Dear Diary:
I’m beginning to regret not completing the pre-flight questionnaire on how to stock the space station commissary. How many days in a row must we endure these cucumber sandwiches?
Today nature demanded an unscheduled bathroom break and Drax humiliated me by announcing over the PA that in his “boundless munificence” he was going to allow it.
The button to disable the radar jamming system is looking more enticing all the time…
All of Icebreaker is lunacy. You could play a drinking game with how many double crosses there are. Though, you’d likely die of alcohol poisoning by the mid-point of the book.
I think that was in a deleted scene.
Yup. You are correct, sir.
"No one ever thinks how things affect the family of a henchman "
I could have sworn this is just in the actual movie.
Dear Mama,
I took your advice and saw the doctor. The pills he gave me made me feel a whole lot better, and I can hang underwater with the rest of the crew now. Days are routine, but we did have one really bad thing happen.
It was our team’s tun to clean Mr. Stromberg’s dining room, the one with the special gizmo under the table I wrote you about. Well, we had taken it apart and cleaned and oiled it, and were putting it back together, when we came to the really hard part. We had to pull a long stick-thing down the length of the table to put it back in place–I really do not know why the table has to be so big. Mr. Stromberg never eats in there with anybody.
Away, as we were pulling the thing down under the table, Johnny tripped over himself–I told you what a klutz he is–and we lost control, and to make a long story short, the stick comes out the other end just where Mac is finishing up polishing the table. Mac did not know what hit him, and there was a God awful mess, which we now had to clean up on top of the cleaning we had already one. Mac was everywhere and not in a good way.
Mr. Stromberg, he announced that he was transferring some money to Mac’s family. Didn’t say how much. Just hope he doesn’t change his mind and cancel it.
That’s all for today, Mama. Miss you an awful lot and Becky Sue. Wish there was some women on board, though just for talking. Becky Sue is my girl and always will be. I am getting used to there just being men around, and Bobby–remember I told you he seemed to be very friendly, and you said to be careful. Well, there is nothing to worry about. He pitched in with cleaning Mac up, and I find he is a right nice fella.
Tonight he is moving in to be my new roommate, and says he will be there for me as I process my loss (whatever that means). But it will be nice to have him there, cause he will do anything for me.
Your loving son,
Mikey
Good news, mom and dad!
I got the programming job at Janus Corp. They’re even paying my relocation costs to Puerto Rico! So excited after the job at the Olympatec Meditation Institute fund raiser with Joe Butcher literally went up in smoke. Been out of work for 6 years.
Anyway, they’re saying to withdraw all your savings into cash or transfer them to offshore accounts next week. Something about the British banking system?
Also, the Carver Media Group wants to interview me still. Asking me if I know any SSL encryption. I guess they’re digitizing their newspaper?
I’ll send you a postcard next week. I always wanted to live in the Caribbean
“Not that I liked Number 9, I didn’t. He was one of those that thought he was too good for the organization and no one else’s capabilities were quite up to snuff. If he didn’t think you were bringing the goods he just wouldn’t speak to you. I’m not saying he didn’t deserve to be smoked like a kipper, but that smell. C’mon. You could accomplish the same thing with the trap door to the piranhas.”
Dear Joe:
Hello from your big brother from beautiful Phuket.
I’m very grateful to Mr Scaramanga for hiring me on to run his power plant. I hadn’t anticipated how difficult it would be to find employment after receiving my doctorate in cryogenics. I’d like to think it’s not entirely racially motivated but it could be my looks; there was that one colleague who told me people just aren’t comfortable with a scientist who looks like “hired muscle.” Anyway, Mr Scaramanga seems to like me well enough, so I’m just going to be grateful and postpone asking when he’s ever going to get around to hiring additional staff or maybe consider putting some kind of protective covering over the vats.
We rarely get visitors here and somehow I only see them arriving, never departing. And yet, they’re gone. Usually my only companion is NickNack, the little French guy I mentioned before. Still, he’s pleasant enough and a great cook, and it’s cute how he gets so excited every time a plane flies by.
After months without a date, there’s actually a very pretty blonde girl visiting now and the best part is she only seems to have packed a bikini. Later today we’re supposed to spend some time together near the cooling vats, and I’m going to confess my attraction. I’m pretty sure she feels the same way for me. Wish me luck.
Love,
Al
Hmmm, and what Bond movie do you feel like watching?
Last night I felt like watching TSWLM with my 16-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter. They were not bowled over.
Everyone agreed it looks impressive, and has great sets. Beyond that, not a lot of love for a 44-year-old film that apparently shows every day of its age in the eyes of two 21st century teens.
There was much giggling at the Bond/Sandor fight and puzzlement at the dodgy rear-screen work. Was this film a parody of spy movie conventions of the era? (A few months ago we saw “Top Secret”, which does do parody with a deadpan delivery). Why does nothing kill Jaws? Shouldn’t Stromberg’s globe show the missiles travelling toward each other laterally, ie East to West, instead of curving “up” (technically hundreds of miles North) and then making course corrections? How much fuel do missiles even carry?
And so on. Laughter in all the wrong places and a basic confusion over whether we were supposed to believe men and women treated each other that way or if it was done for comedy.
But there was at least agreement the film cut no corners on stunts, sets or locations and looked more big-budget than you’d expect for a “vintage” film.
I am now 0 for 2 in passing along my passions to the next generation, having also failed with Star Trek. I’m afraid to even bring up The Beatles.
Not surprising. How we feel about something can’t be transferred to another in the space of one viewing, if at all. To replicate how we feel about these movies it would take years worth of attachment and understanding. To anyone else it’s just another film. I’ve found that people have to discover things themselves and be in the right frame of mind for it to really start to mean anything.
And it’s Lois Chiles!
A couple years ago, I took my son and his older brother (now in college) to see Doctor No, Goldfinger and Live And Let Die in the cinema (on separate dates), so it’s not his first exposure to Bond. They were polite but I could tell they weren’t knocked out by those entries, either.
My daugther has only seen Octopussy before this, and only by happenstance, so I have to adjust to the idea maybe it’s just Roger Moore she doesn’t go for. Although if her main concern is male/female relationships, I’m not sure there’s ANY good place to start.
Indeed my fondness for Bond is largely based on “you had to be there” factors that might have gone differently if any number of things were different (my age, my life at the time, the state of the franchise in that moment) and if I’m honest, the further I get from my early days of fandom, the less engaged I am with the latest goings-on.
To her credit, my daughter did ask me a of questions about what I liked about the films, to try and understand my attachment (or maybe just to make sure I’m not a creep). I did my best to explain it, but at the end of the day, why does anyone really like anything? You can extoll the virtues of one thing or another but ultimately you either feel an attachment or you don’t. I’m attached to several things I know objectively are lame or flawed, and indifferent to many things I know are well-done and of fine quality. You either feel it or you don’t.
Anyway what goes around comes around. My dad could never get me into Westerns as a kid. But I’ve partially warmed to them, so maybe there’s hope for poor James. Or maybe I need to start looking for someone else to leave all my junk to…
They might need earmuffs….
Which I totally missed the very first time I saw this. And I’ve met her too!
Don’t. They’ll find out by themselves. My brother tried similar things with my niece. To a similar effect. Then came the boyfriends, and all of a sudden, Star Wars and Star Trek were interesting. And then she had the one who was into the right kind of music, and vintage Rolling Stones LPs turned into desired objects for Xmas.
Downside? His well kept record collection turned into a disordered mess (for a while) and one or the other record went missing…
I’ll tell you which film I don’t feel like watching again: the only one I don’t have in my collection yet.
And my collection is up to date.
There is this theory about the formative years opening us up for inspiration and then gradually we’re closing down and find it hard to get as excited about things as we used to. Hence the efficacy of nostalgia - it suggests we can be as fascinated on a primal level again as we used to be.
At 52 I definitely notice that I enjoy listening to music I discovered during my teenage years much more than to anything that came later, no matter how hard I try to stay open and appreciative to new input. In the end it’s just what you like.
The same goes for Bond films. I was lucky to discover them when I was 8 years old (hey, maybe juvenile ideas mesh well with Bond?) and I still have fun with them. Do I see their flaws? Sure. But nothing is flawless, not even Citizen Kane. So, what’s the problem with that?
My nephews had the same reaction to Bond as your kids. They even laugh off Indiana Jones to my consternation. But they grew up with the Star Wars prequels and adore them despite my snickering.
I’m assuming is the response you’re asking for
As said before, I can really understand this.
But I myself feel a growing urge to watch NO TIME TO DIE again, with the various comments and ratings in mind I’ve read here. There is some depth to the film and I suspect I haven’t discovered half of it yet.
But this time I’ll wait for the home entertainment option.