cyberhobo

Author: cyberhobo

  • Movie: Wordplay (2006)

    A gloriously nerdy collection of oddballs, eccentrics, and a former US president pay tribute to Will Shortz’ puzzles and annual crossword puzzle tournament. I found myself itching to do some crosswords afterward, and when I finally got around to it I felt like I was better at it! Not good enough to inspire thoughts of…

  • Vedauwoo Moose & Sport Climbs

    Cousin Doug & Liz join us for our habitual Vedauwoo weekend, and are treated to our closest-yet encounter with a Vedauwoo Moose. We’re having a leisurely morning in camp when a crashing comes from the aspen above us. Liz and I both see the shape of a horse and rider in the trees, and don’t…

  • Movie: The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

    It was interesting to discover after watching this that it’s a remake of a 1968 film – just when the James Bond phenomenon was getting imitated. Having a Bond-like super-playboy face off against a female super-sleuth that is (almost) his match was probably very provocative. The modern version does a little satirizing of these stereotypes…

  • Surprise, a sport crag

    We head to Beehive Buttress, near Brown’s Landing, looking for an obscure bolted multipitch route and maybe some nice cracks. Once again there are too many trees to get the camper to the end of the road, but the hike is still nice, and mushrooms are popping up everywhere in the moist pine needle duff.…

  • Book: I am a Strange Loop / Douglas Hofstadter

    My dad, without knowing I had this book on my wish list, gave it to me as a birthday present this year. During the past year and a half I’ve undergone a mental revolution reading about the foundations of mathematics and how they relate to my own consciousness. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem has been a recurring…

  • Rain and Bliss

    The day begins and ends at the pace of bliss, nothing rushed, everything flowing. We live too few days at this pace, I think. Few enough to forget that such days rarely play out according to a conscious plan. We take a meandering hike with heavy packs to Lower Blair to do some climbs, but…

  • We Discover Our Own Blair Crag

    We’re hiking cross-country to lower Blair when Ann looks over a particularly large boulder and says, “Ooh, that’s a nice looking face.” I look it over and reply, “Look behind the tree – a big fat crack!” We hike over and decide to rig a toprope on it. The tree provides shade, and the crack…

  • I don’t know the size of my own backside

    We know that the Friday night before the Labor Day weekend is not the ideal time to go looking for a campsite in Vedauwoo, but we figure we know the options well enough by now to pull it off. That turns out to be true, but what I don’t have is a feel for just…

  • Movie: Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

    A plot-driven film about a character-driven novelist whose story comes to life. It’s amusing, but neither the plot or the characters were very compelling to me. There’s plenty of room for parody and playfulness that just floats by unused, and no background for the characters’ idiosyncrasies is hinted at. Referred by a review on NPR.

  • Movie: The Science of Sleep (2006)

    All the stories I like have some kind of subconscious element, and in cases like this I don’t mind at all when they are allowed to run free in the “real world” of the story. This movie is bursting at the seams with creative energy and wonderful metaphors. I laughed uncontrollably during parts at the…