Take What You Need

Reading Philip K. Dick's Valis (or in my case listening to it on an audio recording) can, just like the myriad of drugs mentioned in the novel, do strange things to your mind.  After hearing chapter three, I began to think about the original Terminator movie from 1984 differently.  Reese, the protagonist, travels back in time to save Sarah Conner, the mother of a great military commander from a killer android who was also sent back in time to kill Sarah before she can give birth.  Early in the movie, Reese arrives in 1984 naked because apparently time travel was invented by a person who has a thing man butt.  He steals a trench coat from a hobo and ducks away from the police who apparently take hobo clothing theft very seriously into a clothing store to boost some less urine and feces stained gear including "a dope pair of Nikes" as RATM called them when similar shoes appeared in Godzilla.  

This completely side tracked me into searching for a new jacket for myself.  I found this stylish jacket with Halloween themed orange accents on sale at Columbia Sportswear.  Coupon code "ALFALL2" can be used right now to lower the price even further:

I Could Destroy So Many Terminators

With This!

The act of a man taking something from a store in the middle of the night is traditionally called stealing but in this instance I believe that this does not register with the audience as theft because it happens quickly, Reese is fighting for the future of all humanity and traveling through time does strange things to a person's needs.  My newly enlightened understanding of the world, which has come about as a direct result of my encounter with Dick (edit for phrasing before publication) has brought me to the only possible conclusion: all people should steal what they need because as long as you do it quickly, believe that you possess the ability to save the future of humanity and, like all things in the universe, are traveling through time, no one will really mind.

Anne Hathaway Does it!

Continuing the thievy theme of this post, here is a photo of the lovely Anne Hathaway as Catwoman:

I realize that via blog is not the most appropriate way to ask

but Anne, if you ever get divorced, I would like to offer you

a pearl necklace of my own. 

Riding the batcycle in the middle of a gun fight is the 

least exciting thing I can imagine doing with Anne

while she wears skin tight leather in that position.

Skyscrapers and Sports

Tejo:

Today I learned of the national pastime of Columbia, a game in which players throw a metal disc 60' towards a slope of mud in the middle of which is a ring lined with explosives.  The game is called tejo (Pronounced "tey-ho", remember that "j" becomes "h" in Spanish) and apparently is played by virtually everyone that lives in Columbia.  The goal of game is to throw the metal disc and hit the tejo, which are triangles of paper lined with a bit of gunpowder.  Players score points for successfully hitting a tejo and getting the gunpowder inside to explode.  Additional points are awarded to players who manage to land their disc inside of the ring after causing the tejo to explode.

Any competition that involves exploding gunpowder sounds fun to me

Here is a link to a good video on tejo produced by the Washington Post, which, sadly, I can't easily embed here.

Here is another good video on tejo from the people at Lonely Planet:

¡Me Gusta!

Much like bowling, bocce, or horseshoes, the game itself is often little more than an excuse for the players to drink beer.  There are also plenty of YouTube videos out there that show that the official rules are often thrown out the window as players move just a few steps away from the target to increase the chances of their throws resulting in the satisfying pop of exploding gunpowder.  Still, the basic elements of the game remain the same: people throw metal discs at a slope of mud in the hope of setting off a small amount of explosives.  Sounds fun. 

Torre Bicentenario:

Continuing the south of the border theme, I came across a description of the Torre Bicentenario today.  The tower, a quartz clad skyscraper 984' tall built to celebrate the bicentennial of Mexico, would be the tallest building in all of Mexico, if the builders ever get around to finishing the thing.

Fancy