Robot Claw – Page 460 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

A Life In Lists #1: Movies

February 25, 2014

For the almost-eight-years of this blog I have resisted the hallmark of lazy websites everywhere: a list.

But to celebrate my upcoming Geburtstag and to drive up page views and therefore advertising dollars, I am going to break my self imposed rule and – goddammit! – go on a list bender! Not just any list, but themed lists: 42 entries, for the (very soon) 42 years of my life.

Given the academy awards are soon upon us, what better way to start this endeavour than my own ‘awards’ so to speak. So here we are, list number one…

My favourite films of the last 42 years

1972 – Fist Of Fury
1973 – Enter The Dragon
1974 – Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla

1975 – Picnic At Hanging Rock
1976 – The Man Who Fell To Earth
1977 – Star Wars
1978 – Superman
1979 – Mad Max
1980 – The Empire Strikes Back

1981 – Excalibur
1982 – The Dark Crystal
1983 – Return Of The Jedi
1984 – Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom
1985 – A View To A Kill
1986 – Labyrinth
1987 – Superman IV: The Quest For Peace
1988 – The Lair Of The White Worm

1989 – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
1990 – Total Recall
1991 – Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1992 – Unforgiven
1993 – Faraway, So Close! (The last film I saw before leaving Australia)
1994 – The Lion King
1995 – Sense and Sensibility
1996 – The God Of Cookery
1997 – Starship Troopers
1998 – Velvet Goldmine (Best musical ever!)
1999 – Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
2000 – Gladiator

2001 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
2002 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
2003 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of The King
2004 – Shaolin Soccer
2005 – Kung Fu Hustle (My favourite film of all time)
2006 – V for Vendetta
2007 – Dragon Wars
2008 – Hancock

2009 – Crank: High Voltage
2010 – Scott Pilgrim vs The World
2011 – Thor
2012 – The Avengers
2013 – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
2014 – Journey To The West

Years were chosen based on the US release dates.

The hardest years to single out only one film were 1982 (due to Raiders of The Lost Ark and Tron) and 1986 (due to Aliens and Blue Velvet) and 2012 (due to Hobbit). I also had conflicting feelings about last year…

Journey To The West won’t be released for a few weeks yet in the US, and even then probably only in a very few theatres. But I watched it twice on the plane, and I can hardly believe I’ll see a better film this year 🙂

Can you spot…
1) The years with no ‘the best’ movies so I chose ‘the worst’? 😉
2) The film on the above list that I haven’t actually seen (yet)?

So, what do you think of the list? Leave your critique in the comments!

Touching Base

February 22, 2014

Isn’t that a wonderful photo? That’s apparently from a Japanese club in 1972, which is why I saved it.

Makes me think about this post again. I think about the past a lot near my birthday. Doing it all again is ever a fantasy hidden back there in my mind…

Anyway, the purpose of this post is just to say I’m still alive and (mostly) well after fighting my way through a very, very stubborn throat infection / bad cold. I still have the cough, and talking is still not as easy as it usually is, but I think in a few days I should have beaten almost that.

Since we’ve deferred Australia until next Christmas, KLS and I have a summer gap in our vacation schedule. The only condition is we’re not interested in a long flight with multiple stops. Got any suggestions as to where we should go?

Snow Day 2

February 14, 2014

Yesterday and last night we got hit by a massive snow storm. As with last week, I decided to document it in pictures.

Here’s what we saw when I opened the garage door this morning:

Here’s a better look at the mail box:

Here’s the front steps:

It was a colossal snowfall. I’d actually cleared the drive way fully last night, and had to again this morning:

The snow was deep and heavy. The snowblower was worth it’s weight in gold! All this new snow had to go on top of yesterday’s snow, which itself is on top of the still-unmelted snow from last week. After clearing the driveway, we have a wonderful ice wall edging the sides:

Yes that’s a normal sized soda can!

And here’s the steps cleared once again. You can see we’re running out of places to put the snow:

I had to go out for a while afterwards. The roads were cleared, but the snow piles were titanic in places. Here’s a shot taken at school:

And here’s the school itself:

I’m guessing we got 20 – 24 inches in total these past two days. On top of the 10 inches last week, this means there is still thigh-high deep snow in our backyard. This is surely a winter to remember!