Tinkerbell and the Industrial Revolution

Tonight, while flipping through the channels, I got up to get a drink, and returned to find the Tinkerbell movie on the screen. I kept watching, mostly because I somehow assumed I was watching it before I left. Sometimes I'm dumb I guess.

The story is apparently how Tinkerbell singlehandedly pulls the Fairy Kingdom out of the drudgery of manual labor by industrializing the fairy-proletariat.  She does this using a wide selection of "Lost Things," crap from the real world that's washed up in Neverland. She also has help from her fairy friends: Pinky from Pinky and the Brain Fairy (NARF!), Pinky's Fat Friend Fairy, Bitchy Fairy, Mildly Retarded Fairy, and Southern Fairy. There are more, but they're basically Exposition and Background Fairies.

It's actually not too bad, which given the production stories, suggests that John Lasseter actually does have some  magic power that allows him to fix any animation disaster.  However, there do seem to be some serious economic repercussions to Tinkerbell's...um...tinkering.

• Tinkerbell's industrial revolution is built upon the use of the Lost Things. Unless they invent fairy mines and fairy forges soon, they're going to run out of these mechanical components.  This kind of puts Fairy-topia in a kind of cargo-cult position: they have incredible things, but clearly don't have the technical foundation necessary to develop these things by themselves.
• Tinkerbell just shrank the time necessary to get ready for spring from a year to a single night. That's a 36400% increase in productivity. Given that I don't recall seeing more than a few dozen fairies at any one time, I think this means that Tink's just put everyone in Fairyland out of work. Why have a bunch of different fairies doing things slowly when one fairy could do all the spring preparations with industry? Based on this totally 100% accurate wikipedia page that kind of productivity increase is roughly the equivalent of taking the 1st century Roman empire, and overnight turning it into the United States, circa 1998. That's definitely not going to create serious social unrest, and the possible reconsideration of whether a strict caste-based absolute monarchy is really the best system.

Monday: Just what I wanted the week I'm travelling.

Either the ramen yesterday didn't agree with me, or between weird eating hours yesterday and today, I felt most of the afternoon feeling really nauseous and generically "sick."  So much so that I ditched out of work after our weekly meeting because the idea of sitting at a desk wasn't what I wanted to do.  Based on this tag, it looks like this is the first time I've had to take sick time in like 18 months.  Also that I tend to attempt to fix all bad feelings with ramen.  That makes me really hope yesterday's ramen wasn't the source of the problems.

Picture at the end, because I had to spend fifteen minutes making it in response to one link.

• I'll have to take a look at this when I get back.
• I'll also have to take a look at this when I get back.  Also: do reconnaissance while in California to see how the prices differ.
• Interesting storify on Boris Johnson.
• It looks like there's another Tinkerbell movie for me to watch.
• "If that's on 4th street in Oakland, I would have thought I would have seen that, as that'd be near the Alameda tunnels."  Look on google maps.  Search around.  Realize the building is on 14th street, pushing it further downtown.  Search fruitlessly for the Peggy Carter gif that I want to use.  Give up, make it myself.

Learn to count.

I have a small version, but I liked the big one better, and since it's only three times the file size, why not.

Sunday: I enjoyed my Sunday. You may want to skip this post.

Part 1: Lunch.

The standard "no clue what I want for lunch" happened again today, and I decided that I'd go with "fish" as the solution to the problem.  So, Nico's then.

Fish/chips/I was hungry and wanted calimari, too.

Not the best I've had at Nico's, with overcooked calimari and fish that largely shed the crispy coating.  Probably healthier in the long run, if you can get over the "totally fried" aspect.

And then there was a rainbow.

Part 2: This Crappy Pokemon Movie.

I've done this before. Often.  Many times, apparently.  This was not the best one I've seen.

"Douchebag vs. Douchebag: Why Even Have the Main Characters" would have been a better title.

It stars this jerk.  He speaks. Using Inuyasha's voice, which is just creepy.

He's friends with these three jerks.  They talk too, but largely tell him he "needs to train more" and "isn't ready yet." Why does that sound like Dragonball Z?

He ignores advice, and goes to fight this jerk. His ass is thoroughly handed to him, and he gets his jerk friends frozen in ice.  Good job, jerk.

Insert opening credits with extended opening theme music from current series here.

James is only in the movie here. Making a call.

To Jessie, who equally shows up for like two seconds.  Fuck.

 Blah blah blah, Loser McJerkface teams up with Team Twerp (Unova Version), and run from Jerky McKicksYourAss.  That's when the felonies start happening.

 Like breaking into the subway system by smashing in giant train doors.  Do subways have giant train doors? 

Then they steal a blimp.  A blimp stored at the transportation museum at the edge of town that the subway connects to for some reason.

Then they steal a train.  These thefts are attempts to confuse Jerky McKYA.

 Fighty crap happens, but not regular Pokemon fighting.  Random "now I must power-up to fight with my TRUE STRENGTH!" kind of fighting.

See?  Upgraded form.

 More fighting.  They free the jerk's friends, who stand around and don't help.

"Because, honestly? We kind of hate him too."

Then the jerk realizes that the true way to win is not to play, or some other stupid lesson.  The villain largely says, "there you go, that's what you need to learn" and everything ends happy.

Definitely needed more Team Rocket.

Part 3: Things Left Undone.

I left myself a note yesterday that I needed lightbulbs.  Then I totally forgot about them, so my kitchen is still dark.

This meant that it was too dark to make dinner, so I just had a sandwich.  That's unfortunate, because I was going to make either a stromboli or a calzone, and now I'll have to do that tomorrow after work.  Instead of immediately eating pre-made stromboli or calzone.

This, but this is undone for a scientific reason:

Part 4: I Watch Most of Another Movie.

Three years ago, I watched this movie.  They had the second(?) sequel on today, so I watched that as well.  Not quite as economically devastating.  Well, ok.  It's not economically devastating if you ignore the part where Tinkerbell nearly destroys the entire world in a blanket of ice.  That would probably mess up the society they'd built.

But hey, the ending is a deus ex machina.  So it has that going for it.

Part 5: Links.

• Is this story suggesting that because fines "could lower profits" at banks, we should just ignore all the shady dealings?  Isn't that basically condoning extortion?
• I'm also a bit sad that the monkey couldn't go home with his people, but then again, they left him in a car while they went to Ikea.  Nice coat, though.
• Puppy.
• Prime rib.