End of Summer 2009 (And Good Riddance!)

Only kidding about the "good riddance" part.  It was not all bad.  June burned; July simmered; August sighed.  There have been many balmy days, and cool nights, so far this September.  Thus the fire of 2009 dwindles down to the -embers... I am ready.

Perhaps I am finally beginning to acclimate myself to the ravages of the Southern summer.  I have not minded it as much as I thought, not as much as I used.  Some would say it is just that I am getting old, and that is true.  But of late I have never felt so alive, so appreciative of everything.  I am enjoying myself very much these days.

Writing helps bring about that feeling, very very much.  The Woodreeve's Tale is moving forward, slowly of course.  It is overwhelmingly a labor of love, and I am coming to realize that it is being written largely to satisfy my own need for what it is:  epic fantasy, written in the "old grand style" I have come to savor over the years -- yet still a mere echo of Morris, of Dunsany, of Tolkien.  I am a bit of a copycat, but I don't care; it has enough of a "modern" edge to mark it as mine.  For all its "density," for all its linguistic dance, I yet try my best to keep the prose tight, taut, polished.  It is not too hard, but it is slow going; the endless editing, which I have long ago gotten used to regarding my own work.  The editing is never finished, just put to the side until later.

It has helped to have a good and dear friend in Daryl F., with whom I have rekindled a friendship after losing contact several years ago.  Daryl and I exchange work and its attendant criticism on a weekly basis, as we often did as students at USM well over a decade ago.  Daryl, if you read this, know that your generosity will never be forgotten.  It is good to have an audience, even if only an audience of 1.  Peace to you, brother:  watch your top-knot.

I am joyfully expecting delivery of a portable bowperch this week!  It is a major purchase, and a step forward in my eventual partnership with a red-tailed hawk.  I imagine I'll try to get the digital scales in February, maybe a hood, bells, and jesses in the months between. 

Belle is growing up so fast.  It's been a great summer for her.  So many new experiences... just today, she saw up close her first flying squirrel, and got to hold a box turtle we found in the back yard.  She can tell a red-headed woodpecker from fifty yards.  That's my girl!

So bon voyage, Summer '09.  It has been good... but I will not look back.

(Not too much.)

Not sure if I am intellectually qualified to rate that movie...

The wife and I viewed The Watchmen last night. I honestly don't know what to think of it. As my friend and co-worker Jeremy wrote about it: "I watched Watchmen last night. I'm not sure I am intellectually qualified to watch that movie." I would have to share the sentiment, for the most part.

It's a gritty, very dark (metaphorically speaking) film. It was more satisfying that either Sin City or 300, two similar genre films. Otherwise, well... the superheroes were neither super, nor heroes; their faults undermined whatever gifts they had. Most of the Watchmen spent their time analyzing their lives, reminiscing about the past, fucking each other, and/or just generally being clueless about their place in society and the human condition in the real world. The only one of the Watchmen I gave a crap about, Rorshach, was labeled a sociopath, though he was the only one of the sorry lot who was actually proactive in trying to find out who was targeting him and his colleagues, and who seemed to have any clue about both justice and getting things done.

Anyway... I have decided to let my minions help me rate the film. Poll will be up shortly.

Fits and starts

Thanks to My Good Friend (MGF) Richard, who has been openly threatening to work on his Fantasy Fiction Project (FFP) again, I've been stimulated to return to the world of the Woodreeve, and have gotten some work done on it this week. Naturally that means that pretty much everything else, aside from work and domestic duties, falls by the wayside. But it feels good to create again, whatever the resulting literary merits (or lack thereof).

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.