RAMPAGE

So I bought a car that is pretty old, and it has had quite a few problems as a consequence of the many years it has been alive. These are not problems for most people, they are minor, but they are annoyances to me, and I have declared a war on the problems on my car. I have fixed many things already, and still have many to go.

I recently decided that it is very rewarding for me when I fix things, and I have had some spill over from my car. My parents had a four wheeler that was in a bit of disrepair. It was missing a fender, and a few other things had some problems. I was determined to fix it with my very limited knowledge and the extensive resource of friend and family knowledge. It took a few hours and taking the carburetor out more than five times, but it is running. I tell this story for praise, so feel free to praise me for repairing things.

VILLAINS

I was watching a movie tonight and became aware of something that I have been overlooking for many years. In my youth I watched many Disney movies, many of them with my little sister Laura. We would often find the movies terrifying and would cover our eyes and ears to shield our frightened selves from the horrors on screen. Typically I would be the one that was unfortunate enough to be the one that had to check to see that it was safe to glue our eyes back to the TV. There are two movies in particular that I can remember being scared of.

1: The Lion King
"The Lion King" is a charming tale with a horribly terrifying villain, Scar. Scar alone is enough to keep children scared out of their senses, but he required some terrifying sidekicks, the gang of hyenas. The three main hyenas were not scary, but when Scar is singing (demonic chanting is probably more accurate) in the cave that has green flames shooting up all around the outstanding mass of them is somewhat overwhelming for a sheltered child as myself.
Then we have the scene with Mufasa when he is killed. The scene is quite vivid in my mind when he is tossed back and does a bit of flailing as he falls to his death concealed by dust from the stampede. When Scar is finished off it is a bit different, but it has the same general idea. Simba pushes him off the edge, and he does a bit of a flail of the legs as he looks back at the ledge and the prevailing Simba. My memory is a bit hazy but I believe that he is concealed by some sort of fog. (correct me if I am wrong)

2: The Great Mouse Detective
I will just say that the bat is the worst in the first 5 minutes. It is the only time of the movie when the bat isn't a goof and messing everything up. We couldn't watch the scene when the mouse father/inventor is taken captive.
Ratigan. What else do I have to say? He is always a creep, but at the end when he goes into a spiraling manic rage could scare anyone. I argue that it is certainly top 5 terror leveled Disney villain fights. And what happens at the end once again? He falls from a high place to certain death concealed by fog.


This brings me to my point. I don't want to be a villain. They are always pushed off high things into fog, or dust [either case is less than desirable]. However, being pushed from a high object is not limited to villains as we see in "The Great Mouse Detective" when Basil of Baker Street is pushed off with Ratigan. I think we can all avoid being killed by not fighting around the edge of a large cliff, Big Ben, or any other large cliff like places.

I will award a single point for the person that comes up with the best villain name for me. Offensive names will be a deduction, while a name that is incredibly witty can perhaps gain two points.

NEW CAR

I got a new car. That is all.

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED

I was in England recently. Overall I had a good time, although I could have done without all the car and airplane time that was involved with the trip. By now most of the people that read my blog often will know the bad news about my camera. It is lost. It is still possible to recover it, but I have lost nearly all hope of ever seeing it again.

I thought that I took some really cool pictures, I thought they were good even if others wouldn't agree. I left nearly all of them on my camera so that it would be easier to mobilize them than on a computer. My logic was that if I left the photos on my camera it would be much more of an instant way to show anyone that requested to see them. This was a mistake.

The events that led to my losing possession of my camera happened like this.....

I was staying in a hotel that was about 10 miles from a small village in England. Now this village was over 100 miles away from London. Being from the United States, my family and myself were very used to driving on the right side of the road, but this is not how the English do their driving. Neadless to say, we were disorientated a bit by the change of driving methods, and as such, we found that is was much harder to navigate the roads and intersections. The roads are much more narrow there, and the traffic moves in a vastly different manner than we were used to.

Now, it is very common knowledge that London is a very large city, and therefore, can be expected to have the traffic problems that accompany a plethora of cars on the road. Understanding that the traffic and roads would be difficult for my family to travel about, we opted to take the train from Peterborough to the King's Cross Station in London. This worked like a charm as they say, and decided to do it twice. The second time we went to London I had my camera around my neck the whole day. I took over 100 photos that day, and was constantly looking around at things that I could take photographs of, and thinking about photography nearly 11 hours or so.

So at the end of our adventureous day my parents and sister were waiting for the first train that was available for us. I learned my lesson from the 3 previous train journeys, they are boring. Being wise as I often am, I snatched a "free" newspaper from the street newspaper guy to cure my boredom. I believe that I am fairly notorious for having a sweet tooth, and have even been called "candy boy" by some. I needed one more thing for the train ride, and went to the store with my lil sis to get some candy or a drink [and got both].

We had a swell time on the train reading about the English celeberities, and the sports stars, and movie reviews, et cetera. Wearing a camera around your neck takes a toll after an extended amount of hours, and it began to rub my neck raw and red. As I sat on the train with the strap around my neck I thought it silly to keep it around my neck as I sat there not moving, and removed the strap. I set my camera between my sister and myself on the seat. We read the papers, and ate the candy and drank our soft drinks. When we arrived at the station we were informed that we were at the end of the line, and that all passengers must exit. I had some rubbish to put in the bin, and some souvenirs as well, so I made sure to get them all to the places they needed to go. I even picked up a paper that was left behind by another passenger to help the cleaning crew out with thier job.

I was walking to the car thinking about how I wouln't really want to clean a train, and about the various coins that I had collected for a friend that wanted them. I got into the car and we started to leave the station. We drove for a few minutes when I thought that I would like to look at the pictures that I had taken earlier that day, and that is when it hit me that I had lost my camera. We then turned back to go retreive the lost camera. The search never made it to the train. I thought that the cleaners would surely turn in a camera, but I was mistaken (at least as far as we can tell).

I have just presented evidence that shows that you shouldn't clean up your own trash, and especially the trash of others. This can only lead to losing your valuable possesions. In fact, I will argue that if you make extra trash you will probably have amazing windfalls and good fortune. Don't expect photos from me.

UK PART 2.0

Well, it is time for another short update. I am in what they call the "Lake District". Yesterday I climbed a hill and looked around at the town of Windermire, at least that is what I think I saw. Some of the things around here are quite enjoyable, but some things are worse. I suppose that anywhere you go you can find pretty cool things if you look hard enough, but it seems rather simple to find beautiful landscapes around the English and Scottish countryside. I will give you all what you want, fewer words and more photos. End part 2.

I AM IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

I am in the United Kingdom as some of you may know, and I have been very drowsy from the time change. I have been taking some photos that I hope you will enjoy. I don't really want to take time to make a detailed post at this time, but you can count some sort of recap of the trip when I get home. As a game for you, my reader, I will not be captioning these pictures as I usually do so that you can think whatever you want. I hope it is fun for you to have these photos unexplained.

MOVIES ARE REAL

Today, when I was at work something happened that was straight out of a movie script [so it would seem]. These are the events as they actually unfolded, possibly with some intentional exaggerations.

I was cleaning theatres, like I always do. I was thinking about how when I worked at the theatre in Cedar City I would get complaints about things all the time. It made me wonder if the customers in Salt Lake City would rather just go to a different theatre than complaining. I have digressed. I scooped the final pieces of popcorn and went out to the lobby. There was an employee that was pretty flustered, and was asking where the managers were in a tone that was quite unusual. He told me that a lady had fallen down and was unconscious. I realized then why his voice had a bit of a quiver in it, and dashed over to assess the situation. She was not unconscious. In fact she was very conscious. She was rocking herself in pain on the ground, holding her stomach. There was a man standing next to her with a terrified expression as he was talking to someone on the phone. I asked if he was calling an ambulence, and he gave a quick nod.

She started to rub her stomach in a motion that was almost like she was saying that she was hungry, but the look on her face was telling quite a different story. I just stood there in a bit of a stupor. I didn't know what I could possibly do to help her. I started to think about things that could be wrong with her. Maybe she ate bad popcorn, maybe she is having a baby, maybe she is just old and having some crazy spasms, maybe she is faking for attention. My mind began to wonder farther from anything that was possible. I was looking at the woman, but it was more looking thru her. I began to amuse myself with the silly things I found myself thinking of, and realized that I was looking at the woman with a grin on my face. I don't think anyone noticed it, but if they did I am sure they thought I was sick in the mind.

I then thougth about the other 4 theatres that I still had to clean. I was not going to possibly be any help to this woman that is not able to control her motions from all the intense pain. Just then, the theatre nearest the woman began to have a flow of people leaving. There was a man that walked over, but then in an intensely important tone said, "Look out, I'm a doctor." "I am not an emergency doctor, I deliver babies"

The doctor asked her some questions to see if she was having a heartattack. The lady calmed down quite a bit once there was a doctor there, and stopped rocking back and fourth on the gound. She told him that she thought she had bad diareha, but didnt' have to go when she was in the bathroom just a few minutes earlier. He told her that it could be spasms or cramps or possibly a kidney stone. Once again I started thinking about funny things, and her stomach rubbing started to make more sense. I chuckled, and had to turn away when she so openly talked about her diarhea to the doctor, although many other people had gathered by then.

There was enough going on that I thought I could slip away unnoticed. Just as I was about to walk away the paramedics began their ascent up the escalator. I was in the clear to leave, and left quickly.