March O'Penguins

[Dale]

We were blessed this Christmas evening at our house to have the entire nuclear family, plus the Undisputed's Mother, to sit down for a Christmas night tradition and watch a movie together. It's been so lovely to have all the girls home. Claire (16) leaves tomorrow for the mission field in Mexico and Sarah will spend two weeks in Belize City starting this coming Friday.

Anyway, we watched MARCH OF THE PENGUINS on DVD. It's been mentioned on this board a couple of times. It's as lovely as people say. I noted, though, a really beautiful soundtrack by Alex Wurman with flutes and piccolos as lead instruments. Gorgeous stuff.

Flutes, piccolos, whistles. Not the most practical instrument for an Emperor penguin.

[brewerpaul]

Yeah, and that metal whistle must clog like a sumbitch in that arctic cold...not to mention sticking to your lips (or beak)

[Tyler]

We were blessed this Christmas evening at our house to have the entire nuclear family,....

[Whistlin'Dixie]

We were all together last evening (2 sons home from college) and watched Elf.

It is so nice to have us all here.

Hopefully we see a movie today that we will all like: The Producers


M

[Doug_Tipple]

I was invited to Christmas dinner by my friend, who is a professor at Purdue University. She invited two of her graduate students, one from India and the other from Japan. The dinner was at the home of mutual friends, also a retired college couple. All together, there were six of us.
For my contribution to the dinner I brought chicken and noodles, which the women insisted on serving as a soup. I also prepared butternut squash with butter, sugar, and raisins, and a shredded carrot and cabbage with a sweet/sour marinade salad. On the table there was also roast lamb, white potatoes, brocolli, cranberry sauce, etc.

Throughout the course of the meal, there was interesting discussion about food, as the food that we had prepared was obviously different than what the two young women were used to. The Japanese woman talked about how to prepare miso soup and to make sushi. The Indian woman also had her comments about specialty foods from her country and where to buy them in our community. Over the course of the meal nearly all of the ethnic food stores and restaurants in our community were mentioned, with appropriate comments about each one.

After dinner there was a discussion about what movie to watch. Don't asked me the title of the movie that was finally selected, but I can tell you that it was filmed for the most part in a restaurant in Germany (in German, English subtitles)), and it was all about food preparation. To make the story more interesting, you had a young women chef, who was obsessive-complusive, with regular visits to her therapist. Include personal tragedy and romance and you have the makings for a very interesting movie and a pleasant social evening.

[anniemcu]

We crowded the couch and watched 'Space Balls! - the Movie' and 'Joe Dirt'. Fun!

[peteinmn]

Weird, I watched March of the Penguins with my family yesterday evening as well.

So, there’s these two penguins standing on the ice at the edge of the sea. The older, more experienced one say’s to the young fellow next to him, “So you’re interested in meeting a nice girl and starting a family is it? Well, young man, here’s how it works. First, all we have to do is use our three inch legs to walk 70 miles over the ice, through subzero cold and howling wind to get to the designated meeting spot. Then we get to stand around for days in the cold waiting for the girls to show up. When the girls eventually show up we mill around for awhile then pair off and you get to have sex for 30 seconds. Yep, think of it, sex for a whole 30 seconds! Then, you and the little woman stand around for a few weeks as the temperature drops to 80 below and the wind picks up to a brisk 100 mph as she works on producing an egg. After laying her egg, you get to stand around for a few more days practicing how you’ll transfer the egg so you can sit on it. Now young man, here’s where the real fun starts. As soon as you take charge of the egg, the girls all leave to go get some food while you get to stand there on this egg for weeks waiting the little woman to return. In the dark, butt freezing cold, gale force winds, haven’t had any food for months. If you’re lucky, you beloved returns just after your youngster hatches and takes over the sitting on him thing. Your ass is pretty sore by this time and you haven’t been off your feet since you can’t remember. You’re also kind of dizzy because, by now, you haven’t had anything to eat for over 3 ½ months. But, at least now you can go get a tasty fish. Oh, by the way you’ll have to walk back about 75 miles this time the water has frozen out a little farther. OK, so now you’re thinking you get to eat, swim and finally relax a bit. Well, there is one little thing. The wife and kid are standing out there on the ice getting hungry and cold. So, you have to kind of hustle to get full of fish and then hike back the entire freeking 75 miles because you’re gonna catch hell if you’re late. Well, after you get back to the wife and kid, she again leaves for a few weeks to get another meal while you stand there freezing your ass off. Oh yeah, there’s also this part about puking up stuff to feed the kid that I won’t go into because it makes me feel kind of weird. Anyway, this cycle of standing around minding junior while freezing your cajones off for weeks at a time, walking miles and miles on your stumpy little legs for a cold stinking bit of sushi then walking miles and miles just to puke up the sushi, goes on for a few more months until junior is old enough to walk to the sea. When that blessed day (that by now, you will have completely despaired of ever arriving) finally comes, you get to say bye, bye to the wife and kid (who you’ll never have to see again, thank God!) jump in the ocean and finally relax a bit. For a few weeks. Until we start the whole wrenched business over again. Sound like fun, huh?”

Young fellow looks at older penguin and says, “Yeah. Wow. It sure sounds like a great time. But, you know I have this bum knee. Old football injury. Maybe I’ll pass this time. But you go on. Let the good times roll and all that. Ta Ta.”

[Dale]

Weird, I watched March of the Penguins with my family yesterday evening as well.

So, there’s these two penguins standing on the ice at the edge of the sea.....

Yes, the movie is at once a meditation on the wonders of nature and the harshness of nature. And "harshness" seems an understatement when it comes to the lives of these big weird birds.

I thought the saddest part of the movie even somehow sadder than the dead chicks, was when the penguin couple is shown carefully rehearsing the passage of the egg from the mother's feet to the father's. When the finally attempt to execute the move, there's a bit of a miscue and the egg rolls across the ice for, like, 10 seconds and that's long enough to freeze it. And the penguins are all "Uh. Ok. So, we've endured all of this cold and starvation and stuff for this moment. Great. Really great."

Dale

[anniemcu]

Weird, I watched March of the Penguins with my family yesterday evening as well.

So, there’s these two penguins standing on the ice at the edge of the sea.....

Yes, the movie is at once a meditation on the wonders of nature and the harshness of nature. And "harshness" seems an understatement when it comes to the lives of these big weird birds.

I thought the saddest part of the movie even somehow sadder than the dead chicks, was when the penguin couple is shown carefully rehearsing the passage of the egg from the mother's feet to the father's. When the finally attempt to execute the move, there's a bit of a miscue and the egg rolls across the ice for, like, 10 seconds and that's long enough to freeze it. And the penguins are all "Uh. Ok. So, we've endured all of this cold and starvation and stuff for this moment. Great. Really great."

Dale

Yeah... three months plus of blistering cold, balancing an egg on your toe-tops, without a bite to eat, when you are *successful*!... seems kind of extreme to me. And someone actually went there to film it, too! Talk about sacrifice! Very interesting though.

[cowtime]

We spent the day with my grandaughter, daughter, mom and brother and his family. Sadly, my eldest daughter opted to fly to Jamacia for a week.

But, we played all day with Lillian, made some music-my sore fingers tell me I need to play mandolin more often- and ate too much. By ten that night I crashed and did not wake til almost 9 this morning. Unheard of !