Am at work in San Diego.

[camwyn]

Yeah, they transferred me to San Diego. Currently working w/same demon software program I have been using for last 5 yrs; my chapter only converted away from it in September. Is good to be using program that actually WORKS as our new fundraising software = MAJOR PAIN IN BUM... anyway. At work @ chapter. Will use cybercafe or library or something for most personal foo but thought I'd just pop in briefly here.

Saw Brother Bear last night. Went berserk trying to figure out where the frell in Alaska this was supposed to be taking place. Denali-style glacial melt rivers looked just like I remember them, but the trees were so Pacific Northwest in size & trunk growths that it hurt, plus bears too big not to be coastal grizzlies, and SE Alaska =! compatible w/auroral activity EVERY FRELLING NIGHT. Also had enormous difficulty swallowing the idea of 30+ bears happily gathered together being sociable & friendly towards one another. Bears = solitary. Grizzly boars tend to, yanno, squeesh leetle cubs like grapes if cubs not their own... anyway. Decent movie and I was v. glad that the Ice Age Inuit were not depicted as Pocahontas-class Total Brotherhood With Nature types, but the bear stuff & the geography bugged me. (Let's not start on the Mackenzie Moose Brothers.)

That having been said, must dash. Will talk later.

Comments

[colubra.livejournal.com]

Now you understand how I feel when I watch movies and they are set where I live.
Of many modern films I've watched, only 'Quicksilver' and 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' depict the San Francisco I live in- the rest take place in some mysterious otherworld San Francisco.

[cadhla.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that this was a) roughly 10,000 years ago, before substantial glacial and geographical shift, and b) based on Inuit myth-forms, in which all animals can communicate with one another, and do so happily. So bears, who are considered close to man, would never behave that way.

Folklore is funny like that.

[camwyn]

yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I kept telling myself that the whole time. Problem is, just before I went to the movie I'd read a lovely article on the making of the movie in which the Disney folks proudly said they'd consulted Tim ... um... I forget his last name but I think it's that grizzly expert who got eaten by bears last month ... so as to get the look of the bears right. So there was an expectation of something behavioral in the back of my mind, which there probably shouldn't have been.

Would have helped if some of the Inuit had had facial tattoos. At least the brother-death-vengeance-thing was consistent with most Inuit myths I've read. I liked that.

[camwyn]

One thing I did appreciate about their treatment of the bears, though... the first bear, the one that got the whole plot rolling? The instant that bear appeared on screen I had a very distinct feeling it was female. The only grizzlies / brown bears I've ever seen have been sows with two- or three-year-old cubs; this bear, for all that it was drawn as being bigger and of a different subspecies from the bears of Denali, looked and acted female. I have to say they did a really good job on that.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Any chance you'll be available for a visit before you leave our happy acres?

[camwyn]

Probably not to the Bay Area, no. These assignments are basically six days on, one day off, six days on, etc. We are supposed to fly home the day our assignment concludes, too; the only time they ever made an exception to this for me was the Texas job, where I flew out the next morning owing to a difference of around $450 in ticket prices between 'right now' and 'tomorrow'.

Other sectors of California, maybe.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I'll take that as a compliment, but no - I'm in Torrance. Like, on your way back to LAX.

Got wine. Got time?

[camwyn]

Depends on if they plan to send me home via LAX or want me to fly out of a local airport. I'll let you know when I get closer to the time frame, or when I get a day off.

[mountainspeak.livejournal.com]

I saw Brother Bear on Saturday, actually. I had the same problems as you did when it came to the whole bears beaing happy together behavior wise, whcih I brushed off as it being a Disney movie. What I couldn't take, was them riding the mamoths and that one shot during a song where the cub is telling rabbits and the like stories. Little too cutsie. :)

[camwyn]

I let the mammoth thing pass because it was sufficiently blatant as to belong in the realm of legend. Especially the part where the mammoth seemed to have a strong enough neck to hold up its head despite having a 400+ pound bear sitting on ONE TUSK. That's just legend waiting to happen. But when you're dealing with the legends of a First Nations people, they usually acknowledge - at least to some degree - the natural behaviour of living species of animal, and I couldn't quite deal with the bear...

Meh. Inconsistent of me, but there it is.