Movie Review: Color Out of Space

First off for the H.P. Lovecraft fans: It's OK, even if it is a heavy adaptation of the original story.  Back to the review.  You know the basic plot, ripped off by everyone from the makers of The Blob to King & Romero: meteor falls to Earth near a remote farmhouse and there's something inscrutable and evil inside that takes over the farm, and maybe keeps growing.  And then there's something that takes up residence at the bottom of the nearby well...

The main story within the original Lovecraft short story unfolded over nearly two years in the 1880s, as uncovered by a hydrologist in the 1920s.  Here, all the action has been moved up into the present day and compressed into a few weeks.  Lots of major characters remain, in a mutated form (how appropriate), and do approximately the same things here.  It's all close enough to the base storyline to be a recognizable, credible adaptation.  The major difference is that where The Colour in the original drained nearby living things of their life force leaving behind ashen grey disintegrating husks, here The Color changes and merges nearby living things into monstrous forms.  It fits better with 21st century horror movie expectations, I suppose, but it seems to be a mutation of the story line too far.

Another problem is that we see Nicolas Cage and family going all crazy, and we know it's somehow The Color behind the change, and well water is implicated, but it's never explicitly linked the way it is in the short story.  At one point in the original, the father relates to a concerned friend checking on the family how "...can't git away...draws ye...ye know summ'at's comin', but 'tain't no use..." for about half a page.  It's a drained rant from a drained character that seems custom made for Cage to deliver.  Instead, here we get a similar explanatory rant from a squatter played by Tommy Chong, but it more sounds like a stoner's ramblings than the exposition the viewers deserve.  That, plus we get Crazy Cage, bellowing about alpacas and blowing up monsters with a double-barreled shotgun.  Is it The Color's direct effect, or is he just acting out over the stress?  Not clear at all in the movie version.  Maybe this is the director's intent?  If so, it's a fumble.

But that's all the bad parts.  The rest is faithful in spirit to the original, albeit dragged kicking and screaming a century into the future.  Parts are almost charming, especially some of the teenage hijinks and slightly out-of-control parenting.  So... yeah, if you're a fan of the original, give it a watch.  Even if it is a heavy adaptation, the eldritch bones of the original story remain intact.

Three out of Four Stars

Revisiting Audiophiledom

Spanning across high school, college, grad school, and finally into professional life, I always subscribed to one or two audiophile magazines.  Finally, sometime around 1993, Julian Hirsch at Stereo Review said something to the effect that all decent CD players and audio amplifiers are now effectively perfect, and while there is substantial variation between speakers it comes down to personal taste.  (Strictly speaking of good components here, bubble-pack gear and boom cars and the like are another story.)  At which point life was taking a particularly sudden turn and I just dropped the whole matter and was happy with the gear I had.

And that's mostly where things sit today.  Oh, I've side-graded with newer components as things aged.  Gave away the belt-drive-and-moving-coil turntable.  In one mildly humorous episode, I thought my ears were going when in fact it was only some speaker cones beginning to crack with age.  That was a welcome upgrade!  But on the whole, my approach to audio is best summed up by the phrase "close enough."

Then this morning while reading through The SWLing Post blog, I stumbled onto Part-Time Audiophile.  There's always been a fair amount of woo-woo surrounding the turntables-and-tubes crowd, but I have to say that I've missed at least some of it, and especially the music reviews.  Take a moment from your busy day and go peruse the site.  Particularly noteworthy is their 2019 buyer's guide.  Will I dive back into this hobby and wallow to the degree I used to?  Probably not.  But it will be good to dip a toe in the pool from time to time.

Hm, not convinced, not a fan.

Ford releases Mustang Mach-E winter testing footage

An all-electric crossover SUV?  It may be alright, but whatever it is it's not a Mustang.  These sorts of branding missteps muddy a product name, piss off the long-time fan base, and consequently spook potential buyers.  I predict that for these reasons alone, this thing'll be gone within a couple of years.  Which is a shame, because it may well be a perfectly good vehicle that buyers want.

Waveland St. Patrick's Day Parade Canned

Oh sure, they're saying "postponed," but well, OK, maybe – say until next year.  Article at the Seacoast Echo

The (possible) End of Moore's Law

Article over at MIT Tech Review.  It's a short read, so set aside five or ten minutes.

Looking on the bright side, rolling to the end of Moore's Law implies the end of bloatware.

Ham Camp #21

Nothing remarkable, just another weekend camping up in Desoto National Forest.  This time out we went for the horse trailhead just south of Airey Lake.  It's a nice campsite, complete with convenient antenna-hanging trees, many campsites with tables and benches, and a vault toilet.  Strictly bring-your-own water and power, but that's par for the course and even a little bit of a bonus in my book.  However... some of the BYOP took the form of ear-splitting generators.  That's the one down side to this place.

Here, have some pictures first, then we'll come back and discuss some more.

  

  

TL: Inside the shack.  TR: Yet another steaming pot of brew.

BL: A curious crow examines the W3EDP-mini antenna.  BR: Curious Crow watches over the campsite in his tuxedo.

Hm, lessons learned... 

• When packing the truck, give the loading area one more walk-through before heading out.  Left the main 40 AH battery at the house!
• Bring backup gear.  In this case, I had the complete pre-packed low-power radio and accoutrements, including the 4.5 AH battery.  This allowed me to operate despite mistake #1, albeit at reduced power.
• But had push come to shove, I did have battery clamps and could've operated off the truck's power.  Again, more backups on top of backups.  In the end, I did a quick drive-home for the big battery.
• Operator comfort = operator efficiency.  With a 9'x9' tent, a 6' table, director's chair w/ insulating pad, it was nice to get in out of the frigid north wind and sit up in a somewhat normal work position.  Full-on sleeping gear made the frosty nights a pleasure.  Don't discount comfort.
• Before packing out on Sunday, we tried a mid-day 80m ground wave propagation experiment, aka "GWEN Junior."  Bottom line: worked at 15 miles' range, but not so well at 40 miles.  Good to know.  Also, note that was SSB voice.  Any one of the digital modes could significantly increase this range.
• All of the horse-noise around had several of us blurting out "Frau Blucher" at random intervals.
• ps: adding a tiger tail to the FT-60 HT really helped getting into the repeater 20 miles away.  20" of #20 wire, crimped to a split lug that just fits around the SMA antenna connector; took all of 5 minutes to make.  Here's the video that got me out of the chair and onto this.

Beyond all that, it went pretty smoothly.  On one hand, I really didn't need to spend a weekend goofing off in the woods – way too much other stuff to do.  On the other, my brain really appreciated the time around the greenery.  And oooh, the weather was nice.

Tiny Desk Concert: Bob Weir & Wolf Bros

Over at NPR: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/02/809860805/bob-weir-and-wolf-bros-tiny-desk-concert
26 minutes of Dead-infused jam.

Weir sounds old and knowledgeable, and still strong.  Time-span wise, he's been singing since the 60's.  Shifted back a century, and this would be akin listening to a Civil War veteran playing on an early radio station.  Don't break your time perspective brain center mulling that one too long.

More blogging on the way.  Been incredibly busy.  But in the meantime, there's some good music.