Meanderings: July 11, 1999

Sunday,
July 11, 1999

Hoo, boy.

We're renting a house that has a humongous yard. And I'm not talking about just a large patch of flat grass -- I'm talking about a plot with big-ass old boulders in the middle of it, trees all over the place, a hill sloping towards a stand of yet more trees, and God knows what kind of plants growing hither and yon. To make it more interesting, nobody's really taken care of this place (inside or out) for quite a few years, apart from mowing the lawn in a somewhat haphazard manner. Now, I can't blame the previous tenants for the lawnwork -- this place's lawnmower has no grasscatcher, and if you combine that with a quarter-acre of grass to cut, it makes for a hell of a lot of raking afterwards.

But the yardwork still needs to be done, work overload or not. And Muggins here is probably the first person to go outside armed with a machete, scissors and hacksaw in many a year. At the moment, I'm hacking down a humongously overgrown grape vine that's overgrown half of the back and ripping out tons of weeds as I go. I was going to cut the grass, but fome some reason our gas-powered mower has decided that it doesn't want to play today. Which is not good, as the grass has grown to Alpine valley height. Maybe I should just sharpen up the scythe and reap it.

Lyndon was finally starting to feel better yesterday, so we went into town for a nice Indian meal and a lounge along the waterfront before going to see The Mummy. That's one thing I do love about living in Stockholm -- the waterfront is absolutely gorgeous, and in summer months it's dotted with all kinds of cafes, pubs and restaurants. We went to this place on Gamla Stan (the Old City) where you can get a drink, grab a deck chair, and just soak up the sun to your heart's content. Which we did for about three hours, as I could only get tickets for the 10:00 pm show (The Mummy just opened here, so the showings are completely booked hours in advance) and we had some time to kill. And yes, the sun was still shining by then -- it's one of the few compensations for living so close to the Arctic Circle.

Finally, 9:15 PM rolled around and we headed back to the theater. Now, I had been told by some friends who have superb taste that the movie was a fun rollercoaster ride, Brendan Fraser was gorgeous as usual, and don't expect a lot of coherence from the plot. All of which is true -- the movie is a lot of fun, the effects were stunning, the dialogue is extremely snappy, and I walked out shaking my head at the concept of "concentrated salt acid"*. Ooookay, whatever.

However, the same friends also said to watch out for the babelicious tattooed guy who was a descendent of the Pharoah's Guards (Oded Fehr). Which I did, and my reaction was -- ehh. Not a bad ehh, mind you -- I'm sure the young man is quite attractive when he washes off the facial decorations. But he just didn't push any of my buttons.

The Mummy, on the other hand -- oh, my stars and garters, uffda, and throw in a zowie while you're at it. Okay, so he wasn't much to look at when he was dessicated (then again, that aspect of the role was placed by a Silicon Graphics animation computer, and hardware never does much for me), but when he was in one piece -- think of an older, butcher version of Billy Zane, tanned, bald, and utterly buff, and you've got the right idea. And presence -- this guy could probably outbrood Christopher Lee on a bad day. The actor's name is Arnold Vosloo, and he's got quite an impressive acting rep both in his native South Africa and abroad. As he's now residing on the left coast, chances are that we'll be seeing more from him in the future.

Brendan, Arnold, John Hannah -- this movie ranks right up there with The Hunt for Red October for wall-to-wall gorgeous guys. But I still wanna know who came up with "salt acid."

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*When you mix an acid and a base together in the proper quantities, the chemical reaction produces water and a salt. Frex, if you mix sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and hydrochloric acid (HCl), you wind up with water (H20) and sodium chloride, or table salt (NaCl). Thus, there's no such thing as "salt acid" -- they're on opposite ends of a chemical reaction. Altho' the Bodacious Brit did say that if you crack salt water via electrolysis, you get sodium chloride solution and hydrogen chloride gas, which is the closest thing he can think of to salt acid. So it goes.

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