Tag: movies

Posted on

“The Tarzan Effect” on Me

Amazon Kindle had a special on the electronic Tarzan books, all 10 of the original stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, for only 99¢ (1.08 with tax) and I grabbed them!  🙂  The early Tarzan movies had

CLICK cover image to see on Amazon.com.

a big effect on me as a child, while most of the later ones I did not consider as good and since books are almost always better than their movie counterparts, I decided for the first time in my life to read the original stories by the author. Glad I did!

I have finished the first three books and boy is it true that, in this case, the books are so much better than the old or new movies. It is hard to believe how cheesy some of those old movies were that I remember liking so much as a child!  🙂  You can watch most of the old Tarzan movies free online now. And the newer movies made up their own stories, ignoring the books!

Then last week I read a climate change article in The Washington Post that really “clicked” with me and merged with my book readings caused me to decide there was a definite “Tarzan Effect” on me in my childhood of Saturday matinee Tarzan movies and that motivated me to start writing again. I now have a new set of web pages under ABOUT on my website simply titled The Tarzan Effect. They share some of the ways I think Tarzan affected me for the better and at one point I even link to stories and essays on how he affected several other people including Jane Goodall who is reported to have said “I fell passionately in love with Tarzan — this glorious creature living out in the jungle doing all the things I wanted to do, and what did he do? He married the wrong Jane.”  🙂

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Whats a VPN?

What is a VPN? It stands for Virtual Private Network and the link is to a detailed Wikipedia definition. But the short answer and why I would want one here is to “trick” the internet to thinking I am in the United States instead of Costa Rica when I surf the web, and particularly when I use my digital download subscription to Netflix. The movie producers in Hollywood (not Netflix) won’t let a movie be shown in a country unless it is licensed for that country. Most that I’m interested in are not licensed yet for Costa Rica.

So I have a subscription to My Expat Network which means I can get anything from Netflix that I could get in Tennessee. Funny thing is that I hardly use it because I’m too busy enjoying real life in this neat new country. But I will probably use it more in rainy season and it is good feeling to “be connected.” There are other reasons like security and limiting some marketing efforts over the internet, but Netflix was my main reason to get a VPN.

I get same movie titles available in the states with a VPN internet connection.
Including a lot of junk! But I have more choices this way. 

UPDATE: VPN No Longer Works Here for Me!

Netflix somehow detected I was using one and knocked me down to their fewer titles Costa Rica version. At first I just canceled them, then decided it was still better than paying for TV channels here which I no longer subscribe to. And rarely watch Netflix now, though I like some of their nature documentaries.

And here’s a video someone asked me to add here:

¡Pura Vida!