Evidently, trees caught a lot of my attention on my visit to Hamilton. These were beside a "trail" known as the Chedoke Radial Trail ("trail" is in quotes because a 2 metre, paved-ish surface doesn't, to me, qualify as a "trail"). It follows the rail bed of the long-gone Brantford and Hamilton Electric Railway. How "long gone"? It was shut down in 1930. Lonnnnnggggggg gone. Got to wonder if the "electric" part of the name had anything to do with that.

Still, converting old rail beds to walking/biking trails is a wonderful thing, in my book, and Hamilton's got plenty. They're great in that they tend to stay away from the developed parts of town, and they're accessible to pretty much anyone. Fit? Not fit? Who cares? These were built for trains, so their grades are negligible. And, at least in Hamilton, a lot of them are even lit! Yep, you can stroll along them on a summer evening without a care.

These are empty freight cars designed to carry logs. Why are they empty? 'Cause there ain't no trees left to convert to logs. Stupid people cut 'em down as fast as they could. Big money, you know.

And, speaking of stupid people (and, for once, the triumph of the smart), how's about this little story? I LOVE librarians. If you know one, go give 'em a great big hug. If you don't know one, find one and hug 'em anyhow!

Well, this photo has nothing to do with what I'm about to write about. At least, I don't think it does. Maybe by the time I'm done I'll be able to come up with a connection. Oops! It suddenly comes to me - train wreck!

Which would be an at least somewhat appropriate description of "Vantage Point". How were Forest Whitaker, John Hurt, Dennis Quaid and Sigourney Weaver conned into making this hunk 0' junk? Did massive (and I mean massive) quantities of money change hands? Were they given serious doses of hallucinatory medications? Something incredibly powerful had to have been administered to these poor, hapless saps to get them to utter such immortal lines as, "Are you injured, Mr. President?" "I am, but it's not important."

"Vantage Point" is a movie you should do anything in your power to avoid having to sit through. There is nothing - let me repeat that (a little trick I learned from the movie, oddly enough, except that I know when to quit) - nothing even vaguely redeeming about this movie. Not even, as some folks have tried to allow, the grand finale car chase (wow - a car chase for a finale! Who'd'a thunk o' that?!?). Dennis Quaid has spent the better part of the last - I dunno, 20 minutes? - of the movie chasing the Bad Guys (carrying POTUS in their ambulance) through the streets of, um, some city in Spain (though it's really Mexico City). They zip through intersections, up onto sidewalks, hurtle through crowds of people (fear not - not a single Spaniard is so much as grazed), bounce off cars, trucks and concrete, and all at incredibly high speeds complete with smoking tires, 4-wheel drift and a quick drive down some stairs and generally cause a lot of mayhem and, you know what? At the end of it all they've gone an entire seven (yes, that's right, seven. as in 7, as in 5+2, 6+1...whatever) blocks. Seven blocks. Just how bad is traffic in Spain anyway?

I could go on to list even more idiocies in this movie (and, believe me, I'd love to, but it's past 1:00 a.m. and I shoulda been in bed hours ago), but, to sum up - skip "Vantage Point". You know it's a bad sign when the audience spends more time laughing than gasping at a "thriller".

Who knew? Decorator trains.