"The 'Snow Star Wars' took about a month to create and is one of many snow masterpieces at the festival, which attracts about two million visitors each year. The Force is definitely strong within the 11th Brigade of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force."
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| January 7 |
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| January 25 |
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| The final spectacle |
8 comments:
80 years ago, they would be marching on the Middle East, out for revenge.
This is not your grandfather's IJA .
There are a lot of Star Wars references in The Big Bang Theory that I don't get.
I remember good chunks of the first one but that's about it. I was in high school, saw it maybe twice in a theater, and I was pretty into it.
But as for the rest of the franchise? There comes a time to put away childish things, was my thinking.
Over the decades I've caught dribs and drabs of a bunch of the sequels (prequels? reboots? wtfs?), all on TV. I remember next to nothing about them as I was almost certainly drunk at all times relevant.
We make our choices in this life.
Last night's episode of Star Trek TOS was the one with Landru, if I'm spelling that correctly. Not one of the better episodes, but at least there was a smattering of a big idea in it. Paradise Lost? Something like that.
Somewhere along the line it became the case that God didn't drive man from the Garden as punishment, but rather, uppity man flipped God the bird and strode out of the Garden like a colossus.
"You're not the boss of me!"
A mitigation of sorts, there were hints in last night's episode that the expulsion was God's plan all along. That's why he gave us a "soul." Our Heavenly Father® who dost know best. A metaphor. Get it?
Anyway, Landru the souless computer had figured out a way to neutralize it all. Captain Kirk to the rescue.
Maybe Kirk was supposed to be some kind of two-fisted, philosophy-spouting angel. I really don't know.
Last night's episode contained a whopper of a fuck up. Kirk and Spock use their phasers to blast away the wall to reveal (shocker!) that Landru isn't supernatural, he's a . . . a . . . a . . . super-COMMPUTERRZZZ!!!!!1!
Get it? Commie-Puter! Godless communism! Aren't I the clever one?
Anyway, back to the fuck up. Kirk and Spock blast a hole in the wall ("Let's have a look at the projector, Mr. Spock.") but there's still 7 minutes of air time left to fill. So Landru renders the phasers inoperative (magic!) so Kirk can have a battle of wits with a super-duper-computer. FOR THE WIN, BABY!!!
Two of Landru's monk-like henchmen intrude on the drama and Kirk spins around to blast them with his phaser. And Spock is all like, "Unnecessary, Captain, they are without guidance, perhaps for the first time in their lives."
So Kirk holsters his phaser and returns to feeling his humanity at Landru.
WELL, DUH!!! The phaser doesn't work anymore my heroic space dude!
My guess is there was an alternate take where the hench-monks are, in fact, a threat and Kirk and Spock have to duke it out with them, phaserless.
But there wasn't that much time left in the episode that needed to get used up before the commercial.
So why have the henchmonks intrude at all?
In a word? Drama.
That is a lot of scaffolding.
That is exactly what I was thinking, Alan. I thought, "Man,if that doesn't perfectly characterize the place, scaffolding with lots of flappy elongated signs." So I took a close look, and it is not bamboo! It is metal. Like a metal snap together kit, throw the pieces together, boom encompassing scaffolding, build as you go.
I have three set of scaffolding just like what they have. Dangerous putting the second one up above the second. More dangerous putting the third on top of the second. I have caster wheels on the bottom, so I can move it. It can get shakey.
I have two other sets of scaffolding used mainly for inside work. A lot thinner, and way more shakey. I built four outriggers out of 1 1/4 steel tube with a piece of angle iron on the bottom and a bolt welded to a hole in the tubing close to the top that I attach to the scaffolding. Makes everything more stable.
Putting everything together is still very dangerous. You have to erect it on perfectly level ground. I use two twenty foot ladders on the ground that I level with plywood attached inside the rails.
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