And we even get to see the symbiote (the black blob that becomes the black costume). Mash down here to watch this amazing trailer in Quicktime format.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
SPIDER-MAN 3 teaser swings online
And we even get to see the symbiote (the black blob that becomes the black costume). Mash down here to watch this amazing trailer in Quicktime format.
Monday, June 26, 2006
This will be a night long remembered...
I guess I've come full circle now. Or maybe just call it "karmic retribution" for all the calls that I used to make to this show. Years ago in high school a lot of us used to watch Monday Night Live on the local TV station. Some of us liked to call up and see if we could get away with prank calls (like the forever-infamous "laughing box" caller). I loved to call this show up and talk about serious stuff, but I will admit now to making a few joke calls every now and then. Well, tonight I was running Monday Night Live as, I guess you could say I was the producer. And I got to join in the fun with hosts Ken and Mark as the voice of "Greta", the lady from the Bulgarian Institute of Standards and Technology ("B.I.S.T."). I know, to a lot of people this all doesn't sound like much, but for me it was a big thing that was a lot of fun to do. Who would have thought all those years ago that I would someday be on the other end of the phone line. Ahhhh, good times!!
Sunday, June 25, 2006
New study: Adult immaturity is on the rise
An article on the Discovery Channel's website talks about a recent study which indicates that today's adults are increasingly loath to grow up...
Serious Study: Immaturity Levels RisingPersonally, I don't know of very many people who fit the description of "psychological neoteny".Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
June 23, 2006 —The adage "like a kid at heart" may be truer than we think, since new research is showing that grown-ups are more immature than ever.
Specifically, it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth.
As a consequence, many older people simply never achieve mental adulthood, according to a leading expert on evolutionary psychiatry.
Among scientists, the phenomenon is called psychological neoteny.
Stay tuned for my next article: a review of the blockbuster hit Nintendo DS game New Super Mario Bros.
Friday, June 23, 2006
WATCHMEN prepares to chew up and spit out another one
Zach Snyder is the latest filmmaker to be tapped to direct Watchmen, it's being announced today. He follows Terry Gilliam, Darren Aranofsky, Paul Greengrass and several others over the past two decades who've attempted to bring the Alan Moore graphic novel to the big screen. And like them, I'll wager it's only a matter of time before he throws his hands in the air in total surrender. I've already posted before (here and a longer rant here) that Watchmen is probably the one book of modern literature that is absolutely unfilmmable. The only way it could possibly work is, as has been suggested by many, adapt it into a twelve-part series for HBO. Give each chapter of the book a one-hour installment, and maybe then everything in this most dense of stories could be conveyed to the average viewer. But there's no way, no way at all, that Watchmen can be boiled down into a 2-3 hour movie and stay faithful to the original source material.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Christian film flap shows farce of movie rating system
Facing The Giants, a film made by Baptist pastors in Georgia, is getting a PG rating from the Motion Pictures Association of America. That's not good enough, the filmmakers and others are saying: they want a more "family-friendly" G rating. The MPAA has received around 15,000 complaints so far about their decision to make Facing The Giants PG. Opponents say the movie is being unfairly targetted because of its religious themes.
There's two problems that I see here: one, the whole rating system is terrible. It's capriciousness in determining what is - and what isn't - suitable for the screen is legendary. Mostly it has to do with how it's not a system that's suited for determining the merits of an individual film at all, but rather an arbitrary determinant of how controversial a movie is likely to be. I imagine that if Facing The Giants does have a lot of Christian sentiment, that alone would raise the eyebrows of the judging board. Clearly, some other system is needed.
Now, the second: these Christians, and too many of us do this also, are giving the rating system way too much importance. I know of some Christian parents who won't let their children see any movies with a rating over a G. Okay, well does that automatically qualify the movie for family viewing? I've seen plenty of PG-rated movies that should have been rated R, or at least PG-13. And one R-rated movie in recent memory, The Passion of the Christ, had a very powerful Christian element to it. I'm not saying that little kids should be allowed to see that, but there are certainly enough adolescents and up who could readily comprehend that movie... and maybe be affected by it in a positive way on some level. As it is, I know that some Christian pastors literally begged their congregations to "go see this R-rated movie!"
We as Christians are supposed to adhere to another measure than that imposed by the world around us. When we let something like a "PG rating" get under our skin, it's saying to the world that it has a power over us, when instead we are supposed to be free from its grasp.
Long story short: Christians should start thinking for themselves more, instead of letting others - like the Motion Picture Association of America - think for them.
More thoughts on last week's visit from the Westboro Baptist mob
Adam Feldman posts some good thoughts about last week's picket of the Southern Baptist Convention by the Westboro Baptist Church (here's the link to my earlier report on their visit to our TV station). I like this part of Adam's essay especially...
For the record: What you see is what happens when truth is presented half-way. For instance, Scripture (Old and New Testaments) clearly teach that homosexuality is a sin--along with gluttony, pride, anger, malice, idolatry, adultery, disobeying parents, drunkenness, orgies, witchcraft and a host of other things. However, no where does it indicate that man can pass judgment or condemn a fellow man... this is reserved for God alone. Likewise, Scripture clearly teaches that all have sinned--not just homosexuals--and that everyone (yes, everyone) is deserving of eternal separation from God as a result (i.e. Hell). However, Scripture also teaches that God in his loving mercy and grace has provided forgiveness of sin and redemption from sinful behavior through his Son, Jesus Christ.Amen, bruddah!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The mighty Amiga 2000 and Video Toaster 3.1 combo
Last night our TV station had a telethon to raise money for a local charity. As the evening progressed a graphic on the screen kept a running score on how much money had been raised. And so it was that I got my first up-close look at a Commodore Amiga 2000 loaded with a Video Toaster board. This morning during a slow period I let myself play around with it some. And all I gotta say is: it ain't too bad at all... for a computer that's twenty years old!
Well, toward the later end of what was a remarkable run in the home computer market, Commodore rolled out the Amiga: maybe the first serious multimedia platform anywhere. There were a few models available for various-sized budgets, but the high-end system was the Amiga 2000. It boasted what was then a whopping 512 K of RAM, which depending on release version it was it could go all the way up to (back in the day anyway) an inconceivably huge 9 MB of memory. The processor speed was 7.14 mHz. And the way the entire system was clocked to run... well, let's just say it lent itself toward some astounding applications.
In 1990, Brad Carvey (brother of Dana Carvey of Saturday Night Live fame, and the inspiration for "Wayne's World" character Garth), Tim Jenison and a few other engineers at a company called NewTek rolled out the Video Toaster. And the Amiga 2000's full capabilities were at last unleashed...
The Amiga 2000, loaded with a Video Toaster, could create a virtually limitless number of titles, graphics, wipes, and other visual elements for real time television production. As a result, hundreds of smaller TV stations (and many visual artists) were able to do with approximately $5000 - the cost of an Amiga and a Video Toaster - what the big network affiliates in town were doing with equipment costing $50,000 and up. Probably the most impressive thing that the Amiga/Video Toaster combo did was rendering the special effects for the pilot movie and first few seasons of the television series Babylon 5, which called into service an entire render farm of networked-together Amigas loaded with Video Toasters.
There's no telling how many Amiga 2000s and Video Toasters wound up being put to work out there. And amazingly enough a few of them - like the setup at our station - are still being used, now almost a decade and a half after acquiring the equipment (the Video Toaster we're using is version 3.1, released in 1993).
NewTek is still making Video Toaster these days, but it's now a plug-in board/software suite for Windows-based machines. No doubt the latest versions are much more robust and slick than the original Amiga versions and certainly faster: it took our system about fifteen seconds to update the dollar amount last night as the pledges came in. But, it still works and gets the job done. And in the end, isn't that the real measure of how good a computer is, no matter how antiquated it may seem? Does it do what it's intended and does it do it fairly well?
In a cyber-driven society that's gone mad with upgrading to the latest model, our station's humble little Amiga 2000 and Video Toaster 3.1 are a nice reminder to me that older technology still has qualities that merit some appreciation. If for no other reason than because they helped pave the way for all the things that we can do with the latest innovations. But it's still nice to know that against the more modern tech, a 20 year old computer and an early Nineties circuit board are still holding their own.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
TERRIBLE new episode of DOCTOR WHO this past weekend
No, not talking about the Christopher Eccleston season that's been running on Sci-Fi Channel. I'm referring to the new series that's been airing on the BBC in Great Britain, which is getting bootlegged to this side of the pond over the Internet by those jolly good English chaps.
Saturday night I downloaded and watched "Love & Monsters" a few hours after it premiered there. And ever since it's been like a splinter in my mind, driving me mad. You know how some things you can't "unsee" after you've seen them? Well, that's what "Love & Monsters" is.
I've raved a lot about how good this new Doctor Who series has been: the Eccleston episodes and now David Tennant's turn as the Doctor: episodes like "The Girl in the Fireplace", "The Age of Steel" and then "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" two-parter. All excellent work. Like that guy in Big Trouble in Little China: "I've got a really positive feeling about this."
And then comes "Love & Monsters".
This could have been a brilliant episode. I keep thinking this might have been to Doctor Who what "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" was to The X-Files (or what the other Jose Chung episode was to Millennium).
I can accept the "Scooby-Doo" antics at the beginning, and the L.I.N.D.A. group, and the off-kilter way how this episode was presented: as a perspective from the average "man on the street" who witnesses all these events of the Doctor's adventures. I can even accept the Absorbalof as a unique creature in the Doctor Who bestiary.
What I can not accept is the horrible, horrible ending: something is lost from the Doctor's character when he "rescues" a woman by trapping her disembodied head - that will never die - in a slab of pavement so she can be used for oral sex by her boyfriend.
This episode was vile and disgusting... a real shame 'cuz it had so much promise. If the BBC was smart it would make "Love & Monsters" one of those legendary "lost" Doctor Who episodes that forevermore only exists in the memory of whoever got conned into watching it.
Maybe there's some redeeming quality about this episode that I'm missing. Maybe someone will tell me where that is. But as it is, "Love & Monsters" has the dubious honor of being the first Doctor Who episode to get wiped off my hard drive. There's three more episodes this season: hope they're better than this dreck was. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to just forget that "Love & Monsters" ever happened. This is some kind of sick twisted fevered delusion that doesn't belong at all in the Who canon.
(Besides, if you ask me there's no way the Sonic Screwdriver could pull off a trick like that.)
Why Brando in SUPERMAN RETURNS will be remembered
Ain't It Cool News has a terrific exclusive about how special-effects house Rhythm & Hues was able to take footage of Marlon Brando that was shot for 1978's Superman: The Movie and incorporate it into Superman Returns, which'll be out next week. You can watch the rather hypnotic video of how they dunnit in either Quicktime or Windows Media format at the link. For some reason, watching this really makes me excited about seeing this movie in a way that hasn't hit me before...
Monday, June 19, 2006
My wife, the song parodist!
As another year of being a music teacher at her school was wrapping up, Lisa began undertaking something she's never done before: writing a song parody. And I must say, she did a pretty darned funny job with it! Click here for "Teacher's Favorite Things"!
Want to save videos from YouTube and Google Video?
Then KeepVid is the site you need. Simply paste in the URL of the page at YouTube, Google Video or wherever else that your desired video is on, select which site it is from the drop-down menu and hit the "Download" button. In a few seconds KeepVid generates a clickable "save as..." link, which in the case of YouTube you'll need to add the .FLV extension to it and have a Flash video player like this one installed in order to watch it from your hard drive. I just tried this trick on the surreal-as-heck clip of Connie Chung singing and it works just fine (downloading the video that is, not Chung's crooning).
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Pigs R Us takes the checkered flag in race for excellent barbecue
Last month when Lisa and I were in Charleston for "Weird" Ed and Olivia's wedding, we were watching some TV in our hotel room one night and happened to catch a special on the Food Network about the Best of the West Rib Cook-Off that's held every year in Reno, Nevada. The program was filmed during the 2004 competition, and our mouths watered at the sight of all those beautiful slabs of barbecue ribs. One of the featured competitors was an outfit called Checkered Pig BBQ, based out of Martinsville, Virginia... just a quick hop across the border from where we live. Well, Checkered Pig won the big contest over a ton of worthy competitors from all over the country, and we told ourselves that night that we'd have to check them out when we got back home. We did that earlier tonight. And boy are we glad that we did!
Checkered Pig is actually the racing circuit spin-off of Pigs R Us BBQ in Martinsville, not far from the NASCAR racetrack. We found its official website and got directions to the place. Took maybe 45 minutes to get there and it's a little off the main highways, but well worth looking for. We told our waitress that we'd heard of the place from the special on Food Network and she said that ever since it ran, that they'd been getting new customers at a staggering rate. We looked over the menu: Lisa got chopped barbecue and I got the full rack of barbecue ribs. When my plate arrived the ribs were smothered in the restaurant's special Checkered Pig Grilling Sauce (a bottle of which I bought and took home while we were leaving).
Pigs R Us BBQ is awesome!!! Every thing about this restaurant is perfect in my book: good and friendly service, all food fresh and home-cooked, prompt delivery of food after it's been ordered... and what might be the best barbecue ribs I've had anywhere. I've written before here about Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Q in Marietta, Georgia (a full review of the place is planned in the future) and how much I love their ribs, but I only get to eat there when we're visiting Lisa's family in Georgia and those are goooooood ribs! And I've been wanting ribs around here that are that high a level of excellent. Well, I think I've finally found it. I can seriously see myself visiting the place at least once a month from now on. I'm very much looking forward to another visit to Pigs R Us: maybe the best-kept secret when it comes to great barbecue in the entire Greensboro/Reidsville/Danville metro area :-)
Biggest mistake ever in comic book history
Color me cynical, but I've still got bad memories of the disastrous-as-hell "Clone Saga": a Spider-Man story that started with only the best of intentions but soon spun completely out of the writers's control. I guess if the Marvel honchos decide that doing this was a very bad decision, they can always count on Doctor Strange to mystically alter the memories of everyone on Earth so that Petey can have his secret identity again. But then again, change can be a very good thing, especially when we're dealing with a forty-some year old character, if it helps keep that character fresh. Time will tell. In the meantime I might have to check out Civil War.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Westboro Baptist members will die sooner or later
On November 3rd, 1979, the Communist Workers Party staged a rally not far away from here in Greensboro, North Carolina. Party members were trying to organize local workers to oppose the Ku Klux Klan. During the rally the protestors chanted "Death to the Klan!", especially as a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis drove past. A few minutes later the Nazi-Klan people parked their cars, opened up the trunks, brought out several shotguns and other firearms, and opened fire on the rally. Five members of the Communist Workers were killed, and several more injured. Nobody was convicted of what happened that day.
Everything about the whole event was ugly. I don't understand why some people in Greensboro keep bringing it up. There was nothing "socially significant" about what happened that day at all: it was two groups of people who hated each other, and one way or another they were both aching too much for a confrontation to let one slide by. It was like two schoolyard bullies going at it against each other, but with grownups and guns. I've never had any sympathy toward either party involved: as much as the Nazi-Klansmen caused bloodshed in the tragedy, the Communist Workers only had themselves to blame for antagonizing them in the first place.
(Here's a video of the confrontation on YouTube, showing not only the Nazi-Klansmen shooting at the Communists but the Communists shouting insults at the Klansmen and hitting their cars as they drive by.)
Two nights ago I witnessed firsthand something that I've heard of for a long time, and even wrote about when I was in college, but never expected to see with my own eyes: a "protest" by the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas (the "God Hates Fags" bunch). You've probably heard of them: they're the "church" that have been going around the country picketing at funerals of fallen soldiers, waving around the most vile signs and spitting out vicious slander at anyone who doesn't fit within their narrow definition of what it is to be right with God. Here's my full report on what happened, including plenty of photos of the Westboro members in action.
Fred Phelps, his daughter Shirley Phelps Roper (who accompanied her family two nights ago and is the spokeswoman of the group), and the rest of Westboro Baptist Church are trying to elicit a response with their antics. I wonder if they really understand what it is they are doing, and if the ramifications of their actions are within their realm of comprehension.
These people are doing nothing but asking for trouble. And when it comes, it'll be in spades.
Folks, I honestly believe – enough to make a statement about it even – that the Westboro Baptist Church is headed toward a nasty situation like what happened in Greensboro in 1979. One day, sooner or later, the Westboro gang is going to picket the wrong event and honk off the wrong people. All it really takes is one person. Someone is going to see the Westboro Baptist members with their signs and their songs and their sickening disregard for sympathy toward others. And that someone is going to decide that Westboro Baptist Church has gone too far. And then, that person is going to take matters into his own hands.
You heard it here first: if they keep this up, the members of Westboro Baptist Church can only look forward to some of them being dispatched with extreme prejudice. I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened already.
Well, what else can I say except this: I've never wanted to see anyone get hurt, for any reason. But if it happens to the people of Westboro Baptist Church, I can’t imagine anyone else who would have brought it upon themselves more.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
When "God Hates Fags" comes to town: My night with the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas
I reported yesterday about Shirley Phelps Roper, spokeswoman for the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas and the notorious "God Hates Fags" website, coming to our studio later in the evening to talk about her group's demonstrating at the Southern Baptist Convention going on in Greensboro. They're especially miffed at a ten-foot statue of evangelist Billy Graham that was unveiled during this year's conference. Well, Phelps Roper was scheduled to be live in the studio between about 7 and 9 P.M. About quarter past six we got word that she was en route to the studio... along with several other members of Westboro Baptist (who happen to be members of her family) who were being given a police escort on the highway. ETA was going to be sometime after 7. Shortly before 7 two protestors arrived, one of whom had a small sign saying "God is love". By this point we had a camera set up on the sidewalk outside the studio and we got a few minutes live footage of them making their presence known.
About 7:15 the caravan (2, maybe 3 SUVs) arrived at the studio and parked along the curb. We immediately heard some of them say that they weren't expecting counter-protestors to be present.
Shirley Phelps Roper had arrived, bringing with her about 10-15 other Westboro members who disembarked their vehicles...
The Westboro Baptist people then went inside the studio and Shirley Phelps Roper (in red shirt) talked with host Mark Childrey before the show began, as members of her family began whipping out the signs for which they have gained so much notoriety...
This kid looked to be no more than 5 years old. He's looking through a bag containing several of the "God hates..." signs:
I can only say that the mood among the Westboro Baptist gang was nothing short of jovial. They seemed outright happy to have been there. I've never seen anything like it before: I mean, here were these people with these signs saying some downright horrible things, and I didn't see them stop smiling at all. You know, the guys who ran the gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen didn't even really think about what it was they were doing: they just pumped in the Zyklon-B, cycled out the bad air, then went home and had dinner and played with their children. More often than not being "happy" with their work didn't really register with them. And here were people who couldn't be happier showing the world how much they hated other people. It was just... mind-boggling to see, being one with a history background. But anyway...
While Phelps Roper was getting started inside the studio with Mark, the rest of her entourage took to the sidewalk outside the studio to do their "protest". I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...
While they were out on the street waving their signs around, the Westboro mob was singing some absolutely blasphemous song... no, not "parodies". A parody is something funny. There was nothing funny at all about what was coming out of their mouths. Song mockeries like "God Hates America" and "America the Burning", replete with all kinds of lyrics about "fags" and thanking God for dead soldiers. To me, personally, hearing such classic songs like "America the Beautiful" filked like this by these heartless bastitches was the worst thing they did that night. It was enough to make me dream of seeing them beaten to a pulp by a mob of Ray Stevens fans.
And no I'm not caring right now whether this is the most objective report I can file or not. But I'm not going to let these people win some kind of victory over me either. I'm posting this because I believe in the school of thought that Mel Brooks practices when he attacks Hitler: the best way to destroy someone is to make others laugh at them. And the Westboro Baptist Church is a pretty laughable bunch. If they hadn't been doing this for fifteen years already (and if they really weren't so deadly serious about hating other people) they might be mistaken for shoddy satire. They're pathetic is what they are: running around the country with God only knows what kind of funding they have to manage on, going to the slightest little event that insults their petty sensibilities, and proceeding to act like clowns waving stupid signs around.
Speaking of which, look at those signs: with a change of wording they would look like protestors in support of Rastafarianism. "Want you some ganja, mon?"
Okay, back to last night...
The "Billy" here is a reference to Rev. Billy Graham. Yah, I never thought I'd live to see the day either: someone in the middle of Reidsville, North Carolina waving an anti-Billy Graham sign...
Meanwhile, inside the studio the interview with Shirley Phelps Roper was well underway...
The counter-protestors were busy, well, counter-protesting...
The Westboro Baptist Church was starting to be an impediment to pedestrian traffic...
And Reidsville's finest were starting to take increasing note of the shenanigans...
Shortly before 8 P.M., more Reidsville Police officers than I've ever seen congregate in one place descended on the scene (I'd say four or five, maybe more than that, police vehicles parked on the street) and approached the Westboro Baptist protestors. The Chief of Police informed the Westboro Baptist gang that (a) they were blocking the sidewalk and (b) the signs they were waving were too big. In short, they couldn't be demonstrating outside the studio as they were...
At this point Shirley Phelps Roper left the interview and discussed the situation with the officers. It was agreed that her group would leave the sidewalk and come inside, where they sat inside the station and sit in another studio while the interview went on. After the situation had been brought under control, the Reidsville Police left, amid cheering from the counter-protestors...
And the interview went on. It was now sometime past 8 o'clock...
It was sometime after this that came my only direct interaction with Shirley Phelps Roper (or anyone else from Westboro Baptist Church for that matter) of the evening. The rest of her group had left the studio when I wasn't looking and during a commercial break I asked someone if they knew where they had gone to. Phelps Roper snapped at me "Why do you want to know where they've gone to?" I told her that I'd wondered if they had gone out to dinner, that there were several good places to eat in the surrounding area, "that's all". It was the tone she used toward me that I wanted to make note of: she really did come across as someone very paranoid. Anyway, that's the first and probably last time that I'll have any interaction with someone from the Westboro Baptist Church, so I might as well mention that.
Here's the side studio after the other members of the church had left (and it turns out they did go out to grab a bite to eat) with the signs they left behind...
It wasn't long after the break that Johnny Roberson, a local minister who had debated the Phelps family the last time they were in the area, was brought out and another debate ensued between Phelps Roper and Roberson. It was during the next commercial break that I really took notice of the profanity that Shirley Phelps Roper seems inclined (and even proud of) toward using, when she referred to Roberson as an "asswipe"...
So much else I could report on, like the heated argument that broke out among the Westboro Baptist group and another person in the lobby area during the interview. But as it was, it was now going toward 9 o'clock and I'd decided that I'd seen enough, so I punched out and headed for home.
That is what happened when the Westboro Baptist Church came to town. Coming into contact with these people is not something that I enjoyed in the slightest bit. There is nothing Christian at all about the Westboro Baptist Church: they are so fixated on God's justice that they have no concept at all about God's grace. I would even say that their idea of His justice is warped beyond measure. If anything good has come of their hate-driven activities, it escapes my mind: "by their fruits shall ye know them", we are told. Well, the fruit of Westboro Baptist reeks of rot and is crawling with maggots. The most uplifting thing they could do to further the Kingdom of Heaven would be to just go away... far away! The farther the better. And maybe I'm doing the wrong thing anyway by reporting on these loons.
But, God has called me to be a writer, and to be a witness for Him. Who knows: maybe I'll do more for Him by writing about all this than the Westboro Baptist miscreants ever will.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
"God Hates Fags" spokeswoman in our studio tonight
Shirley Phelps Roper (shown at right) will be in our station's studio tonight from 7 until approximately 9 P.M. Phelps Roper is the daughter of Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. Maybe you've heard of their website GodHatesFags.com. You've probably also heard about how they've been picketing at the funerals of fallen U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq. Those have been just a few of the "protests" that members of Westboro Baptist have done all over the country in the past few years against what they call "rampant homosexuality". This afternoon Shirley Phelps Roper and other members of the church will be demonstrating at the Southern Baptist Convention that's going on in Greensboro, particularly at the unveiling of a ten-foot statue of evangelist Billy Graham, a man who the church has condemned as a "hellbound heretic". Phelps Roper will be in the studio and we'll have the phone lines open for her entire stay. I'll probably file a report later in this space about what happens.
