Yogi Film Festival Movie #1 "Beer Wars"

We have been watching lots of movies lately. "Beer Wars" I watched online, the others I'm posting we went to theaters.

I just got through watching a dynamite documentary on Amazon's streaming service, Beer Wars. A film about the beer industry in America. I was hooked, it is about the battle between the big brewers and the little guys in the beer business.



It turns out that it is a no holds barred fight going on in the aisles of our grocery stores, on the shelves of our liquor stores and in the halls of Congress as the big guys are fighting to maintain their virtual monopolies and the little guys are fighting for access.



What I like best about the film is the passion of the small brewers. They are in it for love and their love has them in debt, personally. The big guys are fighting slowing sales of their crappy swill and are looking to exploit the niches opened up by the little guys.



But you know, that goes on in almost any business. All is fair in love and war though, right? Above and below are zoomable infographics. The top one shows which brewers own which brands. The big guys have been buying the little guys and so that beer you think is from a small brewer? It may not be. The infographic below shows how dominating the big guys are and how truly small the little guys are.



Well maybe, the disturbing part of the movie is how the big brewers use their campaign cash to buy access to our representatives to reinforce and bolster their advantages. That buying out of Congress is one thing that I think drives both our Tea Party and Occupation neighbors nuts. The brewers are very equal opportunity. They don't care if a representative is a Republican or a Democrat as long as they vote the right way. I love capitalism and the vibrancy it adds to our economic system, but the access that big money has to congressional power is corrupting the system.

I didn't mean to get all serious about this. This is a great flick. Watch it, cheap on Amazon dot com. (Free if you are an Amazon Prime Member)

Grab a beer and drink, No no no, not a Bud Light fool, something decent.

Yogi Film Festival Movie #3 -"We Bought a Zoo" - the Movie

The second movie in the Yogi Movie Festival is "We Bought a Zoo"

Fun, fun, fun but I wish they had watched their language!



We Bought a Zoo was the third movie we saw over the holidays. It is a gentle movie about a guy with two kids, a moody teenage boy and a very cute little girl, who loses his wife, their mother and finds himself at loose ends. Trying to make a fresh start he looks for a new house out in the country and finds a house and along with the house a private zoo complete with staff of fun characters.

So not knowing a thing about  he plunges in and before he knows finds himself almost buried alive financially and emotionally under his new burden. I'll let you guess the rest.

I liked the movie, it kind of markets itself as a family movie but the language is a little rough at times. SuperPizzaBoy muttered loudly several times about why there was so much cussing.

Still, all in all not a bad move. I give it three stars out of five. Go see it.

Yogi Film Festival Movie #2 - "The Adventures of Tin Tin"

The whole famdamily went out to see "The Adventures of Tintin." I'm going to refer you to the IMDB site to explain what the movie is about. It's complicated and they do a better job than I can.



Besides I dozed off during the movie a few times.It's pretty and has some neat animated action scenes but it really is kind of dull, even though we sprang the extra bucks for the 3D version.

I give the movie two stars out of five. Nice scenes, great action, sometimes, but kind of dull. Gottasay though that SuperPizzaBoy reports that he likes the movie.

Yogi Film Festival Movie #4 - "the Descendents"

Sweetie and I went to see The Descendants with George Clooney. Clooney plays Matt King a less than perfect husband and father whose less than perfect, extreme sport addict, wife Elizabeth ends up in a coma following a speed boating accident and will soon die. King decides to round up both his perfect little girl, and  his less than perfect teenage daughter , who brings along her moronic boyfriend and make the rounds of family and friends to tell them that they need to get to the hospital to say their goodbye's to Elizabeth.



So that's pretty sad, but then Matt starts to find out things about his wife that he has to go check out on his own. This is against a backdrop of Matt's cousins and a big land deal coming up where the family is going to sell out a huge chunk of unspoiled  Hawaiian wilderness to a developer.

Clooney is a great actor. This is a serious movie but he provides comic relief. He can just look into the camera and be funny. He reminds me a little of Steve Martin sometimes.

Also interesting is the Hawaii we see in this movie. Much of it is the Hawaii of Dog the Bounty Hunter. the red neck side of things.

I give the movie four stars out of five. Go see it, leave the kids home though.

James B. Ross, The Best Drummer in Tulsa

I took my new camera out for a test run the other day. The funky one on the right is the Lomography Fisheye  No. 2. It has a field of view of 170 degrees. In other words it will take a photograph of everything it is pointed at. The results are a little distorted. Which I love.



It's a film camera which means that learning how to use can be a little expensive. I took a bunch of pics on my first roll. Not very many are presentable.

While taking a late lunch downtown a man asked me if I would take his picture. Little did he know.



His name is James B. Ross, he is new to town, and he said that he is the best drummer in town. He said that is saying a lot because Tulsa is a music town and is known to have great musicians. He just came here and is staying at the Salvation Army Shelter. He asked me if I knew that they had whole families down there. I said yep, I know.



Anyway he is between gigs and doesn't have a drum set. He told me, "No worries, it may take me a while but you will be hearing from me again."

He asked if he could see the pictures I took of him. I told him that I can't because its a film camera. He looked at me and laughed. "I'm so sorry man, the new cameras are digital. You need to get one. So you can see what you are doing."

Have you ever had a homeless guy feel sorry for you?

Good luck James B. Ross, I'm going to keep my ear to the ground for you.

Skywatch Friday - View from the Office

I know that I run the risk of repeating myself too often. I like the way the Arkansas River looks like it is looping on itself.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday - Yogi's One Minute to Nirvana

Wordless Wednesday

Geocaching - Scouting Chandler Park for the RHOK

Son and I have been scouting geocaches lately. Not that I need an excuse, he hates geocaching with a passion. If they ever came up with a videogame "Zelda the Windwaker Geocacher" he might be interested. Otherwise forget it. But he's a good sport. The reason we are scouting geocaches is that my friend Baloney of "That's Baloney" and I thought it might be fun for her and some of her fellow Real Housewives of Oklahoma ("RHOK") members to go geocaching and then for us to blog about the experience.


(In case you are wondering, all is well with my Soul)

I think it would be fun but I don't want to take them to find geocaches that I've already found. What good would that be? On the other hand looking for a cache and not finding it is a bummer. Especially if some of these ladies bring their kids along.  And then you want to take them some place different, but not too far away, after all these women are busy. Sometimes I think they should change their names to the Real Busy Housewives of Oklahoma .They are on the go all the time, here, there, and everywhere.

So anyway SPB and I decided to check out a cache in Chandler Park in west Tulsa. The cache is called "TAG CITO 2011 Commerative Cache". (A little translation, TAG is Tulsa Area Geocachers, a local geocaching group, CITO is Cache In, Trash Out where cachers help clean up parks and such as a way of giving back to the community.) Anyways, nobody had found it in a while so off son and I went.


(Nope that is not a cache, it really is a birdhouse, I checked)

There was a little disclaimer in the description. It described the terrain as "rough." That can be troublesome because no geocacher will ever claim that terrain is too "rough." If somebody planted a geocache at the summit of Mount Everest the description would say "possibly rough terrain." Well anyway, off we went. The first thing we saw was the birdhouse. You know if some girl scouts could make it this far, so could the housewives.

(You don't really need to climb this wall)

Now, I'm not going to spoil anybody else's fun by showing how to get to the cache or the details of its placement or any of that. But I have to ask myself, could the RHOK women climb up this wall of rhoks? Heck with them, could I climb up this wall?

Assuming they got up the wall and down the other side and into the canyon, could they get out? I wasn't sure that I could get out! The shadows were getting kind of long. Maybe we'll find something a little less challenging. I'm not worried about them, they can do anything, I'm worried about me. I guess that I'll keep on looking.

Signs, Signs - Central Library

I'm a big fan of libraries. Tulsa has an excellent system of libraries scattered all over the City and County of Tulsa.


Two views of the sign at the west door for Central Library of the Tulsa City County Library System.



You'll find me at lunch at the library two or three times a week using their free wifi to play Scrabble and Words with Friends on my ipod or actually checking out books. I've been doing that for about 20 years now.

My fellow patrons are in doing their homework, listening to music, reading newspapers and magazines. For some, they are getting a respite from the cold. Everybody is treated with respect. I love libraries.

Signs, Signs

Christmas 2011

Yogi here with a Christmas report from Oklahoma



It was dry, sunny, and warm!! You can have your White Christmases, you really can. For me I like the warm sun.



Christmas Eve we spent at Nana's house. Here is mother and daughter. I like that dynamic flip in Sweetie's hair.



We brought our three mutts to mix and mingle with Nana's two mutts. It was mutt mania Christmas Eve especially when Sweetie broke out the treats.



After an excellent meal of tacos and tamales courtesy of Nana and a nice long relaxed visit, we went home and watched "A Christmas Story" in our jammies. SuperPizzaBoy loves that movie and laughs hard. It's fun watching him. Sorry, no pj photos folks. I don't think SuperPizzaBoy would mind, Sweetie would. Anyway, after the movie he went off to bed and then Santa came (wink, wink, to all the parents out there). Santa ate the two gingerbread cookies and was nice enough to leave a note.



Next morning, coffee and more gingerbread cookies. I know I said no pj pcs, but you know I lie a lot. You can tell when I'm lying. If my lips are moving, I'm lying.



Nana and I showing off our favorite gifts, hand knitted scarves from Sweetie.



Ginger, got a hedgehog. Notice the wild eyed neurotic look. The hedgehog never did give her any milk, and Ginger tried all day long.



Nana gave me two cameras, a special fisheye film camera on the right, and an old Kodak Brownie on the right. She gave me some 120 film for the Brownie, the shutter worked, I cleaned up the lens as best I could and snapped a few pics outside. If I can find a place to process the film, and if there are pics halfway presentable I'll share them. The fisheye camera will be interesting I know the flash is powerful. I took a pic of Sweetie and she reeled. I think I could stop the Russian Army with the flash. It is powerful.



Sweetie worked hard preparing a variety of tasty dishes, I smoked some chicken quarters and a turkey breast and we ate very well. We had a coworker of mine who joined us.  It's always nice to have somebody join our foursome.

We missed being with the rest of my family who gathered at my Sister's house in Colorado Springs.



And now, the dishes are picked up and cleaned up and we are resting.

I hope that you and your family had a great Christmas!

From home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another

The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other.

(Emily Matthews)

Merry Christmas from the Yogi's to you!

(Yogi, SuperPizzaBoy, Sweetie, and Nana)

Weekend Reflections - Christmas

Christmas is many different things to many different people. A big part of Christmas is light and what makes light fun are reflections.



Christmas tree in downtown's beautiful art deco Philcade Building.



Even lawyers love Christmas.



Reflections while putting the lights on at our house.



Wreaths at a florists window.



Decorations at Pier One.

Hey, if I don't see you before then have a Merry Christmas!

Weekend Reflections

Skywatch Friday - Chilly Early Morning at Washington Irving Park

Skywatch Friday

Outdoor Wednesday - Dance With Me

I love trees, I love'm in the summer with all their leaves and I love them in the winter when you can see their bones. I love how they adapt to each other as they compete for sunlight.

This grove of trees looks like a wild dance party to me.

"Oh come and dance with me, my baby

Let's dance, till we go crazy

The night is young and so are we...

...Let the music hypnotize

Let our bodies synchronize

One dance and you'll be mine..."

(Dance with Me by Debelah Morgan)

Do you see it?

No? Do you see my son SuperPizzaBoy swinging to the beat?

Not only do I love trees, I love film also.

Outdoor Wednesday

The Vault by Ruth Rendell

The Vault is one of Ruth Rendell's "Inspector Wexford" novels. Reginald Wexford has retired from being a policeman and is kind of bored although he finds plenty of stuff to do. None of it really has any meaning for him. He is a good detective but he is not very dashing, athletic, and is the opposite of the tough guys we love so much in America.

He gets a call from the police asking for his help on his case. They need the help really bad but not so bad as they are going to pay him or really give him any sort of official status or even cover his expenses. The case involves a hidden underground vault near a house where several bodies have been found. Several from over ten years ago and the latest just two years ago.

The case is a real headscratcher and Wexford proceeds to work on it by talking to the present occupants of the house, neighbors, and others. He does it almost apologetically explaining to everybody that they don't really have to talk to him, but they do. He slowly starts piecing together what happens. The people he talk to are all characters, most of whom have secrets of their own, and are not necessarily that helpful, but they are helpful enough.

In the meantime he has family drama to attend to. His daughter is involved in a love affair with a man half her age who really can't handle rejection and things really take a bad turn there. His daughter is hiding what really happened and he has to figure that story out while solving the police puzzle.

I give this book four stars out of five. I love the interplay between Wexford's work on the case and his family life and all the different "difficult" characters he has to talk to, and the portayal of a mine trying to find some meaning in his life.

Go to library and get this book! The Kindle edition is $12.99 which is way too much in my opinion.

Ruby Tuesday Miscellany

Various Ruby Tuesday Candidates Recently



A candy cane at Tulsa's Winterfest and below some playground equipment. Both photographs are film.





A phone booth found while shopping with Sweetie at Utica Square.



Sad to report, SuperPizzaBoy doesn't want to visit Santa this year:(

Ruby Tuesday