"Cross of Iron": The Rise and Fall of the German War Machine: 1918-1945 Mosier, JohnLots of solid primary source research, though he still throws in the occasional fast and loose speculation without evidentiary support. I like it. In a nutshell, the Nazis just couldn't get it together. Their faith in racism, the great man, and individual craftsmanship (at the expense of mass industrialization) inevitably led to failure. After reading many other histories, I always wondered why no one called Germany out for its obvious inability to keep up with the Allies' production. Mosier does this and more in solid detail.
"Children of Men"Truth in fiction? With articles about decreased sperm count in men living in industrialized countries, hormone-laden food affecting our kids' development, and now inadvertent cocktails of every drug ever administered forming from human bodily waste that filters into our water supply... One figures that whatever eventually happens in reality will defy and exceed even the extreme speculation in movies like this one.
Really, really good movie. Nihilistic as hell (until the 'morrow at the end), but very accurate depictions of human reactions under stress.Sorted out my room and laid down a trestle of pine boards to serve as my sewing table. With the Nelco on the ad hoc table and my lamp turned on, the area under my loft looks like a mini sweatshop.
I got 3 layers of the gambeson traced, cut, and assembled by individual layers. Next up will be 2 layers of canvas, and then the whole shebang will be ready for quilting with the 2 layers of batting.
Took some time out to sort all my fabric on hand. Drew up patterns for my padded gambeson (five layers of fabric + 2 layers of batting). Then Steph helped me by sewing and fitting a mock-up of the body panels and one sleeve. She gave me some pointers on the rest of it, and we discussed options for finishing edges and doing the arming points.
It’s that time of year again, when my right rhomboid minor declares its hatred of life.
I’d been trucking along in high gear ever since 2 in the p.m. Knocking out tasks at work, dialing digits, e-mailing teammates on a class project.
It’s not so hard as one of my fellow managers makes it out to be.
Language from a bygone age, that is. It wasn’t free love of which Rudyard Kipling and others of his age wrote.
Alan Hutton first contacted me last New Year’s Eve, having gotten my contact info off the SSG page. We each got to know a little about the other’s background, and struck it off well.
Times when you wish for anosmia:
When you walk into an empty elevator, and the smell of a middle-aged, heavily made up woman hits you square in the face.
At least, that’s what I imagine that smell to be associated with.
Decent movie. I enjoyed it. Kate Hudson looked goo-ood in 1884. :D
There was something I vaguely didn’t like about the storyline. It seemed like everything the protagonist did was of little significance or effect in this big, heartless world except to put him through a lot of unnecessary hell. Now, he never really whined about it — in fact, he rose to the challenges quite well. I just feel as though the challenges were a bit contrived and pointless.
I was also hoping that, in a startling break from humdrum convention, the protagonist would *not* get the girl in the end, but would have grown up and grown beyond some juvenile dependency on her capricious nature and insecure need to avoid public censure. The general bent of the story and a couple developments totally set the scene for that sort of a bittersweet ending, with another character totally deserving and narratively well-placed to win the girl. She’d learn her lesson, the deserving guy gets his, and the protagonist learns an Important Lesson about life.
But alas, no. :P Hell, the Island had more satisfactory resolution than this movie.
Still both movies are definitely better than e.g. Serendipity.
And I can’t wait for Transformers. Michael Bay hasn’t done tons of movies, but I enjoy his work. The comments about and from him on his IMDB profile are about what I figured.
