My Wushu Blog

This movie was released here in the US, though HBO, as Pu-239. It is based on a short story with the above title.

Poor Timofey, he works as an engineer in some type of reactor. There was an accident, and he was exposed to 1000 REMs in a few minutes. They read this from his Dosimeter which I though was cool. This isn’t about his half-life, but the very painful last two days of his life while he tries to obtain enough money for his family to live on.

How does he plan on getting a large sum of money? By selling 100 grams of very pure (he says its 100% pure) super-grade Plutonium. Well, he tries to sell it, by standing in a open market with a cardboard sign.

There are many aspects of this movie that I really enjoyed, mostly I’m a sucker for long monologs and voiceovers. I have no idea why, thats just something I like. It also focuses around a moral entanglement, which is essentially, would you steal to provide for your family?

Good movie, I don’t have HBO but man, the internets kick ass.

Over the past year I’ve had a slight resurgence in playing the guitar. Owen likes music, especially the guitar, and I’ve threatened a few times to dust off the electric guitar and really make some noise.

After listening to a substantial amount of Pink Floyd, I got the urge (after 10 years of not playing) to pull everything down and get it all set up. I then hit a very unfortunate snag with my old Jackson JS20, the nut had chipped. This prevented the low E string from staying in place. The output jack was also broken, and as I recall, it was one of the reasons I stopped playing that guitar (and all together). I mean, there were other factors, but having your guitar ground out randomly was a great deterrent from playing.

So I had to do two things: get a new nut, and a new 1/8th” jack; replace both respective pieces. The 1/8″ mono jack was easy, I stopped by Radio Shack (besides being a cell phone store, they still amazingly stock electrical components) and picked up a few 1/8″ STEREO jacks. Why Stereo and not mono? Well, I read that it helped provide a tighter fit for the plug, and it certainly does. It was a killer idea, glad I stumbled across that.

Getting a nut proved to be a little more difficult. I drove to Guitar Center in Concord, talked to a sales associate there, and they gave me a new graphite nut. I came back home, and to my dismay, it was for a Les Paul, and even though it fit in place of the old, the channels for the strings were off, and the strings kept popping out. Disappointed, had to wait until I got back from Alaska before I would be able to make it back out to Guitar Center.

When I went back to return the nut, another sales associate said that they didn’t have a nut for my guitar, and it would have to be special ordered from Jackson. He also said he’d call them Monday, and call me back… he never did, even after I called and left a message twice. What a slacker. So, I started hitting up the local music shops here in Antioch where I finally ended up at Music and More. Bill, the spacey but very helpful technician offered to make one for me out of bone, and at this point I didn’t care if it was carved out of my own hip bone, I was worn down from not getting anywhere. Well, after a few days of missing each other and him leaving a few messages, we finally met back up and he gave me a new white nut that he had lying around his house.

Sweet! the color was different, my stock nut was black, but it doesn’t really matter to me.

The repair of both parts was a lot of fun, and after all is said and done I’m happy with the results. I don’t have any issues with the guitar cutting out, it plays well, and the nut is doing a great job of holding the strings in place.

The guitar itself is decent, though I’d still really like to get a new one. After switching back and forth between the Jackson and the Yamaha SE250 (not shown), there are aspects of both of them that I like, and dislike. The Jackson has an extra pickup, so there is more tonal variation, the body is a little nicer, and I’ve spent a few years wearing down the frets with daily use (until I stopped that is). It sounds nice. However, I don’t like the placement of the jack, its more prone to breaking (this happened to me once with my old bass guitar, pretty much ruined it).

The Yamaha sounds like crap, and its harder to get it tuned (and stay in tune), but the neck is nice and I prefer the placement of the jack. The neck has more of a “C” shape, while the Jackson has a “[” shape, and I do find it a little more difficult to play on.

I’ll soon have to move all this out to the garage, I’m testing Michele’s patience with all paraphernalia lying around. The guitar, the petal, the cables, the sheet music, its all cluttering up the front room.

I felt cheated today, I had to rush out of the room at 8am to see the iceberg that we were scheduled to see at 11am. I have had to wake up at 7 or so everyday, and the night before I was adamant (with myself anyway, I didn’t express this to anyone else) that I was going to sleep in, this is after all a vacation. Captain Rick had a different plan, and announced on the PA system at 8 that we were about to depart from the iceberg and head to Victora, BC, after another two days at sea.

The cruise does get a tad repetitive, and I’m pretty much sick of eating. Thats all we can really do while at sea, is eat and exercise. I think the former is overpowering the latter though. I’ve kept up the cardio and weights here, but they serve a lot of food here, and the soft-serve ice cream is a siren calling me (that is the one food item on the ship I LOVE, I would marry it). I’ve decided to stop the three meals a day, but one and a half or so, the food is too rich and most of it isn’t all that good anyway. Yeah, I miss my raw trail mix and pink lady apples.

We had another formal night, and it was also my birthday. I’m not a fan of people (especially in restaurants) singing Happy Birthday, so I tried my best to ask them not to do it. However, I did get a double serving of cheesecake, and it was good. Still, I was displeased with the public spectacle.

Both Juneau and Skagway are tourist towns. the main streets are lined with cheap jewelry stores and gift shops hocking Ammolite stones and the Ulu cutting tool. This “knife” must be incredibly cheap to manufacture, or the cruise ship got a great deal on a bulk purchase. The did a demo of using it, and while the chief hypes it up with how easy it is to chop an onion, the way he holds the blade, by one of the sharp tips itself, seems pretty dangerous. The Ulu doesn’t look like it was made to slice at all, but either chop straight down once, or to peel the skin back from a deer. Thats it. So, its interesting to see every shop sell these things. You are all getting one for either birthdays or Christmas, along with a towel (coincidentally branded with Royal Caribbean).

Our camera battery died, so we didn’t get any pictures of Juneau, but I did take a few of Skagway. What I did find in Juneau was a respectable pub, that offered both Chimay and Guinness on tap. I think Michele saw the longing in my eyes for a proper pint, so she encouraged me to stop in there while her and her family go shopping. It was nice, Owen and I hung out off to the side of the bar and had a drink. I had Guinness, and he had milk

I would have like the train ride in Skagway, but Michele and I didn’t plan on doing any excursions this trip, with both kids and all, so we walked around town and found a park. That was pretty nice, though the locals there didn’t seem to like us.

I’m not sure if Alaska has caught on to the whole “Internet” phenomenon, but finding a free wifi access point in these two towns was near impossible. Coffee shops didn’t have wifi, or there was a utility based wifi service that you had to pay for. I didn’t bother paying, which is why these posts are a week old

Speaking of coffee, I’ve had a severe lack of quality coffee on the ship, and during our travels in general. The stock coffee on the ship is very weak, and I’m pretty picky about drinking it. The ship does have a coffee shop that will make lattes and other drinks, but you have to pay for them and they are still pretty weak by my standards. Still, to avoid any headaches and to help up my mood in general, I’ve been getting a small coffee loaded with 3 – 4 espresso shots After that, I’m all for tackling gift shops and walking the kids around.

Now, for pictures:

Our ship is named “Rhapsody of the Seas”, and I can’t stop re-wording it as Rapture of the Seas, which would be more appropriate for these two days at sea. Most people we came with got sea sick, Michele got sick from the food. I didn’t get sea sick, that part of swaying back and forth doesn’t bother me, I did jog on a treadmill during some pretty choppy waters and that was interesting I was also listening to a funny podcast, so I was jogging, balancing, and laughing all at once.

There wasn’t much to do, being on a ship for two days only allows for a few activities. So I hung out with Owen:

and we watched Rumble in the Bronx:

And then Caralyne and I went to the first Formal dining night, Michele stayed at the room since she was feeling ill from the food

All photos can be found here: http://www.m87-blackhole.org/photos/2009-05-alaskan-cruise/