Manifesto?

OK, I know it seems like I’m going off the deep end, and I may be, but I updated my “About” page. It’s not quite a manifesto – YET. I’m working on it.

I added my static skate clips site, which I generate with Jekyll, to the navigation menu up top. I don’t now if I’ll stick with Jekyll, but so far it is working. There are a few issues I want to work out, but I do love the art gallery look of it.

Honestly, if I can get the issues worked out with Jekyll, or find another static site generator that solves those few problems, I may work on moving this entire blog to a similar setup. WordPress has been good for many years, but it is becoming bloated. I feel like the complexity of the mySQL/PHP stuff makes it vulnerable to hacking. I mean, I know this is the case. Worst, the themes in WordPress are becoming very hard to customize, absurdly complex, and almost all of them suck. The complexity issue means it is really not a great use of my time to create my own.

I do love using micro.blog for my other skateboarding blog. It is based on Hugo, another static site generator. Micro.blog is really a pretty amazing blogging platform. Still, I’m increasingly drawn to building everything I need myself. The transition will take time though. I have lots of other things I’m working on. I think ActivityPub is very cool, but really, I’m getting to the point I’d rather just have people follow the site by RSS and email me if they have something to say. I’m feeling less need to share it everywhere.

I’d hand-code everything and use SSIs IF I could easily create an RSS feed for it. I’m just not there.

 

The Revenge of Frankenstein

Tonight I watched the 2nd of the Hammer Frankenstein movies, The Revenge of Frankenstein, with Peter Cushing of course as the kindly doctor.

I love that there’s a continuity so far with these movies. Keeping Peter Cushing as Dr. Frankenstein and actually following his life through six movies is pretty cool. Other than the classic universal monster movies I’ve really never been much of a horror movie fan. Much more into science fiction. I’m aware that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein novel is really considered to be the first work of science fiction and literature, but let’s face it. The movies really are about horror. That being said these films aren’t exactly scary or even that shocking by today’s standards. But there is something disturbing about them. And they’re tremendously fun.

I’ve actually had to watch these films on three different streaming services. Tonight I watched on Apple TV. Not sure where I’m going to pick up the next one.

Walking the Dog

Not the skateboard trick. This post is actually about walking the dog.

Our dog is about 2 years and 3 or 4 months old. I have always loved him, even when he was 9 weeks old with needle teeth and peeing in the house. I loved him, but I didn’t really love being a dog owner at that point. I’d never had a dog before. Neither had my wife. We were new at it. Luckily my wife is super smart and she did a fantastic job training him, and getting professional training for him as well.

Today I worked from home. She’s out of town so it was just me and him and the cat. I had to go into work for about 3 hours this morning. He was in his crate, and of course he was great.

Anyway, I took him out for about twice as long a walk as he gets on a normal afternoon because he’s been so good. It was a really nice day here, so we walked down to the neighborhood park so he could watch the kids play, which he likes. It was nice to have the freedom to do that. I hate that I can’t do that with him every day. Soon, little guy, soon we will all go for great walks all the time. We’ll go to the nature preserves a few times a week. It’s going to be good, little buddy.

beautiful sheltie dog
Riley, at the park, on a beautiful day. What a good boy he is!

The Curse of Frankenstein

After watching Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell last week, I decided last night to watch the first of the Frankenstein films by Hammer, The Curse of Frankenstein.

The film was made in 1957, and stars a relatively young Peter Cushing. I say relatively young, because I’m not sure he ever actually was young. It’s hard to imagine, and I’m refraining from a simple web search for “young Peter Cushing” because really I don’t want to know. He really elevates this part, like he seems to have done in everything he was in. I found his performance in this film fairly complex. Threatening, weirdly naive about the way others might perceive what he’s doing, arrogant. He conveys a lot of qualities. One quality he does not convey is “I’m a nice guy.” Which is just fine.

The film follows a typical but altered Frankenstein story. No real surprises. While the makeup for the monster isn’t great, it is also less comical than the classic Boris Karloff style makeup. The Hammer films, if my viewings thus far are any indication (and I think they probably are) enjoy hitting the viewer with more gross-out moments than the classic Universal monster films did. Eyeballs being taken out of a jar. The hands of a great sculptor brought back to the Frankenstein estate, all pale and dead looking. Sawing through a skull to get at that precious precious brain. Hammer digs that, and so do I.

So, no spoilers here. I mean, I don’t want to slip up and tell my readers than Baron Frankenstein creates humanoid monster from the bodies of the dead. Not gonna ruin that for anyone.

Hammer made six Frankenstein movies, all with Cushing. I’m not including 1970’s Horror of Frankenstein, which was a parody and did not star Cushing. Pretending it doesn’t exist. So with two down, I only have four more to watch and I’ll have earned my PhD in Hammer Frankenteinology. My Uncle John, who loves this stuff, will be so proud!

Tonight I’ll watch the second of the films, The Revenge of Frankenstein. Looking forward to it!