Yes, Kitsy is far too thin in his photo. He was quite sick for a while. He’s eating better and slowly starting to put on weight.

Tito still adores his soft blanket

Kitsy and Miss Jenny soaking up the sun

Why was he doing this?

Why?

Then I went and looked out the window. Next, I had a fit of the giggles so bad I had trouble holding the camera still enough to shoot the picture.

Tito was the victim of a cruel taunting by a rat with wings, er, I mean a pigeon.

Heron hunting fish in Mallard Lake in Golden Gate Park

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is home to more than just bison, raccoons, and coyotes. It’s home to at least one nesting pair of Great Blue Herons. They live here year round have a nest high in the top of a Monterrey Cypress. They hunt fish in the ponds and lakes in the park. I once saw a heron next to an intersection with a large gopher in its mouth. I couldn’t get a photo, darn it.

The nest is the clump of sticks under the heron chicks in the center. The parents on on the far right.

Closeup of mom and dad

I looked them up on the intertubes and discovered that San Francisco Nature Education has a heron watch every year. The herons lay their eggs between January and March and the chicks hatch in April. Volunteers meet at Stow Lake with spotting scopes and spend time educating the public about these beautiful birds. This year, the last one is May 19th. I didn’t find out about it soon enough to go this year. Nest year I’ll try to go.

Here is a great video by the California Academy of Sciences, which is located in Golden Gate Park.

Please forgive the abominable purple fringe in the photos. I adore my San Francisco fog, but it does make some photos difficult with a point and shoot. I’ll have a good DSLR eventually.

Just over a week ago, I was trawling (geddit?) through our Netflix queue looking for something to watch,  promptly found “Trollhunter” sitting two thirds of the way down, and jumped over to Nekoneko to re-read her review.

By the way, if you’re interested in watching “Trollhunter” I recommend you read her write up. Because you see, I did not finish it. And I wanted to review it. By Grabthar’s hammer, this was not to be…

Movie poster

Reading the synopsis for “Trollhunter“, I was at first like WTF but then, OMG I LOL’d. The pseudo documentary style made me wonder whether this’d be “Blair Witch” with trolls, but Norwegians proved with “Dead Snow” that they can be original and entertaining. In “Trollhunter“, then, we have footage taped by a group of University students following a bear poacher who turns out to be a TSS (Troll Security Service) operative hunting trolls instead.

Hans (Otto Jespersen) is tired of leading this secretive life and decides to let the kids tag along on his hunt, despite his government handler’s objections.

He “schools” them on the various types of trolls and their habits while the TSS covers up troll activity by blaming mutilated cattle on bear attacks, going as far as having a Polish crew deliver a dead bear in the forest (the wrong kind), and faking satellite pictures to show locals that downed trees were uprooted by tornadoes.

Part of the fun is listening to Hans’ plausible sounding explanations for troll behavior, knowing that the filmmakers must have spent more than a few evenings drinking while thinking them out. Those power lines in the distance? Electrified fencing to keep trolls from wandering too close to human populations.

Even the maintenance guys at the power company don’t know what they’re really meant for… And don’t ask why, but trolls can smell Christians. So you better not sweat for Jesus in troll-land…

One scene in particular, is comedic gold: Hans leading three sheep on a bridge to lure a troll and get a blood sample (!!!)

That scene borrows from the old “three billy goats gruff” story and adds a Monty Python twist to it, with Hans donning up an armored suit making him look like the Black Knight from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail“.

Trollhunter and the Holy Crap!!!!

At one point, Hans is blaring “oh what a friend we have in Jesus” through his Land Rover’s loud speaker to draw a 200 feet tall mountain troll away from the students, and that is where the DVD crapped out…

We knew there was a problem when the disc failed to play past the company credits (Magnolia and Magnet) and just stopped. It took some mighty dexterity to hit menu on the remote and access the disc’s menu screen. But then, the extras wouldn’t play either. Oh well, we thought: let’s try and watch as much of it as we can and played the film until maybe its last fifteen minutes, when it refused to play anymore.

Despite the DVD having no scratch or other damage, we found it frustrating, but not unheard of. We reported it as unplayable and got the replacement disc pronto.

And that’s when things really began going pear-shaped: the second disc had the same issues in the exact same places. This time, we called customer service and let them know that the issue seemed to be a manufacturing defect due to a bad master, possibly.

By the way, getting to a representative was quick and the guy was knowledgeable, which I am elated to point out in this day and age…

But wait. We actually went to the mall and purchased a “Trollhunter” DVD hoping the non-rental version would be free of defects. Wrong.

On the plus side, we were able to exchange the DVD later for “the girl with the dragon tattoo” and “the girl who played with fire“, thereby keeping our hard earned Kroners in that particular part of the world. I was at first really pissed off that Thor and Loki and whatever are racking up the box office bucks while we could not enjoy this little comedic Nordic gem, but then I realized that perhaps “Trollhunter” is no work of fiction after all and that aside from fjords, A-ha and vikings, trolls are a part of Norwegian heritage they’d just as soon convince the world doesn’t exist.

Why, didn’t they have a couple  of German tourists killed by a troll as Hans said..?

Here is a small excerpt in Flumpty’s words:

I keep a big cage in the dining room for when I have to keep a cat in it overnight if they’re getting neutered or spayed or their teeth cleaned, etc. in the morning. I leave the door open other times and the cats like to sleep in it. Here is a picture of a pile of kittehs.

Lots of kitties. Photo by flumptytail

I’m sorry we haven’t posted much lately. Lastech went through a schedule change. The schedule means I’ve  wandered around for a week not knowing what day it was. I confuse easily, what can I say. At least I remembered that it was Caturday. Here are our pointy eared people.

Tito is yelling at me for interrupting his nomming session

Kitsy aka Maz Whang watching the neighborhood. He's still too thin, but we're working on that.

Here is the lovely Miss Jenny perfecting her cute look. She has the other two wrapped around her little claw.

Perhaps the most difficult thing in adapting material like Hergé’s comic books has to do with tone and pitch. To say the themes and characters are dated or fixed in time might be unkind, but it’s safe to say Tintin is steeped in tradition. And in some instances, some would even say good riddance.

"The adventures of Tintin" movie poster - 2011

Tintin’s adventures spanned about 40 years from the 1930′s until the 1970′s, a period which started between world wars, through European decolonization, the nuclear age, race to space and the cold war, with a hero combining Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts’ ideals with the romantic depiction of the journalist as defender of the Fourth Estate.

Without speculating too much about the backdrop of the comic books and their serialized versions, it’s clear that the roots easily go as far back as the very early 20th century, which raises the question as to their attractiveness, if not their relevance in this day and age.

Some of the books have been controversial for some time because of the way they depicted Africans and Chinese  as simple-minded and expressing themselves in pidgin French. Their depiction was more than condescending even if most everyone did receive a caricatural treatment in the books, including Westerners with stereotypical behavior and names like Haddock (the quintessential drunken sailor), Sakharine et al. In this post-9/11 conscious world, I doubt the sequels will draw from “the adventures of Tintin: land of black gold“, in which Tintin travels to the middle-east to investigate the sabotage of oil supplies.

Hergé’s drawing technique in particular had much to do with his success. Dubbed “ligne claire” (or clear line), it was characterized by clarity and richness of detail which appears two dimensional to some but also a rich tapestry on which to project most readers’ imagination.

"Red Rackham's treasure" - 1944

Shadows and hatching were virtually absent from the page (shadows were simply colored darker and Captain Haddock’s hair and suit were the most singular use of black throughout).

As a kid, I spent a lot of hours practicing drawing like this, particularly planes and automobiles. It is this simple clarity that I was afraid would be lost in this adaptation, especially as the trailers seemed to have a “film noir” quality…

Marooned at sea

So how does Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s “the adventures of Tintin” fare in the age of 21st century cynicism, “Transformers“-style action films and political sensitivities? For someone who grew up reading the books like I did on the other side of the pond, and watched some of the film adaptations from the ’60s and ’70s, I braced myself for this one, afraid that “the adventures of Tintin” would receive the full-on Michael Bay pyrotechnic and hyper-kinetic treatment.

Jean-Pierre Talbot as Tintin in "Tintin et les oranges bleues" - 1964

In the end, “the adventures of Tintin” is for me the best adaptation of the books to date, fond memories of the past notwithstanding. I watched it three times as there’s much to appreciate here. The look of the film, rendition of the characters and decors is simply sumptuous, the color palette a perfect blend of clarity, brightness and deep shadows really work here.

Plane crash in the Sahara

Watching “the adventures of Tintin” was a bit like finding the tin box hidden in Amélie‘s bathroom wall, and memories slowly began flowing back. Here, we are introduced to some of the main supporting characters such as Interpol detectives Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) whose relationship with Tintin is already established, and Captain Archibald Haddock (Andy Serkis), whose drunken antics provide the right pitch of comic relief throughout, no small feat in the books and even more so here.

Tintin buys an old model ship at a flea market and is immediately offered large sums to part from it. Tintin turns them down and soon his apartment is broken into and the model stolen. But did the thieves really get what they were looking for? Now begins a treasure hunt spanning oceans and deserts, exotic locales and old Europe, with murder, kidnappings and narrow escapes, with the occasional self-referential wink and nod from Spielberg and Jackson.

One scene shows us Tintin swimming towards bad guys, with only his characteristic lick of hair breaking the water like the shark’s fin from “Jaws“. In another, Haddock warns Tintin about one of his crew, guilty of animal husbandry, a jab at Kiwis’ sheep-shagging ways.

Red Rackham vs Sir Francis Haddock

I took great pleasure watching details like wisping steam, the swirling sands of the Sahara and the dramatic contrast of fire and water as two 17^th century ships tangle in rough seas, firing cannonballs through rogue waves. Just as great and entertaining was the voice talent, particularly that of Andy Serkis as Haddock, breathing life and humor into his role and Daniel Craig as Sakharine, who performed previously in “Renaissance“, a French animated sci-fi noir.

This is I think our second animated recommendation for Midnight Movie Madness (the other one being “Kirikou and the sorceress“) and should be truly appreciated after dark, playing a drinking game along with Captain Haddock.

“The adventures of Tintin” gets five jellybeans, they knocked that one out of the park.

Tewksbury, Mass. (May 4, 2012) – WellPet LLC announced a voluntary recall of one recipe of Wellness® dry dog food after being notified by Diamond Pet Foods regarding the presence of Salmonella in Diamond’s Gaston, South Carolina facility.

You can read more about it here.

I will update as necessary. Keep your pets safe.

I might add, that while food appears to have been the problem with Kitsy being sick, it was not because of salmonella. The other two were eating the same food and they were fine. Now that he’s on a grain-free food, Kitsy is doing much better. He’s scrawny, but he’s eating well, so he should gain weight again.

Now it’s time for the pointy eared people to shine.

Tito and Miss Nightshade Jenny sleeping in a sunbeam

Miss Jenny snuggling with Kitsy. She adores the boys.

Did I mention that it was windy? I don’t like wind. I really don’t like wind. I grew up in the desert and we had ferocious winds storms. Ok. I’ll shut up about the wind already. Here are some of my photos from the hill.

The blue flowers are Pride of Madeira (echium candicans)

Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber) growing on the hillside

Nudist tree

Red Valerian and chert

Chert and poppies

Chert