Okay, I’m heading off for another movie, but before I go let me post about the Spud powered web server. Geeky, in a rotting vegetable sort of way.

More later tonight.

I just love the Onion; though it’s an old joke that’s been told far too many times, this is still funny. The Onion | ‘Midwest’ Discovered Between East And West Coasts.

Though the Midwest territory is still largely unexplored, early reports describe a region as backwards as it is vast. “Many of the basic aspects of a civilized culture appear to be entirely absent,” said Gina Strauch, a Los Angeles-based anthropologist. “There is no theater to speak of, and their knowledge of posh restaurants is sketchy at best. Further, their agricentric lives seem to prevent them from pursuing high fashion to any degree, and, as a result, their mode of dress is largely restricted to sweatpants and sweatshirts, the women’s being adorned with hearts and teddy bears and the men’s with college-football insignias.”

And dig that crazy map!

Some random thoughts on a rainy holiday

• True to form, Liberation Day marks the official beginning of the rainy season. It is pouring outside right now, and it has been all day. I was thinking about going to watch the parade, but I think I’ll pass. I’ve stood in the rain for that parade once too often. The parade is being broadcast on KGTF, maybe I’ll watch a little of it from there.

  I’ve never understood the attraction to setting up camp for a week before the parade, camping out alongside Marine Drive for days. Seemed bizarre to me, but people do it every year. I can think of a dozen better places to go camping on Guam, none of which involve sleeping next to the major thoroughfare on the island.

• Last night I stopped at GPO after work and watched Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. It was a horrible film, and not just because Tom Cruise is in it. I am no fan of Cruise, but this movie was absolutely horrifying. Images of destruction were seared onto my eyes, one after another; countless people literally blown apart, crowds of people mowed down by giant war machines, and buildings erupting in tremendous flame. Particularly unnerving where the harrowing visions of the shattered remains of a jumbo jet crash, complete with corpses of passengers, or an passenger train hurtling helter skelter down the tracks past a crowd of refugees, every coach aflame. The movie is filmed completely from the perspective of Tom Cruise, on foot, running from the horrors unleashed upon New Jersey. That close up, participant angle really disturbed me, with these brief images of violence and horror. The characters didn’t know what was going on, and neither did we. All we got were flashes of violence, horrible vistas of destruction. Maybe I’m getting old, but I did not like this movie. It cut too close to the bone for a movie, post 9/11 and especially two weeks after the London bombings.
• I’ve heard a lot about it, so this morning I broke down and registered at People From Guam. I’m a little disappointed. What’s all this buzz about? Looks pretty useless to me. Just a chat board and message forum. And it doesn’t ever render correctly in FireFox. Bleh. Supposedly scads of people at work spend all day wasting their time with this nonsense. Maybe I am getting too old.
• I threw up the Google search thingy at the top of this page. Supposedly it allows people to search the entire site for specific content. I tried it myself on several search terms that direct traffic here “East of the Sun,” “Evan Montvel Cohen,” and “Nathaniel Berg” – but none of these returned a damn result. Looks useless to me. Or is there some feature to turn it on that I’ve missed?

I saw this and thought of you Dianne: Action Asia: Relics and reefs – the wartime wonders of Chuuk