Saturday: Adventure!

Part 1: Lunch!

The plan for today was to do some editing on that paper, and try to get it moving towards a final draft.  I decided that the best way to do this was to go someplace to sit down and have lunch, and make it a working lunch.  Last time I went to Kona Brewing Company, I wasn't that pleased.  It was probably time to try them again, and see if things have improved.

Because garlic + Gorgonzola is the best way to start a meal.

Note that that isn't Dr. Pepper.  The menu claims they have it, but that's apparently a lie.  Anyway, roasted garlic and Gorgonzola with tasty bread is always a good thing.  Having an appetizer also helped stretch out the time I had to work on the paper, although I still only got about a third of the way through it (although a lot of those final pages are figures, so that probably doesn't count).
 

Someone really needs to be doing a better job on the pass.

I went with the meatloaf over the pot roast, and ended up regretting it.  The tomato/ginger chutney and queso  were a bit odd with the meatloaf, but all in all not a bad combination.  The gravy was good, and helped the entire dish.

What didn't help was the fact that the meatloaf was overcooked, and seriously burnt on the bottom.  Had I not gotten an appetizer, I probably would have been significantly more unhappy having close to a quarter of my main dish be charcoal.  I guess what this means is that Kona Brewing is pretty much not a place to go to anymore.  That's kind of unfortunate, since the breeze off the marina and the ducks swimming by make it a reasonably nice place to be.  It's just that they seem to be failing at the basic concept of cooking.

Nice place to be, just not to eat, I guess.

Part 2: Movies!

The other reason for driving to the eastern edge of the island was to catch the new Silent Hill movie.  Most of the closer theaters were only showing it in 3D, and I'm not really a big fan of wearing silly glasses just to watch a movie.  I guess no one else had the same idea, since the entire audience for the showing I went to consisted of me and one girl.  Maybe people were listening to the reviews for the movie?

Because that's where the script came from.

I'm not really going to claim that this was a cinema classic, because it's clearly a movie that was written and produced for people like me who know the entire backstory and are willing to fill in gaps in the story with prior knowledge.  The problem with doing this is that the movie tends to oscillate between long conversations filled with exposition and short comments that reference bits of the games.  Everyone in the movie is named after someone from the games.  Everyone.  The random guy at the end driving a truck? Travis Grady.  Down to the shirt and vest.  It's nice to do a handful of those things, but to make the entire movie around that?  It's a bit much.

And that's from someone who mostly liked the movie.

They clearly tried to tie the story from the first movie (which was kind of a rewrite of the first game) with the Silent Hill 3 story (which in turn was a direct sequel of the first game).  This meant blending the mythology a bit, but it was largely coherent and reasonable.  A bit of a retcon feeling, but in a way to make the first movie match the games more.

Things that were good:

• "Names don't matter."  Nice way to explain why Sean Bean has a different name now.
• Getting someone who looks a lot like Heather to play Heather.
• The transitions from regular to otherworld.
• Robbie the Rabbit.
• Birthday cake with cooked dog.  At least I assume it was the dog.  Anything else wouldn't make sense.
• Malcolm McDowell?  That was unexpected, to say the least.
• Steel pipe.  The steel pipe is always a welcome sight.
• Ok, I'm grasping a bit.

Things that weren't good:

• Obvious sequel bait with the prison bus from Silent Hill: Downpour.
• Heather didn't get the taser from her dresser when she returned home.  I'm picky.
• Gratuitous use of Pyramid Head, especially in a pseudo-hero role.  He's not a hero.  He's cool, but he's pretty much the physical realization of the guilt of a murderer.  Plus: rapist.  These are not hero things.
• Using Vincent as an unnecessary love interest.  Silent Hill isn't a love story.  Plus, crazy game Vincent is a better character.  "They look like monsters to you? {creepy laugh}"
• Gore.  Sure, that's an odd thing to list for a horror movie, but gore takes away from the psychological aspect of things.
• 3D.  A lot of scenes made it clear that "This is in 3D."  Meh.

Anyway, they made me a movie, and weren't sad when me and one other person showed up.  Now, go make a movie of Silent Hill 2, keep the story intact, and watch people claim that it's the best video game movie ever made.

Part 3: Tsunami?

After the movie, I stopped at WF to get groceries, so I can make something for dinner tomorrow.  While waiting at the deli, the guy in front of me told the girl at the deli that a tsunami warning had been issued.  Huh. Unexpected.  Not as much as Malcolm McDowell, but still.

Deli Girl was a bit unhappy, since she was scheduled to be working until the time the tsunami was supposed to hit.  Twitter tells me that they closed early, so that's good.  I continued my regular shopping, but it was clear that some people were panic buying, since no normal person buys six gallons of water, especially at WF.  On the drive home, I noticed other people panic buying gas, with something like a dozen people lined up into the street.  If a tsunami hits and messes up the gas supply, where are you going to be driving?

In any case, the tsunami was supposed to hit fifteen minutes ago, so it's looking like another dud.  Probably for the best.

Part 4: A Bear!

"Wait, what? Dude, I'm a bear.  Bears aren't horses, we don't eat hay."

Part 5: Links!

• Those teddy bears in space do not have proper space helmets.
• Squirrel!
• Different squirrel!
• Friendly bear!
• Ookla the Mok!
• Pen Ward as Pikachu! (Note that Pen got the stun gun.)
• Ross Douthat being an idiot!  "An imaginary Republican plot to ban contraception, the illusory threat that Mitt Romney would ban abortion in cases of rape, a wave of faux-chivalric outrage over Romney’s line about “binders full of women”[...] " Really, Ross? What news have you been watching?