RATS: Night of Terror

Credit: 7 Deadly Sinners Artpad

In the far future of a place where laws and civilization have no meaning, and people have three hour lunch breaks and there are no convenience stores, (Italy, I'm talking about Italy) a director named Bruno Mattei decides to make a monster movie about a horde of rats. Seeing as how he still has several cubic tonnes of sand and garbage left over from the set of Warriors of the Wasteland, this let's be generous and call it a 'feature' will be set in post apocalyptic realm. In a nuclear swept, but oddly livable surface gangs of humans roam around on motor vehicles having rejected both fashion sense and life with the other humans underground.

Seriously, look at them. Do they think these outfits are coming back?

This gang of rejects finds a bunker filled with advanced (for the eighties) technology, as well as clean water and food. Bodies too. They assume there must have been a fight, but no one's stayed around. Later it will become obvious that those who lived here were done in by rats of unusual intellect and defensiveness.

One moron called Video, or arcade, or video gamer; (I can't recall) finds a computer which he claims is in fact a video game. After attempting to play it and finding it as unresponsive a platform as the Jaguar CD, realizes that it is not in fact a game system. He then whines that he'll never get to see a real game.

This boggles my mind. This idiot is so infatuated with the concept of video games despite never seeing one in his life? So much so that upon discovering any electronic device he immediately assumes it is a video game? This guy couldn't even get the high score on a digital clock.

He couldn't even beat this.

Other gang members include the well bearded leader, a bald tattooed guy who acts like a Vulcan, a treacherous guy dressed like he's a member of Napoleon's army, a couple of girls, and some other goons. This gang is pathetic. They cry a lot and are way too tolerant of the guy who keeps trying to kill everyone else. I thought these were survivors, not a bunch of scared teenagers. What do they have guns for if they've never faced death before?

Stumbling around getting punked by rats, and falling to despair and rage, the besieged gang are picked off one by one as dramatically as possible when rats are dropped on you from off camera. Which actually does look really uncomfortable. What if one of the fake rats was real? Do you think you'd get a good reaction from the actors when something moves?

Napoleon betrays everybody a couple of times before getting offed, while the Vulcan provides a lot of deadpan exposition. They must have him on something to keep him from laughing when he delivers these lines. He reprises the exposition about how some people live on the surface and others below, (Thanks, we knew that from the opening already) and he tries to figure out the whole rat intelligence thing, but neither he nor anyone else seems to be able to get their head around the fact that rats may kill people. I'm not sure what the hang up is mind you; but they seem to think they're missing some part of the picture. They're not. Rats--->defending their turf---> killing you. Easy, really.

Logical even.

The group's leader doesn't want to leave with their vehicles ruined by rats, but he doesn't really have a plan to kill the rats either. He seems emblematic of the problems that this group has with indecisiveness. They should bring that up at the next group meeting.

Where motions from the floor are not actually rats.

The humans eventually come to accept that the rats are first killers, then intelligent, then assholes as well. (The rats seem to allow a truce, only to lead the humans to a lost companion who is now filled with rats) They find out that the computer they found before has on it a recording from one of the dead who describes coming from below the surface of the earth only to have their research station overrun with rats. Help is on the way, but will be much too late.

Fortunately the final survivors are saved just moments after giving up hope, (While being crybabies about it too) when from underground a horde of yellow hazmat garbed exterminators, (The aforementioned help --great timing eh?) appear to flush the rats out with poison gas. Boy, does that gas get around as well; they must have brought a whole lot of it. These people, silent and faceless as they are, are as frightening and probably more intimidating than a horde of vermin.

Please. Spray me directly in the face if you could.

After saving the survivors, the awful dialogue comes to the fore again as our two remaining surface dwellers try to make the case for brotherhood with the underworld dwellers...by playing on their sympathy towards the mentally retarded.

People do not talk to each other in situations like these as if they were giving a speech at the United Nations. I don't know if this is just a natural feature of this kind of camp classic, or just a consequence of translations making stilted dialogue inevitable. Certainly I've noted that Japanese shows can have dialogue that can be tone-inappropriate while grammatically correct like this. Imagine getting rescued from a burning building and telling the fireman, "Come, let us build a new better world from this wreckage." They'd probably think you're crazy.

But all this flowery dialogue helps the irony:

Turns out we're RATS yo!

I suppose this brings up a lot of questions about whether these guys are supposed to be humans who look like rats or rats that are humans, and how friggin' long this separation from these surface dwelling rubes was supposed to have been at this point. But it's a pretty cool ending so who cares.

When you think about it, the Rat people don't really mean any harm. (Not counting the accidental spraying of the humans with poison) They do understand what people say to them as they apparently speak English, and they helped out the survivors. Heck, they doubtlessly find smaller versions of themselves killing their brethren to be far more frightening than we do. Think if you were attacked by chittering little fleshy humans with large head to body ratios. That's be scary as crap.

Granted I suppose we didn't make the best impression on our hairy friends with the movie-ending screech of twist-ending-terror. Probably didn't help their self esteem any either.

I am the King!

See that little crown? That's what you get when you become King of not crapping your pants. My pants. You crap your pants, I don't crap mine.

Anyway...one day you may get a crown of your own. But I doubt it.

The program is being very rude. That being said, your reputation precedes you.

If I had a nickel for every....

I've been looking into the price for Nickel products per Dad's suggestion, and zeroed in on a few nickel orientated funds, companies and the price of nickel to make some observation. These include FNI, NIC, VALE, XSTRATA , IPATH DOW NICKEL, and JJN:NYSE ARCA.

A few things seem to be consistent. First, most of the tools available for stock analysis are for short term fluctuations. Bollanger bands, moving averages, etc. Most of which suggest that these nickel stocks and companies are in a sell position. (Or were prior to the gas going out of the market temporarily thanks to Gadhafi) Linear regression usually shows growth, but unsurprisingly it also shows all performing above those weighted averages. Which means that there's significant room to fall without really altering the grwoth trend.

Nickel has risen is price much faster than other commodities in the lateast boom, and although the substitute 'pig-nickel' isn't considered a major replacement, I wonder how much more the price can increase. It almost seems to be back to its pre-recession price.

Regarding the possible impact of cold fusion technology, I'd say its unclear. While I would expect any large announcement of a popular invention using a mineral to increase the interest in that mineral; I don't really know if it would significantly alter demand or that any long term rises wouldn't allow for increasing interest in superior substitutes.

I instinctually have trouble imaging that cold fusion possibilities are priced into nickel prices, but it isn't hard to imagine that much of the expected growth is. While I'm confident in the commodities 'super cycle' theory to lift commodities, and that a cold fusions use for the mineral would have to have positive benefits... I don't like commodities for their risk profile and I'm not so confident that even a cold fusion annoucement would result in nickel immediately being much more in demand.

I do not feel confident in buying into or predicting anything about this commodity today or in the future one way or the other even after assembling what information on price history that I could.

Superball

Its been awhile since the Superbowl, but I still had some thoughts about the big game from...what? Two Sundays ago?

Is anyone concerned that both Troy and Clay from the Steelers and Packers respectively are both the leaders of their defenses and have huge hair? Is that like a prerequisite for being a good linebacker now?

Hmmm... this post isn't quite homoerotic enough yet...

Now we're talking!

Now just imagine seeing video of these guys in slow motion with that same overblown grizzled narrator from the pregame videos.... let me tell ya, there's no such thing as an 'ineligible man' on Superbowl Sunday.

Unless there is. What was with that penalty? I thought the whole point of a kick-off was to run after the ball and stop the returner from running it back. Someone has to stay behind the scrimmage line? I would have understood an offside call, but they didn't claim that.

Pittsburg had in their previous victories had won only at home, and had only played one good half in either game along with one terrible half. Green Bay therefore, despite their lack of experience and similar strengths, kind of looked stronger to me. They had won three times in the playoffs on the road, and looked very good while doing it.

Still, I felt similar to the announcers when they started to suggest that Pittsburg was taking over the game. The Packers did seem to go a while without scoring in the middle...maybe that's not necessarily suggestive of anything, but part of the announcer's job is to create a narrative rather than try and hedge their bets. It makes things more interesting.

A funny note: Dad pointed out in the Steelers/Jets game how Ben Roethlesberger (?) seemed to be limping, and then immediately ran for a first down on the next play --and that it was probably a trick. Sure enough, it happened again in the Superbowl. After discovering a minor limp, Ben proceeded to run on the very next play, and the limp totally seemed to have vanished from there out.

It's fair to say that the big determining factor was that Pittsburg made some big mistakes by giving up the ball, and Green Bay both avoided that, and helped make sure that Pittsburg paid for those mistakes with interceptions/recoveries/ and scoring points.

So the Lombardi trophy now goes back to a small town in Wisconsin...a town roughly the same size as Sudbury, (I'm not joking) but with a huge national following. It goes to show how effective community ownership of a team can be, and how valuable methods of profit sharing can be in retaining small market teams.

However, if the sport were more gate revenue orientated, (Therefore more geographically dependent) it wouldn't be economical to maintain any number of small market teams even with profit sharing; which may be why the Saskatchewan Roughriders have only recently become incredibly profitable in the CFL in spite of their enduring popularity.

I dealt with my cold today by taking some tea bags to work with me and made some tea there. I like tea just fine, but for whatever reason I never get around to drinking any; until now. This is certainly a better idea than just cold water or buying hot drinks. I can't believe I didn't think of this before.

I had some Pepsi throwback today. That's the Pepsi with real sugar. Just as the Mexican Coke with real sugar kind of tasted like Pepsi, so too did this taste a lot like Pepsi. I guess that means that Pepsi usually uses more genuine sugar in their regular recipe.

Jeez. My neighbors stink. I guess they smoke a lot of Marijuana or something because I keep getting nasty odors in my apartment often when they open the door to theirs. It's only once a day at most that I'm smelling it, but I don't understand how those fumes it can be so acrid and travel so easily. I'd complain to the building, but I don't think they were interested the last time I phone a complaint in, and I don't know how they'd follow this up anyway.

I made Mac and Cheese today, and in order to clear out many of my perishable ingredients in the fridge, I am planning to make a lot of stuff in bulk; like pasta. I used the Williams Sonona recipe, (Actually having a recipe is 75% of the success) and added some turkey bacon, (Tastes like bacon-light) dill, (It works, but I should have used more, or not cooked it with the rest and left it fresh... its hard to notice for the other ingredients) and some tomatoes. (Which I can't really taste...but at least it added different nutrients and colour) I used cheddar and some of that dense parmesan like cheese, which in monetary terms was most of the meal. Much like my risotto, this dish's economic cost is almost entirely due to one ingredient. (Cheese is expensive)

I finally got ahold of the Rogers rep. They've got the perfect phone for me:

It is kind of heavy but as you can see it comes with a support strap and text messaging.

Running out of internets...

Its funny that I was reading so much in the Globe about disputes over internet usage billing. This month was the first month in a while that I actually went over my limit. I must have downloaded too many movies I guess. : (

What bothers me is that Rogers managed to send their messages days after I had already passed the actual threshold. I guess the mail delivery was slow... (sarcasm)

Once I get this phone mess sorted out, maybe I should check out the other providers of cable and internet. Rogers doesn't seem to be really competitive with everybody else on price.

Storm Front Closing

There's apparently going to be a big storm tomorrow. The possibility of getting out of work early exists. I should remember to bring my boots.

I've been able to talk with Rogers, (That's not the guy's name, but I'm calling him that anyway) about the phone plan. The plan apparently is based off of a phone upgrade with a 36 month commitment:


Hold on there Ackbar. This plan is $26 a month, which apparently includes voice mail, texts and access fee in that figure. Pretty good.

The thing is that Dad doesn't need a phone upgrade, and I was hoping to upgrade his plan. Maybe we can get the phone for me and get the other phone number changed to the new plan. (I don't think they're offering the good phones in this plan, but maybe one of the cheaper ones would be a good upgrade --especially if its paid for by the commitment) This plan also if as advertised, may be even better than some of the pay-go plans as well even for me. But I don't think there's any reason to make two commitments and get two phones so unless the option is available without upgrades or commitments, I think I should be going on pay-go.

Would we have trouble if one phone number was changed to a plan but the other phone number got the phone? Is the phone they send capable of having its SIM switched to whatever other SIM chip I want? Does it matter if they're in different area codes? This could get further complicated as Dad's name is on the account but I'm the employee.

Unfortunately Rogers only contacts me through email once a day. Making this pretty slow.


So who saw that coming eh? I think the big difference between Egypt and say, Iran is that in Iran there was a powerful paramilitary police force made up of like minded violent citizen, whereas Egypt only has police and conscript soldiers. Hopefully this will end up with some basic functioning democracy like Iraq without the secular killings.