Weekend Update
Babe of the Moment
The new and now current Babe of the Moment is the actress, Tamlyn Tomita. As you may recall from my previous whines, I had difficulty in finding photos of her. There is not a great deal of information about her at the Internet Movie Database [http://www.imdb.com].
All I could find was that she was born in Okinawa on January 27, 1966, making her a very attractive 40. She is untall [62 inches / 157 centimeters]. Tamlyn was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world in 1991 and was the 1984 Nisei Week in Los Angeles. i knew that she as attractive without the other recognition.
The most compelling thing I learned, having been an indifferent History major at university, about Tamlyn was that she had been majoring in history at UCLA before leaving for show business. It is always nice to see a History major succeed.
All of this goes to show that small things can be very attractive and fascinating.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and the Prelude
I took the Prelude into the Honda dealership to have them check the transmission since it had been slipping from time to time. The news from the transmission specialist was, at various times, good, bad, and ugly.
The bad news was that my suspicions were confirmed. The transmission is starting to fail. That was a disappointment but hardly unexpected. The Prelude will be 18 years old in September. It has been driven for over 335,300 miles / 531,600 kilometers in mostly heavy traffic in greater Los Angeles. Wear and tear will happen and mechanical parts will fail eventually and have to be replaced.
The good news was that I do not have to fix the Prelude immediately. The specialist said the transmission could go on for several more years with a slip or two every month; in reality, only a minor irritation for me. It is unlikely to fail in the next few days as well. This means I can wait a bit before I fix.
The ugly news is that a remanufactured transmission will cost between $1,800 and $2,200, depending on the warranty that I buy, and an additional $500 for the labor on the job. That is real money gentle readers. The labor component seems to be almost reasonable; I said almost here.
This will give me something to think about the next time I am out on the balcony in the evening. My ideal solution would be to win a gob of money in the lottery and then buy a new car and let someone else worry about the Prelude after it is gone.
Watchless
I have been watchless now for a week and two days.
Saturday was my biggest test so far. Last weekend, I was at home so not having a watch on was not critical for me. I had my glasses on so I could read the computer clock and I could read the microwave oven digital clock so I was fine.
Yesterday, I left my glasses at home while I was at the cinema. I will be leaving them home again when I go to the cinema today. There will be more about the cinema either today or in the next couple of days. I was able to read the time display on my Verizon cell phone and I was able to read the time display on my Cingular cell phone.
It would appear that I can survive without my wrist watch for the time being.
Cinema
I went to the cinema on Saturday because the workers from the roof replacement company were here at my building, early in the morning. They were pounding, hammering, and generally being very noisy.
My condominium was no place to study and I could not read on the balcony because of the falling debris from the roof.
I saw three films weekend; two on Saturday and one on Sunday.
AZUMI
AZUMI was my Sunday film and the most enjoyable. It is a Japanese samurai – revenge film. It takes places during the waning years of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s rule. The plot line is very linear as is the case with many films of this genera. The subtitles were a very good translation that included some Western slang.
This is Aya Ueto who played the role of Azumi. The film came out in 2003 and was a success in Japan. I believe that she could have worked in MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA instead of Zyang Ziying. Aya is much shorter but that should not have been any trouble. Anyone who runs around in a scene with fake movie blood on her face has to be able to act.
Some of the sequences were a little hard to follow. In one scene, towards the beginning of the second act, the group walks into a village that is being pillaged by the local bandits. The Master tells them that they must not get involved for their mission is more important. I could accept that premise but how do they avoid dealing with the bandits since they are sort of standing there is plain view?
The film has the usual cast of characters including the old Master, the lord’s samurai body guard, assorted ninjas, one of who looks likes a monkey, and one psychotic killer, just released from prison. The psychotic killer is the one in the white.
Doug said that he felt MIAMI VICE lacked the level of action that he was expecting from a Michael Mann film. AZUMI has more than enough action. It has the requisite stylized sword fighting with flying body parts, heads, and barrels of fake movie blood. Some of the sword fighting choreography was excellent.
I really enjoyed the film and would highly recommend it to those who favor this genera. If I were awarding katanas instead of stars, I would give it 3.5 katanas.
MIAMI VICE
I saw this film first on Saturday. I think I was expecting more from the film than I got; probably because it was a Michael Mann film and his last film COLLATERAL was so enjoyable.
I did enjoy Gong Li who played the Chinese Cuban girl friend of the Columbian drug dealer. But, I have generally always liked her work.
I think Doug was right with his comments that the action level seemed to be too low for MIAMI VICE. I thought the shower scenes were gratuitous and really unnecessary plot points to establish relationships. The side trip to Havana seemed too far fetched to be believable. Wouldn’t the Cubans try to stop a boat that is approaching the island at very high speed and is coming straight from the United States? It did drag at times. The music seemed weak also.
Doug said the film reminded him of a Western and would have been better off with the music from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western. He was right as usual. I thought the film was similar in some ways to FIST FULL OF DOLLARS.
Doug also said that Michael Mann should make a Western. I think Mann would be a perfect director for a Western. Unfortunately, the Western would probably be a stinker because the studio would force Mann to use whatever actor that was hot with the audiences in the film.
Can any of you see Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt staring in the remake of HIGH NOON or THE SEARCHERS or STAGECOACH?
I certainly can not.
I am also hard pressed to recommend this film. Certainly, I could never recommend the film at a regular priced showing of $10.50 a ticker. Thankfully, I was able to use my senior [60 and over] discount and saved $3.00. I can only recommend this film at a bargain matinee or as a video rental.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST
Considering it is now in it’s third weekend, the venue where I saw it had a larger crowd than did MIAMI VICE. Of course, attendance can be affected by many factors including time of day and weather. It is possible that MIAMI VICE will have a good box office this weekend.
The PIRATES franchise seems to be aging extremely rapidly now. I was struck that the inclusion of many of the scenes from the Disneyland ride were clear signs of creative desperation by the writers or the grossest of all product placements. The cliffhanger ending of the film is straight out of the Saturday B-level serials of the 1930s. The STAR WARS franchise had better endings that were not so limited.
This is a good film for teenagers and other young children. The plot seems too linear to be challenging for the adults. The studio has already telegraphed some of the highlights of the third film; we get to see Keith Richards play Johnny Depp’s father, assuming he lives that long, and Geoffrey Rush returns to play Captain Barbossa. There will be at least one storm at sea and of course a ship to ship battle that the pirates illogically will win.
I think I will see the third episode after I buy the DVD. That sort of sums my feelings about the franchise and that I should have seen this version after I purchased the DVD which will be available in a deluxe, boxed set at Christmas.
Nurse Joyce from University
Nurse Joyce was a young lady that I dated when I was in university during my senior year. Like the others who were getting our commissions in the United States Navy after graduation, I eagerly awaited my orders.
Sailors are meant to be on ships and ships are meant to be at sea. I had asked for sea duty on a destroyer. I figured that Joyce could handle me being gone for six to nine months on a deployment and then be with me for the next two years in the States. She even thought that would work out nicely for both of us.
Unfortunately for us, the Navy Department had other ideas. I was assigned to the good ship USS Leonard F. Mason, a destroyer that was placed in service before I was born.
I checked what my ship would be doing for the first year of active duty. One of the petty officers helped me understand the Fleet Employment Schedule. He said, “You’re sure lucky Mr. Reinhardt, your ship is in Destroyer Squadron Three.”
“What’s so good about that?”
“Well, sir, you’ll be joining the ship overseas on a deployment and then she’ll be coming back to the States for a couple of months. Then, Destroyer Squadrons Three and Nine swap home ports; they do that every two years. The Mason will be home ported in Japan for two years. Isn’t that great, sir?”
“What about a wife?”
“Nothing to worry about sir. The Navy will move your wife and belongings over with the ship. Of course, you won’t have any base housing so your wife will need to be able to get along with the locals while you are away and your ship will be at sea most of the time.”
“Oh,” I figured that this would not sit well with Joyce when I told her. We had been talking about wedding and that sort of stuff.
Joyce exploded; that was the easiest description of her reaction. It lasted for about an hour or more. In the end, Joyce said there was very little likelihood that she would be on any pier to see my ship come in or sail away.
We were toast.
On the plus side, because I can always find a plus side to almost anything, the explosion happened before Christmas so I was off the hook for a gift exchange with her.
Fast forward until a couple of months before graduation and it is shot time for the young officers to be. We all went over the Student Health Service for our shots on Friday. We were talking shots for any possible disease you can think of including cholera and plague.
It was my bad karma that Joyce was there with the other nursing students. They were looking forward to giving shots to live patients. Joyce saw me and said something like “Come here sailor, I will take good care of you.”
I think she had an alternative definition of good care than I did. My arms were sore all weekend and this was only the first series of shots; there were a total of five or six series of multiple shots with each shot session. I suffered while most of my classmates had relatively painless times. They tried to make me feel better by saying that Joyce was just making sure that I was protected while I was overseas.
I could have used less protection.
Still, I do have fond memories of Joyce and sometimes wonder what she is doing. I could Google her name but I am guessing that she got married right after graduation, long leggy blondes usually find a husband quickly, and who knows what her last name is now.
Dinner
My dinner was a Kingburger with cheese from Fatburger. It was well worth the carbohydrate overdose.
That was some of my weekend highlights. I will have some observations during the week.
Be well and stay happy.
The new and now current Babe of the Moment is the actress, Tamlyn Tomita. As you may recall from my previous whines, I had difficulty in finding photos of her. There is not a great deal of information about her at the Internet Movie Database [http://www.imdb.com].
All I could find was that she was born in Okinawa on January 27, 1966, making her a very attractive 40. She is untall [62 inches / 157 centimeters]. Tamlyn was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world in 1991 and was the 1984 Nisei Week in Los Angeles. i knew that she as attractive without the other recognition.
The most compelling thing I learned, having been an indifferent History major at university, about Tamlyn was that she had been majoring in history at UCLA before leaving for show business. It is always nice to see a History major succeed.
All of this goes to show that small things can be very attractive and fascinating.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and the Prelude
I took the Prelude into the Honda dealership to have them check the transmission since it had been slipping from time to time. The news from the transmission specialist was, at various times, good, bad, and ugly.
The bad news was that my suspicions were confirmed. The transmission is starting to fail. That was a disappointment but hardly unexpected. The Prelude will be 18 years old in September. It has been driven for over 335,300 miles / 531,600 kilometers in mostly heavy traffic in greater Los Angeles. Wear and tear will happen and mechanical parts will fail eventually and have to be replaced.
The good news was that I do not have to fix the Prelude immediately. The specialist said the transmission could go on for several more years with a slip or two every month; in reality, only a minor irritation for me. It is unlikely to fail in the next few days as well. This means I can wait a bit before I fix.
The ugly news is that a remanufactured transmission will cost between $1,800 and $2,200, depending on the warranty that I buy, and an additional $500 for the labor on the job. That is real money gentle readers. The labor component seems to be almost reasonable; I said almost here.
This will give me something to think about the next time I am out on the balcony in the evening. My ideal solution would be to win a gob of money in the lottery and then buy a new car and let someone else worry about the Prelude after it is gone.
Watchless
I have been watchless now for a week and two days.
Saturday was my biggest test so far. Last weekend, I was at home so not having a watch on was not critical for me. I had my glasses on so I could read the computer clock and I could read the microwave oven digital clock so I was fine.
Yesterday, I left my glasses at home while I was at the cinema. I will be leaving them home again when I go to the cinema today. There will be more about the cinema either today or in the next couple of days. I was able to read the time display on my Verizon cell phone and I was able to read the time display on my Cingular cell phone.
It would appear that I can survive without my wrist watch for the time being.
Cinema
I went to the cinema on Saturday because the workers from the roof replacement company were here at my building, early in the morning. They were pounding, hammering, and generally being very noisy.
My condominium was no place to study and I could not read on the balcony because of the falling debris from the roof.
I saw three films weekend; two on Saturday and one on Sunday.
AZUMI
AZUMI was my Sunday film and the most enjoyable. It is a Japanese samurai – revenge film. It takes places during the waning years of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s rule. The plot line is very linear as is the case with many films of this genera. The subtitles were a very good translation that included some Western slang.
This is Aya Ueto who played the role of Azumi. The film came out in 2003 and was a success in Japan. I believe that she could have worked in MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA instead of Zyang Ziying. Aya is much shorter but that should not have been any trouble. Anyone who runs around in a scene with fake movie blood on her face has to be able to act.
Some of the sequences were a little hard to follow. In one scene, towards the beginning of the second act, the group walks into a village that is being pillaged by the local bandits. The Master tells them that they must not get involved for their mission is more important. I could accept that premise but how do they avoid dealing with the bandits since they are sort of standing there is plain view?
The film has the usual cast of characters including the old Master, the lord’s samurai body guard, assorted ninjas, one of who looks likes a monkey, and one psychotic killer, just released from prison. The psychotic killer is the one in the white.
Doug said that he felt MIAMI VICE lacked the level of action that he was expecting from a Michael Mann film. AZUMI has more than enough action. It has the requisite stylized sword fighting with flying body parts, heads, and barrels of fake movie blood. Some of the sword fighting choreography was excellent.
I really enjoyed the film and would highly recommend it to those who favor this genera. If I were awarding katanas instead of stars, I would give it 3.5 katanas.
MIAMI VICE
I saw this film first on Saturday. I think I was expecting more from the film than I got; probably because it was a Michael Mann film and his last film COLLATERAL was so enjoyable.
I did enjoy Gong Li who played the Chinese Cuban girl friend of the Columbian drug dealer. But, I have generally always liked her work.
I think Doug was right with his comments that the action level seemed to be too low for MIAMI VICE. I thought the shower scenes were gratuitous and really unnecessary plot points to establish relationships. The side trip to Havana seemed too far fetched to be believable. Wouldn’t the Cubans try to stop a boat that is approaching the island at very high speed and is coming straight from the United States? It did drag at times. The music seemed weak also.
Doug said the film reminded him of a Western and would have been better off with the music from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western. He was right as usual. I thought the film was similar in some ways to FIST FULL OF DOLLARS.
Doug also said that Michael Mann should make a Western. I think Mann would be a perfect director for a Western. Unfortunately, the Western would probably be a stinker because the studio would force Mann to use whatever actor that was hot with the audiences in the film.
Can any of you see Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt staring in the remake of HIGH NOON or THE SEARCHERS or STAGECOACH?
I certainly can not.
I am also hard pressed to recommend this film. Certainly, I could never recommend the film at a regular priced showing of $10.50 a ticker. Thankfully, I was able to use my senior [60 and over] discount and saved $3.00. I can only recommend this film at a bargain matinee or as a video rental.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST
Considering it is now in it’s third weekend, the venue where I saw it had a larger crowd than did MIAMI VICE. Of course, attendance can be affected by many factors including time of day and weather. It is possible that MIAMI VICE will have a good box office this weekend.
The PIRATES franchise seems to be aging extremely rapidly now. I was struck that the inclusion of many of the scenes from the Disneyland ride were clear signs of creative desperation by the writers or the grossest of all product placements. The cliffhanger ending of the film is straight out of the Saturday B-level serials of the 1930s. The STAR WARS franchise had better endings that were not so limited.
This is a good film for teenagers and other young children. The plot seems too linear to be challenging for the adults. The studio has already telegraphed some of the highlights of the third film; we get to see Keith Richards play Johnny Depp’s father, assuming he lives that long, and Geoffrey Rush returns to play Captain Barbossa. There will be at least one storm at sea and of course a ship to ship battle that the pirates illogically will win.
I think I will see the third episode after I buy the DVD. That sort of sums my feelings about the franchise and that I should have seen this version after I purchased the DVD which will be available in a deluxe, boxed set at Christmas.
Nurse Joyce from University
Nurse Joyce was a young lady that I dated when I was in university during my senior year. Like the others who were getting our commissions in the United States Navy after graduation, I eagerly awaited my orders.
Sailors are meant to be on ships and ships are meant to be at sea. I had asked for sea duty on a destroyer. I figured that Joyce could handle me being gone for six to nine months on a deployment and then be with me for the next two years in the States. She even thought that would work out nicely for both of us.
Unfortunately for us, the Navy Department had other ideas. I was assigned to the good ship USS Leonard F. Mason, a destroyer that was placed in service before I was born.
I checked what my ship would be doing for the first year of active duty. One of the petty officers helped me understand the Fleet Employment Schedule. He said, “You’re sure lucky Mr. Reinhardt, your ship is in Destroyer Squadron Three.”
“What’s so good about that?”
“Well, sir, you’ll be joining the ship overseas on a deployment and then she’ll be coming back to the States for a couple of months. Then, Destroyer Squadrons Three and Nine swap home ports; they do that every two years. The Mason will be home ported in Japan for two years. Isn’t that great, sir?”
“What about a wife?”
“Nothing to worry about sir. The Navy will move your wife and belongings over with the ship. Of course, you won’t have any base housing so your wife will need to be able to get along with the locals while you are away and your ship will be at sea most of the time.”
“Oh,” I figured that this would not sit well with Joyce when I told her. We had been talking about wedding and that sort of stuff.
Joyce exploded; that was the easiest description of her reaction. It lasted for about an hour or more. In the end, Joyce said there was very little likelihood that she would be on any pier to see my ship come in or sail away.
We were toast.
On the plus side, because I can always find a plus side to almost anything, the explosion happened before Christmas so I was off the hook for a gift exchange with her.
Fast forward until a couple of months before graduation and it is shot time for the young officers to be. We all went over the Student Health Service for our shots on Friday. We were talking shots for any possible disease you can think of including cholera and plague.
It was my bad karma that Joyce was there with the other nursing students. They were looking forward to giving shots to live patients. Joyce saw me and said something like “Come here sailor, I will take good care of you.”
I think she had an alternative definition of good care than I did. My arms were sore all weekend and this was only the first series of shots; there were a total of five or six series of multiple shots with each shot session. I suffered while most of my classmates had relatively painless times. They tried to make me feel better by saying that Joyce was just making sure that I was protected while I was overseas.
I could have used less protection.
Still, I do have fond memories of Joyce and sometimes wonder what she is doing. I could Google her name but I am guessing that she got married right after graduation, long leggy blondes usually find a husband quickly, and who knows what her last name is now.
Dinner
My dinner was a Kingburger with cheese from Fatburger. It was well worth the carbohydrate overdose.
That was some of my weekend highlights. I will have some observations during the week.
Be well and stay happy.
posted by Chuck Reinhardt at 8:57 AM
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