24 Carrot Rabbitry

We have been Pixar fans since the very beginning with “Toy Story”.  They give a good, fun story with rich characters; throw in some things the adults can appreciate (like all the old toys in that movie, and the answer to your childhood suspicions about your toys — hey, I know I left that toy over here… how’d it get over there?); put it all in beautiful, highly detailed animation; and (usually) leave out stuff like politics and environmentalism.  (Hey, I said “usually” — don’t get on me about “WALL-E”, which, in spite of the environmentalism, was a very cute movie.)

So, for some time now, we’ve closed our eyes and plunked down the money once every year or so to take the whole family (6 of us now, with my uncle) to the theater.  Last year, our only choice was 3-D, unless we wanted to go way out of town.  This year, we had the option of either version, but went with 3-D anyway, for the sake of the kids.

So we went to see “Cars 2″, and got in almost late.  The theater was way busier that day than we had ever seen it before.  We had seen the previews, and the kids had even collected codes from Kellogg cereals to get points for language translators that were being offered (among other things).  We ordered the translators just the other day.  For once, I participated in one of these things, figuring if they wanted language translators, that was not a bad thing.

Hopefully, the translators (when they get here sometime in the next 90 days) won’t be a disappointment, because, for once, the Pixar movie was.

Don’t get me wrong, “Cars 2″ was a cute movie.  But that’s really all I can say about the story itself.  It was not what we’ve come to expect from Pixar.

Toy Story 1, 2, and 3 — A Bug’s Life — Monsters, Inc. — Finding Nemo — The Incredibles — Cars — Ratatouille — WALL-E — Up — What made these movies so good?  Brilliant graphics and amazing detail in abundance, yes, but what made them excellent was character development, plausibility (yes, even in a movie about talking fish), and well-thought-out themes of friendship, family, endurance, overcoming adversity, and fighting evil.  All this, with no vulgarity.  The occasional girl-boy stuff is fleeting and non-sexual.

So what went wrong with “Cars 2″?

It had the brilliant graphics and amazing detail a good bit of the time.  We struggled with some blurriness in a good bit of it.  I saw someone else’s comments on it that stated that they had watched the 2-D version, and had the blurriness there, too.  I thought it was just a sloppy 3-D job, but apparently not.  The character development was nearly non-existent.  Plausibility was pretty much zero, which I already had figured out from the previews, but I was willing to give them that in exchange for all the other stuff that makes an excellent movie.  It’s a James Bond movie done with talking cars, and Mater as an accidental spy.  You’re plausibility’s automatically gone.  LOL

Unfortunately, there was very little to exchange the lack of plausibility for.  There was a weak lesson in friendship, and not expecting a friend to be something they aren’t.  Other than that, it was action, action, action, and Mater’s social blunders… and Sally’s fixation with an Italian car’s open wheels.  The movie seemed geared more toward the adults than to the kids.  It contained many things that were main themes, that were things pretty much only adults would get.  Lemon cars, like Gremlins, Pacers, and Yugos… kids aren’t going to remember these (I even needed help from Shay).  The lemons were a big theme, but only the adults will get it.  The oil/alternative theme was big, too.  I’m guessing more of the kids got this one, with all the environmentalism they are taught in public schools.

The result?  Other than an occasional chuckle, not much laughter from the audience.  The absence of children’s laughter was telling.  They didn’t enjoy this movie like they had previous Pixar movies, and it was obvious.

Such a shame.  I hope Pixar realizes and corrects their mistakes before releasing their next offering to the theaters.

As I mentioned before, this home was bought by my grandparents over 40 years ago.  Almost that far back, my uncle has been fighting the vines that have been invading the back yard.

There are several different kinds.  I don’t know what they all are.  One of them is the Japanese climbing fern.  Don’t let the nice name fool you.  It might be somewhat attractive (it was introduced in the US in the ’30s as an ornamental), but this plant is swallowing forests.  You would think it’s related to kudzu.  It has made it around to the front garden, too.

I remember my uncle out there in the summers, pulling the vines out of the ligustrum hedge that holds the little levee at the back of the yard in place.  It was hard work.  Then my grandfather fell ill, and his fight with the vines subsided, and the vines became stronger.  Add to that the years of caring for my grandmother while holding down a full-time job, then the last several years since my grandmother’s stroke, and finally her death a year and a half ago, and you can imagine the inroads the vines have made.

Not only are they suffocating the hedge at the back, they have invaded the plants at the sides, all the way to the sides of the house.  They have sent many, many runners out into the yard, which produce new sprouts like flags standing up in the grass, then they fall over and start crawling across the yard.

I started searching for something that might kill them, and ended up with Roundup Poison Ivy Plus Tough Brush Killer.  There’s poison ivy in that hedge, too, so we’ll see if this kills it.  Anyhow, I bought a gallon spray bottle of the stuff, and started spraying vines.  Several days later, they started to droop.  This is what they look like now:

I never thought I would like brown so much.

The bright green at the top of the vines is the vines on the back of the hedge that I have not reached yet.  You get on a ladder, and it looks like a sea.  Like you will go back there, and it will swallow you, and nobody will ever see you again.

You can see that there is a strip of dead grass in front of the vines (you can’t even see the ligustrums, can you?).  I knew there was a chance of this.  I used a tarp as a drop cloth, but the grass was affected anyway as leaves fell off the vines as they died.  The poison is systemic.  It is absorbed by the leaves and travels through the plant to the root, which it kills.  The vines on the back, while connected by runners, also have their own root systems, so they have survived so far.

It even seems to be affecting the palmettos that I sprayed.  Let’s hope.

The grass is a small price to pay, and will grow back.

I was afraid the poison might drip from the vines to the ligustrums, and kill them as well.  The vines were so thick, though, that the ligustrums appear unharmed.  A clump of English dogwood was not so fortunate.  It isn’t dead, but it’s lost most of its leaves.  I don’t know if it will make it.  It probably would have been good to try to get the vines out of the dogwood first, lay them on a tarp, and spray them there.

So now it’s on to the vines in the yard.  My uncle brought home some cardboard squares from work that each have a hole in the center.  I’ve been using these to protect the grass as much as possible.  I pull a vine through the hole, spray it, and go to the next one.  When I’m at the last square, I remove the first one and place it.  I have them numbered so I can tell which I’ve used most recently, and which have vines that have probably stopped dripping.

Spraying vines. I can't even count how many there are. It's just depressing. Near the top right corner is another vine waiting to be sprayed. I bought a refill for the Roundup, so I can mix more batches and save money. Thank goodness the stuff has no smell!

A vine invading the garden! I've added red dots to the right of the vine so you can see how it goes up into the cantaloupe. it had wrapped its evil tendrils around ILoveBunnies' cantaloupe vine! Grrrrr...

I don’t know how effective this fight will be.  The runners may continue to send up new shoots.  I hope that with perseverence, we will kill all these vines!

We enjoy an occasional look at the Fail Blog, and some of its derivative blogs like That Will Buff Out.

Recently, we saw something that made Shay say, “I’ve got to try to get a picture of that  (and submit it to That Will Buff Out)!”

I have really no idea what this guy was thinking.

We saw it on the way to pick up Shay’s work car.  So when we were on the way back, I had my phone ready to take a picture.  I just rested my hand on the dash, and glanced at the screen now and then to see my progress.  I knew I had only one shot, since I was doing 45 mph.  One last glance, a button press, and I hoped I had it.

By that time, there was a police car to the left of it, and no sign of the driver of the truck.

This is along an exit from one major highway to another.  The embankment goes up to the highway I just exited.  He appears to have taken the exit, then changed his mind and tried to turn around into opposing traffic.  It is an exit — it’s one way.  Shay thinks the guy had to be drunk.  I certainly can’t argue… no thinking person would have attempted this.  Of course, that automatically makes suspects of half of the drivers in this town!

I accidentally had it set for indoor picture-taking, so I had to fiddle with the colors a little.  Shay did submit it, and it actually made it (please remember the site is largely about goof-ups — there’s stuff on there I wouldn’t let the kids or myself see):

http://cars.failblog.org/2011/06/01/funny-car-photos-not-the-turning-radius-he-thought/