Blackmoor Vituperative

RiffTrax recently announced a soon-to-be-released riff of the Gumby movie. (Is it “a” Gumby movie? Did Gumby do more than one?) I asked if it was the actual movie, or if 10-20 minutes had been cut from it for the RiffTrax riff. No one seemed to know, but a number of “fans” complained that I would ask such a thing. “Good luck with that.” “Maybe RiffTrax isn’t for you.” “Maybe it’s time to move on.” etc.

I think these must be newer RiffTrax fans. That makes me happy (yay, new fans!), but also a little sad. Because you know, for about a decade, “is this the movie you say it is?” wasn’t even something you needed to ask. You could buy a riff knowing nothing else than it was from RiffTrax, and be happy you did. If they said they had riffed the movie, you could trust that it was true. “We don’t make movies: we make them funny.” Those were some good times.

Is it time to move on?

Someone in the above discussion said something like “they’ll survive without your ten dollars”, which got me thinking: how much have I been spending on this? I’ve been buying RiffTrax since the beginning (14 or 15 years, I think), but my current records only go back about six years. In the past six years, I have been supporting RiffTrax at the cost of $400 per year ($398.33, to be exact). I was happy to pay that, for all of those years… until this recent trend of selling incomplete riffs became the norm. And it is the norm, I am sad to admit: they have said point-blank that this is what they do now. It’s their livelihood, and they have to do what they think is best for the business. So I guess the question is if what they do now is still worth that much to me. And I think I have known this for a while, but I just didn’t want to admit it: it’s not.

Thank you, RiffTrax crew (and Film Crew, before that), for over a decade of good times. I wish you and your new fans nothing but the best.

P.S. They cut about 15 minutes from that Gumby movie.

Fun fact! Anyone can place a copyright claim on any YouTube video you post. You can, of course, dispute that claim. Who resolves that dispute? The person who made the claim. And when they decide against you, and for themselves, YouTube will then punish you for disputing the claim.

If that seems ridiculous to you, it’s because it is.

On this day in 1945 in Berlin, German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the second of two unconditional surrenders by Nazi Germany to the Allies, including the United States.

America at its best is Antifa.

I have been looking at other places in earnest since early 2016, but have fantasized about it since the early 2000s. Places that have come and gone on my list of potential destinations are Mexico, Ecuador, Panama, the US Virgin Islands, and the Czech Republic (which I suppose is called Czechia now). Nowadays my short list is Nova Scotia (Canada), Portugal, and most recently Estonia. We’ve never actually been to Portugal or Estonia — by the time we became aware of those, our near-future travel plans had already been made (we plan trips at least a year ahead), and then travel ceased to be possible due to the pandemic.

Between the pandemic and the fact that we are far too comfortable in our current jobs (neither of which we could keep if we expatriated), I suspect we may have waited too long to leave. Which is … not sad, exactly. We are well off, and the problems of the USA are at arm’s-length for us. So it seems ungrateful to complain. But I wish we could leave. I don’t want to be here.

Panama is attractive due to its ease of immigration and favourable tax laws, but it’s too hot, too wet, and just as expensive as the USA. We are excluding it from consideration.

Areas of interest

• Boquete, Chiriqui

Pros for Panama

• Easy immigration
  • https://internationalliving.com/countries/panama/visa/
• No taxation of income from outside Panama
  • https://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/country-hub/panama/taxes-in-panama/

Cons for Panama

• Cost of living is very close to that of USA
  • https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Panama/United-States/Cost-of-living
• Homes in Boquete are expensive
  • https://www.casasolution.com/category/rentals/
• Too hot, too much rain.
  • https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/20225~19385/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Charlottesville-and-Panam%C3%A1

More information

• You can’t really trust what International Living says. They don’t outright lie, but they exaggerate the good parts and gloss over the bad parts. Also, they are relentless spammers.
  • https://internationalliving.com/countries/panama/boquete/

Is good news even a thing anymore? Not “making the best of it” news. Not “people staving off doom for one more day” news. Not “here’s some trivia about some stranger’s personal life” news. Not “be thankful things aren’t even worse” news. Actual good news.

That would be nice.

We watched “Incredible Hulk” (2008) and “Avengers” (2012) last night, as part of our attempt to watch all of the recent(ish) Marvel movies in the chronological order of the events in the movies. The Hulk movie was slightly out of order, because it took me a while to track it down — it’s not on Disney+, for some reason.

I enjoyed both movies. Hulk is an incredibly straightforward plot: Army general psychopath finds Hulk, attacks, people get hurt. Army general psychopath finds Hulk again, attacks, people get hurt. Army general psychopath finds Hulk a third time, attacks, people get hurt. I think professional wrestling has more complicated plots than that.

Avengers went the complete opposite direction. I think they based the plot on a quote from the philosopher Didactylos: “Things just happen. What the hell.” It did have a couple of scenes I love, where Black Widow uses people’s vanity and arrogance against them (and let’s face it — people that vain and arrogant are men almost all of the time), and gets them to start monologuing. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

It also has one of my favourite scenes of ordinary people defying power. (You have seen it, even if you’ve never seen the movie — it’s a meme. “There are always men like you.”)

And it has perhaps the most painful description of humanity I’ve ever heard. “They are unruly, and therefore cannot be ruled.” Because “unruly” is a two-edged sword.

“Unruly” means standing up to fascists, sure. But it also means storming the capitol building because you believe the lies of fascists. It means refusing to wear a mask or get vaccinated because of ridiculous conspiracy theories. It means ignoring the effects that human activity has on the planet, while the world slowly burns.

I think we could afford to be a bit less unruly.

Oh, and “Captain Marvel” (2019) is better than I remember. I still think Brie Larson was hilariously mis-cast. Her acting style is incredibly subtle — and they cast her in a superhero movie. But it’s a pretty decent movie, and the supporting cast is great, even the kid. I think my expectations were just too high the first time I saw it.

We really enjoyed the “Falcon And The Winter Soldier” miniseries (or as we like to call it, “The Falcon And The Snowman”). I think this measures up to the best of the Marvel movies, and is far better than any of the previous Marvel TV shows and/or miniseries (although “Agent Carter” was pretty decent).

And now, apparently, we are watching all of the Marvel movies we have already seen (which is all of them), but in the chronological order of the events portrayed in them. Fortunately for us, someone has already figured out what that order is.

So first up is “Captain America”, and then “Captain Marvel”. Which reminds me of what a disappointment “Captain Marvel” was. It could have been another “Wonder Woman”, if they had cast someone better to carry the movie. Samara Weaving, for example. Such a missed opportunity. I mean, sure, it made over 6x its budget at the box office (over a billion dollars), but it could have been GREAT, as good as “Captain America”, with just one change.

Ah, well.

“Captain America”, on the other hand, is truly a great movie. Not just a great superhero movie — a great movie, of any kind. Perfectly cast. Perfectly executed.

After several years of consideration (seriously — I started looking into this a little over five years ago), I have decided to exclude Ecuador as a possible retirement destination. It has its appeals, and for the sake of the people who live there, I hope it always will, but for me, the disadvantages are more than I am willing to bear.

Areas of interest

• Cuenca, Olon, Manta
• What is life actually like?
  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2019/05/05/retired-expats-in-ecuador-what-lifes-really-like-for-them/?sh=42a36d74150f

Pros for Ecuador

• Low cost of living (minimum budget for 2 adults at something close to $2,400 – $2,600 per month)
  • https://www.netcredit.com/blog/cost-comfortable-retirement-around-world/
  • https://mls-ecuador.com/en/real-estate/beach-houses-for-sale
  • https://vivatropical.com/ecuador/manta-ecuador/
• • Warm weather (too warm?)
  • https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/20225~18307/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Charlottesville-and-Manta
  • https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/20225~19348/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Charlottesville-and-Cuenca
  • https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/20225~18290/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Charlottesville-and-Salinas
• • Beaches, mountains
• • No taxation of income from outside Ecuador
  • https://internationalliving.com/countries/ecuador/taxes/

Cons for Ecuador

• Spanish is the primary language
• Crime (mainly petty crime, like pickpockets) is a thing
  • https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Ecuador.html
• Taking anti-parasite medication every 6 months
  • https://storyteller.travel/antiparasite-amoeba-treatment/
  • https://melibeeglobal.com/blog/2015/07/real-talk-parasites-while-traveling-abroad/
• Lack of clean water
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Ecuador
  • https://storyteller.travel/how-to-drink-the-tap-water-in-cuenca-ecuador/

More information

• https://immiguides.com/immigration-guides/ecuador/
• https://www.ecuadorexplorer.com/html/about_ecuador/immigration-visas.html
• https://www.internations.org/go/moving-to-ecuador/
• https://www.internations.org/go/moving-to-ecuador/working

Here is a formula for rounding a number to a specified number of significant digits.

=if(A1=0,0,round(10^(floor(B1-LOG(abs(A1))))*A1)/(10^(FLOOR(B1-log(abs(A1))))))

In this formula, A1 is the cell with the number, and B1 is the cell with the number of significant digits.