Ranking the Avatars

I saw Avatar (2009) when I was 11 years old. I was the perfect age for it, and it remains one of my more cherished theatergoing experiences; I don’t think I’ll forget shoveling popcorn in my mouth while watching Jake Sully run from the thanator. Tonight, I saw Fire and Ash, and I wanted to rank the Avatar movies so far. Nerds lock in.

Avatar: The Way of Water

Avatar under the sea? Yes please. I had some friends complain about the length of Way of Water, but I could’ve spent a year watching beautiful alien fish swim around. These movies are credited for being visual feasts, and this one takes the cake. It maintains the same structure and beats of the first one, but the new visual buffet had me not worrying about that very much at all. 

 

Avatar 

The classic! The original! The OG! As aforementioned, it touched this young boy’s heart and helped me fall further and further in love with the cinematic experience. I saw this with my Dad when he was on his lunch break at work, which at the time I just accepted, but in hindsight is insane given the movie’s length. I’m grateful for that experience and I’m grateful he didn’t get fired. 

 

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Literally just walked out of this one a half hour ago. It was okay! I think big Jim really would benefit from getting a new structure going for the next two. Really was hoping for a new pallet, a new biome, and we got more forest, sea, and air battles. Which were gorgeous to watch as always! But I wanted something new! This was a horny movie. I’ll say that. 

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Rudolph

Wondering About iHOP

Have you ever been to an iHOP? Come on, be honest. I don’t care if it’s your favorite place. In fact, I’d genuinely like to find someone who goes regularly so they can explain the appeal to me, calmly and without judgment.

Don’t get me wrong. I like a good diner. In fact, I love a good diner. Give me cracked vinyl booths, a laminated menu the size of a dictionary, and a waitress who calls everyone “hon” and I’m happy. But iHOP? Not so much.

In the 26-plus years we’ve lived in our town, we have been to iHOP exactly once. Once. That is not a typo. Clearly they are not relying on my household to keep the lights on or the griddles warm.

We never really see their parking lot full. Maybe on Sunday mornings there’s a small crowd, but even then it feels more like a gathering of extras than actual neighbors. Who are these people? Where do they come from? I can tell you this much: I don’t know a single person who goes there with any regularity. Not one.

I drove by the other day and was surprised (flabbergasted, even) to see a sign proudly announcing “Now Open 24/7.” Wait, what? For a place that is rarely busy, and when it is busy appears to be filled with mysterious strangers, there is suddenly enough demand that it must never close? I never went to business school, but this one really made me stop and scratch my head.

Naturally, my mind wandered. Tony Soprano and his crew had Satriale’s Pork Store, a perfectly innocent-looking front for planning all manner of underworld activity. Could this be the same thing? If an iHOP never closes, no one would blink an eye at people coming and going at all hours of the night. Completely normal. Nothing to see here.

Or maybe it’s something bigger. A top-secret government lab, perhaps. At street level it’s pancakes and syrup, but forty levels below? Labs, armories, testing stations, people in lab coats saying things like “We’re not cleared to discuss that.” It would explain a lot.

There must be another explanation, maybe even a reasonable one that I’m simply not thinking of. I just cannot believe there is that much genuine, round-the-clock demand for overly sweet pancake stacks. But I remain open-minded. If you’re one of the regulars, I invite you, politely, to enlighten me.

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Thanks for reading!

Frosty

Cheese & Candy Pairings

This year for one of the nights of Hanukkah, we tried something a little different – cheese and candy pairings. Suggestions for these pairings are everywhere on social media right around Halloween, for people who are looking for something to do with all of those candy bars, I guess.

I consulted several people’s platters and their pairing recommendations and then hit the cheese counter. A very helpful cheesemonger helped me find a half dozen cheeses.  From there, a quick trip to the drug store to get the corresponding candies. Our family loves tastings so I anticipated that pairings would be a natural extension of that. My son started off willing but skeptical. However, once he got to his second pairing, Eureka! He declared that one was awesome.

After tasting each couple, my daughter experimented with duos that she thought might be even better together. Indeed, she found some nice matches. My husband definitely developed a preference for the creamier cheeses. I liked the sharper ones – they made the candy seem saltier somehow.

If you are wondering if it makes any difference what cheese one pairs with what candy, it absolutely does!  We confirmed this by trial and error.  Some pairings were outright unpleasant.

Overall, a very fun experience I highly recommend!

Pairings

-        Manchego and Reese’s peanut butter cups

-        Honey Goat Gouda and Twix

-        Aged Gouda and Caramel Popcorn (everybody liked this one)

-        Mascarpone and Sour Patch Kids

-        Sharp Cheddar and Butterfingers

-        Gruyere and Snickers

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Thanks for reading!

Eve

Ready Player One (Movie Review)

Yesterday I rewatched Ready Player One, and it’s still a great movie. Like unexpectedly great. There have been many futuristic action movies and movies about VR or tech worlds, but I love the adventure essence of it.

First of all, the soundtrack is GREAT, and the exposition they used to explain it wasn’t even clunky; lots of 80s bangers setting the mood.

I also love how full of niche trivia and references the film is. Because of the way they set up the film talking about the creator of the VR world’s favorite books, films, and music, they constantly reference and even go into other media within the game, which, as someone who loves making a niche reference, I enjoy immensely.

Ultimately, I just really like the story and the characters, and it continues to hit me and make me sentimental to enjoy the world building (even if it’s set a little too near in the future for my liking; I don’t like to think of all the change happening within my lifetime).

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Holly

Purple Planet

Considerable damage was done to the mesa. The first landing of the captain’s ship some 18 years ago had cracked open millennium-old rocks like they were ice cubes dropped on the kitchen floor. 

Smithereens, they called it. “Don’t get lost up in Smithereens!” Raina’s mother used to say. “Getting lost” was a novel concept to kids who had grown up on the desert planet. The light purple sediment was all that Raina and her friends had known.

 

Raina carefully picked her way up through the blasted rocks, utterly grateful that she had remembered to wear her boots. The captain was scheduled to return today and she was hopeful for an audience.

 

She approached the landing spot, a ribbed dent at the center of the mesa. Boulders and shards of rock laid about. Smithereens, indeed.

 

Now, it was time to wait. The captain’s arrival time was a mystery to all from Raina’s backwater colony, but the date was certain as the captain kept a religious schedule. Raina pulled from her bag a textbook for her biology class: “Extraterrestrial Farming in the Second Space Age”. It was a dry read with the occasional charming illustration. It would have to do.

 

The hours passed and the planet’s two moons danced around each other. Just as the Friend made his second attempt toward the Foe, Raina heard a craft break through the atmosphere. She threw her bag together and sought cover behind a boulder the size of her mother’s living pod. 

 

A spherical craft broke through the feathery clouds and seemed to drop straight towards Raina. She covered her face with her jacket, purple dust flying about.

 

The craft settled into complete and utter silence. Whoever was on board was perhaps hitting the bathroom before making their grand entrance, or maybe grabbing a snack. Raina was fiddling anxiously with her shoelaces when she heard a puff of air and the cranking of hinges. A bottom quarter of the sphere blossomed, revealing a walkway with a tubby little man. He had thinning gray hair and wore an embarrassing black cape that was at least a decade out of fashion. He stepped out, seeming to assess his parking job. 

 

“Captain!”

 

The man looked up, alarmed to have a visitor. His hand went toward his gun.

 

“Are you here for the cargo?” the man barked.

 

Raina stepped closer. “I’m actually here for you.”

 

The captain frowned. “What do you want?”

 

Raina sputtered awkwardly. “I- I’m actually your daughter?”

 

The man lowered his weapon and frowned even harder. His silence devoured the afternoon air. 

 

After they sat silently for what felt like a year, the man raised his weapon again, changed the setting to “stun”, and fired at his alleged daughter. Raina dropped to the ground.

 

The captain was not supposed to have children. The captain was not supposed to have ties to any of the planets he visited. And most importantly, the captain was not supposed to have anything that could be used to blackmail him and his order. Captain Erik von Redd had captured gaseous life forms in bottles, toppled insurrections within his own order, and extracted ore from violently contested asteroids. But all of those challenges paled in comparison to his apparent fatherhood. 

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Thanks for reading!

Rudolph

The Perfect Storm

There is a very specific kind of snowstorm that deserves its own holiday. Not the Tuesday at 7am variety that ruins lives and footwear. Not the Sunday night special that sends a chill through your inbox as you preemptively draft the “working from home today” email. I am talking about the perfect storm. Snow that begins late on a Saturday night and drifts lazily into Sunday morning, with absolutely nowhere you are required to be.

This is the snowstorm that understands you.

It starts quietly, after dinner plans are finished and pajamas have been put on. Maybe you notice it through the window while pretending to watch a show. At first it looks decorative. Festive, even. A little sparkle in the streetlight. You feel no panic because there is no alarm clock looming, no commute calculations running in the background of your brain. The roads can do whatever they want. You are not participating.

By Sunday morning, the world has been gently muted. The kind of silence that makes you instinctively speak more softly, even though no one else is awake yet. The snow is pristine, untouched, and deeply smug about it. Cars are still parked exactly where they were last night, and they will remain there for several glorious hours. You can admire the snowfall without once checking traffic apps or mentally ranking which hills in your town are the most treacherous.

Coffee tastes better on snow Sundays. This is science. You drink it slowly, staring out the window like you are in a movie about a person who has their life together. You are dressed purely for warmth and comfort. No one is judging you. This is a snow day for adults, which is vastly superior to snow days for children.

The best part is the absence of dread. There is no meeting to reschedule, no boss to impress. Conditions are not your problem. You are monitoring baked goods. Or chores around the house. Or a book. Or, best of all, a nap.

Contrast this with weekday snow, which arrives aggressively, usually sideways, and immediately demands sacrifice. That snow comes with sirens, salt trucks, and the haunting phrase “use caution.”

Saturday-night-to-Sunday snow comes with permission. Permission to linger. Permission to cancel plans guilt-free. Permission to watch something indulgent, drink something warm and eat something carb-heavy without explanation.

By Sunday afternoon, the snow begins to fade, like a polite houseguest who knows when to leave. Plows arrive. Life slowly resumes. But for a brief window, the world gave you a gift: winter beauty without winter consequences.

That is the perfect storm.

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Thanks for reading!

Frosty

 

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about AI “taking over” the world. Read anything, watch anything, listen to anything, and somebody is lamenting about the imminent demise of humans. They predict jobs vaporizing, brains rotting on account of nobody needing to know anything anymore since ChatGPT will give them all the answers, and kids becoming illiterate since they won’t need to go to school. Some even say maybe sentient AI will kill all the humans. 

While I *do* kind of see us heading down the path of AI supremacy, I don’t think that’s how it’s going to play out. I don’t think there will be one big event or series of notable events that historians will point to and declare “this is when it all took a turn.” I predict the transformation will happen in teeny tiny undetectable increments all in the name of progress with nobody ever looking back. In fact, it has already started happening…

The obvious example has taken place in the last decade or so. How many of us cannot be without our cellphones for five minutes? An hour? A day? Whether you are scrolling or checking messages, or just feel the need to always be reachable, you cannot be without that phone. Yet ten years ago, you somehow managed just fine. This is my first most widely applicable example of our subservience. 

Secondly, medical solutions are another way we are becoming dependent — by being intertwined with Al. AI is now baked into mammogram research: it can detect cancer way better and way earlier than a human doctor.  In recent years, medical researchers have been taking the universe of known diseases (~ 18,000) and cross referencing them with the universe of FDA-approved drugs (~4,000) in order to determine off-label uses. They are able to do this in a timely manner only by training AI what to look for and how to look for it. In addition, scientists are working on creating nanobots that will swim through your blood stream and optimize your bodily functions as needed. 

We already have hearing aids that are app-dependent, designer DNA for potential newborns, and AI seizure technology. It is not a far stretch to say that before long, any physical problem a human has will be solved by AI tech either put into the body or on the body and maintained by an external entity. Those folks would not have survived without help.  Natural selection will be a thing of the past.

This is just a smattering of examples off of the top of my head, but my point is AI will dominate not because it conquered the human race, but because it became part of the human race.

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Thanks for reading!

Eve