Spirk (with a small dose of Pinto)

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  • Movie Reviews from Ivan 03.2017 Edition

    So I thought it might be fun to post my own personal movie reviews as I begin the 2017 viewing season. We go many Tuesdays and so I end up seeing quite a few. I won’t review all of them and who knows maybe no one will really be interested, but anyway.

    I’m going to start with two I’ve seen recently.

    And warning warning warning: SPOILERS AHEAD (read at your own risk)

    Get Out

    I went into this with not many expectations. I’d heard an interview with Jordan Peele who created and directed it. I’ve like his comedy work but this promised to be a little different and based on that interview I expected it to be more like a horror film.

    I ended up being pleasantly surprised it was more like a dark thriller than like a gory horror flick. I thought he had a great way of getting you to instantly like the characters he wanted you to like and sympathesize with.

    The opening scene is an African American man attempting to find the house of his girlfriend’s parents in a quiet suburb. He’s on the phone and clearly feels uncomfortable with where he is. Even though you only get his dialogue at this point you like this guy already and then bam this car pulls up and starts acting weird and as he realizes he’s in trouble, you know it too.

    The main character, Chris, is another African American man who is about to go away for the weekend to meet his white girlfriend’s parents. You like him instantly (he has a dog after all) and you like his friend who works for the TSA who is also taking care of Chris’ dog while he is away for the weekend. The girlfriend, Rose, seems pretty cool too.

    She drives them down to see her parents assuring him that her parents are not racist. They don’t appear to be when you meet them but they are vaguely strange and Chris recognizes that instantly as well. They also have a black maid and a black groundskeeper who both behave oddly and rather like zombies.  Her father is a neurologist and her mother a psychiatrist. When they find out Chris smokes they attempt to talk him into undergoing hypnosis to change the habit but he politely declines.

    Eventually he meets her brother too who is also vaguely off but Chris endures things pretty well. They inform Chris and Rose that an annual party is that weekend too so Chris knows he is going to be forced to meet even more people.

    Anyway, as the film progresses you realize this family is even more off than you initially thought and Chris is basically hypnotized against his will. He speaks of this and his doubts to Rose and she admits to him that she may have been wrong about her family and she apologizes.

    The party happens and Chris meets a lot of really strange white people and one African American who is probably in his late twenties but is married to a white woman probably in her sixties. Chris realizes this is odd to say the least. And the guy acts really weird and also has the same sort of zombie qualities the maid and groundskeeper have. But when Chris flashes a camera in his face, this dude freaks out and yells, Get Out.

    Eventually it is discovered by Chris that the family, through the help of Rose, abducts young black people to use for their bodies. The father puts the brains of dying white friends and family who have bid on the abducted into the fresh, healthy bodies. It’s bizarre and twisted and works really well, actually. Chris is their latest victim, though he didn’t realize it at first.

    You root for him to get away from this freak show and eventually with the help of his very funny best friend, the TSA agent, he does.

     

    Logan

    Up front I will say I was not a fan of X-Men Origins: Wolverine or of The Wolverine. I did really like Logan in the first X-Men movies as well as in X-Men: First Class and as well as X-Men: Days of Future Past.

    In this one we find Logan to be an older character who is disillusioned and drinks too much. There also appears to be something quite wrong with him because he doesn’t heal like he used to. He’s been working as a chauffeur in a limo to make money and he lives in Mexico with an albino mutant named Caliban and Charles Xavier, who is very old now.

    Charles has mental issues and Logan has to keep him constantly drugged because of his powerful mind. If he doesn’t take his drugs, he has seizures and all hell breaks loose. It seems clear from the implications that this has happened with Charles before and this is why Logan now keeps him in a bunker in Mexico. His plan is to one day buy a boat for he and Charles to live on in the middle of the ocean, presumably so they can not hurt anyone.

    He runs into a woman who desperately begs for his help but he initially rejects her. Eventually she tracks him down and tells him about a little girl named Laura. The woman eventually is killed by the bad guys and Logan and Charles are left trying to keep Laura safe from them. It is learned that she was created by evil scientists who created children from Mexican women and mutant DNA. Laura is actually Logan’s daughter as he was used for her.

    My main objection was, as I said before, too many action scenes. I know it is an action movie but they began to become tedious. This was actually one of my complaints about the previous Wolverine movies. I also think it went on about 30 minutes longer than it needed to.

    But as I have thought about it one of my main things was that I think there was a major plot that was rather not in character with Charles Xavier as I saw him in the previous movies.

    The three main characters are on the run from these absolutely dreadful bad guys. The bad guys have found them time and time again and have shown they are capable of hurting anyone that gets in their way.

    They run across this nice little family that have a farm and horses through a near accident with the horses on the highway. They end up helping the family get their horses together. The wife offers to cook them a meal for their trouble and Logan, rightly, immediately says no. Charles, however, insists on going to their house AND accepts their invitation to stay the night. Charles, basically, knowingly puts this innocent family into harm’s way and of course they end up butchered by the bad guys, and I just don’t believe the character I have seen would have done that. Charles knew the dangers they were facing and basically sacrificed this family for his own selfish needs. I did not dig that at all.

    So obviously, these are only my opinions. Most people have liked Logan and I did like it better than the other Wolverine offerings just not enough for me to personally recommend it.

  • Midweek Ramblings 03/15 Edition

    Okay so I went to see Logan last night. It was okay. Better than the previous Wolverine movies but still not that thrilling to me. I guess for me the original X-Men movies were the best and the recent offerings are just meh. Was nice to see Patrick Stewart of course as I am a big fan of him, especially in Star Trek. My biggest issue with Logan was I thought it went on too long and had to many ‘action’ scenes.

    Yesterday these arrived. And they are ‘beyond’ cool. LOL.

    Mugs

    Here are some pictures from my recent adventures. The pictures with the house and gazebo are from a winery called Graveyard. They had a chocolate port there called Deliverance. Yummy. The picture with the rock in the distance in the water is Morro Rock. I will be seeing it much closer April 01.

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  • Ramblings of the Week, March 13, 2017

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    I intended to take most of last week off of writing stuff to post. I am working on my big bang story, but that’s not going to be posted for sometime.

    But then I sort of got the idea for a fic. I didn’t know if I wanted to post it because I am always afraid of people getting Ivan overload and so I initially posted it as “anonymous”. But then I thought a couple of things. One, I should just own it and post it as myself and if people don’t want to read it because they think, oh, God, not again, then so be it, and two, if someone on there cannot stand me, I should be upfront so they don’t get invested in something they aren’t really going to enjoy or want to read.

    So, What Happened to Spock, was born. I’ve gotten a comment that I am writing Spock too young for a Vulcan but well…we’ll see.

    I’ve read a couple of de-aged fics over the years. One was with Jim where Jim was de-aged after Spock and Uhura got married. He was never with Jim at the point. But they end up raising Jim to adulthood and then Spock and Jim fall in love.

    The other was one with Spock where he is separated from Jim until he is a young adult again. Jim gets together with Spock Prime who he is with until Spock Prime’s death. When Spock returns at that point to the Enterprise, Jim is not friendly to a young Spock and keeps very distant until Spock almost dies saving Jim. Then he admits that he does still have feelings for Spock but things are complicated.

    I wish I could remember the title or where I read that one. I’ve been trying to google it without success so far.

    I’m back from my wine weekend. Had a good time and bought lots of wine. Absolutely stunning weather.

    Next up is Forever I Am With You, though I admit I haven’t even started the next chapter. I can’t keep up with all the requests that I update certain fics soon or next so I’ll just go with what I know needs updating. Everything will get that way eventually.

    I saw the new trailer for Wonder Woman and good Lord, Chris is hot. It’s ridiculous really. She’s hot too by the way.

    It’s been in the 80’s the last several days now so spring has officially arrived here. I’m not terribly sorry to see the rain go but it left some beautiful green hills in its wake.

     

  • Flash Fic Friday, March 10, 2017

    A bit of a self-indulgent mini flash fic this week. I had no prompt, just decided to write this to be obnoxious.

    STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

    He sat up in bed, his chest heaving with the effort to breathe. He rested his hand on his chest where his heart beat so rapidly, he wasn’t sure it would ever go back to its normal beat.

    “Jim?”

    Spock came out of the bathroom dressed in a cozy looking bathrobe, his hair wet and vaguely standing on end.

    Jim nodded at him. “Hey.”

    “The bad dream again?”

    “Uh-huh. It got even farther along this time too.”

    Spock came to him and sat beside him on the bed, reaching over to rub Jim’s back. “It is not reality, Jim.”

    “I know. But it seemed so real.”

    “Everyone knows that it is you and I who belong together and no one else,” Spock reminded him. “The very idea that I would have ever been in a relationship with Uhura is absurd.”

    “Yeah.”

    “As is the idea that a strong and capable woman such as Nyota needs a relationship with a man to be considered relevant.”

    “For sure.”

    “Or that she has to manipulate said man into putting her on the Enterprise as if her excellent set of skills wasn’t qualifications enough.”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “And the idea that she would openly kiss her superior officer in front of both their superior officer as though she is incapable of controlling her womanly self or for that matter that she would openly fight with her boyfriend during a dangerous mission in front of that same superior officer.”

    Jim smiled a little at that. “You’re right about that. It’s definitely sexist.”

    “Yes.” Spock rubbed Jim’s shoulders. “It is you who I love, who I cherish. We’ve always been gay in any universe.”

    His smile widened. “Well, maybe not gay. But I’ll go with pansexual.”

    Spock shook his head and leaned over to place a somewhat chaste kiss on Jim’s lips. “What do you wish to do for our shore leave?”

    Jim cupped the back of Spock’s neck and drew his lips to his. “Go back to bed.”

  • Mid-Week Ramblings

    As I indicated in my latest update on AOS, Young and Beautiful, I am taking a bit of a break from posting.

    I’ll be around Wednesday and Thursday, but will be working on something else for those days, and then I will be off on my wine tasting weekend in Paso Robles Friday-Sunday. Probably won’t have written anything to post until Tuesday of next week.

    I think next up on the spreadsheet is Forever I am With You, so likely that is what I will update some time next week.

    And speaking of upcoming vacations, as I think I have said, we are going to Yellowstone Park in June. Well next January looks like we are off on another Caribbean Cruise. The last one was fun and this time a group of us are going and we are getting rooms with Balconies and special spa access and privileges. I think most of the destinations are places we’ve been to but there is one we haven’t which is Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic.

    In the meantime, myself and the great grand M are going to Morro Bay for the weekend of April 01. I cannot wait. We have a balcony room with a view of the ocean and bay. This is a favorite getaway of ours.

    Last night we went to see Get Out and it turned out to be a pretty decent movie. I thought it was going to be horror but it was more a thriller where you ended up thinking, what is with these weirdos? I think next Tuesday (Tuesdays are cheap here so that’s why we go) we will probably see Logan. We usually wait until the following week to see popular movies until the crowds get a little thinner. Except Star Trek. I must see that right away always.

    Speaking of, it seems like they are going ahead with Star Trek 4. I have mixed feelings about this. Of course I want to see Pinto in it and everyone else and the idea of having Jim’s daddy in the form of Chris Hemsworth is an intriguing one. But I don’t want to see more of the Spock/Uhura crap and I know I will and I just don’t want to go there yet again. Everyone but JJ Abrams agrees it’s a stupid, ridiculous plot point. It even made watchmojos list on youbtube of pointless romances in movies.

    So yeah, I love Star Trek and I want to see them make more, especially since so many were convinced that Beyond was too much of a failure to make another, and I like to say, fuck you to all those critics and idiots who think you have to make 900 Million or you aren’t a success, but part of me wishes they would just let it go because I know Spock with Uhura will once more be shoved down our throats.

    Well, that’s probably more than I wanted to say, but there you have it.

  • Ramblings of the Week, March 06. 2017

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    Not a whole lot to say this week.

    I got my raise and bonus information at work today. Naturally not as much as I would have liked but that seems to be the way of things. There’s talk of layoffs so I hope I survive that.

    I’m about half done with my T’hy’la Big Bang story and we had our first check-in over the weekend. I’m not supposed to say much about it, if anything, but I think I am okay to say I am involved.

    I’m going away for the wine tasting weekend I think I mentioned earlier so there won’t be any updates from me on AO3 or otherwise Friday-Sunday. I will be skipping Flash Fic Friday this week, too, but you can expect it back March 17th.

    I updated Dating a Vulcan today, which was next in line. I haven’t really looked at my spreadsheet to see what comes after that, but once I do I will try to get the next update up before I leave Friday. Since I also have other stuff to write on the side we shall see if it gets done.

    April is going to be a super busy month for me so regular posting may suffer. We will see. I’ve got a little getaway at the beginning, a birthday party for a two year old, Cousins visiting, other birthdays, it’s really a mess of a month, honestly.

    So that’s the current scoop from me.

  • Flash Fic Friday, March 03, 2017

    My Prompt was a Walk in the Moonlight. This takes place immediately after the events of Star Trek: Beyond

    kirky

    “So I guess this is supposed to simulate moonlight,” Jim commented as he and Spock walked along a path on Yorktown.

    “For what purpose?” Spock inquired, hands linked behind his back.

    “To appear romantic I guess.” He shot a quick glance at Spock. “Not that we’re trying to be romantic or anything.”

    Spock appeared to dismiss that bit of silliness without further thought. “As this is a space station, there would be no moonlight, so to produce artificial moonlight for aesthetic purposes is highly illogical.”

    “Okay, Spock.”

    “Furthermore I have never quite understood Terran fascination for moonlight. It is merely the reflection of light from the sun and there are no magical properties.”

    Jim nodded wearily. “Okay, Spock.”

    “Are you all right, Captain? You seem particularly out of sorts.”

    “Just tired I guess. You can go back to doing whatever it was you were doing. Mission reports. Or-or, you know, socializing with Uhura.”

    “Since you have just barely recovered from your recent engagement with Krall, I suspect you would benefit from additional respite.”

    Jim sighed and stopped to lean against a pillar, gazing up at the artificial moonlight. “It’s just the last few hours of my birthday, I wanted a little walk. But I guess you’re right. Walking on Yorktown isn’t quite what it would be on Earth or some other similar planet.”

    “What has happened to the doctor?”

    And Jim tried not to think that Spock was attempting to push his pathetic captain off on Bones, but really, it did seem like that.

    “Called away on a medical emergency. Really, Spock. It’s fine. You can go.”

    Spock took half a step closer. “Does it hurt?”

    Jim knew by the slight shift of Spock’s shoulders toward his eye that he meant his black eye. “Just a little. I’ve had worse. How about you? How do you feel?”

    “I am fully recovered.”

    “I doubt that.”

    “I assure you, Captain, I am functioning at optimal levels.”

    He smiled a little. “That’s good to know.” He paused. “I think…I’m procrastinating, of course.”

    “Procrastinating?”

    “I need to call my mother. Today isn’t only my birthday.”

    “I understand,” Spock said with a sharp nod. “Unfortunately, it is not something I can assist you with, Captain.”

    “Yeah, I know.” He moistened his lips. “She cries. Even after all this time.”

    Spock said nothing to that, he just looked vaguely uncomfortable. And who could blame him? So was Jim.

    “I will leave you to it.”

    Jim nodded and watched as Spock, shoulders stiff, began to walk away, away from the fake moonlit path. “Spock?”

    He stopped. Turned. “Yes, Captain?”

    “We’re-we’re friends, right?”

    “Indeed.”

    “Because lately, I don’t know, we seem to have drifted away from that a little.”

    “Perhaps,” Spock acknowledged. “I apologize for my part in distancing us.”

    “No, it’s all right.” He straightened from the pillar. “Just…I really don’t want to be alone right now, so, do you think, even though it’s fake and all, you might just walk a little further with me?”

    For a moment, Jim was sure Spock would refuse his pathetic, whiny request. But then he returned to Jim’s side.

    Spock gestured to the path. “Shall we?”

    Jim smiled and fell into place next to his first officer.

  • Scaredy Cat

    Currently they are repainting the outside of the building our townhome is in I forget when they painted it last but they are painting it again. This time white with gray trim. Seems like it would get dirty fast.

    They started yesterday.

    During this process they tape up all your windows. We have a skylight too so that got taped too. Then they use some sort of power paint sprayer. I’m guessing it’s loud. And I am also guessing there are several men working at once because the buildings are large and they got quite a bit done in one day. Men when they are working outside tend to be loud and yell back and forth to each other. Probably stomped on the roof too.

    We returned home from work yesterday to find the cats hiding. Surprisingly Luna was the braver one this time and she came out to eat and see us. Luna is a huge huge coward. Crazy aka Trixie is usually the brave one. Not this time. She was hiding under the bed in the guest room. She wouldn’t even come out for her afternoon feeding.

    We left to go to dinner and when we returned they both seemed okay. Crazy was out and had her before bedtime meal. She did keep staring at the plastic stuck to the windows.

    This morning before we left for work, she was back under the bed, even though the men don’t start work until around 8 and we left just after 6. She wouldn’t come for breakfast.Luna ate hers. Now you know why Luna is chubby.

    Anyone who knows about cats know that they got that Scaredy  Cat rep for a reason. I expect the men to be here the rest of the week, so poor Crazy is going to give herself a little kitty heart attack.

     

  • Ramblings of the Week, February 27, 2017

    I sometimes get to the point where I think…why bother? Each day or sometimes every other day, I work to create something to post on a fanfiction site for like-minded people to enjoy and I get a few kudos and/or comments and all seems well. Or wellish. And then I lose a subscriber. And then I lose another subscriber. And a bookmark. And yet another subscriber.

    And I am left wondering what have I done wrong now?

    The good news for me this last week is that Chris shaved. Yay! tumblr_olvmiijcp31spvhnko1_500

    Alas Zach did not.

    Chris could use a haircut though.

    I was really hoping Viggo Mortenson would win the Academy Award for best actor but it was not meant to be. I didn’t watch the awards but I was rooting for him.

    What is this? Week bazillion of my cough? Sure feels like it. It’s not as bad (in spite of M would say) but damn how long does it have to go on? I’m wheezy all the time too. Maddening.

    In two weeks I am off for the weekend to go wine tasting in Paso Robles.

    oaks

    That is where we are staying. I forget how many wineries are in the area. Like 22 plus or something. Anyway it will be fun, I think. March 10-12.

    My cats are more popular than I am. I get more likes when I post pictures of the furballs. Go figure.

    I pretty much didn’t do anything this weekend. I went to the grocery store for about 30 minutes on Saturday, but otherwise I never left my house.

    I was so sad to hear about Bill Paxton passing on. I loved him in so many things. My favorite roles for him were in Aliens, Apollo 13 and Tombstone. All movies I own.

    What a great actor he was and as I understand it, a great human being. I’m sad.