Cocaine Bear (2023)

Rotten Tomatoes

Cocaine Bear (2023): Like Sharknado and Snakes on a Plane, the title says all you need to know. Each bear attack is gruesome, and humans are in the movie solely to be attacked. Movie makes light of it all. You might laugh, groan and cover your eyes. It's not bad enough to be good. C+

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023): $574 million box office. How bad can it be? Movie aims at kids, but even kids deserve more. Mario Bros. may be a fun video game, but as a movie, it's all empty calories. Depicting Bowser, the villain, with several styles of animation is the only interesting thing in this movie. D+

POTD: Bourtzi Castle in Nafplio

From 2022 11 03 Athens

"Narrow islet's grace,
Gambello's castle of stone,
Stories etched in time."

—h/t ChatGPT

This photo-of-the-day was taken at Nafplio, Greece. It shows Bourtzi Castle, built by the Venetians in 1471. "The design was made specifically to fit the narrow shape of the islet. At first it was used as a small castle where an executioner lived and killed prisoners. Now it's a famous tourist attraction."

A bonus photo of a closeup is after the jump.

POTD: Ancient Tomb

From 2022 11 03 Athens

"Bronze Age's echo,
Mycenae's enigmatic
Tomb of kings and myths."

—h/t ChatGPT

This photo-of-the-day was taken at Mycenae, Greece. It shows a large underground beehive-shaped tomb constructed between 1400 and 1200 BCE. It was the largest dome in the world for a thousand years. Today, no one knows who was buried here. Sometime in the last three hundred years, it became known as the Tomb of Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae who commanded the Greeks during the Trojan War. It's also known as the Treasury of Atreus, another ancient king of Mycenae known more through myth than history.

Whatever its true history, we're talking ancient. It's during the late Bronze Age. For comparison, the pyramids were built in the early Bronze Age, a thousand years earlier than this tomb. And the Parthenon was built half a millennium later. There are centuries of history mostly lost to us today. What's left are the ruins of a few monuments.

A bonus photo of the exterior is after the jump.

Random Thoughts: It's 107 degrees

2023-08-02: Today's NextDoor top post:
"I am trying to understand why people say climate change isn't real.
It's 107 degrees."
The post was promptly deleted.
Because, of course it was.

2023-08-03: She asked, "I need WOWZA headshots. Who do you recommend?"
Without thinking, I answered, "Charlize Theron. No contest."
And that's how I got canceled.

2023-08-10: A person I was with, seeing a car's license plate bracket: "Dickinson State University. Where is that?"
Me, shrugging: "Dunno. But my guess would be it's now in the Big Ten."

2023-08-22: I ate in a fast-food restaurant today. At the POS machine the woman who waited on me told me to press "No tip" when it asked. I hesitated. She explained, "We don't get the tips. The manager does, and he's not here."

---

More random thoughts can be found on Mastodon.