The Wrestler

Broke my heart. Rated below. 'Nuff said.

Indy V?...

Cool. Some news about the next Indiana Jones movie may be found here.

I thoroughly enjoyed KOTCS, though of course not with the same sense of youthful wonder I did when watching the first three, back in the day. But I'll welcome another installment, even if (as I suspect) it will be Indiana's last on-screen adventure.

Movies

I've been fortunate enough to squeeze in three movies over the past couple of weeks (between marathons of Star Trek: Voyager with the wife). I hope to watch The Wrestler soon, but since I began a three-week teacher training course today, it will be difficult. Anyway...


Defiance was pretty good. Very inspiring. Some things seemed a bit unclear to me at first, namely the Bielski brothers' motivation and background. But it's a good, true story, and Daniel Craig's fine acting job is outshined, in my opinion, by Liev Shreiber's performance as Zus (pronounced "Zoosh").


Gran Torino was a must-watch for me, as I enjoy old actors playing mean old men. And Eastwood's Walt is mean. The movie was a little predictable, but it was still enjoyable to watch, though if it had been anybody but Eastwood I would not have watched it. Clint's still got a bit of The Man with No Name and Dirty Harry in him, thankfully. Maybe we need that in these hyper-P.C. times.


As far as I know, Outlander went straight to DVD. It's "Beowulf meets Predator," according to the coverbox art, and that's a pretty accurate label. I usually hate those kinds of labels, but here it's perfectly applicable. Good casting, with Jim Caviezel as a kind of Space Marine-slash-planetary colonizer, John Hurt as the Viking cheiftain (who'd make a magnificent Gandalf!), and Ron Perlman playing one of the meanest Vikings you'll ever see. The special effects are good, with a couple of exceptions; and the script is straightforward, lean, though a little overly sentimental at times. The great thing about this film is the plot itself; it's so well-thought-out, and the story so well-executed, that it almost cannot help but be a good movie, casting and special effects aside. The worst thing was some of the character naming... "Boromir?" I mean, really.

Silverbug

I've long been an admirer of silver, more so than gold. Don't get me wrongo, I appreciate gold as much as anybody; but there has always been something about silver that has given it an edge in my mind. Now I'm no hoarder of silver -- not yet, anyway; and I'm not particularly enamored of silver jewelry, or any jewelry, for that matter. Yet, having said that, I've been a collector of silver coins for over a decade now: primarily U.S. silver half dollar issues, along with the occasional dollars, dimes, quarters, and foreign silver, with a significant exploration of the fascinating world of Roman silver denarii (still missing you, Nerva!).

Up until this year, I've had an eye for silver mainly as a collector, with the aim of forming sets of coins of the best quality I could afford, and with little regard for silver's market value and/or melt value. But as I've been watching the stock market for the past year, my eye has been drawn constantly towards commodities; and gold's spectacular rise, especially over the last few months, was hard to miss. As of today, gold is over $950 an ounce in futures trading. I think, though, that it's overpriced right now. Regardless, I don't have that kind of money to invest.

Silver's performance is much more modest, more low-key, but in the end it could possibly end up being even more profitable than gold. Now it is well-known how precious metals serve as a hedge against inflation, which daily seems to be growing like a black cloud on our current economic horizon. The nagging worry I've had about that cloud has led me to consider multiple options for protecting my meagre wealth, beyond stuffing cash under my mattress (the cash is losing value daily, anyway). I have no faith in investing in anything I can't put my hands on anymore, or anything I don't completely understand (I think it was Warren Buffet who said, "If you don't understand it, don't buy it."). If it's one thing I do understand in the investing world, though, it's gold and silver. And I can buy silver.

As I stated, gold is well over $950 an ounce at present. Silver, however, is a more affordable $15. This, however, is likely to change. This article, while a bit above my understanding, nevertheless shows how silver could push past $50 an ounce in the next couple of years. (This has already been forseen by the author of the Survivalblog website, who has been fairly accurate with other predictions of late.)

So what am I doing to take advantage of this? Being as we are poor people, I have limited cash after our weekly budget takes a bite. I have managed, however, to buy small amounts of what is known as "junk silver" nearly every week over the past 4-5 months. Junk silver refers to U.S. coins issued for circulation before 1965; in that year, the dime, quarter, and half dollar went from a composition of 90% silver to their current (near-worthless) copper-nickel sandwich composition (check the CoinFlation.com website link at right for an idea of what the melt value of our current coins is worth). Mostly, I've been getting silver halves; their prices are more in line with melt value than silver dollars (the Peace type silver dollar is shown above), which tend to have somewhat higher than melt value prices due to the romance associated with them in popular culture. Silver halves, in Good to Very Good condition, can be had for $7-10 on Ebay, or $4-5 above current melt value, with the right seller (this takes some hunting). Silver dollars can be had for usually a minimum of $16, or six dollars above current melt value (again, this takes some hunting).

I do not buy Silver Eagles, the current silver dollar coin issued by the Mint, as they usually cannot be had for less than $20; too much above melt value for my liking. As for silver bars, I cannot comment, since I do not own any and have not tried to buy them. This leads me to another point about buying old silver coins: in a TEOTWAWKI situation, I suspect that old silver coins will be a standard medium of trade in a largely barter economy. You wouldn't want to trade a gold dollar for a loaf of bread; and it is doubtful that many outside collector and investor circles will even know what a U.S. Silver Eagle is. So the so-called "junk silver" coins of the past may have a practical circulating value again, if and WTSHTF.

WTSHTF

I've added a new link list, titled "WTSHTF" (for When the Shit Hits the Fan). It will contain links to articles I feel are important in understanding what is happening with the world economy, and what is coming. I'm no believer in religious end-times scenarios, which makes junkies out of Bible-thumpers and their ilk; but I believe that things can very easily get very bad, very fast. I do not want to get caught with my pants down, so to speak, like I did with Hurricane Katrina. I want to be prepared. More than that, I want to understand why things are going the way they are going; and I can't seem to get much information from the so-called mainstream media (MM). So I nose around until I find an article that is actually informative; and sometimes, some information just sounds right. Maybe the latter is just common sense kicking in, but not having a generous natural amount of it to begin with I am hesitant to name it so. At any rate, the first article I chose is by a Russian, who compares the collapse of the S.U. (Soviet Union) economy to a (not-so-far-fetched) possible collapse of the U.S. economy. S.U. - U.S. Nifty, huh?

[UPDATE: Article from The Atlantic Monthly added.]

Doldrums interrupted, a little

Not much going on lately, so I have been largely quiet at The Gable Grey. Two new movies/reviews are added. Plus, for those interested, Other Minds Magazine has Issue 6 available for download. It's a big issue, and it's pretty good.

The days are turning fine and hot... too hot, and soon to be worse; another Long Summer is nigh. And again, I am not in the Mountains.

The keen-eyed will have noticed a link added some months back, to a site called SurvivalBlog. It's a very informative daily blog with all kinds of sound advice and news, for those who -- like myself -- believe we're in the middle of a great Paradigm Shift. If you are the least bit interested in taking care of you and yours in these dark times, SurvivalBlog is a great resource. It's also comforting to know I'm not crazy for wanting to be as prepared as possible for whatever lies ahead.

Oh, and buy silver. Now, before it shoots up to $50 an ounce or something.

The Year of the Hawk

Got my hawking gauntlet last week! Nice brown calfskin, full-cuff. Northwoods shipped it rather unceremoniously in a plastic bag within the box. I say "unceremoniously" because this strikes me as a rather noble item, symbolic of an ancient art and way of life... but however it got here, it is here now, and I get a small rush every time I put it on, imagining a big red-tail or Harris hawk perched on my gauntleted arm.

It was with that and much else in mind that I cleaned out the shed today, making it ready for the mews. In my head it is no longer "the shed" now, but "the mews." Next I'll need to purchase a bow perch. But the mews, excepting making the small shelf area into an enclosed cabinet, is essentially hawk-worthy.

When I was in my tweens I was often taken by my mom and stepfather to his parents' home near Knoxville, Tennessee. We usually went during spring break, so it was usually on the cool side in those Appalachian foothills, and the land was still mostly somber greys and browns. One morning, beginning our drive east towards Great Smoky Mountain National Park, we passed on one of those twisting country roads a tall man, who carried a huge hawk on one arm. Now I'm sure my mental image of that hawk has increased in size somewhat in the 20+ years since then, making it eagle-sized; but there can be little doubt as I look back that it was a big female RT. I've always dreamed about being a falconer since then. Now, at long last, that dream is slowly coming to fruition.