How’s This for an Odd Coincidence?
It’s my first day back to work after being laid off December 7, six weeks ago. It’s raining. It doesn’t do that much here in Southern Arizona.
The last day it rained here in NW Tucson was Dec. 7.
Tag: miscellaneous
How Did THAT Happen?
Taking advantage of my last weekday as an unemployed person, I caught the first matinee showing of The Book of Eli at the local googleplex Friday. It is another of this year’s crop of apocalyptic films that began (humorously) with Zombieland, went craptacular with 2012, then ultra-depressing with The Road.
Interestingly, Eli could be seen as a sort of sequel to The Road. The apocalypse that The Man and The Boy trudge through in The Road occurred only ten years previously. In Eli it’s thirty years in the past. Both movies are filmed in very muted colors, and in both films the majority of human beings shown are amoral predators. In this one, however, the main character travels, initially, alone – and he is ultra-competent at defending himself and his possessions. I’ll give the Hughes brothers credit – the action scenes are very well done.
There are, of course, plot holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through, but if you’re willing to suspend disbelief and go with it the story is pretty good. Gary Oldman does a fine job of playing the same character he played in The Fifth Element and The Professional – a whacked-out power-crazed nutjob. Jennifer Beals’ hair puts in a nice appearance, and Mila Kunis did her job as the apprentice seeking protection and knowledge from the Master. The sets were sufficiently post-apocalypty, but I wonder why there were two concrete cooling towers out in the desert with nothing else around them?
The interesting thing about the film, however, was its pro-Christian message. How did that happen? Of course, there’s a scene that puts it all in “perspective,” in the end, but the plot twist at the climax carries a significant message that only the deaf, blind and stupid could miss.
I give it about 8.5 out of 10. Definitely not a waste of my time or my money.
Color Me Surprised (Not)
Color Me Surprised (Not)
Back in 2003, May 31 to be precise, I posted this humorous warning sign:
Now Instapundit brings us this news:
Sex sting in Poconos nets former chief U.N. weapons inspector
A former chief United Nations weapons inspector is accused of contacting what he thought was a 15-year-old girl in an Internet chat room, engaging in a sexual conversation and showing himself masturbating on a Web camera.
Scott Ritter of Delmar, N.Y., who served as chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-98 and who was an outspoken critic of the second Bush administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq, is accused of contacting what turned out to be a Barrett Township police officer posing undercover as a teen girl.
I’m not going to reproduce the sexually graphic portion of the story, but this is where that warning sign came from:
The New York Post reported Ritter had been caught in a similar case involving a 14-year-old girl in April 2001, but that he was not charged.
In 1998, Ritter resigned from the United Nations Special Commission weapons inspection team and has been the most outspoken critic of U.S. policy toward Baghdad.
Instapundit asks, “So you don’t think Scott Ritter was blackmailable, or anything, and that this might have had something to do with his sudden change of position?”
Improving Obama’s Numbers
Improving Obama’s Numbers
Good news! I rejoin the workforce next Monday. The six weeks off have been nice, but the income will be nicer. Blogging will probably suffer for a bit.
Oh, GROW UP
Oh, GROW UP
Audiences experience ‘Avatar’ blues
(CNN) — James Cameron’s completely immersive spectacle “Avatar” may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.
On the fan forum site “Avatar Forums,” a topic thread entitled “Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible,” has received more than 1,000 posts from people experiencing depression and fans trying to help them cope. The topic became so popular last month that forum administrator Philippe Baghdassarian had to create a second thread so people could continue to post their confused feelings about the movie.
“I wasn’t depressed myself. In fact the movie made me happy ,” Baghdassarian said. “But I can understand why it made people depressed. The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don’t have here on Earth. I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed.”
A post by a user called Elequin expresses an almost obsessive relationship with the film.
“That’s all I have been doing as of late, searching the Internet for more info about ‘Avatar.’ I guess that helps. It’s so hard I can’t force myself to think that it’s just a movie, and to get over it, that living like the Na’vi will never happen. I think I need a rebound movie,” Elequin posted.
May I suggest “The Road”?
Yeesh.
I Was Wrong
The comments by Louis and eeky finally pushed me over the edge. I just got back from watching Dances with Smurfs, er, Blue Pocahontas, um AVATAR.
Holy Sh!t!!
James Cameron is a friggin’ genius.
At directing. At visualizing and getting his vision down on film or tape or disc, or whatever. At writing, nazzofastguido. But my sweet bleeding jeebus, that film is a visual freaking masterpiece. (As were Titanic and even Aliens.) My hat’s off to him. And yes, I saw it in 3D, and I have to say that this is the FIRST film in which that gimmick wasn’t a gimmick – it really added to the film.
Ignore the political message – you need to see this thing, and pay the extra for 3D.
Edited to add: In the sequel, directed by Paul Verhoeven, the “Star People” (dressed in leather trench coats and knee-boots, to the dulcet strains of Wagner) return to Pandora, drop tactical nukes from orbit as the ultimate in daisy-cutters, spray the 22nd Century’s equivalent of Agent Orange on the rest of the planet, and strip mine the place for every picogram of “Unobtanium” ore they can get. In a fit of pique, Mother Pandora telepathically convinces the primary gas-giant to compress itself and ignite, thus wiping out all life on Pandora, including the hated “Star People.”
There. I feel better now.
Video Bleg
Video Bleg
I’m looking for a good, preferably free, flash video editor. I’ve tried a couple so far that haven’t been too impressive, and the final result of the second one I tried wouldn’t upload properly to Photobucket – half of the video is 60fps, and half is 30fps. The 30fps stuff played perfectly, but the 60fps stuff played at double speed. Alvin and the chipmunks audio without video.
I’m willing to buy something, but (being unemployed) I don’t want to spend much.
So, any recommendations?
What Could POSSIBLY Go Worng
What Could POSSIBLY Go Worng?
Police may scrap entrance exam
The Chicago Police Department is seriously considering scrapping the police entrance exam to bolster minority hiring, save millions on test preparation and avert costly legal battles that have dogged the exam process for decades, City Hall sources said Tuesday.
If the process is opened to everyone who applies and meets the minimum education and residency requirements, Chicago would be virtually alone among major cities. Most cities have police entrance exams — and for good reason, experts say.
Then again, it’s not like the CPD doesn’t have a LOT of problems already.
Still, it is interesting to read their reasoning – “to bolster minority hiring…and avert costly legal battles….” Battles resulting, undoubtedly, from that “minority hiring” problem.
Quote of the Day – Working Edition
Quote of the Day – Working Edition
We’ve declared war on work. As a society – all of us. It’s a civil war, it’s a cold war, really. We didn’t set out to do it, and we didn’t twist our mustache in some Machiavellian way, but we’ve done it. And we’ve waged this war on at least four fronts. Certainly in Hollywood. The way we portray working people on TV? It’s laughable. If there’s a plumber, he’s 300 pounds and he has a giant butt-crack, admit it. You’ve seen it all the time, that’s what plumbers look like, right? We turn ’em into heroes or we turn ’em into punchlines. That’s what TV does. We try hard on Dirty Jobs not to do that, which is why I do the work and I don’t cheat.
We’ve waged this war on Madison Avenue. So many of the commercials that come out there in the way of a message, what’s really being said? Life would be better if you could work a little less. If you didn’t have to work so hard. If you could get home a little earlier, if you could retire a little faster, if you could punch out a little sooner. It’s all in there, over and over, again and again.
Washington? I can’t even begin to talk about the deals and policies in place that affect the bottom-line reality of the available jobs ’cause I don’t really know. I just know that that’s a front in this war.
And right here, guys; Silicon Valley. How many people have an iPhone on ’em right now? How many people have their Blackberries? We’re plugged in, we’re connected. I would never suggest for a second that something bad has come out of the tech revolution. Good grief, not to this crowd. But I would suggest that innovation without imitation is a complete waste of time. And nobody celebrates imitation the way Dirty Jobs guys know it has to be done. Your iPhone without those people making the same interface, the same circuitry, the same board over and over – all that, that’s what makes it equally as possible as the genius that goes inside of it.
And so we’ve got this new tool box. Our tools today don’t look like shovels and picks, they look like the stuff we walk around with. And so the collective effect of all of that has been this marginalization of lots and lots of jobs.
Mike Rowe from his speech at TED.
And I’m reminded of this old, old joke:
5,000 years ago, Moses said:
“Load up your camels, pick up your shovels, mount your asses,
and I will lead you to the promised land.”5,000 years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt said:
“Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, light up a Camel,
this IS the promised land.”
