fishing for words

From The Daily Journal in Fergus Falls, Minnesota (May 16, 2007):

Fishing in Iraq: National Guard Troops Enjoy Opener Half a World Away
By Tom Hintgen
     Many Minnesota National Guard members from this area serving in Iraq have good memories of the spring fishing opener. Among them are Zach Eifert of Fergus Falls and Doug Aas of Pelican Rapids.
     Just for fun, some Guardsmen in Iraq held a simultaneous fishing opener coinciding with the Minnesota Fishing Opener on Saturday, May 12, at Camp Adder, Iraq.
     “We hope your fishing was better than ours,” Public Affairs and photographer Capt. Mark Lappegaard joked. “There’s no fishing limit here in Iraq and our only rule is no explosives.”

From the California Chronicle: Wolk bill to protect native trout and amphibians moves forward.

I’m not planning on taking up suction dredging anytime soon to supplement my income, so sure, but this might be a good idea.

A bit of irony associated with this article, however. The photo displayed with the article — an ad actually —  is of a fish caught in Jurassic Lake, which is Patagonia, and is for a company that organizes fly fishing trips around the world except, apparently, in California.

A conspiracy of controlled chaos, parody played straight, and Timothy Dalton’s wonderfully odd turn as a sinister villain with a twinkle in his eye allow “Hot Fuzz” to be a genuinely smart yet silly film. This lampoon of the Hollywood cop action film leans more towards homage with sometimes subtle but nearly always dead-on verbal and visual references to both the good and ghastly action and suspense films, including “Mission Impossible II,” “Point Break,” “Chinatown” and “Bad Boys 2.” One might still call “Hot Fuzz” just another action comedy, but it’s a thoroughly good one that can stand up to many the better films of the genre.

While there easily recognized bits copied directly from “Point Break” and “Bad Boys 2″ — both are explained to the audience by being shown within the film — film fans will have to keep a keen eye out for a good many subtle bits lifted from films such as the aforementioned “Chinatown” as well as “Men in Black,” “The Omen,” “The Shining,” “The Matrix,” etc. Let me know if you also sees a visual homage to “Mad Max.” (You can find more triva through a Google search.)

Though it all, a little bit of a very English plot, the gentle Englishness of a police force with no guns (normally), a barrage of film-geek jokes and simple nonsense yield a fun two-hour film that doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a comedy. The action is well directed and the editing rather crisp, though it takes a bit too long to get to the action. But while we wait for the guns to blaze, Simon Pegg, who plays Nick Angel (a policeman working in London who is too good, making the rest of the Metropolitan Police look bad) and Nick Frost, who plays his partner Danny Butterman, entertain the audience with a natural rapport and comedic banter. And a wealth of good British actors in many of the supporting roles elevates rather than detracts from Mr. Pegg and Mr. Frost’s performance. If you enjoyed “Shaun of the Dead,” I daresay you will find “Hot Fuzz” to be a worthy follow up and pleasant way to spend a time in your local cinema.

P.S. Check out that hot cop car at the end!  (Not quite, but sort of like like below.)

Karen and I headed off to Egypt this afternoon for Adam’s performance as the lead in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” as put on by St. Dominic’s Catholic School’s sixth, seventh and eight grades. 

It was a fun show! All of the kids seemed to put their “all” into it, with a great Elvis impersonation by the young man portraying Pharaoh. Adam did a great job at Joseph, and it was particularly fun to watch his reaction to the affections of Mrs. Potiphar.  (I loved the mininmalistic set design, which put the focus on the actors.)

(You can find more photos by clicking on the picture above.)

Guess that all this time shifting with our mondo-cool Series 3 HD TiVo ain’t always a good thing. With the capacity to store up to 300 hours of television shows, easily allows me to let hours and hours — more like half hours and half hours — of “Good Eats” to pile up on the hard drive. (I tend to save them for the off season.)

In doing so, it seems that I missed the boat on “Feasting on Asphalt 2.” Apparently, AB (that’s Mr. Alton Brown to non-foodies) hit the road last month and will still be riding along this month to finish filming six episodes of “Feasting on Asphalt2,” a self-apparent follow up to the first “Feasting on Asphalt.” (There’s also a mysterious title “A Taste of Tarmac” floating around on AB’s Web site…a possible subtitle?)

According to his blog, AB last was in Mississippi…but that was back on April 25. Digging around AltonBrown.com, perhaps I found the reason for the sudden stop to his blogging about his escapades…

Like the country song says, “I got a long way to go and a short time to get there.” Turns out it’s not too safe to write while riding my bike, so the whole Feasting on Asphalt 2 adventures will post once we finish shooting. Remind me to tell you about the wasp that got inside my helmet…
—AB

A wise decision I would say, and I am sure he doens’t want a repeat of last year’s nasty turn of events.  In the meantime, mark your calendar or set the alarm in Outlook or on your Palm for August 4, when “Feasting on Asphalt 2” will premiere.  (This means you Tom, Luci, Nicholas and Nathan!)