Classic Indy

Ingredients for success:

• The Hero - an older (so what) Harrison Ford - he still wears it well.
• His Now-Older Sweetheart.
• A Special Surprise.
• Standard Issue Bad Guys and Gal with Suspicious Accents.
• The Greedy Fool Friend Turns Foe Save Him Anyway But Too Late Character.
• Some Olde Familiar Settings.
• Heart-warming sprinkling of In-Jokes/References.
• A generous dose of Creepy Crawlies.
• Snake (1).
• The Reliable Red Trailing Line on The Map to Show Where We're Venturing To.
• Those Gritty Warm n' Dusty and Gorgeous Jungle and Fast-Moving Water and Web-Filled Caves as Exotica locales.
• Action-Packed Scenes without Action-Packed Scenes Overkill.
• A Tidy Tie-Up of Rather Loose Personal Relationship Ends.
  
• Happily Ever After (?)....
• To be continued...(?) did ya happen to notice what was in one of those other, accidentally opened crates...?
  
• Here and there, some dialog that may require a wee bit of forgiveness on the part of the viewer to the scriptwriter...but hey.
  

Whaddayawantanyways?
All of the above: well worth leaving the theater with a big smile on your face...

One word movie review: ENJOYMENT

Of Tong Wars and Dragon Ladies...

A 'Must-See' documentary about 'Hollywood Chinese'.
Well, I must see it, anyway.

Though it won't be showing in this neck o' da woods.

'Round here, Kung-fu fightin' films are the more popular ones from the Asian film genre, since those movies help to perpetuate the comfort of The Myth. In my observations of the local populace, it is still not widely accepted that Chinese have much to offer of their culture beyond Chinese Food, Confucius Sayings (in fortune cookies, yet) and martial arts. Like who cares, right?

Nor did the Chinese have much of an historical presence in this region. Yet they did. Perhaps not in large numbers (exclusion acts of government legislation managed that), but very significantly.
No brag, just fact*.

So, no.
'Hollywood Chinese', in all probability, won't be a draw at the local box offices.
In time, ignorance and racial/cultural stereotypes may be dispelled. Education is key. This new documentary should/could be an eye opener. Yet, one has to wonder - who'all is going to be seeking it out to view, anyway - but those already in the know?

Ah well?

With little doubt, it will necessitate my traveling quite further afield from where I reside - for a screening of 'Hollywood Chinese'. Failing a lengthy 'Summer Blockbuster' (yeah, right) run, it'll be out on DVD soon enough. I'll probably end up owning it, and forcing copies upon my DollinkDaughters/DollinkGranddaughter, even.

* The other bit of irony I love to entertain is Leland Stanford doing triple rolls in his grave over the fact that so many of Chinese heritage have attended Stanford University. HeeHee.

(many thanks to my DollinkFriendJ for sending
me this link to director Arthur Dong)

The Blue Whale

We live in a recreational area.

Nature abounds:
Rivers, lakes, hiking-biking-horsebackriding-dirt bike- trails.
Superb scenic views.
Warm sunshine.
Refreshing cool shade.
Good smells.

Fresh air, clear water, tall pines, bluest sky.
Flora and fauna.
Forest birdies and mid-mountain critters.

Quiet.

So - maybe it's high time to get off our sedentary TV-watching butts and recreate*.

*recreate:
–verb (used with object)

1.	to refresh by means of relaxation and enjoyment, as restore physically or mentally.

–verb (used without object)

2.	to take recreation.

Yeah.

P.S. 'The Blue Whale' aka Necky Manitou II Tandem kayak.

Keep your knitting needles crossed...

for me - as I 'frog' aka 'cleanse*' yet another knitting project:

This jumble of partially undone knitting shows only a portion of the 148 stitches pulled out from a circular needle. After completing the 2/2 ribbed body of this sleeveless tank top/vest, I happily moved on to shape the armholes in the same ribbing, followed by working the front section (the ribbing continues) with simultaneous decreases for neckline and armhole. Oops, a little mistake here. Oops, another wee error made there.
Crap. Lots more weird things happening...

That's when I decided to rip out at least 1" of yucked-up rows to get back to the tubular body. Better to begin anew where things first screwed up (read: I screwed up).

It isn't going well.
The ribbon yarn is gorgeous and fun to knit with. At the same time, it's slippy-slidey stuff. What would normally be a straightforward pulling out of rows followed by relatively easy picking up of stitches has become something of a nightmare - disappearing loops and rapidly dropping knits and purls.

As the ribbon yarn continues to slip away from the rescue needle and down into the body of the tank top, I'm being forced to take out more rows to get to another workable section. Problem is, as the cleansing continues, the knitted piece keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller...

This is where I am in the ripping out process. Last night (round about 1:00AM), I was trying to pick up every single one of those (damned) stitches with a straight needle. I failed miserably. Pulled out more rows. Tried again by feeding through with a tapestry needle and contrasting yarn. Things got worse. Yanked a few more rows down. Unbelievably awful. Even more rows fall away.
Eyes: glazed over.
Muttering: You-Don't-Want-to-Know-What-Expletives.
Frustration level: high.

However - I wasn't about to throw in the towel (er, yarn ball) just yet, though the project was abandoned for the night as I headed off to bed. It seemed a good idea to renew my depleting energy as well as channel positive knitting karma for the morrow.

We're well into a brand new day and it's time to brave the frogging/cleansing again. Now I'm armed with a smaller longer circular needle and a new 'trick' - shown here (see the video for 'Inserting a needle into destination row, before unraveling'), so it just may work...

[needles crossed]

* the term 'cleanse' is used by some of my fellow knitters - based on the notion that it feels so much better to 'cleanse' than to 'rip out' or even to 'frog'.