You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March 2010.
I haven’t been posting on Twitter or such lately. Not sure why, just haven’t had the impetus. So these are my current haps.
– Finished my read-through of the major Tolkien works on Middle-Earth; followed it up with a complete watch-through of the extended edition of the trilogy, which I finished tonight after 6 days of Lord of the Rings movie awesomeness. Final assessment; yeah, I love LotR, and it was a fun way to ramp-up my first watch-through of the movies since Return of the King was still kicking around on HBO. Sure I wore Lisa out with lectures on differences between the film and the books. Plan on really hitting the special features of the DVD set, at last, in the coming weeks.
– My follow-up book to the works of Tolkien was Stephen King’s “Under the Dome”. First-rate epic of the sort King hasn’t done in awhile. Furthermore notable for his large-scale research and uncompromising climax. In short, I loved it.
– Due to the airing of “The Pacific” I’ve delved deeply into my WWII history shelves. Re-watched “Band of Brothers” on Blu-ray, and am currently re-reading Ambrose’s book. Whether “The Pacific” will live up to BoB’s legacy still remains to be seen, but the first two episodes were pretty great, though very different from BoB.
– Video games have taken a back seat the last couple months, with the 2010 Olympics dominating most of my time in February, a marathon watch-through of the Oscar-nominated best films, then my tear-throughs of the media mentioned above. Heavy Rain’s demo on PS3 blew me away and I look forward to the full game. Bioshock 2 has been terrific, but taking a break somewhat due to the stresses of the series. Have been enjoying Prince of Persia’s relatively mellow and death-free vibe on the console lately.
– Currently awaiting my Dell Mini 10v to play with some Hackintosh goodness. Will update about my experience with an OSX netbook in the coming weeks.
So that’s what I’ve been up to lately – nothing too remarkable, but often attention and time consuming.
Just finished watching The Hunt for Gollum - a 40-minute film based on the LOTR appendices and shot in the style of Jackson’s films – which tells the story of Aragorn chasing Gollum’s trail shortly before the events of the first film.
The British-made film was shot on HD video and made on a production budget of only $5,000; the cast and crew were volunteer fans. Footage from the Jackson films is integrated, and the principle characters, Gandalf and Aragorn, look and sound much like McKellen and Mortensen. Gollum’s appearances are brief but exactly like the feature film’s. There’s a remarkably well-choreographed fight scene about halfway through the film. And while you might guess at times that the production is working on a budget, you’d never figure it was one this tiny. Very worth watching for fans of the series.
I work next to the Extended Care Unit at the hospital. They care for several dozen elderly patients who can’t live on their own but can’t afford a private option. From what I’ve heard – I’ve never been inside – it’s a pretty pleasant atmosphere and they take good care of their patients. I want to make clear that I think the men and women who work there do their job well before I get to the point.
No matter how good they are, there’s always a problem with wanderers. Many patients have Alzheimer’s or other mental conditions, and some of them have a tendency to walk off when no-one is looking. Usually they just go into a different part of the hospital or are quickly found on the grounds, but sometimes they can really get going, showing up at the mall or a restaurant a few klicks away.
Since they expanded the unit recently, they decided to put a cement sidewalk connecting the two outside doors on the north side and surround it with a fence, to prevent any from wandering off that way. Not a bad idea in principle. They’re almost finished building the fence, and here’s what it looks like.
Seriously, an 8 foot high black fence of thick steel bars? That’s what the residents of the north side get to see out their windows, or beside their patio? Were they worried that the wandering patients – almost all of which need something like a cane, walker or wheelchair just to get around – would manage to scale it and escape if it was only, say, 5 feet high? A picket fence would have got the job done, likely. Even a high fence less forboding and grim would have been a bit better. I actually find it an elegant commentary on our health care, whose overseers make decisions not remotely grounded in knowledge of the day to day operations at the local level.
The residents of Delta can at least rest assured that they won’t meet a 95 year old woman with dementia and preternatural climbing skills at London Drugs. I’m sure that’s a comfort to the many sharp-minded patients as they get to spend their remaining years gazing out from something that resembles the yard at a medium security prison. Unbelievable.
