Movies with Numbers in the Title

Someone at work was telling me she and her boyfriend were waiting for a table at a restaurant and started compiling a list of movies with numbers in the title. Dave and I tried last night and got a pretty good list going.

Ordinals (first, second, last) do not count. Sequels do not count.

How many can you think of?

NeoPets

I play this time-waster site called NeoPets. Its a virtual pet, but it never dies so upkeep is low. There's loads of games to play in all types of categories. Its free and addictive. If you're interested, check it out by clicking on my brown Ixi below.

Best Movies to Impact Our Generation

I'm a Gen Xer. My friend Greybarr and I were talking about the must see movies of our generation and I was looking for a place to compile a list for a few days before I remembered I had a blog. Duh. Alrighty then.

Must see movies are not necessarily the best movies. Some things that make a movie must-see are the content and some things are the parody and quotes from it. For instance, some old must-see movies include: Soylent Green, Psycho, West Side Story, and Citizen Kane.

The parameters are still under construction, but here is part of the list:

Idiocracy - 2007
Holy Grail - 1975
Usual Suspects - 1995
Pulp Fiction - 1994
Reservoir Dogs - 1992
Pump Up the Volume - 1990 (hawkke)
Princess Bride - 1987 (hawkke)
Heathers - 1989
Clerks - 1994 Proof that we cannot eliminate black and white films from the list
Dogma - 1999
Chasing Amy - 1997
Matrix - 1999
Interview with a Vampire - 1994
Silence of the Lambs - 1994
Lost Boys - 1987
Face Off - 1997 (dave)
True Romance - 1993 (dave)
Breakfast Club - 1985
Memento - 2000 (hawkke)
Good Will Hunting - 1997 (hawkke)
Eternal Sunshine on a Spotless Mind - 2004 (hawkke)
Goodfellas - 1990
With Honors - 1994 (hawkke)
Empire Strikes Back - 1980 (hawkke)
Aliens - 1986 (hawkke)
Terminator 2 - 1991(hawkke) - wait, T2 but not T1 - 1984? That's not right.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - 1989 hawkke
Wayne's World - 1992
Austin Powers - 1997
28 Days Later - 2002
Shaun of the Dead - 2004
Kung Fu Hustle - 2004
Indiana Jones & the Raiders of the Lost Ark - 1981(dave)
Remo Williams - 1988
Fargo - 1996
Goonies - 1985
Jerry Maguire - 1996
Pay it Forward - 2000
Kill Bill - 2003
Being John Malkovich - 1999
Lord of the Rings - 2001
Die Hard - 1988(dave)
Office Space - 1999
The World According to Garp - 1982
Dead Poet's Society - 1989
Forrest Gump - 1994
Dazed and Confused - 1993

Fun little blog activity 2

I liked the last one so much (see entry in April) that I thought I'd try it again, this time on Photobucket.

I swore I wouldn't blog about other people's blogs. And this isn't. Kinda. Kinda isn't. So therefore it kinda is. Sigh. I give up. /becomes slave to internet culture. Found this little activity HERE.

Recap:
Go to a photo hosting site
Type in your answers to the questions and post the first image you get as your solution. Here's mine:

What is your first name?
(Autumn - I'm guessing that's the little girl's name also)

What is your favorite food?
(Lumpia)

What school did you go to?
(Long Beach Poly - my high school - go Jackrabbits!)

What is your favorite color?
(deep blue)

Who is your celebrity crush?
(Brad Pitt - yum)

Who is your favorite Disney princess?
(Alice in Wonderland - she counts!)

Favorite drink?
(margarita)

Dream vacation?
(Japan cherry blossom festival)

Favorite dessert?
(chocolate mousse - um...)

What do you want to be when you grow up?
(psychologist - could they find a smaller picture?)

What do you love most in life?
(sleeping in, although perhaps there are loads of things I like better, but in keeping consistent with my last answer, to see how Photobucket differs from Flickr, that was my answer)

One word to describe you?
(intelligent - I don't know that guy, but perhaps he's an astrophysicist)

What do you dream about?
(traveling - WTF?)

I'm going to go ahead and judge Flickr the winner over PhotoBucket in this challenge.

Molting? - Crab Experiences

I redid Shell Beach for the hermit crabs (Not Sure, Rita, Frito, and Upgrayedd). I think I'm better utilizing the space. They sure like to climb! Upgrayedd, being the largest and most active, is often around the edges of the top. Crazy escape artist.

Here's some pictures of the newly redone tank. Upon the advice of some people at the Forum, I readded the wet sand I'd removed - thinking it would mold - and being told that they need the wetter sand to dig down into, that the soft sand isn't good enough to dig into as it collapses in on them. /facepalm. Of course. Okay, so now the sand is much thicker too as I had taken several cups out before to dry and added it back in. Now I won't worry about the sand getting wet. I was always overfilling the bubbler, especially. For now, I have removed the bubbler as last night at 3am it vibrated itself off the stand and behind the stand making a horrible racket. In the pitch dark, I unplugged it and moved the stands, banging my back on the tv stand. Fun at 3am! Ah well. I'll put the bubbler in the freshwater bowl on the left if its not too noisy and after I think of a way to keep the bubbler pump from moving around. I'm thinking of using Velcro circles.
Above, fresh water with a sea sponge and shells in it. Most of these shells are too large, I think. The shells on the sand here are very small. The container is a GladWare sandwich container.
This container is the same type but has salt water and shells that I think are a better fit. No one has changed shells yet, but its only been a day. I'll be so excited to see them in pretty shells, but they seems to enjoy their mud-fashion they're all sporting. I had to overlap the hidey log (they don't use it anyhow) with the container as the smaller ones seemed to have a hard time getting out of the container on their own.

Do you think they'll be able to use the two sources of water appropriately even with shells in them? And will they shell change in the water?
See two of them in the back corner of the basket?But I'm wondering if Upgrayedd is molting? I came home today and did a head count. Two in the back corner of the basket. And...two missing? I found Upgrayedd in the back corner by turning the tank around as you see here.
(Picture immediately above is sideways, turn your head left.) You can see there he's active, red legs out and all. And there's loads of sand, even the dry line is visible. I tried to mix the moist and dry and the front is all mixed, but I didn't even think about the back under the basket. There is quite a bit of sand there for him. I'm just concerned to keep him healthy.

I cannot find the other one. What should I do?

Help. I'm worried for my crabs and don't know the proper care of them during a molting - if that's what this is. Do they just like to burrow sometimes?

Shell Beach

Welcome to Shell Beach. Do you get the bonus points for recognizing the movie reference? Dark City. There is no Shell Beach. But at my house there is! I set up the crabitat today and got Not Sure some friends. I felt that having more than one in my tiny tank previously was wrong and once I got the bigger tank set up, its good for more crabs.

Here's the full view of the crabitat.
Left: notice the big shell that's also a water dish with sea sponge. Behind it are the clay-colored salt-water bath and the green food dish with powdered hermit crab chow from the pet store. The little shell to the right is for treats - today's treat is freeze dried bloodworms from the pet store for feeding to fish. Behind that is the "bubbler" everyone seems so fond of for keeping humidity high. Its just a fish tank air tube and pump through an air stone. I submerged mine in an empty and cleaned plastic fruit cup (it was pears, in case you wondered) and covered it with river rocks I already owned.
Middle is shells shells shells.
Right is the hiding hut, a few pieces of driftwood, and the low end of the sand dune. I also added a piece of cuttlebone to the right but after I'd taken the picture.
With all the awesome shells to choose from, why would anyone use crappy painted shells? Nature is beautiful and colorful!
In case you're wondering what Not Sure's friends' names are, I stayed on the Idiocracy movie theme. They are: Rita, Frito (the lawyer), and Upgrayedd (the pimp) - he's the largest of them, because of his giant pimp-hand (er, purple pincher).

Total cost of my crabitat and its inhabitants (for those thinking of getting hermit crabs as pets):
00.00 10 gallon aquarium from someone on FreeCycle
20.00 hermit crabs x4 from PetSmart (I feel I "rescued" them all)
04.00 playground sand from Home Depot (50 pounds in one bag. I have more than half left)
10.50 shells, large and small shell for water/food, sea sponge from an eBay seller
11.00 shells, 1 full pound of them, assorted from another eBay seller
13.00 thermometer and humidity gauge in a 2-pack
01.50 cuttlebone (sold for birds) to supply necessary calcium
03.00 driftwood pieces x2
03.00 hiding log
08.00 air pump, air tubing, air stone for "bubbler" to keep humidity high
06.50 powdered crab food from pet store as a daily food
04.00 salt water conditioner for cleaning shells and adding to water
00.00 two plastic water bottles, one for clean and one for salty water for daily refilling (reused my own)
00.00 river rocks to put over bubbler, already had
00.00 plastic fruit cup to make use of bubbler
07.00 plexiglass lid for tank from Home Depot
04.00 special knife to cut plexiglass to fit
--------
95.50

Now, could I have done it cheaper? YES! I could have found my own driftwood. I live on the beach. I probably could have got my own crabs too, but I'm okay with store bought. I probably could have gotten the salt water conditioner cheaper too. And next time, I will buy a larger size for a bigger savings, not the pet store's stuff.

But it gets worse. Husband, just skip this part...

Here's what the pet store sold me that I didn't need in their misguided efforts to make a sale and not know what a crab needs:
20.00 tiny plastic cage (as shown in my other post)
11.00 temperature and humidity gauge for another cage (I couldn't remove it)
09.00 calcisand - unnecessarily expensive! refer to my play sand above!
--------
40.00 of stuff I do not need. Grr.
But, I will be using this second tiny tank as my isolation tank for a sick, injured, or molting crab. So at least I'm making the best of things.

Realistically, do you need to spend $100 to keep hermit crabs? Absolutely not! However, you do need basics. And basics are not always cheap, but regular maintenance after that is very very low. So over the long run, the good initial investment is worth a bit as they are a super cheap pet after you set them up to start with - much like fish.

Here's what you need:

• Good sized tank. 10 gallon minimum. As big as you like, but remember they're not tall and don't fly, so long not tall.
• Some kind of hiding thing. A coco-hut or a log or a fishtank accessory (not painted) or any number of woven baskets or things you may already have. Remember they're scavengers.
• Something to climb. Again, like above, you may have stuff laying around that will suffice or branches in your yard.
• A thermometer and hygrometer (humidity monitor). Do fork over the money for this, but anywhere from $5 to $50 depending on how fancy you like it. I'm fine with dials but you may prefer digital.
• 4 dishes: clean water, salt water, food, treat. Use the caps from Gatorade bottles for the food and treat. Use baby food jar lids for the water, or peanut butter lids for the water, depending on the size of your crabs. Remember to change the water and refill the water and clean out the food dishes. You do NOT need to buy anything special.
• A cuttlebone. Again, less than $2 at the pet store in the bird section.
• Some crab chow. I like powder, you may like pellets. Some people make their own. I'm all about convenience. If I knew somewhere I could buy it cheap and pre-ground, I would.
• A sea sponge. Not a regular sponge from the kitchen. Put this in the plain water so your crabs can still climb in the water, but if they need to, they can grab on to climb out and won't drown. Also helps with humidity.
• The bubbler. Its optional, but its helpful. I also like the white noise they make.
• 2 or more crabs of a similar size (so they can share shells and so small doesn't drown in large's water dish). Don't crowd your tank, but you can see after you add 1-2 how many will fit comfortably.
• Some spare shells. Don't use the painted ones. Don't use the ones that look lacquered. Natural shells. Lots of places sell them. My pet store did NOT sell them. But look online and factor in shipping charges to see if its worth it. For me, with the flat shells or for a whole pound, it was worth it.
• Special note: before you put stuff in your tank to stay (climbing or hiding things, extra shells), make up some of your salt water and boil your things in it. This decreases molding with the high humidity. What I did is took a large glass measuring cup, added salt additive, laid shells opening up, boiled plain water, and added the water to whatever line for the additive I'd put in (1 tsp for 3 cups, so 3 cups of water) and swished around. Dry thoroughly, preferably in the sun.
• Keep in a low traffic area, they have a compound eye like a fly and can be jumpy. And out of direct sunlight, but not in a dark room (like my computer room, or a basement) as they need the light regulation to know when to be active.
• They're nocturnal so keeping them in the bedroom may not be the best bet.

I hope this helps someone. I'm happy to answer with my novice opinion if you have anything to ask. Or I can probably refer you to some good sites.

Happy crabbing!

Fun little blog activity

I swore I wouldn't blog about other people's blogs. And this isn't. Kinda. Kinda isn't. So therefore it kinda is. Sigh. I give up. /becomes slave to internet culture. Found this little activity HERE.

Recap:
Go to Flickr
Type in your answers to the questions and post the first image you get as your solution. Here's mine:

What is your first name?

(Autumn)
What is your favorite food?

(Lumpia - although pictured is shrimp lumpia, looks much different)
What school did you go to?

(Long Beach Poly - my high school)
What is your favorite color?

(deep blue)
Who is your celebrity crush?

(Brad Pitt)
Who is your favorite Disney princess?

(Alice in Wonderland - she counts!)
Favorite drink?

(margarita, that's from Margaritaville, a postcard)
Dream vacation?

(Japan cherry blossom festival)
Favorite dessert?

(chocolate mousse)
What do you want to be when you grow up?

(psychologist - although not necessarily that particular psychologist, lol)
What do you love most in life?

(sleeping in, although perhaps there are loads of things I like better, but on the spot, that was my answer)
One word to describe you?

(intelligent - crazy picture, huh? some server)
What do you dream about?

(traveling - which I possibly like better than sleeping in, but I have to go back to work soon and needed an answer quick)

Hermit Crab as Pet

A few weeks ago I got a hermit crab. This is a land hermit crab, not the kind that lives underwater. The advertising and the good-hearted but under-knowledgeable people who work at my local PetSmart assured me that the "kit" they sold was fine for the raising of a single hermit crab.

Here's the kit I got. It came with the plastic container you see, the two plastic bowls inside, and a sponge about half the size you'd use for washing your dishes and the same material. I immediately added the two pieces of driftwood for climbing and bought some "substrate" which is the sand stuff at the bottom. The kind I bought is light-reactive, so it "glows" in the dark - rather for the few minutes after you turn out the lights there's a faint glow. Ah well. It came with a metal grating to suction to the back for them to climb but it had sharp edges and I didn't think it a good idea. Plus, it took up too much room. It further came with 2 really cheesy feeling shells that you'd get at a dollar store, not on the beach. I tossed those. I added a hiding log. There were no instructions what to do with the dishes or sponge so I threw the sponge in with some water and put food in the other. Turns out that is wrong and I essentially kept him from having anything to drink for the two days before I learned what to do. How many people buy these and never do further research? Loads of dead crabs I'm sure.
I picked a small crab as the housing seemed awfully small to me. Here's a close up of Not Sure, my hermit crab. If you can help me identify the variety, thank you! The name is from Idiocracy, a must-see movie.
Wanting to be a good pet owner, I went online and looked up loads of info about hermit crabs and crabitats (as their housing is called) and found that the cage I had purchased was way inferior. First off its way too small. Crabs can cover a mile at night (they're nocturnal) and like a drag racing strip to cruise along. There's no room for that in this cage. The instructions online said to fill one bowl with fresh declorinated water (I keep gallons for refilling my fishtank) and one with salt water. I didn't have that, so I went back to the store for generic crab food powder and additive for the water to make it salty. They need to bathe in each to keep themselves regulated. So where's the food go? And what do they eat and what do I do with it? First thing I learned was the substrate needs to be a few inches deep to be able to bury themselves to molt (kind of like a snake shedding skin). Check. You also have to keep the temperature and humidity at certain levels. South Florida, check. I bought little gauges to keep track. They need shells to change into. If their feet stick out of their shell, its too small. Yikes, mine already stuck out! And no painted shells, they're toxic and the paint gets into their system and flakes off, awful. So I found some awesome natural beautiful shells at Salt Water Cove (who has an eBay store) and bought them, eagerly awaiting their arrival each day. They came with some free clam shells (for putting the food in), a natural sea sponge to wet and let evaporate for humidity, and a big clam shell one to make a bath out of. Alas, I don't have the room for it yet. I am actively looking for a 10-gallon tank that is in my price range and have an ad on FreeCycle.

Know what else I learned? Despite the name, hermit crabs don't like to be alone. They're social. Sigh, PetSmart employees. But since I feel I'm nearly abusing my crab with the small living space, I won't get another until I have a bigger area for them. Then I will get no more than 3 more, based on the size of habitat I plan to have and I would like them all to be about the same size - for shell sharing and so they don't drown in too-deep bath water.

Today I was reading about how other people have made crabitats fun and workable. It sounds like a little money here and there, but ultimately once its done its self-sufficient. Just change the water and offer bits of new foods every few days. Alrighty. I was also reading about how they change shells and got to thinking that my crab hadn't changed shells yet despite I'd offered him 3 that seemed to have the right sized opening. I looked through the shells I'd bought and picked one slightly smaller wondering if it should have been in the batch and added it. I had Not Sure out on my desk while my cat, Toffee, watched intently and I held him tightly. He purred at the stimulus walking around on the desk but, being a mild mannered predator, didn't make a serious move for the crab. I put the cat on the floor and returned Not Sure to his tiny abode. I set him on the pile of shells and he immediately - and I mean IMMEDIATELY - started checking out the shiny white shell I'd added. What? All this time, I had the wrong size? Doh! Bad pet owner! I had just read that crabs will turn the shell over and over to get the sand out. It didn't mention that they stuff half their body in to pull it out with their feet too. Fascinating. Here's the before picture of him discovering the new shell, all excited like a crab at Christmas.
And here's the video of him actually changing shells. I was spellbound! Not Sure is very jumpy and easily frightened so I had to be perfectly still. I apologize for the video quality, but you can see it okay. My digital camera only has video as a secondary function, its just a perk, but since it was on my desk, I took advantage to capture my first ever shell change.

[Uploading video to Blogger was taking forever so here's your link on YouTube, which, by the way, also took forever to upload]


Here's good old Not Sure after his shell change into the pretty white shell. See how funky his old brown one was? I was so excited. Was? What's that? Don't you mean you ARE excited? No...
..after uploading the pictures, and while blogging this just afterward, Not Sure was unusually active walking around his tiny crabitat and having a salt water bath. Then the sneaky little bugger had what the Crabbage Patch refers to as "buyers remorse" and ever so quickly popped back into his old shell. Dangit, Not Sure! Maybe something about it itched him. I don't know. I do know that he's interested in a shell change, so I'll measure the one he tried on and get some more in that size for him, see if he won't change again. Good thing I was able to witness and get evidence of his shell change. Now that he's back to the old one, you'd never have believed it. Sigh.

Screw Racism

Let's talk about me for a minute. I'm a white American born female. I'm English, Blackfoot Indian, German, Italian, and Irish. My family never owned slaves, we hadn't been in the country long enough and weren't from the south anyhow. I was raised as an American. That's it. Just a mutt from the pound like everyone else. I deserve and receive no special treatment for my ethnicity.

Who does deserve special treatment just for their ethnicity? I'm not factoring in special skills or special intelligence or anything else that gives and edge. Let's just talk about where your family's from. So who deserves special treatment? Someone whose ancestors were slaves? Certainly slavery was an atrocity. Someone whose grandparents were in internment camps? Certainly the holocaust was despicable. But did those things happen to my generation? They happened generations ago. Not one, but several. Two at the bare minimum. Perhaps as you read this you're a bit older than my 31 years, but still. Does one deserve to be rewarded for what their parents suffered? There is plenty of suffering out there.

There is a sense of pride in belonging to a group. If you are, let's say Italian, then you have a sense of solidarity with other Italians. You can say "my mother used to make a lasagna at Christmas time, too" or use common phrases from the nomenclature of the "old country". But there's a difference between pride and prejudice. And the line is finer than you might have inspected before. I ask you to examine this view now.

This was sparked by an ad I heard on television last night stating a show had been nominated for an Image Award by the NAACP. The NAACP as a whole irritates me. Not the work they do, but the very item they stand for. Why do we need to Nationally Advance Colored People? Can't we all advance ourselves without an organization behind us to back us? Do we need to give scholarships to the best and brightest of a certain race as opposed to the best and brightest of those running? Certainly, this organization had its time and place. But decades later, the very existence of this organization is propagating a negative idea.

Let me explain. In the 50s and before (and I'm aware that was not a long time ago), blacks were educated in separate schools from whites and treated as inferior to a sickening degree. I am no racist. I assure you that my hippie parents raised me as merely an American. My very own son thought he was black until he was 10 (there's a funny story behind it, but its not fitting here). During this time of segregation, the educational materials provided to black kids were substandard to that provided to white kids. The education of the teachers teaching the black kids was not the same as the education of the teachers teaching the white kids. All around, the white system was doing the job they set out to do of keeping the blacks undereducated. Then the 50s and 60s brought revolutionary change and integration took place. My parent, being only in their early 50s themselves, remember this change as children and its astounding that this was so recent. Now everyone had a fair shot at an education and more jobs were available to both races. (Note that I'm referring to black and whit people at this time specifically because its relevant to the social change and the NAACP whose article started all this.) I'm aware that not every white business owner was ready and willing to hire black workers, no matter how educated. My buddy Scotty, a southern black man a little older than my parents, remembers how hard it was to work in the south as a black youth and how much easier its gotten over the years. Sure, the struggle was upstream and slow. But now it is decades later. A black man is running for president, and has a decent shot at winning.

The NAACP, by stating subtly in its very existence "blacks still need us to fight for them" is saying that change hasn't taken place, or that not enough change has taken place. Is saying that black kids need scholarships to college, even if their grades aren't as good as the white kids. And why? Didn't they have the same education? Didn't they have the same chance for success?

If you read this and you're going to respond that poverty plays a role, of course it does. But are black people more impoverished than white people? Do black people have more kids in the welfare system than white people? I would doubt there is a significant difference. And yes, of course we should take socioeconomic differences into account, but not for things like scholarships. Shouldn't we as a nation be promoting the best and brightest no matter their race? Shouldn't we be sophisticated enough to stop calling each other by color and ethnicity and simply by name?

Have pride. Say "My family is such-and-such ethnicity." But be you, be individual and human. As long as organizations like the NAACP continue to point out the differences between us, we'll make slower progress to seeing the similarities among us. We all love our families. We all want the best life. We all desire happiness. It doesn't matter if your family is from Ethiopia or from Nepal or from Uzbekistan or from Minnesota. We're all the same. And the sooner we start working on that solidarity, the better.