Donnie Darko
After being bugged by my friends ad nauseam to watch this movie, I finally rented it the other night, and so far I've watched it twice, and I still haven't unraveled the whole thing. It's that good.
Basically, it's an odd combination of American Beauty, Magnolia and 12 Monkeys. Yes, you read that right. It uses approaches from several different genres, but doesn't neatly fit in any.
Donnie Darko is a troubled (possibly schizophrenic) teenager attending an upper-class Catholic school in upscale Fairfax. He comes from a nice Republican nuclear family. He's in therapy. See where this is going? No, you don't.
One night, Donnie is woken by the apparition of a shadowy character who resembles a death's-head bunny rabbit. The rabbit informs him that the world will end in 28 days. While this is happening, a jet engine falls out of the sky and lands on Donnie's house, falling directly into the bedroom where he should have been sleeping.
What follows (I think) is a splintering of Donnie's reality into an alternate timeline. It begins to appear that Donnie was in bed and did die, but for some reason, he's living out a tangenital existence for the next 28 days. Over the next month, several things happen to Donnie, and he performs several acte gratuite at Frank's behest. A mysterious old woman who appears to be senile or insane tells Donnie that "every living creature dies alone," which leads him to seek love with an equally troubled girl named Gretchen.
But it's not a teen-love story, either. Turns out the old woman once wrote a book called The Philosophy of Time Travel, which becomes a sort of guidebook for Donnie. His physics professor tells him how time travel and alternate realities are possible, but has to cut off the conversation just as Donnie realizes that he has a choice between God's plan and his own.
It all builds into a very confusing but oddly fulfilling climax in which events roll back in time to the beginning and everything turns out the way it was intended to in the first place. Am I giving it all away here? Don't bet on it.
What makes this film so amazing is the fact that it balances all of these elements so perfectly. You care what happens to these people, and the setting (like American Beauty) is so well fleshed-out that it feels lived-in. The characters aren't what they seem at first, and it's wonderful how much character development the director achieves with just a few well-placed lines of dialogue. In one scene, Donnie asks his socialite mother "what it feels like to have a wacko for a son," and her response is a teary, "it feels wonderful." Likewise, when a hysterical teacher informs his parents that he told her to "forcibly insert the Lifeline Excercise Manual into my anus," his father has to stifle a laugh. In these moments, you come to love and respect these people, and the acting is up to the script.
It's also worth mentioning that Drew Barrymore and Patrick Swayze are in this movie, and that their roles are amazing, and not what you'd expect.
If I could compare the movie to anything, it would be a Japanese series called Serial Experiments: Lain, in which the lead character finds that she can control reality but that she can't manage the effects, so realizing this, she effectively edits herself out of the continuum. In the end, Donnie makes much the same choice. He could have lived to see the world end, but at the price of watching others suffer, and instead we see him lay down to sleep for the last time, laughing because he finally knows happiness.
The incidental music is excellent, composed of simple, haunting motifs interspersed with several extremely well-chosen '80s songs. No, this isn't an '80s movie, but it does take place in 1988 ("Vote Dukakis!"), giving it a nice nostalgic feel. As with the rest of the movie, specific songs are chosen that fit perfectly with the plot.
For example, during the opening credits, Echo and the Bunnymen's "Killing Moon," with its theme of free-will/fate conflict plays, while "Under the Milky Way," which is about psychological disarray and therapy plays during a party scene. As Donnie and Gretchen come to the turning point in their relationship, we know that only six hours remain for them, and their coming together, which is already tinged with tragedy, becomes even more poignant over the tune of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," a beautiful and inescapably tragic song of isolation in the midst of love sung by the doomed Ian Curtis. The final montage of the movie plays out over a wonderful reworking of Tears for Fears' "Mad World."
It's sad that this film barely saw any time in theaters. It was realeased shortly after 9/11, and like Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, it never got a chance in the mainstream, but it developed a fanatic cult following, of which I count myself as a member. By all means, rent it, but give yourself the time to watch it a few times through.
(Rumor has it that, in response to the film's success on DVD, there will be a theatrical re-release later this year, and that it will include material the directory originally had to cut out to manage the running-time. In the meantime, there are countless sites out there that debate the possible meanings of the film, as well as the enigmatic official site.)
Walther P22 update
I tightened down the barrel and safety-catch as described yesterday, and I applied a bit of polish to the feed ramp. I took it to the range and put 120 rounds (Mini-Mags and Stingers) through it without a single jam or FTF.
With one magazine, the slide failed to lock back after the last round in two instances, but I think I may have been limp-wristing my grip. After all, when there's no recoil to speak of, it's easy to get lazy. Proper grip is very important in a low-recoil pistol like this, and when I was paying attention to it, the failures seemed to stop. Shot group at 30 feet was less than 4 inches, which isn't great, but isn't bad considering my sinuses are backed up and my balance is off this week.
A few of us were talking about home alarm-systems today, so I figured I'd take the time to show off mine.
Mother Nature's Finest
Your tax dollars at work
Well, I got a nice big tax refund this year. For those of you in Europe and Canada, what that means is, even with the lowest tax-burden in the free world, the government says that I paid too much in income tax last year, and they cut me a check for the difference.
So, like any other good American, I went gun shopping. God bless this land.
I was in the market for a .22 pistol for plinking and target-shooting, and though I heard good things about the Rugers, I had horrendous problems with a P90 a few years back, and that still shades my opinion. The new Berettas are just about the ugliest thing I've ever seen (it looks like something Disgruntled Postal-worker Barbie would carry), and I just don't trust a pistol where I can't see the hammer.
Barely distinguishable from the other tiny black Walthers was the P22. Basically, it's got roughly the same ergonomics as the P99, but it's about 25% smaller, mostly owing to the smaller barrel. This is good, because unlike the Buckmark and Ruger models, which are oddly weighted and require a different grip, I can switch between the Walther and my regular carry gun with alot less adjustment.
The P22 DA/SA hybrid with an external safety, something like the H&Ks, with a carbon-steel slide and polymer receiver. One of the possible uses for the P22 is for training, so it's got several different safety mechanisms: a standard external safety-catch which blocks the firing pin, a drop-safety which keeps the firing pin from being engaged until the trigger's pulled, an external key-safety, and a magazine safety which disconnects the trigger if there's no magazine inserted. I'll never use the key-lock, and given that I'm accustomed to Sigs, it's unlikely that I'll use the safety-catch. The magazine safety is a bit annoying, though. Even if there's a round in the chamber, it can't be fired until a magazine's inserted. I can see where this might be useful, but it makes decocking the pistol impossible when it's empty, and you might forget you've got a round in the chamber, something that could be disastrous for folks trained on the Glock school of unnecessary dry-firing. With the safety off, a round in the chamber and the hammer down, I can handle it the same as a Sig and not have to worry.
This is certainly a small gun, and folks with large hands may find it too small. Walther has included a small toolkit which includes a wider backstrap, as well as three front sights of varying height. I'm a bit on the small side, so the default grip fits my hand fine, and the finger-grooves are perfectly placed. It's also quite flat--no wider than some of my 9mm magazines. Sights needed a slight nudge to the right, but are otherwise solid and easily visible. The barrel itself is affixed to the frame with an outer sleeve.
Stripping and cleaning are just like on a Sig or Glock, the only difference being the reassembly, which requires the plastic dowel included in the toolkit to keep the recoil spring aligned while the slide is reattached. The .22 round leaves alot of deposits behind, so regular cleaning is a real must.
The only thing that's really disconcerting is the magazine release. It's on the rear-bottom of the trigger guard, like some of the USPs. The first couple of times, my fingers kept pushing the slide-catch, which just so happens to be in the spot the mag release should be. Not to mention, I really don't like the idea of sticking my thumb into the trigger-guard. After years of training, it feels wrong. Only the finger pulling the trigger should be there. With a bit of practice, I've gotten somewhat used to it, but it's certainly an odd design choice.
There have been some complaints about feeding problems, and I've had them too. The first has to do with the ammo used. The typical .22lr round doesn't generate enough recoil to cycle the slide reliably, so I had to go with something hotter. I've found that anything over about 27gr works well. I had a ton of problems with 27gr Federal bulk-ammo, but with CCI Mini-Mags, Stingers and Blazers, only a couple per hundred, which is actually far better than average for a pistol with this mechanism.
The second problem I had appeared at first to be light strikes, but it turns out that the safety catch was loose and kept falling to the "safe" position in the middle of the magazine. Since the safety-catch only blocks the hammer from the firing pin and doesn't disengage anything, the gun appears to be dry-firing. Tightening down the screws on the safety appears to have fixed this.
The third problem also has to do with the assembly process. The barrel-nut that covers the threads on the muzzle comes from the factory very loose. As a result, the barrel tends to "travel" forward and back a fraction of an inch. If it's loose, it'll travel backward with the recoil, taking the breech with it, and the next round can't ramp up properly. Walther included a small wrench to tighten it down, and I haven't had any problems since.
(Incidentally, it's because of that barrel nut that you won't be able to get one of these if you live in the People's Republic of California. The nut's there to protect the threaded end of the barrel. Why's it threaded? Because it's possible to get a supressor (if you don't mind paying the $200 NFA fees), and the barrel's pre-threaded to accept it. Apparently, in California, that qualifies this as an assault weapon, so it's verboten there.)
So, with a bit of tweaking, I've got a nice little plinker that only put me out $240. It's wonderfully accurate (by the second magazine, I could easily manage 2.5" shot groups at 20 feet), and it's certainly a heck of alot cheaper than any other caliber to shoot--I spend roughly half what I do on 9mm Winchester hardnose. It's smaller even than those horrendous Jennings .22s, but far more reliable, and in a pinch, it could be concealed and used as a backup. There's alot of discussion available on the Rimfire forums, and there's a great page devoted to miscellanious bug-fixes here. Soda cans of the world, beware.
The Walther P22
Dropline
New WindowMaker theme to match the default Dropline Gnome theme. You can get the package here.
This is why I should watch more TV
There's a new gun-control lobby in town called Georgians for Gun Safety, which ironically, gets its money from the Boston University's School of Public Health.
They've been running a series of advertisements on local television calling viewers' attention to the impending repeal of the Assault-Weapons Ban. The ads are narrated by a Hispanic baseball player and reference the DC sniper shootings, which is odd because the rifle used by Mohammed and Malvo was a Bushmaster semi-automatic, not a weapon even covered by the Brady Bill's nebulous and vague definition of "assault weapon." The ads rely on a hodgepodge of half-truths and emotional exaggerations to make their point.
What these folks hope to achieve is vague at best, but given that the fastest-growing segment of our population is Mexican, I can see where having a Hispanic narrator would be a shrewd (if not despicably manipualtive) touch.
I checked out their page, and as usual, we're fed a bunch of vague and unsupportable "factoids" to stir up the emotions. I've pulled a few off their site's main page for rebuttal. Here goes:
Georgia gun safety laws are among the most lax in the country making it easy for straw buyers to resell weapons.
"Gun safety" laws? I'm not sure what they mean, or how they make it easier for 2nd-party sales. Incidentally, how does one make it HARDER for straw buyers to resell weapons? I'D really like to know, and so would alot of responsible retailers. It just can't be done, short of strengthening and enforcing the existing laws more dilligently. Both gun-shops I frequent have big posters advertising the fact that in Georgia, if you play the straw-man, you get a non-negotiable 10 years in prison, and here that means 12 hour work-days in the swamps of South Georgia, not fancy jail.
Georgia law enforcement seems unaware of the state's central role in gun trafficking and has no strategy in place to stop the flow of guns to criminals.
Incorrect. I know for a fact that the GBI and ATF are routinely involved in huge stings in Northwest Georgia. As far as this "epidemic" of trafficking, I've never heard about it. Most of the guns used in crimes are passed-around weapons that were stolen from private citizens locally or (in one memorable case) stolen from a private gun-buyback program's coffers. God bless Hosea Williams.
Georgia is strategically located on several major interstate highways making it convenient for traffickers to transport guns to other states.
Okay, let's tear up the highway-system and go back to horse-and-buggy! Find me one state that DOESN'T have such a system. Don't California and New York have them fancy interstates, too? As a matter of fact, I've heard that a couple of those highways even lead into CANADA. God save our half-French brothers and sisters in the North. I love the way they take an unconnected fact and attach an a priori conclusion to make a Rube Goldberg rheotorical device out of thin air.
Federal law enforcement rarely cracks down on corrupt gun stores so dirt gun dealers operate without fear of being caught.
So, now it's a FEDERAL problem? I though we were talking about Georgia problems. As far as it goes in Georgia, they're extremely hard on gun dealers who screw up, and undercover sting operations are very common.
Certain gun stores sell very inexpensive guns that appeal to criminals and are not sold in most legitimate gun stores
Again, how is this different from any other state? IIRC, most "junk guns" are manufactured in the People's Utopia of California, not Georgia. The last time I checked, the Lorcin factory, from which 6000 unserialized handguns were stolen and leaked out to criminals nationwide, is based in Costa Mesa, and not Atlanta. Perhaps these folks should be expending their energy there.
(For that matter, exactly what IS meant by "inexpensive?" Are we talking about a J-22 or the used Rossi .38 that's all a single mother of three in Techwood can afford to fend off the meth-dealers down the street? Perhaps the noble intentions of the liberal gun-control lobby only apply to nice neighborhoods and high-income families.)
The interesting thing about Georgia (and Atlanta in particular) is that the people are, of a majority, staunch conservatives. You wouldn't know it from the venomously liberal media and slanted reporting we get on television, but listen to the radio sometime if you're here. If someone so much as raises the idea of gun control, they're besieged by an army of angry (and about half the time, well-spoken) callers in rebuttal. Luckily, people here have a healthy distrust of the media, and this'll most likely be overlooked as an annoying footnote.
Like most law-abiding gun owners, I'd like to see every last Lorcin and Mac-10 off the street, but restricting the rights of ordinary citizens won't do that. New gun laws only affect the folks who are willing to follow the law, which is something criminals do not do. The only long-term solution to criminal gun violence is to firmly enforce the laws we currently have (which are more than adequate), and for the judiciary to hand out maximum, non-negotiable penalties for gun-related crime.
Still, what bothers me is that an organization with a money-trail back to Massachusetts is attempting to tinker in our state affairs. Even more troubling is the fact that, as a not-for-profit 501c4 organization, they're not supposed to be getting involved in political affairs (I could be wrong here, feel free to correct me).
The whole shebang is run by Alice Johnson, who can be reached at
Georgians for Gun Safety
c/o Atlanta/Fulton Commission on Children and Youth
100 Edgewood Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30303
Phone: 404-527-7426
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