I realize that I’m coming to this topic rather late due to being on vacation when Pluto received the big smackdown, but I wanted to take a moment to mourn the passing of the former ninth planet of our solar system.

When I initially heard that scientists were considering adding several new planets to the nine we’ve known and memorized since the 1930s, I was excited, if only because I had an irrational hope that they’d name the tenth one Mondas. (I still think they oughta stick with the name “Xena” for 2003 UB₃₁₃. Hey, we name planets after mythological characters, right?)

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that adding the likes of Xena, Mondas and Quaoar to the solar system would open the interplanetary tollbooth to hundreds of wanna-bes, leading to increasingly-lengthier mnemonic devices to be taught in classrooms. And since Pluto is smaller than Xena, it had to go.

Vic feels that Pluto oughta be “grandfathered” in, and I agree. Scientifically, Pluto may no longer be a “major” planet, but it remains one in my heart. Long may you eccentricly orbit beyond the ecliptic. You can’t help it that you were born just a little bit odd.

Dave General

The big sci-fi news of the day is the confirmation that CBS/Paramount is remastering the original 79 episodes of Star Trek in high-definition, complete with new CGI spaceships and other digital enhancements. You know my love of old Trek, as well as my disdain for the new-fangled “special editions” of the Star Wars trilogy that supplanted the films with which I grew up. So, you must be thinking that I’m seething with fury right now, yes?

Ding dong, you’re wrong.

Actually, I love the idea! I can’t wait to see episodes like “Balance of Terror,” “Errand of Mercy” or (my all-time favorite) “The Doomsday Machine” with a slick, new sheen. As groundbreaking as the original series was in terms of visual effects, truth is that it was done on a strict budget, and sometimes it really showed.

For example, did you know that we never saw the now-familiar Klingon battlecruiser until the series’ final season? Furthermore, it first appeared as a Romulan ship, with the weak excuse of a never-since-mentioned Klingon-Romulan technology exchange providing a rationale for the cost-cutting maneuver. Similarly, the powerful Orion pirate vessel that harassed the Enterprise in “Journey to Babel” was portrayed by a frickin’ spinning light. Even as a kid, I found that lame.

The difference between Star Trek 2.0 and the Star Wars special editions is that the new versions aren’t intended to entirely replace the old. So far, at least, no one is saying that the original shows will be locked in a vault never to be seen again, and that we should never have liked them in the first place.

And that makes all the difference!

Dave Sci-Fi

NOTE: You receive Bonus Points if you can identify the above reference and its relevance to this post. Bonus Points may be redeemed at your local Redemption Center. Void where prohibited (pretty much everywhere).

We left Portland early Saturday morning (earlier than planned, thanks to the drum practice) and made our way to Washington. Our first stop was the picturesque town of Snoqualmie and Snoqualmie Falls, one of the backdrops to the late, lamented TV series Twin Peaks. The hotel at the top of the falls, the Salish Lodge, stood in for the Great Northern on the show, though the interiors were filmed elsewhere.

Most of the major exterior sites in the show were filmed in/around Snoqualmie and nearby North Bend. The most famous is certainly the former Mar-T Cafe, which stood in for the Double R Diner. Now under new management, the renamed Twede’s Cafe still trades on its TV land heritage, proclaiming itself the home of Twin Peaks cherry pie and a “damn fine cup of coffee.”

The coffee might’ve been fine, but damn, the food sucked.

I went there with the sole purpose of eating a piece of cherry pie, but as we hadn’t had lunch and didn’t want to spend a lot of time looking for another suitable restaurant, we overlooked the obscenely high prices and ordered a meal. Big mistake. Twede’s has 50 styles of burgers, and though my Hawaiian model was passable, it was by no means an eight dollar sandwich. The fries were terrible, and Vic’s sundae melted by the time the glacially-slow waiter brought it. The cherry pie…well, truthfully, it was very good. Damn fine, in fact. And if anyone at Twede’s actually made it, I’ll eat my Twin Peaks guidebook.

About to enjoy some delicious cherry pie.

Compared to dumpy Portland, we found Seattle to be gorgeous. I would go so far as to say it was the most beautiful skyline I’ve ever seen. We stayed in a nifty little hotel called the Mediterranean, which Vic insisted upon referring to as the Metropolitan. It was everything the Jupiter wasn’t, which is to say that we could leave the window open all night and still get a restful night’s sleep.

View from the Space Needle.

Saturday evening found us at the Seattle Center, home to the Space Needle and what turned out to be my favorite destination of the whole vacation, the Science Fiction Museum. Founded by former Microsoft employee Paul Allen, who was also responsible for the first private spaceship, it houses an incredible collection of TV and movie memorabilia, most of it purchased by Allen himself.

The bizarre exterior of the museum. Sorry, pictures of the inside were not allowed.

The exhibits were well curated, with a great deal of attention paid toward tying them into various sci-fi themes. The museum was set inside a series of “space station” corridors, and there were lots of light and sound effects. One of the most impressive set pieces was a 10-foot viewscreen depicting twenty-or-so classic movie/TV spacecraft flitting around an orbital dock. The props themselves were at once shabbily-constructed (after all, they don’t have to be good to look good) and amazingly cool. All in all, I found the museum spectacular and enthralling.

Later that evening, we went up in the Needle, then got our first good night’s sleep of the trip.

Sunday saw us taking the Seattle Underground Tour, a funny and fascinating story about the early days of the city and the reasons that much of the downtown area was built above ground level (hint: it has a lot to do with poop). While the actual underground portion did not fulfill my fantasy of a vast labyrinth filled with Morlocks and night stalkers, it was a great history lesson and we wound up buying the book.

We visited the Pike Place Market and saw the booth where the vendors toss fish at each other. Even they seemed to think that it was less exciting than it sounded. Funny thing about this trip is that we never found a single good seafood restaurant. Guess Seattle is more about the importing/exporting, less about the fishing.

Lew Zealand’s Amazing Boomerang Fish Act.

Later that night, we wandered around the Seattle Center and discovered a huge, amazing, public fountain which was synchonized to music and capable of shooting gouts of water some fifty feet into the air, much to the delight of the kids frolicking about it. And it seemed like a good idea at the time for me to join them…

Man, was my ass wet the rest of the night.

Looking for a place to eat, I suggested a fondue restaurant called The Melting Pot, figuring it was something we’d never tried. It was enjoyable up to a point. We both loved the appetizer portion, with a pot of four types of cheese and lots of stuff to dip in it. The main course was rather daunting, however. We were served a selection of uncooked meats and vegetables; various batters and dipping sauces; plus a pot of boiling oil. The waiter instructed us to fry the seafood for 90 seconds, the beef for two minutes, and the chicken for two-and-a-half. So, fifty-eight bucks for dinner, and we have to cook our own meal? When I asked how we should know that we’d left it in the pot long enough, he said that we had to estimate. It was like a game of culinary Russian Roulette…guess the time correctly or wind up with salmonella! The food was good, and there was a lot (too much) of it, but it was more stress than I cared for. Next time I’ll bring a stopwatch.

Vic enjoys some art at the Seattle Center.

For the last day of our vacation, we’d made a reservation for a whale-watching boat tour. It was another thing that seemed like a good idea at the time. It started off promisingly enough, with some pretty scenery and occasional brief encounters with harbor seals. But it just went on for too fucking long. The trip out to the San Juan Islands was supposed to be three hours and change, but wound up being four…on a small boat (not the nice clipper pictured on the web site) with nothing to do. Once we’d reached our destination harbor, it was perhaps another 45 minutes to the spot where the whales were.

If Vic looks kinda grim in this picture, you shoulda seen her after ten hours on the boat.

I’ll grant them this: we certainly did see a bunch of killer whales. There were a couple of pods’ worth, and while we couldn’t get very close due to wildlife regulations, we did see several “breach” the surface. It was pretty neat, but honestly, after five hours at sea (with another five to go), I thought they should be climbing up on the boat, putting on straw hats and doing a soft-shoe number.

It’s really hard to take photos from a moving boat.

Due to travel delays, we had very little time to eat in Friday Harbor, but I did enjoy this sign, posted at the local ice cream shop:

“Servers stop making shakes when outnumbered.”

Then it was another four hour boat trip back to Seattle. Thank God for the iPod. The whales were cool, but not eleven-freaking-hours-at-sea cool.

At least we got a really nice sunset out of it.

We got home late last night, glad to be back and to have our kitties meet us at the door. We can mark off a couple more states off our U.S. map, plus we found 95 cents in loose change to add to our total for this fiscal quarter!

Dave General

Vic and I returned home last night from our vacation in Seattle and Portland. It was in many ways one of our better trips–especially for one so haphazardly planned–though if we had it to do over again, we would have made a few changes.

We spend most of the previous Wednesday en route, and as we flew out of Indianapolis and had a stopover in Denver, we actually set foot in all four mainland U.S. time zones on a single day. I apparently forgot to take off my “I (Heart) Al-Qaeda” button, as my bag was searched twice during the trip. Thanks, Homeland Security!

A spectacular view from the plane as we flew into Washington state. Not sure if this was Mt. St. Helens, as it wasn’t erupting at the time.

We landed in Seattle, but drove a rental car to Portland that night. We didn’t arrive at our lodging until about 11:30 pm Pacific Time, so we were a bit groggy and somewhat unprepared for the reaility of the Jupiter Hotel. It’s a former Travelodge that’s been rehabbed into some sort of trendy youth party hangout. Bands play almost nightly at the adjacent Doug Fir Lounge and a firepit in the courtyard burns until 2:00 am. Vic wasn’t too sure about the place, but I thought that it beat a Holiday Inn Express. And hey, instead of a pillow mint, free condoms!

The next day, they left a second one. By the third day, they must’ve decided that no one in our room was getting lucky and gave up.

The place wasn’t bad so long as we had the air conditioner drowning out the ambient conversational noise, except when we were awakened Saturday at 5:30 am by someone practicing their drums. I called the lobby desk, and even they seemed a bit surprised by that. The drums eventually quieted down, but they never stopped.

I quite liked the woody, retro restaurant at the Doug Fir. Their breakfast menu was unusual and tasty.

Maybe it was just the part of town in which we found ourselves, but Vic and I both felt that Portland was kinda shabby. Lots of bums; lots of missions to service the bums. The Chinatown district was almost derelict.

This photo of an apparently defunct Chinatown restaurant is not at all Photoshopped. Seriously.

That said, there were some highlights. We both enjoyed the tranquil Chinese garden that sat amidst the Old Town squalor.

I thought the bonsai trees were really neat, but they lacked something…oh wait, I’ve got it…

Armor plated space nuns!

We found some interesting places to shop, including a couple of toy collectors’ havens. One specialized in “urban vinyl” figures and Japanese toys, and had an adjacent eatery called the Kaiju Cafe. The other was a more traditional–but very well-stocked–shrine to ’70s and ’80s kitsch, and I was happy to find a loose, complete Antron alien from the old Micronauts line.

No, this isn’t Antron. It’s the unfortunate denizen at the bottom of our plate of antipasto. Poor bastard was killed and breaded, and we didn’t even eat him.

We also made it to Powells Books, an absolutely amazing repository of books both new and used. The place is so complex that the rooms are color-coded. I found stuff that I forgot I ever remembered, and could’ve spent days in there.

A colorful house from the granola-munching section of town. “It’s bright blue and yellow, you can’t miss it! No, I mean it, you REALLY CAN’T MISS IT!”

The best part of our stay in Portland was a trip to the Japanese garden. (It only seems like we’re really into gardens.) Larger and much more elaborate than the aforementioned Chinese locale, this one was set amidst the huge Pacific Northwest trees of a nearby park. The guided tour demonstrated just how much thought and philosophy went into its planning.

It almost made me want to garden. Almost.

Next: Seattle, plus a stopover in Twin Peaks!

Dave General

Vic and I are headed out of town tomorrow for a vacation to Seattle and Portland. No reason except that neither of us has been there, plus it allows us to rack up two more states toward our goal of visiting all fifty. We expect to do the usual touristy things, though I’m also planning a brief side trip to North Bend/Snoqualmie, Washington, the town where they filmed the exteriors for Twin Peaks. And yes, I will have some damn fine cherry pie at the Double R Diner.

I’m not thrilled about air travel at the best of times, and these are not even remotely the best of times. I dread navigating the machinations of Airline Security in the Age of Neverending Terror. I had originally wanted to hide a large rubber snake in my carry-on, but I suspect that the good folks at the TSA would not appreciate the joke. So, no motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane.

Back next Wednesday!

Dave General

Snakes On A Plane was a lackluster contender in this weekend’s box office rumble, finishing second to the disappointing but unstoppable comedy Talladega Nights. It appears that Internet hype still isn’t all that.

I feel a little bit sorry for Samuel L. Jackson. Some actors show disdain in promoting their films, but not Sam. His enthusiasm for Snakes was infectious, and I can’t help but think that a $14 million opening weekend must sting. Still, when he goes to bed on Sunday night, he can take solace in the fact that he remains Samuel L. Jackson, and that’s more than good enough.

What of the movie itself? Vic and I saw it Saturday afternoon with our friends Topher and Lesley, and damned if the four of us didn’t have a great time. We laughed at the cliches, clutched each other (sorry, Topher) during the reptile attacks and tried to scare our snakeophobic wives.

Snakes wasn’t art, but it was the most fun I’ve had at the theater in this torpid summer season. It provided just what it promised: scares, laughs and lots of motherfucking snakes.

The legendary director Alfred Hitchcock famously described the difference between surprise and suspense. Surprise is when a bomb goes off under a table. Suspense is when we can see the bomb under the table but don’t know when or if it will explode. Snakes says “screw that” and tosses the bomb at your head. I felt that the weaker scenes were those intended to be tension-builders, such as a would-be harrowing trip into the plane’s cargo hold. The slithery stars were at their best when they simply went for the throat (or the eyeball) and the high point of the flick was the moment when the killer reptiles first descended en masse upon their screaming victims.

Snakes follows the disaster movie formula: toss a salad of character archetypes (the Nervous Air Traveler, the Mother W/Baby, the Rich Guy Who Thinks He’s Above All This) and let the audience guess who’ll survive. For the most part, I picked right, though a couple of obvious snake fodder candidates actually managed to squeak by and Learn A Lesson About Themselves.

Unlike many popcorn flicks, I didn’t find my intelligence especially insulted. There was just enough handwaving to sell the overly complicated assassination-by-serpent premise, and Vic and I were grateful that the script at least acknowledged that Hawaii (from which the plane began its doomed flight) is the one place in the U.S. where you won’t find any snakes. However, Vic did point out that it should have been a tipoff that something was wrong with the plane when the flight attendents were bestowing flower leis on passengers leaving the Aloha State.

One thing that I enjoyed about Snakes is that it didn’t get all self-referential, ala Scream. Hipster irony worked then, but it’s since been overdone. While there were times in which the characters reacted to the absurdity of their situation or the cliches of the airplane thriller (“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but does anyone know how to fly this plane?”), it never reached the level of parody. It’s a movie that never apologized for wanting nothing more than to give its audience a silly good time.

Mission accomplished, pilot.

Dave Movies

Coming to DVD next week. Since I learned that this exists, there are images I can’t get out of my head. Now, neither can you.

Dave Weird

This Saturday is the centennial of the birthdate of Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of television. (The photo above is of my visit to his statue at the U.S. Capitol building.) While the AP story I’ve linked to suggests that this will go unnoticed, I would like a moment to raise a TV dinner in toast.

Here’s to you, Philo T. Farnsworth, patron saint of television. Without you, I might never have known the pleasures of American Gladiators and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. I wouldn’t have learned who shot J.R., Agent Cooper or Montgomery Burns. I may well have wound up flipping burgers for a living. And–true story–I would never have met my wife. So thanks, Philo!

Dave TV

Here’s a marvellously clever piece of viral marketing: a web site where you can have Samuel L. Jackson send a personalized voice invitation exhorting your intended to see Snakes on a Plane this weekend. There are a fair number of options, and it’s fun to listen to Sam get all worked up about his latest project. You can have him e-mail or even call, though I found that there was about a hour between the time I entered my wife’s work number and when he actually rung her up.

Dave Movies

The title of this post was also the entirety of the preview clip shown as part of Samuel L. Jackson’s appearance on last night’s Daily Show. It made me happy in a way that few movie trailers have this summer.

Obviously, Snakes on a Plane will not be a good movie. The lack of preview screenings is a tip off. So is the fact that it’s called Snakes on a Plane.

My only hope is that the filmmakers grab the cheese of the premise with both hands and run pell-mell with it. Snakes has the potential to be a classic of wonderment and absurdity. Unfortunately, there’s every chance that it’ll just be another piece of celluloid crap.

Either way, I will go this weekend, and I will hoot at the screen when Samuel L. Jackson complains about those motherfucking snakes.

Dave Movies