The Grand Tour

This week Mike and the Albinos came up to the Bay Area to visit.

They did the whole San Francisco Pier whatever-the-number-is sightseeing, along with the tour of the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield. Apparently there were a lot of obese people touring the candy factory. Go figure.

Jeff (along with Mike) barbequed some chickens with beer, only temporarily lighting the entire propane grill on fire in the process. They claimed that the non-charred part of the chickens was excellent. My veggie burgers were just fine.

They even built a tree house, although it's more like a tree deck with two support pillars that go down to the ground. I'm a little worried that the support pillars, which are sitting on a foundation of two bricks stacked on the dirt, will be a little unsteady after the next rain, but I suppose that even if the whole thing sags it's unlikely anyone will be seriously hurt since the platform is only a little over five feet off the ground.

K-Poo even made it back from China for the occasion and was remarkably coherent for someone who had just flown across the earth and hadn't slept for 48 hours.

Unfortunately the whole weekend was completely ruined when Mike confirmed that he also remembers the movie theater (there was only one theater) in Rolla, Missouri showing Silent Running as part of the children's summer movie series. Apparently I'm the only one who thinks that's crazy. The children's summer movie series was a weekly event where they showed things like Don Knotts movies (a la the Apple Dumpling Gang series) and the old Batman films during the day.

Silent Running is not a film I would show to a child. Okay, actually I wouldn't show it to anyone since it was made in the 70s and was pretty terrible. But I would especially never show it specifically to children. It's a dystopian nightmare, and people are being killed off throughout the whole film. By the end everyone is dead with the exception of one robot. Why would they think that belonged in the series?

Mostly what I remember about the film (aside from the scene where one of the robots is killed) is that the people whose whole purpose in life was to keep a bunch of plants alive couldn't figure out that the plants were dying because they weren't getting enough light. Even as a seven year old I knew that was stupid. I guess the movies being made today really aren't any worse than they used to be.

Whatever.