Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream. I sailed Away to China...

I had the strangest dream last night.  Actually, it's my second strangest dream.  My strangest dream is one in which I dreamed I had three movies out from a rental place and only time enough to watch two before the place was set to close and I would incur late fees.  I woke up in a slight panic because of this.  But I had no rented movies in reality.  True story.  In this other strange dream, I watched an early to mid 1990s Arnold Schwarzenegger film I am fairly certain does not actually exist.  The setting of the dream was a bedroom I used to live in years ago.  I was going through my TV cart looking at all my old VHS tapes.  And that is when I found it.

Are we headed towards a cashless society?

Back in college, I recall an economics professor making an argument in favor of a cashless society.  If all debits and credits were processed electronically, the argument went, there would be zero possibility for tax cheating.  As an added benefit, it would be almost impossible for criminal organizations and terrorists to launder money.

It's the year 2010. Where is my rocket car?

What year is it?  For many people, we recently celebrated the auspicious start of the year two-thousand-and-ten.  But for me, this is twenty-ten.  Sounds more futuristic that way.  So, where is my self propelled rocket car, and the other technologies we were promised at the middle of the last century by industrial giants such as General Motors?  Perhaps given the recent financial crisis, it's lucky that there remains a General Motors at all.  Still, it's hard to abandon the romantic notion of a future that remains in the past.  That sentence was trippy, am I right?

Viewers in need of a real trip should take a look at the 1956 musical short "Design for Dreaming," which was brought to us by the good people at General Motors and Frigidaire.  In it, a sleeping woman is escorted by a masked man to an elegant ball (actually the 1956 General Motors Motorama pavilion at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.  She also tries her hand at baking a cake in Frigidaire's kitchen of the future.  Like all good corporate sponsored musical short films, the dialogue is entirely sung, rather than spoken.



The same was brilliantly lampooned by the cult television show Mystery Science Theatre: Three Thousand.  You must watch the real one first to get the full benefit.

"The Omega Man" and "I am Legend": A comparison

This past weekend, my darling wife felt like watching the 2007 film adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic 1954 sci-fi horror novel, I Am Legend.  Unfortunately, it wasn't available on Netflix's instant streaming service.  Being a bad movie buff, I already had the 1971 version, The Omega Man, in my instant queue.  So we were forced to resort to that version.

Netflix Bandits Foiled by My Questionable Taste

The latest disc from my Netflix queue arrived today.  As you will see from the picture, some enterprising pirate at the post office or elsewhere tore the envelope flap aside to see if my movie was worth plundering.  In this case, my questionable taste was a virtue.  When the would-be thief saw that the envelope contained the 1984 Patrick Swayze vehicle "Red Dawn," he let the disc continue on its way unmolested.  For those of you who are curious, "Red Dawn" is about a team of teenagers who fight off a covert Soviet invasion in a small heartland town.

While Swayze was in plenty of "good" movies that showcased his competence as an actor, he is loved and remembered by people like me for such cinematic gems as "Road House" and "Point Break."  I close with the words of Swayze's character in the latter film, Bodhi: "If you want the ultimate, you've got to be willing to pay the ultimate price. It's not tragic to die doing what you love."  You are missed, Patrick.  Though apparently not by Netflix thieves.

Television Review: Apocalypse Man

Have you ever wondered how you would survive in the event of the complete and total breakdown of societal order?  Curious as to where you'd find food, power, and information in the event of an apocalyptic event?  Has the History Channel got a show for you.

Food Review: Queso de Freir

Our local supermarket, Key Foods, stocks a full supply of cheeses from a company called Tropical Cheese. They seemingly cater to the Latino market, promising would-be purchasers "authentic Latino flavor." For years now, I have been intrigued by a product called "queso de freir" which literally translates to "cheese for frying" or colloquially, "this is not health food, but damn it's good!" It wasn't until yesterday that I purchased a brick of this mystery cheese.