More than meets the eye

So I have waited and waited and waited for all of my male friends to go and see Transformers, so as to when I write my review I would not spoil it for them. Alas one of them has still not seen it, but oh well. If you don't want the movie to be spoiled Matt don't read any further.
So I loved this movie. It had some good character development, decent action, amazing animation, and surprisingly, humor.

One of the funniest scenes was the one where the teenage boy is trying to put the moves on the girl of his dreams. As is always the case she is not interested but little does she know that this boy has a secret weapon; his car. Actually the boy does not even know that his car is going to help him out which is even funnier. There are some hilarious scenes that take place due to this car from the car just completely stalling out on a remote, romantic cliff with a great view. Or the car picking certain songs like "Baby come back" when the boy, inevitably, over pursues the girl.
And Like I said, the action was good, but what really stole the show was the fast seamless transformation between car/plane, to robot and back again. Sometimes that would happen multiple times in a fight and yet it did not seem fake or too slow so as to distract from the action.

However with any good movie there are some downsides and there were three major disappointments with this movie. First, while the writer developed Optimus Prime, Megatron, BumbleBee, and some of the important humans, he did not develop the rest of the transformers. At the very least he should have developed Jazz and Starscream as they are two very important characters in Transformers mythology. He also mis-wrote one of the Deceptacons into the wrong form. Frenzy is not a boom box, he was a tape played by another major Deceptacon, Soundwave, who is the actual boom box.
Second, I REALLY disliked the destructibility of the transformers. They died too easily to human weapons and while I know there needs to be some human victory is all this, Transformers should not fall to anything less than a full compliment of missiles from a jet; not some RPG's.
Third, they killed every Deceptacon. Yes, Eugene, I know you say starscream is still alive but I did not see him fly away when he was hit by all those missiles. You cannot continue the Transformers universe when you kill off all the bad guys. After all it is a fight between good and evil. And yes I know there are some other bad guys out there but Megatron was the leader and Starscream his second in command. Who else can they bring in who would be a decent bad guy? And yes I realize they might not make a sequel but still, you do not kill off all the bad guys.

Anyway I did love the movie and I cannot wait for it to come out on DVD. I give it 4/5 stars.

Chappie #4: My residency

So, yes, for all those who did not know I received my residency invite a week ago and I accepted that day. I am very excited not just because I am going be a chaplain for this next year at a great institution, but also because I will be paid. Now you all might be thinking I am in it for the $ but the truth is not being paid but working 40-55 hours a week is really hard. Plus I have bills to pay, things I would like to do, and I would like to be putting $ in my savings account instead of withdrawing from it.
Anyway we get to pick a concentration within our residency and I am hoping to pick Pain and Palliative; which deals with end of life. It will be hard but as I want to go into hospice it is the best prep I can get for that job. And I say hope because I wont know if I will get it until I meet with the 5 other residents and we hash out which concentrations we want.
Well all thanks for your prayers and encouragement, I am FINALLY done with retail and I am very much looking forward to my future as a chaplain.
Blessings
Jon

One man's trash, another man's umm stinky treasure?

All I can say is there is no way I would keep on digging. Once I found some of this stuff, I would then stop or give the rest to someone lower on the totem pole. That is why I would not make a good treasure hunter or archaeologist, I want the treasure and the hard work, but man the smells would kill me.

VENTURA, Calif. - The spot where a pair of outhouses stood 130 years ago is proving to be a treasure trove for archaeologists who braved the lingering smell in the dirt to uncover some 19th Century artifacts — and a mystery.
The one-time site of privies for men and women has been built upon repeatedly. Recently, crews demolished a former school bus barn on the 3.5-acre downtown site in order to build a condominium complex and a parking garage.
But first, archaeologists were called in. Beginning in late May, they started digging into the ground in a discovery process that could last several more weeks.
They uncovered a pistol, a knife, whisky flasks, a set of false teeth, two dog skulls and a blade from a set of sheep shears.
"It might be an early crime scene," project archaeologist John Foster said. "It looks like the two dogs were decapitated. Then whoever did it dumped the skulls and the blade, thinking the women probably wouldn't be looking too hard into the bottom of the privy."
The work has its drawbacks.
"The further you go down, the stronger the smell," archaeologist Marisa Solorzano said. "But it's not that bad. These privies are archaeological gold mines."
The site was known to be used historically by American Indians, Spanish missionaries, Mexican soldiers and American settlers. Once, there were brothels nearby. The area, the size of two football fields, housed Ventura's first courthouse, jail and hospital during the late 1800s.
Artifacts found at the site along with photographs and other documentation, eventually will go to the Museum of Ventura County.