Category Archives: Humor

Avoid “Escape From Tomorrow”

I’m about to give you 2 free hours in your lifetime, that can be used for *any* purpose you select.

If you are tempted to watch the Netflix offering “Escape from Tomorrow,” let me save you the time that you’d spend watching it. one and a half hours of wasted time, that is now yours. I will provide you a quick summary below, if you are still curious. But please don’t be curious; this is not a bad movie that’s so “bad” that you’d want to see it. It is just bad. Even my son Michael, who’s very young and has some time to spare, gave this movie a one-star rating (he tried to stay until the very end)

escape_tomorrowWarning: Spoilers follow !!

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This movie was filmed at DisneyWorld, without permission from Disney.  You can see that the crowd shots are real,  the venue is very real and all the actors do well in mingling with the crowds while trying to shoot their scenes.  There are several extended shots of the actors in the rides, and this would have been a very easy activity to conceal.  Where stealth was not an option (say, an extended dialogue scene) they put the actors in front of a blue-screen background.

This is an interesting concept, but don’t be tempted to watch the movie just for that.  Watching an extended home movie gets boring fast, and the plot of the movie (an engineer going insane after being fired from his job, during a vacation at DisneyWorld) is just barely passable.
Are there interesting points?  Yes.  Let me outline a few but these are the only bright moments in a really dull film:
Since Disney owns the characters, music and logos, you will see from time to time a “blacked-out” part of the screen to hide the Disney name.  There’s even a sonic bleep when the word Disney is uttered.  Also, it is a little disconcerting (yet fascinating)  to see the
It’s-A-Small-World ride being filmed with an equally annoying and cloying replacement song that is used by the film makers.  However, the images of Donald, Mickey and Pluto greeting park guests is used;  I guess this is in the public domain, somehow.
Having some of the Disney images turned into demonic versions of themselves (while the main character is going mad) is interesting.  But these are short 1-second snippets which are infrequent.
The subplot of a former princess cast-member turning into a sexual predator gets your attention. Give this film an extra star if you’ve ever wanted to have a tryst with the Evil Queen from Snow White.
This is a 30-second sequence that you’ll remember.
Some special effects shots showing EPCOT blowing up are memorable.
The subplot of the main character stalking some teenage French babes is not memorable.
There you have it.  I hope I have not piqued your interest; my descriptions are probably more entertaining than the film itself.
If you want further information, here’s the review from RogerEbert.com; I’m afraid it will just increase your interest in the film.

Man’s (Mad) Ingenuity

I read somewhere that the only difference between men and apes is the former’s ability to use tools. So were it not for our simian friends’ lack of access to a Tool Depot credit card, we could see chimpanzees driving down the freeway or flying planes1. And although we have seen rudimentary behavior by apes using branches or twigs to extract ants out of the ground, they still have a long way to go before they invent an air-compressed bolt extractor.
Which brings me back to Man: is tool-invention still part of our mental process? Since every tool has already been invented, do we still strive to create new ones? The following pictures show that the answer is a resounding YES.   These are creative uses for everyday items and are sometimes referred to as Life Hacks2.

But call me an apostate, I don’t believe everything I read on the Internet.  My comments follow each life hack below, and there’s even a fun video presentation that is a lot more entertaining than my dry prose.

lifehack1

 

My take: If you use the lid as a coaster, you can now spill your drink.  And if you pick up the cup, the coaster comes with it.  Looks strange, but it would work.

 

lifehack2

 

The proposal: All pots are designed to allow you to rest your spoon on the handle.

My take: The pan hole was made primarily to hang the pan on the wall.  You could use it to hold a spoon, but only if you found a spoon that fits the hole.  I suspect that some “creative” whittling was done to make it work.

 

lifehack3Was the soda can designed to hold your straw in place?

My take: Soda can tab was modified in order to save material.   It just happens to also function as a straw holder, if you rotate it.  But then, why was it  made to rotate?  The rotation serves no purpose.  I suspect it’s a manufacturing side effect (to attach tab to can)  and not intended to facilitate your straw holder configuration.

 

 

lifehack5The proposal: Tic Tac boxes were expressely designed to dispense *one* Tic Tac at a time.

My take: I believe this one.  But could someone tell me what happened to the “Toe” in tic-tac-toe ??  Someone got paid really well to come up with this name, incredibly.

 

 

And here is a video that will put it all in perspective.  Enjoy.

 

POSTSCRIPT:  I promised that I would add a life hack of my own so that you can promote/criticize it. Turnabout is fair play, as they say !

 

lifehack8My proposal:  Cut an empty tube of toothpaste in half and clean out the bottom part (throw away the part that has the cap).  You can now flatten the other half and put it in your pocket for a handy-dandy drinking cup.   As a kid, I loved the telescoping plastic drinking cups and bemoaned the fact that you cannot find them anymore.  But this flexible, unbreakable, plastic tube becomes a nice drinking cup.  You can make it shorter for convenience and you can fold the top to prevent it from getting cruddy with pocket lint (yuk).

  1. They were admirable astronauts in the Mercury program, but that’s another story []
  2. visit www.lifehacker.com for more of these []

Steve Jobs 1955-2011; too soon for jokes?

Logo created by a Hong Kong student. Click for more information.

It’s true, I never was a big Apple fan. I got my kids iPods because they relentlessly kept on asking. Oh, and the players were free when I signed up for a bank account (back in the day).

I inherited the old iPods and am using one today. They are not bad devices: easy to use and pretty to look at. But they are overpriced and I hate having to use iTunes to access my music. I hate being sold new material at every turn. I would love to have a simple drag-and-drop interface.

Sure there were MP3s before the iPod. I don’t blame Steve Jobs for making lossy music palatable. But I don’t share in the global outporing of grief that’s on every TV, computer and iPlatform in the world, either.

And Steve Jobs has a family that’s going thru the grieving process. So why start these tasteless Steve Jobs jokes? We may as well ask why we climb Mt. Everest. It’s because we can.

And you have to admit that it takes talent to make a clever joke about a sad, troubling situation. Sort-of like those improvisation shows where a performer is asked to make a joke about starving Somalians. A very poor-taste request, but also a challenge.

So here’s some jokes about the death of the iconic founder of Apple and the creator of the greatest devices in the world:

  • I hear President Obama has been implicated in the passing of the iconic Apple founder…
    his economic policies killed jobs.

 

  • Steve Jobs’ funeral will feature a private viewing for his many fans.
    As each person passes in front of the casket, they’ll pay 99 cents.