MadMup.com

I like to see things being built. It’s fascinating to me to see how all the parts fit together to make a whole. I’ve been in the local Subaru plant and I saw the Corvette plant in Kentucky, and the whole process of fitting things together that were designed to fit together makes me happy.

(Side note: I think this is why I thought Voltron was so cool back in the day – all those giant lion-robots fitting together to make one huge robot?!? Awesome! Of course, I’ve since realized Voltron is anime and therefore awful, but at the time I was distracted by the shiny fitting-together robotitude of it all.)

(Further side note: This is also why I like to put together the “build it yourself” furniture like desks and bookcases that come in a flat box. It’s designed to go together and when it does, it activates the “Yay!” center in my brain. (That’s not the scientific name, but my Latin’s a little rusty.))

I particularly like to watch buildings go up – not the day to day business, that’s kind of boring. But driving by a building project every so often and seeing the progress or getting to tour a building before it’s completely done? I love that. It amazes me to think how much time, effort, and money goes into those projects. I’m a little envious of architects and engineers, even though I’d never be able to do either job. Their jobs are like watch-making on a grander scale – all the pieces have to fit together exactly right, or there’ll be trouble.

There are a few big building projects going on around town right now – a couple of new hospitals, talk of one or two more Starbucks (bringing our total to somewhere around… 500, I think), and even a new community center our church is building. The ground is barely broken on one hospital, the other is at the “skeletal beams in place” stage, and the community center is mostly closed in and just needs the internal stuff done.

Corporations like McDonald’s and Starbucks seem to be able to put up a new building in no time at all. One minute there’s a “Coming Soon!” sign and the next minute you’re getting your hazelnut steamer or Filet o’ Fish.

Different types of buildings in different areas are designed to withstand or accommodate specific circumstances. Skyscrapers are built to allow for being swayed by the wind. Homes along the coasts are designed to better weather hurricanes. Homes in the Midwest have basements because of tornadoes. Even igloos take the environment into account.

But no matter how much planning goes into a building, there’s one eventuality that can’t be protected against:

Superheroes.

I think we can all agree that we’re thankful for superheroes. If a guy like Juggernaut or Galactus comes to town, you want a Spider-Man or a Wolverine or a Fantastic Four around to take care of it. I mean, what are you gonna do about a guy bullets bounce off or who can shoot electricity at you? Not much. Hide, probably.

People see these things coming and they can get out of the way. It’s the buildings that take the brunt of it. Villains are constantly blowing buildings up, and when they aren’t, they’re barreling into them in some sort of destructive vehicle, or, worse, just throwing superheroes through them. No one said being a superhero would be easy, so you expect this sort of thing to happen. The creators of the “Death of Superman” storyline were inspired to come up with the character Doomsday by the image of Metropolis with a wide swath of destruction through the middle of it. A dude who can kill Superman can also take down pretty much any building around, I guess.

But the heroes are just as bad as the villains in the property damage department. In the process of saving lives and protecting Earth, there’s bound to be some incidental harm.

In Superman Returns, there’s a plane headed for certain disaster until Superman shows up (or, if you will, returns) to take care of it. In the process of trying to bring it under control, he rips a wing of the plane off. Sure, the plane’s a lost cause at this point, so it’s not such a big deal that it’s losing a wing, but when Superman lets go of that wing to grab the fuselage of the plane, where does that wing go? What does it land on? Superman finally gets control of the plane and is able to set it safely down in a baseball stadium – again, no one’s faulting him for messing up the infield with the plane, but when it’s down and the people are out, he flies off. Does he come back later to remove the plane from the field? How do they get the plane out of there?

In Batman Begins, Batman’s in the process of rescuing Rachel, who is fast succumbing to the Scarecrow’s poison. He’s driving his big old tank of a Batmobile, and that’s garnered him some attention from the police force. They’ve got him cornered at the top of a parking garage, pretty much leaving Batman with one option: bust through the wall and start driving on rooftops. Structural questions aside (can a roof really support a car that big?), the Batmobile is tearing up tiles, knocking things over, and generally making a mess of things. Further along in the chase, police cars are flipping over and crashing. But in the end, he rescues Rachel and saves her life, so all the damage is worth it, right? We never see it, but I suspect Batman, as Bruce Wayne, donates money from the millions he has to various funds that work to repair the damage he’s done as Batman. If he doesn’t, he ought to.

Pretty much every superhero I can think of does damage to structures in the area. Spider-Man, Hulk, The Tick… the list goes on. I think an awareness committee needs to be formed. After all, just because you can drop a building on someone’s head doesn’t mean you should.

Labels: movies, superheroes

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EDIT: Ahem Cat is now available on a mug. I'm sure I'm breaking some sort of law by co-opting someone else's cat pic, but I wanted one for myself and thought maybe someone else might, too.

Labels: cats

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This past Sunday night my church had "Ministry Options Night," which is a fancy way of saying "no church." It's specifically meant to be a time when you can get together with family or friends and "fellowship," which is church-speak for "hang out."

The Career Class opted to have a get-together, hosted by Abby W. I took my new digital camera (a Canon PowerShot SD600, which I am loving) and told people to just go ahead and take random pictures throughout the evening. At the end of the night, there were a few more than 100 pictures taken.

Sure, it might be easier for you if I'd set up a gallery so you could see just the pictures you wanted to, but it was more fun for me to set it up as a video with music. Since this is my blog, I won out. Sorry. Maybe you'll have better luck next time (but I doubt it).

The video comes in at a sorta-lengthy 7 minutes and 26 seconds, but it includes music from The White Stripes, Brian Wilson & Paul McCartney, and Randy Newman. So even if you don't care to see the pictures, you could put it on in the background and listen to some nice music for a few minutes.

Labels: career class, friends, video

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I didn't venture outside at all today, but I opened the doors enough to get these pictures for y'all:





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For the first time in... well, ever, I have an official day off of work because of weather. We're getting hit with snow and wind and (this is just a rumor at this point) miniature ice dragons.

It's pretty bad.

So now I'm stuck in the house with the cats for the next day and a half. But, man! A Snow Day! For some reason it just feels different than a regular day off. It has an intangible quality about it that gives it a special glow.


Good thing I bought some milk and frozen pizzas last night. 7 comments

I don't know how much you all enjoyed this little contest, but I got more than enough enjoyment out of it for all of us. It was fun to watch your guesses and see not only how many movies you thought I might have but also what movies you thought might be in my collection.

Here are the guesses for what the first movie in my collection is from an alphabetical point of view:

• 12 Angry Men - Not only do I not own this, I've never actually seen it.
• 12 Monkeys (twice) - I do own this one. Woo, Bruce Willis!
• 13 Going on 30 - I do not own this one, but have been tempted to buy it because of one simple fact: Thriller Dance!
• 2 Fast 2 Furious - This guess cracked me up so much, and I can't even explain why. It's not a movie I'm interested in even a little, but Mary A. gets an Honorable Mention for making me laugh!
• 2001: A Space Odyssey - This movie was boring and pretentious and I didn't like it. Sorry, film buffs!
• Absolute Power - While I do love Clint Eastwood and have several of his movies, this is not one of them.
• Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls - I'm curious why G-Knee picked the second one in the series. I mean, yeah, I own them both, but why not choose the first one?
• Adaptation - Yep. Own it.
• Adventures of Milo & Otis - Used to own it on videotape, but don't have it on DVD. Yet.
• Air Force One - You know, I should get this one. It's been a long time since I saw it and I remember liking it.

The actual first movie in my collection: The 6th Day, Arnold Schwarzenegger's take on cloning. 12 Monkeys is the second one in my collection, so pretty close guessing! (And I'm a stickler for numerical/alphabetical order, so that's why "6" comes before "12" in my list, even if most alphabetizing rules will say the "1" in "12" trumps the "6" and should come first. Disagree all you want, but that's how it is.)

I won't list everyone's guesses as to how many "S" movies I have, but I have 54 of them. Seems like an awful lot! That's 14.516% of my collection! Consider that many of them are Star Trek and Star Wars movies, though, so I guess it makes sense. Peter H. was the closest on this guess with 56.

I did not need to use the tiebreakers, however, as there emerged a very late and very clear winner. Here is the list of guesses on the actual number, ranked from lowest number to highest:

• Brian Arnold: 217
• Jeremiah: 223
• Scott: 260
• the obscure: 270
• Wendles: 301
• Angela: 326
• Danna: 344
• Peter C. Hayward: 412
• Carolyn: 417
• Meags: 549
• G-Knee: 622
• The Bon: 636
• magley: 777
• Gretchen: 857
• Lorelei: 865
• TwoSticks: Eleventeen hundred and one (I'm not even sure how to write that as an actual number.)

This list made me alternately feel like I've been slacking and like I've underachieved. I don't know whether to sell of my collection or start buying more!

Actual number of movies I own on DVD: 372. Yes, I own many TV shows on DVD, but they were not counted.

Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce to you the winner of the first ever MadMup.com Contest:

Danna!

Peter H. had it all wrapped up from the get-go until Danna's close-to-last-minute entry, so there's sure to be some bitterness there for a while.

Thanks to all who participated! I hope you had fun and I'm fairly certain there will be more contests in the future, so be on the lookout for them!

(Danna: I'll contact you about getting your mailing info and get your mug out to you as soon as possible.)

Labels: contest

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The thought struck me the other day: "You know what might be fun? It might be fun to have a contest."

And you know what? It might be! I know it will be for me, and I hope it will be for you.

The contest is simple: guess how many movies on DVD I currently own and leave your answer in the comments.

Couldn't be easier, right? A thing to keep in mind: if I own different versions of the same movie, it counts as multiple movies. For instance (and this is a hint, I guess), I own two copies of Batman, the barebones release and the Deluxe Edition. This counts as two movies, at least for the purpose of this contest. (And recent viewers need not fear - we watched the Deluxe Edition, of course.)

The person who guesses closest to the actual number will win him/herself a fancy new MadMup.com mug. (It stands to reason, then, that the winner will have to give me their address or some way of getting the mug to them, so keep that in mind if you don't like handing your address out to random bloggers on the Internet.)

In the case of a tie, the following two tie-breaking questions will be used to determine the winner:

1. Alphabetically, what is the first movie in my collection? (Rest assured, since it is alphabetically the first, that means it is also positionally the first.)
2. How many movies do I own that start with the letter "S"? (For the purposes of this contest, the articles "a," "an," and "the" do not count as the first words in the title. If I owned a movie entitled The Skunk (I do not), it would count as an "S" movie.)

So! Guess away! The contest will close at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, February 7, 2007. Leave your three answers in the comments section, and thanks for reading!

EDIT: This isn't "The Price Is Right," so it's not "closest without going over," it's just "closest."

EDIT #2: Movies with numbers spelled out (Sixty Cats, for example) get filed according to the word. Movies with numbers as numbers in the title (60 Cats, for example) get filed according to standard alphabetizing rules. Where this leaves the movie Se7en, I really couldn't say.

Labels: contest

37 comments

Somewhere along the line my car's antenna has gained a new Batman topper. I first noticed it yesterday afternoon, but there were no clues as to how it happened to get there.

Information leading to the apprehension of those involved will be rewarded. 5 comments

Last night was a big night: I watched my first movie of the year.

Sure, that might not seem like a big deal to you, but last year I watched 371 movies, an average of 31 a month. I decided to try going a month without watching any movies, you know, just to see. It went fine. I watched a bit more TV and read a bit more and.. other stuff, I guess.

But yesterday was a new month, so I thought I'd watch a movie. Since it was so momentous, it couldn't be just any movie, it had to be an awesome movie.

It had to be Batman.

It also kind of felt like this was the sort of event that needed to be shared with people. I put forth the idea of having some people over and was encouraged to do so. An announcement was made, plans were put in motion, snacks were purchased, the whole deal. And, wonder of wonders, seven people from the Career Class at church showed up.

I like to think that many of you who read the site here like to do so because my foibles and quirks make you feel better about your own, either by making yours feel less severe in comparison or make you feel less alone in your similar ones. To that end, I feel I should confess the following:

I talk during movies.

Constantly. Non-stop. And the thing is, I hate that I do it! It's always the stupidest stuff! Here are the gems I subjected them to last night:

• The guy playing Gordon and the guy playing Alfred are the only two actors in all four of the Batman movies.
• She was married to Mick Jagger.
• Hey, Wendy, does his tie go with that shirt?
• How old were you all in 1989? (The most surprising answer: "Five." Seriously!)
• Best. Batmobile. Ever.
• That right there is when a million boys fell in love with Vicki Vale. (When she showed up onscreen.)
• Here's what was wrong with the sequel, Batman Returns: 1) Batman TWO should have been about Two-Face! Hello! 2) Too many villians, too much going on. 3) More origins were messed with.
• He had that light installed in the Batmobile just in case someone was going to be sitting in the passenger's seat and he needed to blind them.
• Watch his utility belt when he looks up at the helicopter - see it move? Why didn't they reshoot that?
• I hate this part because it messes up the whole origin of Batman! The Joker DID NOT kill Bruce Wayne's parents!!!
• This movie is just to get you in the mood for Prince in the Super Bowl halftime show.
• Batman wouldn't have killed The Joker - it's what he does! He spares villians! He makes it a point not to kill villians!
• Iconic hero shot coming right up! Wait for it... there!

See? See what I mean about it being inane? And this is just a small sampling.

I need some sort of help.

A big thanks to Matt, Marshall, Wendy, Melissa, Lee, Jeannie, and Eric for coming to my inaugural movie night and for not killing me.

Labels: friends, movies, quirks

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