Llama Burger

During my two years' time in Peru, I saw llamas frequently, as you might imagine. I also have clothing made from llama fur. The other night, I finally tasted llama meat.

The Burger Bar up in Roy always has an interesting variety of exotic meats in addition to such greasy spoon favorites as fries, shakes, etc., and llama meat was certainly no disappointment. Does it taste like chicken?

No. I would say it tastes rather like . . . well, beef. If you'd have served me llama meat and told me it was a hamburger, I'd have believed you.

Summer Breeze

Following tonight's bi-monthly family dinner, I got to kick back for an hour and hang out with these two puppies on the back porch while enjoying a cool summer breeze. All in all, it was a relaxing summer evening.

Well, except for the mosquitoes. I didn't care for them much.

Did You Hear about Pluto? That's Messed Up!

Whenever the subject of science comes up, the first thing I usually think of is the word science being said, or rather yelled, whether in my head or out loud, just like that one guy in the '80s new wave song "She Blinded Me with Science" by Thomas Dolby:

"SCIENCE!"

Like many other things that happened in the '80s, you had to be there.

Speaking of science, it was, by far, my weakest subject in school. Life Science gave us the chance to dissect earthworms and frogs, which should have been cool in theory but instead let me know I am nauseated by the smell of formaldehyde, as well as earthworm/frog insides. Things didn't get much easier in earth science and Biology, and by the time I took chemistry in the 11th grade, I was downright befuddled by half of the stuff I read and/or was tested on.

The thing is, though, as little as I understand about science, I sometimes feel like some scientists honestly don't understand much more about it than I do.

A couple of days ago, I came across an article online with the headline:

“Everything We Know about the Big Bang Could Be Wrong”

Sarcasm alert: And here I had put so much stock into the Big Bang. My day was ruined for about one-eighth of a second, and then I kept on scrolling.

I think also of the planet Pluto, formerly the non-planet Pluto, which had previously been a planet the first time I learned about it when I was an elementary school kid growing up in the '80s.

Like I said, you had to be there in the '80s, or it just wouldn't make much sense.

I don't say any of this to bring on an onslaught of "Oh yeah, well science gave us this and science gave us that, and here's a Snopes article on this thing, you nimrod, and science cured polio, blah blah blah." If science is "all that" to you and your world, then I say, congratulations. Science has done some great things, to be sure. It has, indeed, cured diseases and helped us understand a lot about how people and animals and things work, and made inventions, and I'm not disputing any of that.

It is not, however, an exact science. So to speak. There seems to be a lot of guesswork involved in which a best guess is simply accepted as fact. In another decade, Pluto could be reclassified an asteroid, or a comet, or a giant, floating space paperweight, or the result of a bowel movement shot into space by Jabba the Hutt thousands of years ago.

My recurring thought is simply this: I'm glad that real, powerful, everlasting truth does not change. By definition, it never has, never does, and never will. It is not altered nor modified when people change their minds, because it comes from God. And I'm grateful I know the places I can go to find it.

Movie Review: "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies; Or, How I Learned to Stop Smaug and Love Middle-Earth"

This movie—I just . . . I can't even. What a film! And that's just the title alone, which is marvelous.

About my viewing experience today: Sometimes, one of the best parts of going to see a movie in the theater is listening to the very audible reactions of the people around you (as long as they don't distract, of course). The lady seated behind us had the most hysterical laugh—risa que da risa, as the Peruvians say—heard, for example, during the scene in which the cheese-head orc (yes, really; this orc looked like it was a very upset Green Bay Packers fan) ran headfirst into a wall to break a hole through it.

I guess you had to be there.

All right, so . . . Before we go any further: SPOILER ALERT. (You'd think that would be obvious when you're reviewing a movie, but hey . . . some people. Am I right?)

 - In the previous two movies, we had Radagast and his rabbit-driven sled. In this one, we also have an elf riding a moose and dwarves riding rams—'cause they're RAM TOUGH! (rim shot)

 - The dwarves' hair was styled by the same barber who cut the hair of infamous '80s band A Flock of Seagulls. Well, at least some of them.

 - Gingers get angry, and they will not be stopped (Galadriel, Tauriel). Galadriel goes full girl-from-The Ring-crazy in one scene.

 - Christopher Lee has pretty sweet fighting moves for a 92-year-old guy.

 - Literally dozens of people are rescued from imminent doom at EXACTLY THE VERY LAST POSSIBLE SECOND.

 - Speaking of last-minute rescues, I think I figured out why the eagles keep appearing when they do to help save the day. The eagle is the symbol of the United States, right? Well, the U.S. didn't make it into World War I until 1917 and, later on, World War II until late 1941 (after more than two years of fighting). Those Americans are always arriving late. (Nevertheless, they do help to save everybody.)

 - Near the end of the film, Merry (Dominic Monaghan), from the first Middle-Earth trilogy, makes a very brief cameo appearance when Bilbo returns to the Shire. I later verified this in the IMDB trivia section because, hey, slow news day. You can see him on the bottom-right of the screen, walking away from Bag End.

None of this is meant to come across as any sort of a complaint. It's just Paco's unique take on things, because that's the kind of Sensitive New Age Guy he is.

Can't wait for The Hobbit 4!