If you have any complaints which you'd like to make, I'd be more than happy to send you the appropriate forms.
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Music: Frosty the Snowman
Christmas is coming up fast this year, and I haven't had much time to get into the holiday spirit, given the singular focus on the marathon and a family emergency cropping up.
I did like this track from former Nightwish singer Tarja Turunen, which combines epic orchestration with a rather silly holiday standard. The video plays it so absolutely straight that you'll probably chuckle at the opening bars:
Miscellany: Mulliga Runs a Marathon, Part 6 - The Finale
The day of the marathon met me with strong winds and cold, driving rain. I shivered in the starting corral, anxious to get moving. Soon enough, the starting bell sounded, and the 2024 Garden of Life Palm Beaches Marathon was on:
The first 20 miles went well enough; I began running at a leisurely 10 minute-per-mile pace, and whittled a few seconds off each mile as the race wore on. I even purposely dialed back the speed around miles 10 through 20 to save something for the end, with my mile splits hovering in the 9'30" to 9'45" range.
However, I made a critical mistake at mile 20. I thought I felt good enough to at least attempt my goal pace (9 minutes per mile), but that surge sucked all the energy out of me and made the last 5 miles a hellish slog. My splits rose to the 10-minute mark and my perceived effort skyrocketed, especially with the back half of the course blanketing me in a 20-mph headwind.
It wasn't pretty, and I ended up walking a couple minutes just because I was out of juice, but I eventually finished. If you haven't run a marathon, it's hard to comprehend how far the distance is, and how long you are on your feet. Even just finishing the race really is an achievement, and anyone who has completed one has my respect.
I'm a fan of Christopher Nolan's 2014 space adventure Interstellar, but I never got to see it in theatres. That's why I made the trek down to Fort Lauderdale to catch the 10th anniversary re-release - in IMAX:
Unlike some movies that are "converted" into IMAX after the fact, much of Interstellar was shot in true 70 mm IMAX. Seeing the film in this format makes a huge difference, because most of the story takes place on desolate alien planets; an IMAX screen gives you impressive vistas stretching as far as your eyes can see. Also important is the IMAX audio system, which thrusts the blistering organ crescendos of Hans Zimmer's score right into your eardrums.
Downsides? Well, the experience ain't cheap ($20 a ticket), and even the best sights and sounds can't paper over the sometimes ham-handed dialogue and clumsy plotting of the movie. Still, if you want to see some gravitational time dilation and McConaughey tears, this is the only game in town.
Miscellany: Mulliga Runs a Marathon, Part 5 - The Taper
My marathon is in less than 2 weeks, so I am in the midst of what runners call "the taper" - a period where you reduce your training volume in preparation for the big race:
Everybody reacts differently, and no one can tell you precisely how long or how much you should taper, but most plans recommend cutting out anywhere from 25% to 50% of your miles (as compared to your seasonal peak) in the weeks before the marathon. For me, that means only running a total of about 27 miles this week. It's a cakewalk compared to the 40+ mile weeks, when most of my free time was spent running.
More difficult is cutting out caffeine and alcohol, and increasing sleep, to recover the body as much as possible before the trauma of 26.2 miles. Hopefully it all goes well come race day...
Jesse Eisenberg is best known for playing awkward billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Lex Luthor, but he proves to be a fairly capable director in his sophomore outing, A Real Pain:
The film is a quiet slice-of-life dramedy following two cousins trying to reconnect with their late grandmother's Jewish heritage during a Polish tour group. David (Eisenberg) is the staider and more successful of the two, while Benji (Kieran Culkin) is a free-spirited drifter with serious mental health issues. As this odd couple clashes and bonds with each other, secrets come to light and a legacy of grief is examined.
Trauma forms the core of A Real Pain, but it's rarely out in the open - even an emotional visit to the Majdanek concentration camp is limned in sunlight, the better to contrast with the atrocities that took place there. Small gestures, like evading a train fare or placing a stone on a grave, take on weighty significance, though the plot and supporting cast are too thin to carry much deeper meaning. The movie's trump card is an astonishing performance by Kieran Culkin, who infuses Benji with charm and pathos that should be recognized during awards season.
I had the good fortune of catching the Boca Blues Festival last weekend, and I went mostly to see the headlining performer, blues singer-songwriter Samantha Fish:
Samantha Fish's appeal is obvious - she combines sizzling guitar chops honed in KC's Knuckleheads Saloon with vocals that can wail with the best of them (Exhibit A: her cover of "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins "I Put a Spell on You"). This being a festival setting, her set only lasted an hour or so, but it was wall-to-wall music, featuring everything from uptempo rockers to extended jam sessions.
Fish still has plenty of tour dates this year, so if she's in your neck of the woods, go out and see her.
Ranma ½ is both the first manga I ever read and the first anime my sister and I watched together, so it has always been a sentimental favorite of mine, warts and all. When I heard they were remaking the anime and releasing it worldwide on Netflix, I feared the worst. Would they change the classic martial arts comedy of the sexes to reflect today's sensibilities?
Produced by animation studio MAPPA (best known for Jujutsu Kaisen), this new Ranma is a very faithful adaptation of the original comic, perhaps even more so than the original TV series. Practically every story beat, line of dialogue, and sight gag has been brought to screen. It's even set in '80s Japan rather than the modern day, so there's no Internet or social media to speak of.
For diehard fans like me, this approach is both good and bad. The animation is very well done (the fight scenes in particular are better than anything Studio DEEN ever put out), but if you read the manga, there really are no surprises in the story. Still, I'm impressed that they didn't mess with their gender-swapping, mildly misogynistic main character to accommodate "modern audiences," which is more than can be said for a lot of things these days.
Tech: 2024 Tesla Model 3 Review, Part 3 - "Accessories" for a Tesla
Tesla has been scrupulous about getting the Model 3 down to that magical $35,000 price point (after the federal EV tax credit). In doing so, however, they've stripped the car down to the bone. This post will review all the "accessories" that I bought for my Model 3 Long Range RWD...really, stuff that probably should've been included in the first place:
Floormats
This to me was the most puzzling omission, because they seem like such an essential part of the interior. Tesla sells carpeted mats on their website for $80, but I opted for the Lasfit all-weather TPE mats, which cover not only the footwells, but also the trunk, frunk, and subtrunk, all for less than $200.
Mobile Connector
The Mobile Connector allows you to charge your car from almost any household outlet. Standard outlets will work (albeit very slowly), but it's best to use one of those big dryer outlets, the kind you find in a laundry room. I believe the Mobile Connector used to be included with new Teslas, but now they make you buy it.
CCS Combo 1 Adapter
I regularly travel to Florida's small towns and rural areas for work, and while the Tesla Supercharger network is widespread, it isn't everywhere. In case I have to fast charge using a third-party network like Electrify America, I grabbed a CCS-to-Tesla adapter.
J1772 Adapter Lock
Tesla does still include a J1772 adapter with every vehicle, since such charging stations are ubiquitous, but the design of the adapter allows anyone to just walk up to your car and remove the J1772 cable. To prevent this, I got a plastic adapter lock. It's not foolproof, but it's mostly there to deter funny business.
Cabin and trunk bins
The Model 3 has a fair amount of storage space, with cavernous center console bins and fairly deep storage pockets at the sides of the trunk. To keep things organized, you'll probably want center divider bins and bins for the trunk pockets.
Mulliga's Tribute to '80s Horror Paperbacks (Part 3) - The Vampire Tapestry
Halloween is finally here, and this year Shangrila Towers is paying tribute to the gory, grotesque, and sometimes goofy world of 1980s horror fiction. For the last night of spooky season, let's dive into a book endorsed by the likes of Stephen King and Peter S. Beagle: The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas.
Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire launched a craze of vampire fiction that has arguably lasted to this day, and The Vampire Tapestry represents a thoughtful take on the vampire myth. It's a set of connected novellas (hence the title) about Dr. Edward Weyland, a centuries-old vampire trying to survive in 20th century America. Ironically, Weyland is an anthropologist, and he studies humans with the eye of an outsider (or, less charitably, a predator). Pure blind luck sometimes casts him as the hunter, sometimes the hunted, with the bloodlust always at his heels.
There isn't much action or gore to speak of, but the book is pretty well-written, and has some interesting thoughts about the standard tropes - the search for emotional connection, the burden of immortality, etc. Charnas's background in history and her Peace Corps work inform some of the book's comments on the human (and inhuman) condition, and her native New Mexico provides the backdrop for a vivid sequence in the Santa Fe opera house. If you're cruising for '80s horror books, you could do a lot worse than The Vampire Tapestry.
Happy Halloween everyone! Here are some of the latest tracks added to my master Halloween music playlist in 2024 - just in time for All Hallows' Eve:
"Halloweenie VI: Possess Me," Ashnikko
Ashnikko has released a Halloween-themed track every October for awhile now, but "Halloweenie VI: Possess Me" apparently marks the final release in the series:
"Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein and Dracula," LVCRFT
Pop collective LVCRFT is a fixture on my playlist because they do a great job of covering novelty Halloween songs, such as this obscure 1959 tune from The Diamonds:
"The Ballad of the Witches' Road (Sacred Chant Version)," from Agatha All Along
By most accounts, the Agatha Harkness-centric spinoff Agatha All Along underwhelmed, but this track from the series seems pretty good:
"Fangtasy," Bambie Thug
I always struggle with including songs on the playlist that are ambiguous in their Halloween references ("haunted" by the ghost of your ex, "bewitched" by the magic of your love, etc.), but the music video for this one puts it over the top:
"Living Dead Girl," izzy reign
A good cover of Rob Zombie's classic track:
The entire 10-year-old playlist is below for your enjoyment:
