a chauvinist.

More to come.

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PROLOGUE, PART TWO

Sahara twitched her antennae in nervous anticipation. Had she escaped from a noose only to face a firing squad?

"Surrender your vessel and whatever your cargo is, and I just might let you live," ordered the space pirate through the starship's radio.

Sahara toggled the radio to broadcast. "We don't have any cargo of value," she said. It was the truth. The holds were as empty as her pockets. Not even the ship itself was worth more than what a scrap yard would pay for it.

"I'll be the judge of that," came the reply. "Turn off your engines and prepare to be boarded."

An electronic signal from the ship's science station caught Sahara's attention. She looked at the android in the gunner's seat. "The pirate weapon has a target lock on us," Striker One said calmly.

Sahara looked at the ratman. "Are the shields working?"

The furry Ysoki nodded vigorously. "You can count on Quig."

"If you say so, Quig," said Cobryn, the ship's pilot. "But shields won't last forever. A pirate ship like that against a tub like this.... We'll never be able to outrun him or his lasers. Maybe we should comply and hope for mercy."

Sahara's three crew mates waited for her response. She hadn't asked to be captain of this vessel, but she wasn't a trained pilot like the human or a natural engineer like the Ysoki. And she certainly didn't have the artificial man's ability to talk to computers. That left her in the captain's chair by default. It was not a comfortable fit.

The last time she'd been the captain of a starship, it had been on a two-seat craft fleeing the slavers who had captured her and her sister. Their escape plan was Sahara's idea, but it had been her sister's beauty that lured an overconfident jailer into giving up the security codes to the ship that would carry them both to freedom. The plan had worked well, but an unlucky break, a guard's unpredictably overactive bladder, had resulted in her sister being gunned down on the launchpad. Sahara took off without looking back. She knew she would meet the same fate if the slavers ever caught up with her again.

That's why she had been willing to answer the mysterious summons that had led her into this latest pickle. She didn't know where they were headed or why, and she certainly didn't trust her crew mates. But so far as she was concerned, death was a better option than surrendering to a pirate who would only sell her back to her captors.

Turning back to the android, Sahara ordered, "Target his thrusters with our gyrolaser. Let's see if we can't even these odds."

She had made her decision. The die was cast.

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UGA football legend (and gameshow-host Donald Trump's best "see-I'm-not-racist-I-have-a-black-friend" friend) Herschel Walker won the Georgia Republican party primary for U.S. Senate with over 801,000 votes (68%). He literally won every single county in the state. He trounced his closest opponent, Gary Black (13%), who has been the state Agriculture Commissioner for the past 11 years! If I was writing headlines, this would read: Football Culture Trumps Agriculture.*

Now Walker will head into the general election to face sitting senator Raphael Warnock. So far Walker — who it should be noted has a net worth upwards of $29 million yet has sent me, a UGA football season ticket holder, at least 7 letters asking for campaign contributions — has refused to describe any specifics of his platform (other than "Teamwork good" and "Democrats evil") or debate any of his Republican rivals, instead relying purely on the goodwill garnered in college in the 1980s. And it's easy to see why he's so reluctant to speak up. When asked on friendly Fox News what he would do to prevent future mass murder of elementary school students like the 19 who died this week in Texas — Walker's home state for the past decade, right up until he decided to run for Senator of Georgia — he said this:

You know, Cain killed Abel and that's a problem that we have. And I said what we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation. What about getting a department that can look at young men/women that's looking at their social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that? And we can stop that that way.

Yes, poor Abel would still be alive today if Adam had only kept his eyes on TikTok instead of Eve's fig leaf.

Besides, Cain killed Abel with a rock, the Daniel Defense DDM4® V7® AR15 with Improved Flash Suppressor rifle of its day. No one would ever try to ban rocks, so why would you want to ban 30-round magazine automatic rifles? (According to Christian dogma, the rock was given to Cain by The Devil, which I'm sure Walker would insist in no way reflects on for-profit gun manufacturers selling military-designed long guns to 18-year-old civilians.)

Sadly, I think there's every chance that bible-thumping, gun lobby-supporting, social media-spying Walker will win a seat in the U.S. Senate on nostalgic name recognition alone. And if that is the case, Georgians will be getting exactly the representation in government they deserve. That's democracy in action, folks!

* While Trump did indeed endorse Walker, it's not like Black wasn't trying his damnedest to earn his evil overlord's favor too, including refusing to admit that Biden is the lawfully elected president of the United States. Trump's endorsement in this race means far less than Walker's 82 touchdowns as a Georgia Bulldog.

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PROLOGUE, PART ONE

This particular starship was unknown to Quig, but he'd certainly seen its like before. Light freighters were the backbone of the solar system's shipping industry, after all. Therefore, it wasn't the unfamiliar surroundings that set the ratman's hairs standing on edge but the three strangers in the airlock with him.

Summoning his nerve, Quig asked in his high-pitched voice, "Excuse me, but is one of you the person who sent for me?" He dialed his personal communicator to the anonymous message he'd received a week before and held it up for the others to see.

The pale, broad-shouldered android raised an eyebrow in a good simulation of how other races would display surprise. "You're willing to expose your data to persons you do not know? That seems... unwise." Artificial men like this one made most sentient organics existentially self-conscious, but Quig had always found them distracting for other reasons. What made these mechanical marvels tick? He'd love to take one apart and find out.

The scruffy-looking (real) human man leaning against the starship's bulkhead smirked. "I was just about to say the same thing. Maybe I got a message. Maybe I didn't. How do I know you didn't send it?" Across the galaxy, no race was as capable of deceit as humans. Quig made a mental note not to trust this one.

"This is getting us nowhere," complained the female lashunta, her forehead antennae twitching in apparent irritation. She kept glancing out the ship's porthole at the docking bay entrance. Was she expecting more company? "Yes, I got the message. Obviously, we all did. The question is what are we going to do about it?"

The android shrugged almost naturally. "I believe we should do as instructed and take this ship to the coordinates indicated. Why else did we come here if not to uncover the mystery behind our summons?"

The human interlaced his fingers and extended his arms to crack his knuckles. "Works for me. I've been itching to get back in space."

"I think we're walking into a trap," said the woman dourly. "But as there are some... people around here who I'd rather not run into again, I don't see as I have any choice."

That was more or less how Quig felt, too. He couldn't go back home where The Families were looking for him. That was certain death. Better to take his chances with this motley crew. Besides, he'd always liked tinkering with alien technology, and if he had to walk into a trap, at least it was a trap well baited with the promise of getting his claws into an advanced starship's innards. "I'll start the engines," he volunteered cheerfully.

The adventure had begun.

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In hindsight, do I watch a lot of movies about death?

39/2048. Death on the Nile (2022)
There's a lot in this that sequel to The Orient Express that will feel not quite right to hardcore Christie fans, but I was more bothered by the CGI used to replicate 1930s Cairo than the anachronistic cultural mores or addition of Poirot's backstory. Don't get me wrong, I still liked it and would definitely keep watching Kenneth Branagh Poirot movies.

40/2049. The End (1978)
In this blackest of comedies, Burt Reynolds plays a man so afraid of pain that he is determined to kill himself before his terminal disease can. When this film works, it's usually because of Burt's natural charm, though it does squeeze some good comedy bits from very real human situations. (I found the third act slapstick to be too broad given the dark matter that preceded it. Your mileage — and tolerance of Dom DeLuise's over-the-top antics — may vary.)

Drink Coke and die!

41/2050. The Green Knight (2021)
The classic legend is about a knight on a quest to have his head chopped off, but this modern telling is more acid trip than road trip. Every line of dialog only makes the story more confusing. It might be more tolerable if it wasn't all filmed in a dark forest without lighting. Blech.

42/2051. The New Mutants (2020)
Whenever someone wonders what "studio interference" is, point them to this movie. The writer and director were very clearly using trying to make a horror film about adolescence and sexual awakening, but the studio wanted more traditional superhero fare. The actors seem completely confused (disinterested?) about what they're supposed to be doing, and the result *is* a nightmare, just not one that anyone would want to see.

43/2052. Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (2022)
The old footage and glowing interviews about Hawk's early days are cool. Unfortunately, Hawk is unable or unwilling to examine his adult life outside of the world of skating, so in the end, he seems almost a victim rather than a champion, especially as the story ends wallowing on his inevitable physical decline. Was the intention of this documentary to make him a martyr?

44/2053. Closed for Storm (2020)
Another documentary, this time about the doomed New Orleans Jazzland theme park, from its conception to its destruction by Katrina to its abandonment by Six Flags to New Orleans' continued inability to do anything with it's remains. Honestly, it's the last part that I found most interesting because that was when the film veered from mere morbid nostalgia to something bordering on political activism against corrupt governance. Rage against the dying of the light, indeed. Of course I liked it.

More to come.

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I was recently chastised for not understanding who that Super Bowl Chevy Silverado commercial tied into the season finale of The Sopranos. "Haven't you seen one of the five greatest television dramas of all time?" No, I guess not. I don't watch dramatic television. I watch movies. Speaking of which....

20/2029. Valley of the Dolls (1967)
Some movies are badly misjudged on release. Critics in 1967 disliked this movie... and they were right. On the upside, I now understand that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a very specific parody of this movie. I'll definitely rewatch the parody again before I would willingly rewatch this.

21/2030. American Pop (1981)
This story of four generations of Americans is the first Ralph Bakshi movie I've seen that made me think he may have been capable of creating genuine art. Sadly, the narrative falls apart a bit in the third act but is still worth a watch.

Life is a series of downers that ends... in a hall with some Coca-Cola paintings.

22/2031. In the Heights (2021)
It took three tries for me to watch this movie all the way through, and I have to say that ultimately it was worth it. Great songs, charismatic actors, incredible cinematography: I've since watched it a second time. (How was this directed by the same man who helmed the Jem and the Holograms movie?)

Doomed romances go better with Coke!

23/2032. The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)
Despite the recurring themes of sex and death, this is really just a light comedy serving as an excuse to have aging stars and personal friends Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda pal around in the violent Old West. It's no classic, but not every movie has to be.

24/2033. Lovely to Look At (1952)
Think An American in Paris but with a lopsided love triangles. The good songs are all in the first act. After that, they're almost all ballads (the one exception being Red Skelton's cover of "Go Tell Aunt Rhody") which really hurts the pace. Definitely watch In the Heights instead.

More to come.

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I went grocery shopping yesterday. Walking in the door, I passed a sign very clearly instructing all customers that masks were required in the building, but I was the only shopper I saw who was wearing one. I hadn't realized so few people in my town could read.

Two weeks into February, Coweta County has reported already more deaths from COVID-19 this month than December and January combined. I know that death is a lagging indicator (by approximately two weeks), but I don't know how anyone can look at those numbers and think, "Now is the time to stop wearing masks!"

When I was a kid during the Cold War of the 1980s, I used to wonder how long people would stay in their underground fallout shelters after World War III before emerging to see if the world was once again inhabitable. The answer, I now know, appears to be not quite 2 years. After that, hey, radiation poisoning doesn't seem so bad.

One day, when we send people to Mars, will some significant percentage of the colonists decide that they've simply had enough and walk outside of their protective environments without masks? Is that what happened to the Roanoke Colony? "I don't care that it's snowing outside; I'm not putting on another pair of pants!"

Look, I get that wearing a mask sucks. *I* think it sucks. But so long as an ongoing pandemic continues to kill thousands of Americans — and several of my immediate neighbors — every day, I think I can do at least the least I can do to help prevent further spread.

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Today we put down my father's 7-year-old poodle Scarlett because we discovered that cancer had eaten her liver. She'd been lethargic for the past week, had stopped eating, and at the last, her skin and eyes turned yellow. But she didn't complain. She wasn't that kind of dog.

Scarlett's last haircut, Oct 5, 2021

Scarlett loved chasing squirrels, walkies (especially when she was stalking a squirrel), belly rubs, and escaping through open gates to chase the squirrels who wouldn't stay inside her fence, probably in that order.

Scarlett wasn't my dog, but she kind of was. And I miss her. Even the trouble.

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