Ok, all you Dark Knight fans, I want to know who would dress up as one of the Batman bad guys and then try to rob a movie theater of its Batman posters? Maybe he thought there would be many other dressed the same way, but this wasn’t the first weekend of the show. Most of the movie goers that dress in costume will go on the first day, or at the very latest the first weekend. Well, it happened in Detroit. What was he thinking?

Now most who know me, know that I love to talk about ways to commit crimes. Someday, when I grow up, I would like to write a decent mystery/murder story. I just have some problems with developing characters, that is a story for another day. I can come up with good plots, and even a way to write about the crime and throw out a few false clues. But never in my wildest dreams would I come up with this sort of crime. I mean at the very least this guy should have been robbing a bank, but no, he wants Batman stuff. And how does he try to get it? Dress up as the Joker, and steal it during the Sunday Morning show…. Hmm…. There are a lot less people at the movie theaters for those early Sunday shows, but guess what guy, you’re going to stand out like a sore thumb in that Joker getup. He would have had a much better chance putting on a pair of Dockers and a dark shirt. That would have given him a chance of looking like one of the theater workers.

Oh well, it takes all kinds. I think he could make it in a Dumb crooks list somewhere.

The other day, I ate something that disagreed with me just a little bit. Sparing you any of the details, let’s just say I was awake most of the night. I tried going to work the next day, but between stomach problems and the lack of sleep, I just couldn’t finish the day. This morning I thought I should stay home for a bit just to make sure I was in better health. So what did I do? Well, I slept… I guess I needed a bit of sleep because I did go to bed early last night and then slept a good portion of this morning away. I normally don’t do that unless I’ve been out with friend ’till the wee hours of the morning.

Anyway, I guess I shouldn’t have done that this morning. Now I’m wide awake and ready to go. No late night ballgames to listen to, I really not into watching movies late at night, so what do I do, I check my blog. Not really a lot going on here either. Web surfing, not much going on at the places I frequent, but I haven’t checked them all. I just put down a book at a convenient stopping place, I don’t want to keep reading only to leave something hanging when the urge to sleep does hit me.

I did see a news report earlier that I thought would make an interesting blog… If I could only find it before I get tired…. Until I find it, I will subject my readers to mindless rambling. I don’t call this blog “Random Thoughts” for no reason. Every once in a while I need to clear my head of all the things in it. This bit a trivia, or that bit, or even things I’m just thinking about. Tonight it is sleep and/or the lack of it.

I’m off to search for the news story I sort of remember, I just wish I could remember where I saw it….

A friend at work loaned me a book that she thought I would like. The authors of the book were Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The story was one of a series and the title was “Brimstone”. A very good book revolving around a New Jersey Cop and an FBI agent. I’ve learned that this book was part of a continuing series of D’Agosta and Pendergast stories. Each one dealing with some strange crime. They could be weird science disguised as occult, or even ‘real’ monsters. The story telling was gripping, and these books are very hard for me to put down. Some were a little tense for late night reading, but all of them kept my attention.

I’ve read the following and am working on the others. I would recommend them for any who likes good mysteries.

Relic — First book in the series
Brimstone — not sure where this is in the series, but I think there is more than one book before this one
Dance of Death — Follows right after Brimstone

For those of you who live in my area, forget the local library for a month or so, I just checked out the following

Reliquary — 2nd book I think
The Wheel of Darkness
The Book of the Dead
and Mount Dragon — Not part of the above series.

Good reading..

I’m writing this blog specifically for a friend of mine. He will know I’m writing about him shortly. 😉

I decided to write a little about the NASA Apollo missions and those few people who don’t believe they really happened. Why I’m writing this is simple. While doing some reading on other things I ran across the ‘theories’ of the Lunar hoax.

Now just because this would be the biggest hoax ever played on mankind is no reason not to believe those who say we didn’t land on the moon. I’m sure there could be instances when vast sums of money could used to convince people to think something happened, when in fact nothing happened at all.

That of course would be in a perfect world when there is no reason not to believe the agency in question. The late 1960’s and early 1970’s were not that perfect world. Even at that time people were saying we didn’t land on the moon, there were not that many, but always a few.

The biggest problems I have with any hoax on the lunar landings are these. During the height of the Cold War, when the USSR was just as intent on the space race as the USA, how did we fool them. They landed an unmanned probe in 1959, 10 years before Apollo 11. They must have been able to track space ships to and from the moon. If they didn’t track one, and could not track the radio communications between the earth and the moon, why haven’t they said so yet. I’m sure at the time they would have loved any excuse to throw this in the face of the USA. And the other thing, why fake so many missions. Faking it once is hard enough. Faking it 9 times is a bit of overkill, and then why fake the failed Apollo 13 mission?

There are many other Web sites that will take on this lunar landing hoax, I just brought it up for a good friend with one wacky idea. Of course, he thinks that my belief in the lunar landings is a wacky idea, so I guess that makes us even. 😉

Well, it took me two takes of this movie to feel comfortable writing much about it.  The way I was thinking, watching it the first time, made me fail to see some of the better qualities of this movie.  Hint to self, if you are going to see a midnight show, take a nap first.  I didn’t fall asleep, but my mind was thinking of different things way too often (see here ).

Now on to the movie itself. The Dark Knight’s title says it all, this movie was dark. The character of Batman is dark, the character of the Joker is extremely dark. The City of Gotham and its police force is dark. The only light in the movie is the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent. The unmasked hero Gotham needs.

The show starts with a mid-day bank robbery, by guys in clown masks. One by one the clowns off themselves and others. A Joker run scheme to rob banks that hold mob money. This was a great introduction to the character of the Joker. Harking back to various stages in DC comic book history, this Joker is not just a raving lunatic, he is also a cold and calculating killer. Anything that will forward his plans is OK with him. This is the darkness that the Joker brings to the movie.

Batman and his past bring up his dark side. His actions may be making the criminal element of Gotham react with the likes of the Joker. Confronting these inner demons is the life of Bruce Wayne/Batman. This Batman has depth. The perfect counterpoint to the Joker. He says he has one rule, where the Joker has no rules. This one rule separates Good from Evil, and Order from Chaos.

In watching this movie it is easy to be taken in as to exactly what the Gotham Police, DA’s Office and Batman are fighting. The movie is about the confrontation between Batman and The Joker. Every other plot device, and character development drives home that point. Batman on one hand is trying to protect the people and City he cares about. The Joker is trying to destroy the same. A big game devised by The Joker to test the mettle of Batman. The Joker and Batman are polar opposites again, destined to battle for the control of the city of Gotham.

To get this across the acting need at a very high level. The main actors all portrayed there parts very well. I really think the ‘new’ Rachel Dawes was a much better fit. She seemed more like a hard nosed attorney to me. I don’t think I would have wanted to get in her way. Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman again) again made this role his. Even the minor roles were good, I really liked the fake cop Rachel Dawes, he seemed like someone the Joker would hire.

Now my biggest concern of this movie is that it is 2 1/2 hours long. That is a very long movie. I saw this movie the first time at our little local theater for the Midnight show. At the prices that you pay for a movie, the $5 and $3 matinee prices usually make up for the fact that this is not the latest in movie theater seating or comfort. For this movie it was definitely a factor. The second time I saw this movie was at a newer theater with full stadium seating. The extra room and comfort of the chairs made the movie fly by. I no longer had the feeling that the movie should be ending soon, based on the number of times I shifted in my seat. I’m sure that seeing the movie once before helped to keep my attention up too, but I know the seating comfort helped a lot.

The sick and twisted plot of the Joker is to cause as much panic and chaos as possible in the City of Gotham. He is working to get control of all of the Mobs in place. He is working to cause panic in the streets. He is working to destroy Batman and the New DA. And for most of the movie it appears that he succeeds. Destruction, violence, murder and mayhem are his stock and trade. He robs a Mob bank and then breaks into their meeting saying he wants to be hired to kill the Batman. He then takes over one of the mobs.

Many people die until the Joker finally reveals most of his plan to Batman just after he is captured. The end of the show Batman is in a different place than he was at the beginning. At the beginning he is an overlooked vigilante, at the end a hunted vigilante, never to be overlooked again. Did the Joker win this battle?

The saddest part of the movie is this line from the Joker:

You just couldn’t let me go could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible aren’t you? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won’t kill you, because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.

This looks like a lead in to a certain sequel, but with the death of actor Heath Ledger, if one comes about it, this quote will remain just that a quote. I can’t see them putting another actor in the place of this Joker. Played in a way never seen on the screen before, and probably never seen again.

Ran across a news story about children jailed for an armed holdup.  At the time of the robbery, they were all 14 years old!!  My first question was, “where are the parents?”.   The article mentions that the three children were cousins, but makes no mention of parents or guardians.  Could it have happened in my family, sure.  My girls had plenty of time to plan this sort of thing.  I had hoped, and still hope that the lessons they were taught earlier in life were and still are with them when they aren’t in my sight.

So, I guess I do have another question.  Should the parents/guardians be held responsible for this?  My thoughts on this are mixed and still in the formative stages.  Many things point to, yes hold the parents responsible.  But another part of me wonders, when are the children old enough to take responsibility for there own actions.  Parents can be completely in the dark about some of the things their children do.  This does not have to be an indication that they don’t pay attention.  Some children are just really good at hiding things from Mom and Dad.   So, I guess I still don’t know…

Ok, I’m all for feeling good about myself, and getting the occasional pampering, but now we can have fish keep our feet clean. Yes, you read that correctly. There is a spa in Virginia that has little fish to nibble off the dead and rough skin from your feet.

At $35 dollars for 15 minutes and $50 for 30 minutes, I think that this will be one spa treatment I can forgo. I never liked it at the lake, when the fish would come up and do the toe nibble.

Now I’ll have to find other weird spa treatments that people use. Can you say mud baths anyone?

There seems to be a lot more shattered bats during a major league baseball game these days. I’ve heard the talk that the newer maple bats tend to shatter, while the ash just split. A news article I just read discusses this ‘new’ event in major league games.

I understand why they don’t use aluminum/metal bats in the major leagues. If you ever saw a ball jump off of the new metal bats in college ball, or even the local softball leagues, you can guess why you wouldn’t want one of those in the hands of a major league hitter. The pitcher would have to be 90 feet away just to be safe. I am wondering if some sort of material could be designed for baseball bats. Keep the elasticity (bounce of ball of the bat) the same as current wood bats, but have it much stronger to prevent splitting.

With the problems with Ash borers in the midwest (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and maybe Pennsylvania), there may be a supply problem with Ash baseball bats in the future anyway. I think they may need to do something, before more people get hurt sitting in the stands.

Last night I went to a show, live stage production that is. The show has already been mentioned in one of the other Tangent blogs, but I have a little different take on the whole thing. I happen to like “The Music Man”. I liked the movie version, and I’ve liked most of the stage productions I’ve seen. There have only been a couple, but that is because they tried doing too much with too little. You need to have a large cast for this, including children. While you don’t need a whole town, you do need enough on stage to let the audience believe there is a whole town.

It is a light hearted musical to be sure, most late 1950’s to early 1960’s American musicals were light hearted. It was the mood of the country.

I’m not sure why I enjoy this show so much. Could it be I remember my father singing 76 Trombones when I was younger? Could it be that I enjoyed teasing my sister about her only career choice (Marian the Librarian)? Did I have a subliminal desire to be in a boys’ band?– Nah.. I really don’t know. Maybe it is because they didn’t play this on the TV as often as they did “The Sound of Music”? It could also be that since I am a big Beatles fan, having hear “Till there was you” in “The Music Man” just made the show more interesting.

Anyway to this day, I enjoy a well performed version of “The Music Man”, and Saturday’s performance was one of the best I’ve seen live. Believable actors, good chemistry, nice set design made this show flow. I’ll point you to the other blog for a more in depth review, I don’t need to waste my words, when something is already written. The only thing I disagree on is I like the show, he doesn’t. I would like to add that I really enjoyed the young actress who played Marian. It could be some hometown bias here, but I really enjoy watching her on stage.

Yep, more on coffee. Well sort of. This is really a birthday post. Yesterday, it ended around two hours ago, would have been my wife’s 45th birthday, if she had lived that long. It was the 5th I’ve celebrated without her. The first, I put a personal ad in the paper, I invited friends and family to show up at ‘our’ little coffee shop. Very few did. The second year, I don’t remember what I did, our little shop closed its doors before I could celebrate that day. The 3rd year, I went to a coffee shop and sat with some friends who were their, they knew nothing of the day. The fourth year, I went to a winery with some friends. This year, I went to another coffee shop. I ordered one cup of coffee and a blueberry scone. I even had something different as my refill. They had Chocolate-Raspberry for the Decaf flavor. I’m not a big decaf fan, but I had that anyway. It was her favorite coffee flavor. It was a good morning.