“Dammit Antony! You had one job!”- Julius Caesar probably

Watching “Season 2” of a dramatized documentary series called Roman Empire. Last season focused on Emperor Commodus while the one Khajiit is watching now focuses on every Gaul’s most hated Roman, Julius Caesar. This one already knew the story very well but the show is fairly well produced. Really don’t like that they seem to whitewash Caesar’s character a bit, but, whatever.

10 Parks That Changed America: (a fairly short PBS report)


https://www.pbs.org/video/10-changed-americ...hanged-america/

Yeah, field archeologist was long one of my "dream jobs." Sadly, even in my prime I lacked academic aptitude to quality for study in such a career. Too, I image only the cream of the crop ever get to tackle such prestigious sites as Pompeii. I've never been more than a mediocrity at anything I tackle so surely would never be assigned there.

Heh, yeah. I occasionally needed to pause the video and a few times backtrack a bit to read some text narrative that disappeared too quickly. On the other hand, I don't want the screen cluttered with text any longer than absolutely necessary. Reminds me I need to finish up the series.

Ditto for everything you said here,

I would love to visit a place that fully recreated a place like Pompeii or Thera. Not the entire cities, since that would be crazy. But even just a few streets of with the buildings exactly how they were thousands of years ago would be awesome. To see what people lives were really like would be awesome.

A documentary on Luta Livre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj-ziJmBSYA


Looks like he just jumps on and clings like a monkey!

Wouldn't that be Awesome? I saw a Youtube vid of a guy that used a computer program to restore one of the larger Pompeii households and went through what a day would consist of in that house based on historical record of that family/house. It was fascinating, and really well done.

But even the ruins were spectacular; and were so far ahead of their time! They had working sewers, below those beautiful streets; working fountains; and even pumps inside homes to move water from the atrium to the different rooms; etc. Amazing how far advanced they were for their time!

Have you ever been to once of those towns that does a whole reenactment of a past time? (like the Renaissance-Faires, etc). Where I grew up they used to reenact the Civil War; I mean the whole town including children got involved! It was a blast!

We have a Ren Faire here every year. I used to go, until my knee started acting up, and I couldn't take all the walking anymore. It was a lot of fun. I eventually got myself an outfit as well. It felt like going back in time.

I did go to a civil war battle reenactment once, here at Fort Wayne. There were not very people involved. But it was neat. The mock battle itself was amazing. Even just 20 people firing black powder rifles at 20 other guys is a sight to see (and hear). The noise, the smoke. They had an artillery piece that they fired off a couple of times. They only used half the powder of a normal shot, and obviously no cannon ball. But it was literally deafening. I felt it go through my body like a wave washing over me.

I still have the pics. Here are some.

The Union Army

Union caisson

Boom!

Johnny Rebs

That’s a pretty sorry showing from the Confederates, but what can Khajiit expect in “Yankeeland”?

Nice shots! At the ones where I grew up, everyone dressed for the period; even the children attending were in the period costumes. The women attended the wounded on the battlefield; bandaging them up. The older teen girls took care of the young children = all dressed appropriately for the period, even the babies. They even carried the wounded off the battlefield on those hand cots. When the battle was over they held a Square dance; everyone stayed in costume for that (but the south didn't mind dancing with the north at the dance, lol). It was a blast!

I haven't been to a Ren Faire yet, but my youngest son went to one up in Nashville several years ago, and had a really good time = he came back doing a funny gesture to indicate anything and everything (that he saw some men in Jester costumes do), it was hilarious!

Welcome to the grappling game, then, mALX. As someone who has been on both sides of that position, lemme tell you; the Guillotine is someplace you don’t want to be. Having said that though, I’d prefer getting choked out or having armbar’d over anything involving the legs!

Unless of course I’m the one doing it to people.

Continuing my Pompeii theme, just finished watching a short video animating the city on the day eruption, showing various phases of its demise. Sadly, it's only 480p but looks fine in "normal" YouTube windowed mode.

Getting near the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think I'll re-watch House M.D. afterwards.

I've been watching a lot of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson episodes lately (mostly listening while I do work). Most if not all episodes can be found on YouTube.

I bought the Jack Ryan 5 movie collection on 4k today. So I will be watching Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, etc...

My wish is that it is ALWAYS you doing the damage and never you receiving it!









The Hunt For Red October is one of my absolute favorites!

On the other hand, pain can be a great teacher...

Screw that, if that was the case no one would ever have more than one child,

Lol, some people like pain

Late 90’s horror/comedy/teen movie classic Idle Hands.

I love that Offspring song in the background of the trailer!

The band actually makes an appearance in the flik too!

As what? (victims of the hand?)

They were playing the high school Halloween dance!

Some high schools have all the luck!

Yeah like having a Halloween dance. Our school didn’t and Khajiit would’ve been all over that!

Ditto.

I have been having a submarine fest. I have watched Phantom, The Hunt For Red October, and K-19. On tap I have Ice Station Zebra and Black Sea. I might even dust off my copy of the director's cut of Das Boot.

U-571 too maybe?

What about The Enemy Below?

Run Silent, Run Deep?

Oooh, good calls. I have U-571, so that goes on the list. I don't have the other two though I will have to check Netflix.

To really whet your appetite for undersea action, check this wiki page.

Now watching U-571.


Wow, I had forgotten The Hunley! I have that one. I will add it to my list. I have always been an Armand Assante fan.

Khajiit really likes the American Civil War era of naval warfare. So many interesting developments came about during this time. One of this one’s favorite subjects is the Battle of Hampton Roads.

Watched a feature-length video titled March of the Dinosaurs. Enjoyed it quite a lot. Very well done in all aspects in my opinion.

I finished up my submarine marathon last night with The Enemy Below. Netflix says I last rented it in 2010, so it has been a while. I am not much of a Robert Mitchum fan, but I didn't mind him this time out. Even though it is almost 60 years old, it is still a good movie. Good plot, good characters. A lot to like.

I watched Run Silent, Run Deep the day before that. Another oldie but goodie. Again, good characters, good story. Plus a nice twist near the end when the *spoilers*.

Before that was Das Boot. I own the director's cut. So it took a few days to get through all 3.5 hours of that. Another excellent film. While I was looking stuff up about it, I learned that Sky is doing a Das Boot tv series that should be airing in a few months. I'll have to remember to look for that when it comes over to this side of the pond.

Before the Boot was U-571. Another solid film. With Jon Bon Jovi no less!

Ice Station Zebra was before that. It was a still a fun movie. It has a very strong vibe of "look how cool it is to be on a submarine!" But it was a good Cold War spy movie.

One sad thing about all these sub movies is the 4K Curse. When they do exterior shots of the subs - especially when underwater - the filmmakers have to either use models or cgi. Which is fine on a standard def tv. But when you have a 4k, the models or cg really stands out starkly. For example, I have seen Das Boot half a dozen times now. But this was the first time I realized that they used models for the u-boat on the surface. With barbie dolls for the people in the conning tower no less!

I am out of submarine movies, so I turned back to the Jack Ryan movies I bought a few weeks back. I did Clear and Present Danger today. It was kind of meh. It doesn't have the clear and direct threat and goals that most spy movies have. It tends to feel murky, where Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games are pretty straight-forward stories.

So next up is The Sum of All Fears. Which sounds like a nightmare that an accountant might have.

Khajiit always liked Chavez in Clear and Present Danger. Patriot Games was good too. Richard Harris is a definite highlight in that film. Never saw the other Ryan movies. Say that reminds this one. There is a new series about Jack Ryan starring John Kazynski(sp?) of The Office fame coming on, Khajiit believes Amazon Prime Video.

I saw something about that Jack Ryan show on Amazon. I have Amazon Prime, so it might be free for me to watch.

But I'll never remember. I always forget I can watch movies on Amazon.

Oh wait, I still have The Hunley left!

Khajiit checks it fairly regularly as sometimes they have stuff you can’t find on Netflix

Just take all of my money! Seriously, I cannot wait for Batman: The Animated Series remastered on blu-ray.

I forgot to mention that during Clear and Present Danger I noticed someone. Agent Coulson! He is in about one minute of it, and has two lines. He was young enough to still have hair. I only recognized him by his voice.

Who is Agent Coulson?

MCU’s Adoring Fan.

Ouch!

Agent Coulson

I just finished watching Sum of all Fears. It was good. Better than Clear and Present Danger, that is for sure. Now I only have Shadow Recruit left in my Jack Ryan movies. I am not really looking forward to that one too much, because it stars Chris Pine. But I will still give it a try.

Plus of course The Hunley.

I also heard that Chris Pine pulled out of any more Star Trek movies. Which I consider excellent news. Chris Hemsworth also pulled out. Which is not so good news. But I wonder how he would be in another Trek film, seeing as he died in the first 5 minutes of the first Trek reboot. He would have been a much better Captain Kirk than Chris Pine. Maybe they will hire his brother Liam to be the next Captain Kirk?

Oh, so Marvel stuff. Didn’t see any of that so... yeah. Well, GotG vol. 1 & 2 Khajiit did see but this one doesn’t remember this guy being in those.

Jack Ryan on Prime TV. Pretty damn good.

My Jack Ryan fest turned into a Ben Affleck-thon. I know, what? But he has made some really good movies. I started with The Town, followed with The Accountant, then did Argo. All solid movies, with plots, acting, the works.

Now I am working on State of Play. Though in truth this one is turning out to be more of a Russell Crowe movie than an Affleck one.

Maybe I will pull out Smokin' Aces after this one, even though it only has a small Affeck part.