New Year's

Went into Mannheim today to see the celebration. I don't know if I can accurately describe it. Photos hardly do justice to the event. Video comes close.

Imagine several thousand people. Many of the laden down with explosives. Setting them off all around you. Fireworks blasting up into the sky, popping on the ground. Some of them failing to launch and blowing up within feet of bystanders, children included. People launching them at, or at least towards each other. Towards cars, buildings, trees, anything conveniently in the way of the blast. Sparks everywhere. Smoke thick enough to be a decent civil war reenactment scene.

The noise, the lights, the smell of gunpowder thick in the air. It was really something incredible. And then, midnight hit. People seriously started in then. Hundreds of fireworks being launched, and they kept on launching them. It really started about 30 minutes before midnight, and carried on long afterwards.

The effect was invigorating and mind boggling. I have never seen such a display before. I have watched fireworks from the safe, controlled distance of the edge of a park or across a river. Somewhere where everything is well controlled, and the city does a good job of making a good display. But here, unbound by the conventions of safety and propriety, citizens, launching explosive projectiles off in uncontrolled bursts. No oversight, no city budget constraints. Debris falling around you, smoke in the air. Noise like a battlefield. Every corner of the city lit up.

I think it's something that needs to be experienced.

More Big, Fun, Scary

A couple more thoughts on the Big, Fun, Scary.

I've set myself 12 goals. All of them big, fun, and some of them scary. Without getting into too many specifics, I'm hoping to create more, enjoy more, and generally do more this year.

I think it's not an impossible set of goals.

Big, Fun, Scary

I have been trying to avoid posting stuff online as a plan. I've found in the past that simply posting the plan makes me feel good, and that leads to me putting in less effort on the actual action. Or no effort in some cases.

But, I do have to make some mention of Big, Fun, Scary. It is an annual thing that the Office of Letters and Light put up on their forums. These are the same people who do the National Novel Writing Month, so they good things.

The goal of Big, Fun, Scary is to choose some new things for yourself. Set some goals, and then make an effort to achieve them through the year. Every year that I have participated, I have taken on the idea of one new thing per month. Thus, 12 new things.

This year, I am changing things up a little bit, by taking on some longer term items. Things which take more than a single month to achieve. I am still going to strive for 12 things, just things with longer reach.

I will blog about them as they come up. Everything starts on 1 Jan. So, expect to see more then.

Movie blahs

Ok... Last night I watched that animated owl movie. The Guardians of Gahoole or something. I have a couple of issues with it, which sort of broke the movie for me.

The movie is all about owls. Specifically, talking owls. Now, I can suspend disbelief for that. Talking animals are a pretty standard storytelling device. No issues there. Owls with complicated backstory and a vivid oral history? Sure. That's fine too. Comes with the whole being able to talk.

But, drawn history? Maybe, yeah. Some kind of scratching or whatever, sure. Written history? That's pushing it a bit. I mean, how exactly are they scribing these things? Some codified form of squawks and such? I guess I can let that slide. Of course, the real question is this: Where are they getting ink?

I've got no issue with the owls in the movie flying around. No issue with them maybe doing a bit of ornamentation to themselves. Dyes, markings, maybe some found stuff, whatever. Even basic handcrafts, I can allow. I mean, they've got feet and beaks, they could maybe work out some form of weaving or something. Sure.

Where I start to get into hassles is when the movie starts showing a whole lot of the birds using fire. Birds and fire do not go well together. Yet the movie is loaded with scenes of the birds around large flaming torches and candles. Which of the birds are making the candles? What bird is sitting around making the wicks? And then heating up wax and making the candles? On top of that, who is maintaining the torches? What is keeping them burning? Wood? Oil? I don't know, but the movie certainly implies it is the latter.

Then it takes a step beyond that, to a lot of birds wearing metal facemasks. Fitted, shaped and very clearly some kind of worked iron or steel. Forging? No. That's a bit too far. For one, the birds would need to get very close, or have tools to do the work for them more easily. But even then, they'd need to be working with a serious form of mechanical leverage to get forging happening properly. Especially for the detailed, delicate and intricate work shown in the film. Filligree? Gold plating? Seriously well out of my area where reasonable suspension of disbelief comes in. At this point, we're dealing with magical properties, but the opening of the story implies it to be somewhat realistic.

Beyond the facemasks, comes the claw weapons. These are hunter birds. Razor sharp claws. Do they fight with them? Not if they can help it. I'll get back to the bird fighting thing in a moment. Apparently, any warrior bird of any worth is outfitted with metal claws. Not sure what kind, but the metal was rather yellow from what I could see. So, maybe bronze or brass. Maybe just some kind of decorative steel? I don't know. We're back to the whole forging thing here. Beyond that, we're also dealing with leather glove things to attach these claws.

Leather? Where the hell are they getting that from? Sure, if you can assume the birds have figured out forging, tanning isn't a big jump anymore. But honestly, where are the birds getting this leather from? Which large animals are they taking down, skinning and then tanning the hides to make the leather? It appears to be regular leather, so I'm assuming a cow or horse or something like that. I suppose, though, that if a lot of armed owls wanted to take down a cow, they'd probably have a pretty good success rate.

Getting back to the battles. They are pretty much ridiculous. A bunch of birds flapping towards one another, then baring claws. That bit is actually pretty realistic. Of course, when they are also wearing metal masks, steel claws and pulling off martial arts moves on one another, it just seems a bit silly. A lot of the fights involve one bird smacking another into the ground, and the downed bird just laying there for a moment or two. I suppose that's at least somewhat accurate.

One other bit that bothered me. In addition to all the metalworking and leatherworking, there also appeared to be a defunct kind of fabric making happening. At least, the bad guy side had a lot of big banners strewn around the inside of their cave thing. Either the banners came from some kind of human settlement that was abandoned, or the owls made it. I'm happier thinking the former, since there's not much other fabric stuff shown in the film.

Getting beyond the difficulties I had with the whole forging, fire use and whatnot, I also have an issue with the structure of the bad guy lair thing. If you have a force of slaves, you also have to deal with the serious issues of feeding and housing. Sure, you could simply work them to death, but that seems like a dangerous proposition. After all, eventually someone should notice all the stolen young birds, right?

Anyhow, the movie is pleasant enough to look at, though the story is rather rushed, and there really is rather little behind any of the main characters to make me really care for any of them. I'm not all that concerned about whether or not the characters live or die, and I'm not all that concerned about the secondary antagonist. He seems to be a little too poorly defined, and his motivations are weak at best.

Maybe it is a better book than it is a movie? I doubt I'll take the time to find out.

Stuff about Germany: Greetings

Germany seems to be very big on the idea of greeting people. Generally, whenever you enter a room that other people are in (and you do not live with them), you say some kind of greeting. Different regions have different traditional greetings, but most places will be fine with a "Hallo" or "Tag."

When greeting people individually, it's a good idea to greet them with the time of the day. "Guten Morgan" for morning (somewhere from 4AM until just about noon), "Guten Tage" for the daytime (noon until around about 6PM or dark, whichever comes first), and "Guten Abend" for evening (after around 6PM until somewhere after midnight). I have no idea what the greeting in the wee hours is.

Of course, you don't have to be really formal about it. A solid grunt will get you by most of the time. Or any other general acknowledgement of the other person's existence. And, if you want to greet a person, but not be quite so stiff, just shorten the "Guten" part to "'n." Thus, "'n Abend." Nobody seems to mind it.

And, just in case you find yourself in one of those places that greets strangely, a solid "Gruss Gott" will get you by most of the time.

Fat guy!

That's me. The fat guy.

A bit of history, 'cause I can. Around 10 years back, I was out of school, and started to gain some weight. Just a bit, then a whole bunch. Maxed out at around 240 to 250 pounds. Didn't like it, so I dieted and tried to do more workout stuff.

Over time, with many trials and errors, I have managed to hit a low of 175 pounds. That was several years ago. Since then, the weight has bounced between 180 and 200 pounds.

Weight and I have been enemies for a long time. Nearly 10 years of trying to keep myself where I am comfortable, but also not starving.

I am currently just about 216 pounds, and have very recently been as high as 220. I don't like it. I want to change it. But, I need to find a way that is both constructive, and also cheap.

I do know of bodyweight things I can do. All I need, is just to start doing them. Squats, push ups, jumping, walking, running, and whatever else I can do to be physically active.

With that, I need to start really watching what and how much I put in my mouth. That's crucial, and also very difficult for me. Still, if I am to make any progress, I need to get started.

So, this is , more or less, a message to myself. Time to get started. Time to stop dallying about and actually get on with it.

Stuff about Germany: Boobs

Just a small note here. Compared to Canada and the USA, Germany is fairly relaxed about nudity.

Certain amounts of nudity are tolerated in the USA, such as bikinis and underwear adverts, but once you get to less clothing than that, the Americans start to have issues.

Canada is a bit more comfortable, in that certain provinces have allowed toplessness for men and women in public. Rarely done, since society as a whole still has some issues.

Germany is a bit different. While I don't think toplessness is allowed in public, there's much less of an argument against it in advertising, whether in print media or on television. Even still, there is apparently some consideration of whether children will be exposed to it.

So, if you're in Germany, don't freak out too much if you happen to see an advert with some boobs on it. It's normal.