July 2nd
Today is the anniversary of my favorite Don Bluth film, The Secret of NIMH. This is the story of Mrs Brisby, a widowed mouse who will do anything to save her children after one becomes seriously ill right before an annual migration off land that's going to be ripped up by farming equipment in the spring. This takes Mrs Brisby on a perilous journey into a world of magic and genetic experiments that were always closer to Brisby then she ever expected.
The thing is, while the film is tremendous, it's honestly not a very accurate adaptation of it's often forgotten source material. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is a 1971 children's novel that's a lot more hard science fiction. Inspired by actual experiments performed on rodents by the actual United States National Institute of Mental Health, this story lacks the magic and dastardly villains of the film. In its place is a more down to earth speculation of what would happen if humans could bestow their intelligence onto rodents, and how their early rodent societies would develop.
[ASSOCIATE NOTE: Mrs Frisby had her surname changed to Brisby over concerns that it would be running into Wham-o's Frisbee Flying disk trademark if they made any toys for the movie. They put out two plushies and a lunchbox.]
I give both the film and book strong recommendations if you want surprisingly violent sci-fi rodent time.
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July 3rd
Today is "Stay Out In The Sun day", so I'm going to go over basic overheating safety. Everyone knows I always wear too many layers for reasons you already know, so I have experience with heat exhaustion. I've never had a heat stroke, but I've gotten closer than I'd like.
Basically, if you get to a point in the summer heat where you feel yourself sweating too hard and you start getting dizzy and nauseated, stop what you are doing and get yourself to a cooler area and/or to water as soon as possible. Contact a doctor if you aren't feeling better or if the symptoms don't improve.
If you become very confused, stop sweating, start to lose consciousness, or experience convulsions, you are having a heatstroke and need to contact emergency services (911 in the US). The best thing you can do at the moment is remove as much clothing as possible and try to cool with water or ice if available. If heatstroke is not carefully handled it can be fatal. Stay safe this and every summer.
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July 4th
Today is Sidewalk Egg Frying Day. You know how this one goes, "it's so hot outside you can fry an egg sunny side up on the sidewalk". This one is a little complicated, but it's not impossible. Eggs cook at at least 150°F, and the hottest temperature recorded on earth has been 134°F at Death Valley. That being said, the sidewalks can build up heat, and if you live somewhere hot enough, say Arizona, you might hit that residual heat needed for egg frying. Mostly nowadays I've been seeing people cooking eggs and other food in their hot cars, where the heat is insulated.
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July 5th
Today is the anniversary of the last episode of Seinfeld. I never watched it but my dad told me the show ended with all the main characters crash a plane and go to prison. This is an accurate description. That's the article for today. I'm going back to bed.
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July 6th
Today is a grab bag day, and Cal has to tell everyone about a movie I showed them.
Hello world, it's Calexta
Today I need to tell everyone about a movie I just watched and why media preservation is so important.
Rock Odyssey is a 1987 Hannah Barbera Television film and quite frankly it's the best animation I've ever seen from the company, and I'm saying this as some who used to watch way too much Boomerang. Telling the story of one animated young woman as she goes from the 50s to the 80s looking for and losing love until she finds her final guy at the last minute in an unlikely place. This is all set to "decent but not the original" covers of music from each era. That being said, the only dialogue is narration from a Anthropomorphic Jukebox voiced by Scatman Crothers in his final acting credit.
I have a feeling the film was made in response to 1981's Heavy Metal; one reason is it being a rock and roll jukebox opera and it dealing with more adult topics like war, drugs,and grief. The other is that this was definitely made for a crowd that probably wouldn't have been watching it sober. The animation is beautiful, fluid, flashy and surreal. It's a real visual feat from a company best known for limited animation.
In the film's negatives, the film was apparently shelved for a long period during production, and it shows in the pacing. About halfway through the film loses a bit of steam and it only gets worse as it goes, to the point that the entire final segment is a mess. The worst part is just before the end when it's just a compilation of Hannah Barrera clips to music. The beautiful adventures afoot are derailed for a few minutes by archive clips of the Chattanooga Cats and Fred Flintstone. I will also warn, there's a little casual racism, but nothing worse than anything I've seen in the worst episodes of Scooby Doo.
All that being said, this is an imperfect yet still incredibly beautiful film and the fact it is so rare is a tragedy. Before appearing in full on Internet Archive, this film had only been shown in the United States once at a film festival and it was just a midnight rerun oddity for a number of international boomerang feeds. The film was only available in low quality or dubbed Spanish until 2023 where its full English cut was found. If it wasn't for the Lost Media Community I would have never seen this animated magnum opus. But because people keep up the good fight of media preservation, we still have this beautiful piece of animation history.
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July 7th
Today is International Chocolate Day. Chocolate comes from cacao, a kind of bean with a lot of fat that's processed into candy. The first people to process chocolate were the Olmecs in what is now Southern Mexico. At that point, chocolate was mostly processed as a rich and bitter drink. The later Mayan civilization spiced up this drink with honey and hot peppers. And then Spaniards showed up and took the chocolate back to Europe with everything else they were stealing from the even later Aztec civilization.
Now chocolate is consumed internationally, and there's a few different types of chocolate you can opt for. Most people's basic idea of chocolate is milk chocolate, chocolate that has milk in the recipe, while dark chocolate doesn't, instead putting in more of the processed bean. White chocolate is chocolate made from just the chocolate bean fat and none of the actual cacao. Ruby chocolate is a dark pink chocolate from a specific type of cacao that's a bit more red in color. It shouldn't be confused with strawberry chocolate, which is white chocolate with additional flavoring.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Before I got my hands on this entry, Tom got cacao mixed up with coca, a plant better known for being used in narcotics. Chocolate isn’t that addictive!]
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July 8th
Today is National Freezer Pop Day, and I feel like the most noticeable thing with these guys is that nobody knows what to call them. Personally I like calling them otter pops. I know it's technically a specific type, but I believe in generic-ification of brand names, and they are long like little Mustelids, awww. I'd recommend that if you have some in your fridge you should enjoy one today.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: For true neutrality, call ‘em freezy fruity tubes. Then everyone will be on the same page, and nobody will like it.]