2001: A Space Odyssey... A summary by me...

I recently got this book from the library and loved it quite a bit. I kept thinking I'd watched the movie at some point, but apparently not... Or perhaps I'd attempted to watch it and got bored and abandoned it. I've just now watched the whole movie after reading the book. Of course, I like the book better. Someone with no familiarity asked me to explain what the story is about. So, I'll summarize the book, because the movie... does not explain itself well. Here there be spoilers.

300,000 years ago, the man-ape ancestors of humans were on the brink of extinction; not doing well, not great at hunting or fending off predators, not great at community, etc. Then one day, in the middle of the African savannah, one small pack of these ancestors awoke to find a perfectly rectangular MONOLITH of some strange material just sitting there near their cave homes. They were wary of it at first, but it seemed harmless and eventually they ignored it, as they had other problems; food scarcity, nearby predators, territory dispute with a neighboring pack.

Unbeknownst to them, it was... watching them and while they slept it was minutely modifying their brains. One day, the leader of this pack looked at some blades of grass and realized he had an idea to "tie" them together. And the first knot was born. Then he later saw a discarded animal thigh bone sitting there and picked it up and realized it could be an extension of his arm. And the first weapon was born. And there were other things he was realizing (learning), like cooperation. His pack used his knowledge to hunt, defend themselves and drive off competition. The MONOLITH disappeared some time later, but they barely noticed. Humanity was on it's way...

Fast forward to the year 2001. There are several moon bases for various space agencies. One of the science groups discovers evidence of extraterrestrials, buried deep in the lunar soil. It was a MONOLITH of clearly extraterrestrial origin. It was buried on the moon purposefully at least 300,000 years ago. While studying it, the MONOLITH sort of activates, sending a radio signal outwards, apparently towards Saturn.

Fast forward 18 months. A manned mission was sent for the first time to Saturn, with a secret plan to search for and find MORE evidence. On the way, due to the secret nature of the mission and it's importance, the onboard AI computer (named HAL 9000) sort of goes crazy, because it knows the real mission and the two humans don't. It tries to cut off communication with Earth, one of the astronauts goes outside to fix the antenna and the HAL kills him remotely with a space pod. Then the other human onboard, David fights the machine, attempts to awaken other crewmembers that were in hibernation this whole time. HAL vents all oxygen into space and kills the hibernating crew, and attempts to kill Dave. Our hero manages to get his helmet on and not get blown out the airlock. He fights his way through the ship and destroys HAL's processors and hard drives.

David then restores communication with Earth. They apologetically tell him about the real secret mission. They tell him about the MONOLITH found on the moon, it's age and that he needs to get to one of Saturn's moons, Japetus where they think another MONOLITH (or something) will be. He manually flies the ship there with help from computers on Earth, then gets in orbit around Japetus. He gets in a space pod and flies down to the surface where he finds a MONOLITH and attempts to land on it... Except...

He is instead sucked into a wormhole transit system, and travels some ridiculously humongous distance to an unknown galaxy. There he witnesses stellar wonders, dual star systems, gets pulled into an unimaginably old but alien space building of some kind and then... is put into a weird simulation of a nondescript hotel room. It's sort of real, but simulated for his comfort. Then, he gets tired, has a weird meal on his own, and then goes to sleep. After he falls asleep, his room disappears and a MONOLITH is there hovering near his bed. Then David, while sort of sleeping, is regressed backwards from his adult self, through all his memories of life back to being a baby. This STARCHILD awakens and realizes it has special powers, like the ability to travel anywhere in the galaxy and do wondrous things. And it has a new mission to guide humanity. So it travels almost instantly back home to Earth, where humanity freaks out about this GIANT space baby that suddenly appeared and fires nukes at it. The STARCHILD is apparently not bothered, detonates them harmlessly without being hurt and then descends upon the Earth, where the real work will now begin.

THE END.

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Addendum: I wanted to add the following based on feedback.

Q: ... is dave the starchild?

Yes (and no... He's not Dave anymore.)

Just to be clear, the book is great. The movie seems like it would be confusing to someone on first watch. I don't understand how it was a popular or cult hit.

Upon reflection, there are really two plots to this story...

• Astronauts are on a space mission with an AI. It goes crazy and tries to kill them all and one guy survives.
• An unknown alien entity has been guiding human evolution since the beginning. And right as we step out into space, there is a system (of MONOLITHS) in place that helps (makes) us take the next step.

In pop cultural references, it seems that everyone focuses on the "HAL 9000 tries to kill Dave" ideas in the plot, completely ignoring the much bigger "MONOLITH" plot concepts. But it's not as easy to quote or meme so there you go.

And also... Trying to recall if I'd seen this movie before, I realized there was a sequel to this movie that I appparently HAVE seen. 2010: The Year We Make Contact which didn't have as much popularity as the first. What I recalled from the plot was that the characters travel to Jupiter and somehow activate a different MONOLITH which begins a process by which Jupiter becomes a second sun in our solar system. The plot is "Jupiter becomes a star and our solar system has a binary star system," and this neat idea stuck with me when I was younger. Obviously, this would have huge consequences for every planet in the solar system were it to really happen, but still neat.

R.I.P. KDHX Radio! Long Live CRSTL.FM!

I came late to the community radio appreciation party, but I've listened to KDHX radio for much of my life. I didn't always like the genre that was being featured from one hour to the next, but they had slots dedicated to Ska, Blues, Reggae, Folk, and World music. There were times for Country, Bluegrass, Classical, and everything in between. A central feature was the local music events and artists featured. It wasn't always my favorite radio station, but I knew people who claimed it as such. And I was always happy to have it saved in my radio dial, and to have a community resource here in my home town.

Well, as of 2025, the holding company that owned and operated the radio station decided to sell the rights to the frequency or whatever to a different company. So when the parent company went to sell, the employees, DJs and a number of volunteers worked on getting a court injunction together to stop them and take over ownership to keep this community resource. But their case was lost. And rather than continue to fight appeals, they decided to pivot their efforts in a different direction. For a brief time, when you tuned into 88.1 FM here in St. Louis, you got a very generic 90s dance music station with no DJs. It wasn't too bad. But that didn't last. Eventually, the parent company sold it to a Christian radio company and they started churning out contemporary Christian music over the airwaves. And I deleted it from my favorites list on the dial. In the general theme of things getting worse in these late-stage capitalistic times, this is one more log on the metaphorical dumpster fire.

As of today (at noon central) the team of DJs, management and volunteers who were part of making KDHX tick launched their new project; an Internet streamed community radio station called CRSTL.FM. You should tune in, but first off, lets take a history trip.

What the HELL happened to KDHX?

You can also learn more about the community being built at LOVE of Community Radio STL.

KDHX is dead. What's next?

The new station launched today and I was listening at noon when the first song played. They started with a really good set of Bluegrass, which is always new to me, and then had a live band in studio perform for a good time. It's worth tuning in and checking the posted schedule.

Embarrassing - The US Government Shutdown is Embarrassing

It's embarrassing. What is happening right now in our country is embarrassing on the world stage.

Did you know that there's almost no other democratic country in the world with a system where, if our elected leaders can't come together and agree on a compromise, then the whole of the federal government shuts down? In fact, there are some countries where, if a resolution can't proceed, then new elections are held and those representatives get replaced (e.g. Australia).

But no. We have a system where fully paid representatives, elected ADULTS, can decide to throw a hissy fit temper tantrum and decide they will just close everything. And real people will suffer because of it. And the elected representative will have no substantive punishments for this, other than an angrier constituency. With how we do our campaigning, both sides point fingers, and nothing changes.

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Update: As everyone knows, this was not the first government shutdown. And unless someone (in congress?) eventually really makes an important big change, it won't be the last.

I Am Allergic to Acetaminophen

I need to remember this, so I'm posting it here to remind me. I get a mild itchy throat and a ticklish urge to cough that lasts for about an hour. No other reactions that I can recall from last time. But hopefully this is the last time I try taking it. I'll stick with Ibuprofen when called for.

Basement Flooding --AGAIN! What is This, Part Three?

I posted this on Facebook, but I also wanted to record it here.

Back in early November, I was one of many Florissant / north STL county residents that got a majorly flooded basement due to the ridiculous amount of rain. This happened once before back in ...2014?

It was really a lot worse than simple rain water for us, as the sewer system became "overcharged" (that is MSD's word for it 😒) and backed up into our house. To the extent of 5-7" of... sludge. The damage was... bad. My homeowner's insurance didn't cover anything. MSD gave us a small check for the damages while still maintaining it wasn't their fault. I had a company show up and quote us for the cleanup and restoration and it was ~4x what MSD was going to give us. That wouldn't have covered replacing anything lost, only cleanup and restoring drywall, etc.. I took the money, paid the company for the cleanup they'd done so far and that was it.

You can see that Florissant residents showed up at a city meeting that MSD hosted... If you watch closely you can spot me there. I left that meeting unsatisfied... As did almost everyone that I spoke to there. A lot of customer service and PR folks to explain gently how this wasn't their fault.

I've been slowly and surely cleaning things up myself over the past several months, whenever I can get to it. Progress had been slow.

Well... now it's happening again. A "once in a hundred years" rain storm is happening again this weekend. Because of course it is. This time I was a little better prepared, and I think I'm going to stay on top of it hopefully. How?

First, after November I bought a little drain plug. It was relatively cheap (<$10) at my local hardware store. They come in a few different sizes (3", 4", and such) so measure before you buy. This screws tightly into place and keeps MOST but not all of the water from coming up from a basement drain. You don't want to leave something like this in place 100% of the time, as a burst pipe OR water from the basement walls needs a place to go. But when water begins to come UP you can slow that down.

As I am currently getting water from the walls AND some coming up from the drain. I needed a way to get pump out the water that is pooling there. A shop vac worked for a little while, but I'd have to empty it by carrying it up the stairs and dumping into the backyard. After 15 or more trips this way, while barely keeping up with the water, I decided that was not going to cut it. I have to sleep eventually. So another trip to the hardware store and I now the owner of a small 1/6 horsepower sump pump that attaches to a standard garden hose. A 100' hose goes out my basement window and empties into the drainage ditch at the end of my yard.

Now I just need to turn it off every once in a while when the water is low, so it can cool off and let enough of a puddle form for suction. So that's where I'm at now. Wish me luck on keeping up with the rain. This is NOT what I planned to do this weekend, but we can't always get what we want. Stay safe everyone.

Karaoke @ Murphy's Bar & Grill

I've been hosting a new karaoke night every Tuesday at Murphy's Bar & Grill in Creve Coeur. I was referred to them through Zyi, and it came together pretty quickly after I reached out. This place had a regular karaoke night prior to the pandemic, but it fell apart and they needed a reboot. Here's my invite description.

𝗞𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗼𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸, 𝗯𝗮𝗯𝘆! Welcome old friends and new friends of 🍀 𝘔𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘩𝘺'𝘴 𝘉𝘢𝘳 & 𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭.

My name is Jim and I'm the new host for 🎵 Karaoke Tuesday nights from 8:30-11:30pm. I grew up in Creve Coeur and I can't wait to get this started. We are going to have a good time.

I'm an experienced musician and karaoke host, and it's my goal to provide great entertainment for your evening. Some people are not sure about karaoke and I get that. What should you expect? If you'd like to sing, I'll give you every opportunity to take your turn with the mic. 🎤 Or you can sit back, have a few drinks and enjoy the music with live singers of every possible skill level.

Don't forget, it's also $𝟐.𝟎𝟎 𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 all day, so all domestics 🍻 are available for $2 each as well as all night happy hour well drinks. This is a smoker-friendly bar.

Enjoying the description and cheeky emojis, but will probably update this as time goes on. Right now, I'm looking at the rest of the month. We will have karaoke this week for the 17^th but the bar will be closing early on the 24^th for Christmas Eve. However, there will be a special night on NEW YEAR'S EVE, December 31^st where we will have karaoke up to almost midnight and then I'll lead us all in a countdown. I hope you join us!