Transformers does not disappoint.

Michael Bay gets to keep his skin, because I just returned from the first showing of "Transformers" at the local theater (Pioneer Place, Portland), and it was everything I had expected.

Judging from the raucous cheers that erupted at various points throughout the movie, and the roaring applause from the filled theater at the close of the show, I would say that I was not the only one who felt that "Transformers" delivered.

I will be taking my entire family to see this one on the 4th.

And as a person who is both highly critical of movies, and had extremely high expectations for the live-action movie made-from-his-childhood-dreams - I enjoyed it very very much.

I will give no spoilers. But Optimus, aside from a new paint scheme, completely *is* Optimus.

My only qualm was the fact that the movie could be classified as a very elaborate commercial for General Motors. However, given that the entire original show was a thinly veiled advertisement for the toys - I guess I can't really be too critical there.

Oh, and Megan Fox is, well, a fox.

Comments

Why shooting should be banned on public lands:

I don't need to say too much. The pictures speak for themselves. These pictures were taken at ONE spot on NF-45 forest road in Mt. Hood National Forest. The road is also known as "Memaloose" or "Maymaloose" road depending on which sign and map you read. It is maybe 50 miles outside of Portland, southeast on Hwy 224 - along the Clackamas river. The country up there is some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet. The ridge lines, and the deep jagged canyon from millions of years of raging water in the Clackamas river are something wonderful to behold. Driving up this road, we passed at least 5 spots that seemed to be popular with shooters, before we turned around. The road is a steep one lane paved road, and our GPS said we went from 700ft. at the river to 3000ft. almost instantaneously. At some points there are steep 1000 foot drops on either side of the road. It is breathtaking. Until you come across the shooting sites, which make you nauseous. I

Not safer, just stupider.

The first definition of stupider is "Slow to learn or understand; obtuse." I think that there would be good cause to add to it "See American". Today, while passing through the security checkpoint at Portland International (PDX) I witnessed the TSA personnel sending people to the back of the line for not taking off their flip-flops. They shouted endlessly about removing liquids, regardless of size. And they generally treat every one of us like we were infants incapable of understanding simple instructions. But perhaps they might be on to something.

Free Topographical Maps

The Libre Maps project has purchased and made available for free all of the USGS Topographical maps of the USA. All 50 states. The maps have always been free sort-of, there was just no where until now to actually GET them for free. The Libre Maps project raised enough funds to buy the many gigabytes of data and the Internet Archive is hosting them. These are great 24k scale topographical maps folks. The same types you pay for in sporting goods stores. And many applications on your computers can work directly with them and your GPS. You can get water and tear resistant paper and print them out.. All good stuff... For the lazy in the audience, here are Oregon's.

Incursio

Search This Blog