On Friday, Sarah and I decided to get out of the house and visit the Ice House Canyon Trail on Mount San Antonio. Overall, I think we did more walking that day than we have since March. We turned back at about 0.8 miles in, since that was 30 minutes of walking and we didn’t bring any water. Unfortunately, we found out that the titular Ice House was only 0.9 miles in, so we’ll definitely have to come back another day.
Safety-wise, this is a very narrow trail, so it’s impossible to effectively distance from passers. Fortunately, about 3/4 wore masks while passing, which is not perfect but also better than I expected.
I took a few photos along the hike to share, enjoy!
Since I’ve switched Rewatch over to films for a while with my review on Charade, and since I’ve reviewed every Stargate TV series, it made sense to rewatch the film that started it all. What happens when you combine action archeology and military sci-fi? You get Stargate, a 1994 film directed by Roland Emmerich, starring Kurt Russell and James Spader.
When the Stargate is unearthed in 1928 Giza, it remains a mystery until its code is cracked by archaeologist Dr. Daniel Jackson (played by Spader). With the gate active, forming a wormhole between a similar gate across the known universe, Colonel Jack O’Neill (played by Russell) will lead a team, including Dr. Jackson, to the other side. What they discover is a world, and an adventure, beyond their wildest imaginations that I just can’t do justice with text, so please enjoy the trailer embedded below.
The whole cast is great, not just Russell and Spader. In particular, Jaye Davidason as Ra is uniquely captivating, and even French Stewart is here without being the comic relief. And the soundtrack by David Arnold, the second of his long career, ranks among my top favorite soundtracks of all time.
This is definitely an interesting Earth Day for all of us, with many of us under some form of a lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The world is still out there, but it’s ok if it feels very different today than it did last year, we’re all coping differently. Please wear a fabric face mask (like this no-sew handkerchief mask or something more robust), and please reserve medical masks for medical professionals. The more of us who do our part to stop the spread, the sooner we can begin to get back to the way things used to be. (But, maybe with less pollution this time, right?)
Once equipped with a mask, try to spend some time outdoors, just make sure to stay 6 feet apart of people you aren’t sharing a home with. If you can’t make it outside today, or you’d rather not, please enjoy this video.
I’ve run out of available, good, older TV series for now, so I thought it might be fun to check out some older films that I’ve enjoyed for a while. First up is Charade, a 1963 “romantic comedy mystery film” that’s not only great, it’s available entirely for free because they messed up the copyright (more on that later).
Charade follows a woman (played by Audrey Hepburn) as she unravels the mystery of her husband’s murder and a mysterious man (played by Cary Grant) who tries to help her. The quick whit and improvisation talents of Hepburn and Grant are on fully display here, it’s electric. Sometimes it feels like a scene will never end, and you won’t want it to either. And the score by Henry Mancini is captivating. It’s really hard to describe this film, but I’d suppose I’d say that the feel of classic James Bond is combined with the whit of Spider-Man, and it’s all wrapped in a charming love story. So now you’ll have to see it and provide me with a better short description.
Charade is a crazy fun romp, and definitely one of my favorite films. It’s a collection of things that really should have never gone together, but somehow it made them work and still managed to exceed expectations. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
WordPress 5.4Â has been released! Along with speed and privacy improvements, this update adds a new Social Icons block, enhancements for the Button block, and 361 bug fixes. For specifics, check out the changelog.
552 volunteers contributed to this release, lead by Matt Mullenweg, Francesca Marano, and David Baumwald. At the time of writing this, WordPress 5.4 has been out for about 30 minutes, and has already been downloaded 137,156 times!
All users can safely update from Dashboard -> Updates or download and update manually, though you should probably backup first just in case, unless you’re already using VaultPress, which you really should be.
