I would warn you about a spoiler, but first off the game is so old that if you haven’t played it by now, you probable never will. And besides that, what I’m about to tell you concerns an unsolvable puzzle in the game and I think you won’t mind getting the spoiler if it helps you avoid that agony. Somewhere on disc 1 (out of 4) you’ll get to a room that has a mirror in it. Looking at the mirror starts a puzzle which seems simple enough. It’s one of those typical sliding tiles puzzles, where the mirror gets divided up into 10 pieces and you have to slide them back in place using the grime on the glass as a reference.

The thing is, with any sliding piece puzzle, not any random configuration is solvable. The puzzle in the 11th Hour is a 2×5 puzzle and therefore a 10-puzzle (or 9-puzzle). You can read an article on n-puzzle solvability on Wikipedia, but what it comes down to for this puzzle can be more easily illustrated.

The 2×5 (2 rows, 5 columns) puzzle can be seen as a circle of tiles, which can be moved around clockwise and counter-clockwise. Moving a piece sideways along the top or bottom, or moving a piece vertically along either side doesn’t change the order of the pieces in the circle. When the gap is at either side, that type of move is the only possible move, so the order of tiles in the circle can’t change. For example, if the gap is in the upper left corner, you can only slide the piece to the right of in along the top, or the piece below it along the left side.

So, the only moves that actually change the order of the pieces, occur when the gap is in one of the other six positions. You can then slide a piece vertically, changing it’s relative position in the circle. Looking at it that way, you’ll notice that doing so effectively makes the piece skip 2, 4 or 6 other tiles in the circle. It can never skip an odd number of tiles. Even combining as many such moves as you like, you can never exchange two neighbouring tile without exchanging two other tiles in the same way.

The 11th Hour game mixes the parts at random however, so in about half of the cases, there will be an odd number of flipped pairs, making the puzzle impossible to solve. It took us quite a bit of sliding and hard thought to figure out that the puzzle we were looking at was actually unsolvable. After that, we simply restarted the puzzle until it gave us one which had an even number of exchanged pairs and after that actually solving it was a piece of cake.

Of course, it would never have taken so long if I’d only known about the Wikipedia article, but then again: the whole point of solving puzzles is figuring stuff like this out, I suppose. If you’re ever playing the 11th Hour though, I hope I justed saved you some frustration which I think wasn’t intended by the designer of the puzzle who may simply have been unaware of the problem.

Hellboy

After watching Hellboy II on the big screen, I felt the need to rewatch Hellboy, since I’d missed the middle part the first time I watched it and never gave it a good look. One thing I immediately noticed is how much Hellboy and Hellboy II are the same. The story, the characters and even some of the visual jokes and action scenes are so much the same that, in retrospect, I should really lower the score (3.5) I gave Hellboy II.

The reason not to do so is that Hellboy II is effectively more like a decent remake of the not so great Hellboy. Although performed by the same actors and directed by the same director (and there’s many more similarities and overlap), Hellboy is slightly worse in every respect except originality. And even its originality leans heavily on what was already there in the comic series by Mike Mignola. If you’re only going to watch one of them, watch the second. If you’re watching Hellboy to find out why Liz is a firestarter, where they found Abe or whether there’s any other cool members in the BPRD, don’t bother, since hardly any information is offered that isn’t repeated in Hellboy II.

The only reason to want to see Hellboy - if you’re a fan - is to see Hellboy as a baby among the nazi’s that accidentally summon him into our world. Again, no explanation or background is offered, so you’re just doing it for the pretty pictures, but at least that’s a scene you won’t see in Hellboy II.

Another thing that doesn’t help Hellboy is that back in 2004, Guillermo del Toro hadn’t yet fully realized his strange fantastical style and as a result, the evil characters just don’t look as good. Although Hellboy certainly doesn’t look worse than most of the super hero fare that’s to be had, the characters remain underdeveloped and the plot isn’t worth mentioning and you end up watching pictures for two hours. I’m glad I missed this one in the cinemas, but if you’re a Hellboy fan it’s worth getting the DVD.

Hellboy II: the Golden Army

The signature style of Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola’s comic universe of Hellboy and the BPRD mix surprisingy well in this fantasy action thriller. Although the story is fairly straightforward and bears little hidden meaning, it’s entertaining and it looks great on the big screen. With a fantastic universe that’s likely to remind you strongly of del Toro’s recent Pan’s Labyrinth, the movie has its own feel, but lacks real originality, both in story and in setting. What originality it has, it lends from the comic book intellectual property of Mignola.

Many scenes in Hellboy II remind you of similar scenes in other recent and popular cinema and although they serve well in telling the story, you still feel a little cheated. Another small annoyance is the childish, but typically Hollywood explanations of all things obvious. For example, the explanation of the way their ‘troll seeing goggles’ work, while this is already obvious from the visuals. Or the explanation about the existence of a cat-eating, canary-fearing troll, only to introduce one right in the next scene, effectively repeating the explanation visually. That’s fine for a kid’s movie aimed at 8-year olds, but annoying in a PG-13 offering like Hellboy II.

It’s not all bad though. Casting is great, as are make-up and effects. The result is a very believable and true to the original representation of the Hellboy universe. The entire cast succeeds in getting across the personalities of their characters in their movement and stance as well as in their dialogue. The film looks very pretty in all the scenes, original or no and is well-paced.

If you like the movie, make sure you check out the original material, the comic series is well worth your time, even if you generally dislike the action/super hero and other typical comic material.

It’s a good thing I hadn’t realized this one was written by the same scenarists that wrote Wanted, or I might have worried that my verdict was influenced by my recent experience of that movie. 3:10 is a decent western and manages to add something to the genre. Of course, it is a genre-piece and as such I feel it should be held to a higher standard than anything that doesn’t try to fit a specific genre. That’s the price you pay for a lack of originality in my opinion. As westerns go, 3:10 to Yuma doesn’t disappoint, but neither does it impress.

3:10 doesn’t try too hard to be original. Instead, it just tells a story in the proven format of the typical western. Once again, we have bandits on the loose that have a charismatic leader. Ranchers struggle to make a living, looking for ways to make an extra buck. Railroads are racing to get constructed and stage coaches run the wages across the country. Visually, 3:10 is right on as well, modern in some ways but traditional in most. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn’t impress either.

Where The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) and There Will Be Blood (2007) showed that the western genre is far from complete, 3:10 just tells a new tale. And I guess that’s where the main problem with the movie lies, since the plot has some glaring holes and - in my opinion - a thoroughly unsatisfying ending. I’m going to warn you about a mild spoiler and then ask you about this alternate ending I would propose: have Wade just shoot Prince and then let the bandits get away, leaving Evans. Show an epilogue where their band visits the house of the widow and her two sons to make sure the railroad lives up to their promise of delivering 1000$ and a supply of water. Justice would be served and we don’t need to see Wade make a silly 180, paying Evans more of a tribute than is warrented or to be expected based on what we learn in the movie.

3:10 is enjoyable for the fans of the genre, and the performance of Christian Bale is good, as usual. But it’s not a must-see for anyone but the fans of the genre.

Wanted

Wanted makes you wonder about the merits of rating movies with stars. Rating a movie with stars relates it to all other movies you’ve seen sofar, nevermind the genre, age or other attributes. Wanted is a pretty good movie if all you were looking for is entertainment, but it misses quite a few marks if you try to put it into a specific category of movies.

In creating Wanted, Brandt, Haas and Bekmambetov take a lot of fresh ideas from recent titles and use them to good effect. It feels modern and up-to-date and is thoroughly entertaining. But whichever aspect of it you take, it’s never hard to come up with other movies that do just that - a lot better.

The crude and violent humor with a wink is amusing, but nowhere near any of Guy Ritchies titles like Snatch (2000) and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). In that sense, it also reminded me of The Boondock Saints (1999), but that title deserves a mention for the gunplay and action choreography as well, which Wanted doesn’t do as well, nor does it measure up to something like Equilibrium in that sense. Sure, the ‘curve the bullet’-thing is cool for a second, but that kind of cool never lasts. And if you like ‘absolute nobody lands head first in situation where they are a total hero and savior of the world’ stories, you will certainly prefer The Matrix (1999) and Cypher (2002) to Wanted, by a distance.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying a movie needs to be original in everything it brings to the screen. But it should definitely be original in at least some sense for it to stand out. Some of the stunts in Wanted are memorable but never revolutionary or awe-inspiring. The story is nicely over the top where it needs to be, but the plot has too many holes. The characters have potential but all of them act in strange ways that break suspension of disbelief.

All in all, Wanted is good fare if you just want to be entertained for an evening and you’re not easily miffed by plot incongruities or hyperbolic stuntwork. It would get a 4/5 if I were just rating action flics, but I’m not. This movie definitely isn’t for everyone and there’s quite a few other movies out there I’d recommend you go see first. From the director of Night Watch (2004) I expected a little better, although Day Watch (2006) wasn’t all that good either, as I’ve told you before.

The Carolina’s and the parts of Virginia bordering them have a distinctly different feel to them from the rest of the south I’ve seen on this trip. It’s like travelling back in time and forward at the same time. The area seems more wealthy and as such a little more advanced, but at the same time all the buildings have more history to them. Whatever buildings there are to be found in most of the south that have a style that’s classic are generally no more than a century old. Over here, there is a lot of very basic architecture that’s well over a century old and some that date back to the early days of the US.

Culturally however, I find that the US is fairly homogenous on the surface. It’s still the same shops, brands, sports, newspapers and TV stations that determine everyday reality and you have to visit a good restaurant or a local museum to scratch the surface.

Washington will be the first city that I’ll visit in which I might actually visit an art gallery. It’s something I’d normally do a lot when I’m taking trips with Simone, but I haven’t on this trip since I was focussing on meeting people and taking in the current day-to-day culture. But I suppose my mission is complete and I get to relax a little now. My humble apologies for not getting you some pictures to look at before I return to the Netherlands, but I hope you take it for what it is: an indication that I was having to much fun and interesting encounters to get around to it.

I’ve got some notes about stuff I want to write about, but it will have to wait until I get time off from traveling and get back to staring at my computer screen. Sorry for not getting any pictures up, but handling the pictures is even more time intensive than writing the blog, so there’s that. Also, the pictures are patient, but whatever I don’t write down, I’m likely to forget. So my priority was on writing in this space. Don’t worry, the pictures will appear here later on, once I get some time to put a decent set together.

Onwards to North Carolina then!

Although some businesses are still closed, it was actually a good time to visit, since most tourist oriented businesses have already reopened and it’s like being in a theme park with no visitors, everyone and everything at your disposal. Another thing that made the trip worthwhile is the way I’ve learned to approach a city in, that I need to get to know fast. You find yourself a group of homeless people, who are generally in for some conversation. I buy some cigarettes, get them some coffee and within a couple of hours, you can learn a lot about the city, the people in it and all the good places to go.

In New Orleans this landed me in the best coffee & beignet bar, a kickass record store and a famous Gumbo restaurant, as well as meeting a couple of interesting jazz musicians living off their music in dinky jazz hideouts. I had some excellent local cuisine - gumbo, shrimp, crab and a sweet desert - and bought some music at rates you can only dream of back in the Netherlands.

It was probably the most effective day of the entire holiday, since the same morning, I ran into a guy putting his boat in the water near the highway in the bayous. I took the nearest exit, drove over to where I’d seen him and struck up conversation, after which he offered to take me on a quick trip around. The bayou is an interesting place to be in and if I’d seen an aligator it would have been the perfect outing. I didn’t bring my camera, considering the water and the somewhat rickety boat but it’s a trip I won’t soon forget.

Texas is impressive too. Like America, but more American would be one way to put it. I visited the Johnson Space Center, which offers a nice tour of the actual live facilities of NASA. It’s impressive to be around mission control and to tour the testing facilities, where they have live-sized mockups of all spacecraft setup and they are working on new stuff like the Moon Rover they plan to bring on Orion, the new Moon program.

I’m cutting this post short though, since I’m writing it sitting next to a pool, out in the rain under a parasol which is only barely keeping the water off my keyboard. Why, you ask? Because the internet is out in all inns I tried and the one I could find that did have wireless up and connected to the internet was too expensive for my tastes. So, I got a room in the cheapo motel nextdoor that just happened to have a pool adjacent to the classy motel :-).

Anyway, signing off, this is getting silly.

The author of that article concludes the reason must be ‘people are idiots’, picking a shiny screen simply because it is pretty. I agree that I would have also picked a matte screen if I had the choice. But there are a couple of points to be made about the shiny screens that he - nor his commenters - doesn’t pick up on that I would share with you.

As one of the possible reasons for the gloss, he suggests an economic advantage but he seems to forget that apart from production cost, there might be a slightly more fiendish advantage. Glossy screens show scratches more readily and as a result, the demand for replacement screens will increase. It’s too conspiratory for my taste, but with the current behaviour of market controlling economic giants you can’t be sure of a lot.

The other reason for the glossy screens could be functional. Generally, people agree that they deliver a slightly better contrast and - because they don’t diffuse the light as much - they perform better in strongly lit situations like in sunlight. The obvious advantage of the matte screen would be a lack of glare. The aesthetic effect in my opinion could go either way and isn’t really relevant to the discussion of which is ‘better’. Since there are advantages to both, which sofar haven’t been combined in a single type of screen, screen manufacturers will continue to be torn between the two, sometimes even offering the choice.

What the article fails to mention though is that you can put anti-glare foil on a glossy screen, but it would be pointless to apply glossy foil to a matte screen. This alone makes the case for the glossy screen. I dislike having to go out and buy foil and mess around with it to apply it properly, but I can definitely see the case for the manufacturer who feels offering the choice will drive up the price without good reason. More so because a good anti-glare foil would be removeable and would return the screen to it’s former glossy ‘glory’.

Which is not to say I don’t agree with the assessment that people are idiots, I just don’t think it is a deciding factor in the availability of shiny screens

After driving through a dozen states, I am becoming more and more certain that even though each state has its own defined flavour and couleur locale, the states are -far- more alike than European countries are - and ever will be in my lifetime. It’s true that specific styles of building, food, music and language are specific to their own state. But these tidbits of originality have been drowned in so much USA-sauce that to the casual observer, the differences are lost at first. And even when you do make them out, there’s the constant background noise of so many things that are the same, not just limited to items forced upon a state by the federal government either, like the uniformity of road signs for example.

In a way, Texas is the ‘most American’ I have seen sofar. Everything you imagine about the US and actually find here turns out to be ‘more so’ in Texas. That includes the scale of things, the attitude of the locals, the looks of the urban architecture all the way down to watery coffee being even weaker down in Texas. The number of Mexicans I see here is staggering. At times it seems the population of Mexican origin outnumbers all the rest put together, though I have no idea what the actual demographics are.

An interesting note about Mexicans is that a genetic influence of Portugese origin is unmistakeable in my opinion: Mexicans drive like shit. Really, putting it in milder terms would fail to convey the utter lack of driving skills to be encountered in this particular ethnic group. I mentioned before that Americans seem to stick with traffic rules pretty well and that there was little speeding going on. Well, had I started my trip in Texas, I would probably have phrased all that a bit differently. I’ve been overtaken left and right by people speeding up to double the allowed maximum, I’ve been tailgated, nearly rear-ended three cars that slammed the brakes for no apparent reason, etc. And with a single exception to be noted - an elderly woman who should have her license taken away, given the way she was unable to control her old hunk of junk - all these drivers were Mexican, male and female alike. So it’s not a testosterone or male posturing thing either, unless Mexican women grow moustaches.

Judging from a couple of conversations with Texans and Californians, the general reason many US citizens hate the Mexicans comes down to work. Mexicans - illegal or no - tend to agree to work for lower wages than their non-native American counterparts will. So it becomes hard, if not impossible, for some Americans to get their hands on jobs that require little schooling, since a line of Mexicans is almost literally waiting to fill them and driving down wages for these jobs to the point of them defaulting to minimum wage.

Being on the road, I run in to more working class and poorly educated Americans than I would elsewhere and the places I meet middle or (rarely) upper class Americans are generally holiday-related, so it is hard to get a balanced picture or a good cross-section of society ofcourse. But what does stand out that, particularly among these lower class folks, decades of brain-washing in the popular media seem to bear fruit.

Whenever the topic is turned towards controversial topics like abortion, euthanasia or same sex marriage, people stop thinking and start blurting out propaganda. I’ve had a discussion with an otherwise intelligent - if somewhat unfortunate, losing his house and land due to medical bills - man, who argued like you’d expect from someone with a college education. But when I asked him about same sex marriage, he was unable to get to any other justification than ‘it’s just wrong’ and ‘it’s immoral’. When pressed, he was able to come up with inconcise references to the bible but even from there he was unable to complete the argument for the ‘wrongness’ of the marriage of gay couples, yet het firmly believed that he was right and was frustrated at my lack of comprehension of this moral outrage. And I ran into similar examples for the other emancipation issues. In general, going by the US media and generally voiced opinions, I find the US are the least emancipated western nation I’ve visited sofar, including Spain and Italy.

Incidentally, if you were wondering why I didn’t post in the last three days: I was visiting friends in Arkansas and that cut into my online time, so there you go. What I can tell you about that is that good bourbon is not bad and that home-brewed stout can be pretty tasty.

And that mixing sweet drinks like that with vodka and pickle juice can ruin your appetite for a day. ^_^