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Friday, May 16, 2008

Friday Film Feature

Well, I knew it was a bad idea when I heard that they were making it. This, apparently, confirms it. That Indiana Jones is fighting communists, though, is interesting given Hollywood's leftist bent. The natural instinct in a Hollywood screenwriter would have been to have Jones fighting Nazis in hiding or neo-Nazis or, more likely yet, some made-up cabal of baddies.

Why is this movie a bad idea from the get-go? Because Harry Ford is freakin' 65 years-old, and not a good 65 years-old, but a tired, haggard, craggy, flaccid 65 years-old. Ten years ago, maybe this would've flown but now? Not so much. I'll wait for some more reviews before deciding whether to go see it in the movies. But I always knew it was going to be bad.

The upcoming Batman movie, though, has promise, judging from the trailers I've seen, looks to be at least as good as the first one, which was the best superhero movie I've seen (the first Spider-man was about one-tenth of point less good than Batman Returns), and I only mostly-kinda liked it. It had flaws. But the next one seems to avoid the trap that most, if not all, superhero movie sequels fall into, and that's upping the ante with more super villains rather than just a new super villain. And, no, I haven't seen them all (some super heroes simply don't interest me much: X-men and Fantastic Four, for example).

The basic problem I have is that there is too much going on in these sequels with more super villains. Also, adding extra super villains also farks with the logic of the super hero world logic, in which the super hero's appearance in the first film is almost universally a shock to the world in which he enters, and, theoretically, so is the entrance of the first super villain. So, how is it that in the time between the first film and second that multiple super villains appear in the world while no additional super heroes do?

I'm guessing the reason behind the additional super villains is that the screenwriter, seeking to ratchet up the danger, eureka-ideaed himself into bonus villains rather than figure out a more desperate situation in which to place our hero: "Aha! Rather than have SuperHero fight Antman over his plans to rob the city's biggest bank of its gold bouillon while SuperHero's Regular Joe identity's lover is in some peril, I'll have SuperHero fight Antman and Garbageo over their plans to seed the clouds with some toxin that will poison all the residents of Metroville so the villains can steal all the Rolex watches in town and thereby corner the world Rolex market, wreaking havoc on the wristwatch consumers and ratcheting up prices!"

Seriously, I think that's how your average screenwriter thinks.

Which segues quite nicely into my review of The TV Set, a movie about the making of a pilot episode of a television show. I'm sure it's a fairly accurate depiction of the difficulty and idiocy a screenwriter endures in getting his vision translated into video. It's supposed to be a comedy, but it never quite gets a laugh out of you, and you can tell which scenes and lines are supposed to be the funny ones and all you do is knowingly nod at the television screen.

Curiously, there appears to be a B-story involving the actors in the pilot, but that story is erratic and under-represented. Suddenly, the main actor for the pilot goes from goofy normal guy to weirdo creepy whackjob, and you have no idea why. The C-story involving the British TV exec is even more weird and with less exposition to account for why it is even in the script. You just scratch your head and say what? The movie gives you the impression that all of these "moments" actually exist for the people in the television/movie industry, but the writer - Jake Kasdan, son of Lawrence, so that's how he got in the industry - doesn't have a full-length story to hang them on, so you get a malnourished, 88-minute breezy bit of entertainment that leaves you wondering what the story was all about.

The movie clearly doesn't suck, but there is almost nothing to recommend it. Who knows what made me put it my Netflix queue all those many months ago? I guess if you want a fictionalized glimpse into the weird world of the modern Hollywood screenwriter, this is for you.

Labels: Movie Reviews

William Young 2:21 PM # 0 comments
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Both Parties Running Scared, But Which is More Afraid of November?

Amid all the news blurbs telling me how bad everything is, there was this: Obama picked up four more SuperDelegates. Egad. Four. More. Superdelegates. I can't believe this is the state of the Democratic Primary race, a state which now has the AM talk radio lefties breathlessly counting the mounting superdelegate pledges. Does the average talk radio listener care to track this? For that matter, is this information useful? Hell, every hour on the hour, the news presenter tells you what the current stock market indices are. Dow is this, S&P is that and the Nasdaq is whatever. Useless information. Worthless, too.

Typical of most of the information thrown at you over the airwaves, too. Does the news media really think any of us want to be told about Obama's gains in the rarified realm of the Democratic Party SuperDuperDelegates?

Well, they clearly want us to care. More than that, they want us to believe. In the Obamatopia.

Meh. If only Pool Boy weren't a fervent Obama fanatic (sign in front yard), I wouldn't believe the political analysis of another of my best friends, who figures Obama has something on the order of an 80% chance of getting elected. I wrote this a while back about my early assessment of the upcoming general election, viewed through the primary lens, and I think it still holds true. For the life of me, I can't see a far left radical fascist like Obama winning the hearts and minds of most of the people in this country, Obamessiah imagery be damned.

And I don't think this is just going to be a 16-year cycle of change election like Karl over at Protein Wisdom suggests. The media might not have liked Kerry all that much in 2004, but they covered for him like a force field. This time around, the mainstream media has its dream candidate, and it will lead from the front in shaping the guy's image and repelling 527 narratives and otherwise helping Obama in every way possible. Ever since Johnson quit after one term, Democrats only get elected to the presidency by accident. Except maybe for Clinton's second term, and things were pretty good in the 90s and Americans are pretty forgiving if you're not a complete foul-up in the office, and Clinton was only a mild-cluster-foul-up while in office, and most people didn't notice.

This year, though, things are different. And if you think counting individual superdelegates during the primary to determine the nominee is a ridiculous thing to hear about on the news, then it's quite possibly also an indicator that there are serious fundamental problems in the Democratic Party and it's voting bloc. I don't think either Clinton or Obama will "heal" the divisions in the party after the nominee is selected (*not elected*), especially not if the Recreate '68 crowd have anything to do with the convention. I don't recall '68 or '72 working out so well for the Democrats, and this was more-or-less the time period when the phony historical narrative of the time tells us that the hippies, counter-culture, anti-war, liberals and Democrats were surging in cultural/political power.

Will the Republicans crumble further in November? I dunno. The media tells me so, but, then, the media is invested in Democratic Party victories. That conservative talk radio hosts thinks so, too, may mean something, but, then, the Republican Party has eschewed conservative governing principles for a pretty long time, now, so it's not a stretch to see conservative talkers predicting shrinkage in Congress.

But this tells you something. I think Democrats should be afraid of November.

William Young 8:00 AM # 0 comments
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Lessons, Learned

One of the weird things about The Sahdness is the educating of your children. Or, rather, the training of your children in the basic tasks they must know in order to function as family members. The first instance most parents encounter in this training regimen is when it comes to potty training. Before then, perhaps, even, then, you aren't dealing with a rational human being on any level. They eat. They poop. They sleep. They cry. They play. And, in the case of my boys (and, now, girl) they destroy.

Vodkapundit Steve Green is trying an interesting method, albeit one I would never engage in. I may have a lot of Type A tendencies when it comes to discipline, order and Where Things Go When Not Being Used, I wouldn't put me through that kind of regimen. I'd say Steve's also doing what my wife tried to do with the boys (and, I'll guess, with the girl), and that's crack the whip at the beginning of the Learning Curve, that period "everyone" tells you a child can be potty trained: somewhere between 2 and 3 years-old. As the old saw goes, "you can start training your kid to use the toilet at 2 and finish when he turns three, or you can wait until he's 3 and he figures it out."

Well, almost. Owe pretty much learned that way, but only after I broke down and started putting him in cotton underwear. It took him about a week or so to realize what that funny sensation meant, and then success ever since. With Harry C, he learned a bit earlier than Owe, but there was peer pressure involved, so to speak: he could see his older brother doing something he was not and, typically, figured out how to do it.

Last Friday, I spent the afternoon and evening with Pool Boy, and one of the things that came up by him or his wife was the expectation that by age X their daughter would be able to do Y. I forget the details, I just remember listening to them talk about this level of child functionality and chuckling to myself. I'm sure all parents have the same mentality, too, which is that if we tell/teach our kid to do something over a period of time we expect them to internalize and learn that behavior. And, we all remember how successful we were with potty training, so it should be a cinch to teach your kid not to run in a parking lot or to look both ways for approaching automobile traffic before crossing the street.

So far, I have found this not to be the case. I've come to the conclusion that this is a function of time-space: you spend so much time in the same space as your children that you naturally conclude they are learning what you are telling them. Because they're miniature geniuses or whatever. Because their YOURS! Whatever. You see this all the time, people just naturally expecting that their children will "get it" at some point in time-space, and that'll be that. You know: by six, little Bobby will be able to successfully resource and deploy his own bowl of cereal in the morning.

Maybe. But my experience tells me that your children are never nearly as advanced as you think they are.

Finished Michael Yon's Moment of Truth in Iraq last night. If you've followed his stuff online, much of what you read won't be new, though the old stuff is fleshed out with a few more details. It's a quick read, the quickest I've read in the last couple of years, and I finished it in about a week. The writing is simple, with crisp declarative sentences that get to the point. There isn't a whole lot of story-telling, just straight-forward narrative with well-worded, concise imagery punching up the details. Yon definitely makes you feel the heat and dust the soldiers (and he) endured while on the missions, and if you wanted a sense of what the hell really goes on with our military, this book is where you'll find that information.

The book contains tons of missions that Yon personally went on as an embedded writer, and he often remarks on how close to death he and the other men were. You get a palpable sense of the danger, but you also get a sense of the level of skill and professionalism imbued in our troops. Our men have adapted, improvised and overcome a wily, ever-changing, ever-more-deadly adversary in a country where they had not only to defeat the enemy, but win the hearts of the countrymen.

Yon doesn't pull any punches along the way, easily pointing out the idiotic techniques and tactics employed by our side. He notes the slow-to-adapt nature of the Army in figuring out how to engage in the media war, and he describes the media war in a way that makes understanding the concept of whose minds and votes are being fought for in Iraq (ours).

Some of his descriptions of battle are mind-boggling, describing scenes that resemble improvised chaos more than anything else. Often, more soldiers succumb to heat exhaustion and dehydration than enemy fire, and descriptions of soldier suddenly collapsing because their blood apparently wasn't liquified enough to maintain vein integrity was the first I'd heard of such a thing. Page after page, you'll find something you missed in the mainstream media accounts.

By the end of the book, which he writes in Mosul earlier this year, you get the sense that we made it through the near collapse into all-out civil war by sheer grit, poured more blood and treasure into what could have been a black hole and worked civil-project by fire-fight out of near disaster to near success and now, just as the mainstream media has lost interest in the Iraq War narrative, is the moment where the enemy can be pushed over the edge.

If you know very little about the Iraq War and how counter-insurgency operations are run, this book will get you up to speed without bogging you down with too much additional information (for example, he notes in passing that the M1 Abrams tank - a massive behemoth of a piece of armor - is easy for the terrorists to defeat, but he doesn't go into the details of shape-charged IEDs or otherwise explain what tactics and weapons the enemy uses; nor does he attempt to debunk or reinforce arguments of the left or right - there is no partisan agenda in the book).

Anyway, that's what I've got for today. Go in peace and multiply.

William Young 4:25 PM # 0 comments
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The Manly Art of Home Improvement

Sunday shot up out of the earth the way it normally does, and after spending the morning the way most Sunday mornings are spent - drinking coffee and looking at the RC church parking lot fill and empty as each of the Masses is held - the wife wanted to finally get on with it. Was I game? Well, of course, I'm your normal married guy who likes to use his tool once in a while, you know.

So, we were off to The Home Depot to acquire something to cover the gaping hole under the front porch, a gaping hole made whole by the wife last fall when she tore down the dilapidated lattice work, exposing a pile of dirt, bricks, a defunct oil tank, and, yesterday, a wooden six-sided die. I had little interest in the actual item - a replacement lattice of some sort - so I let the wife mull over the design specifics. She chose a kinda tan vinyl product, and I took over as contractor and bought the required items for installation.

Back home, I measured - twice - the various dimensions of the gaping hole and set the 4X8 latttice sheets down, marked them up, and cut them. Decided on a method of installation - vertical or horizontal mounts (chose vertical) and then did the mounting. Fun. Sorta. Took a couple of hours, mostly because I kept double-measuring everything because I didn't want to cut anything and eff it up. The wife, having set me to my task, spent her afternoon working on the yard in the back, so, after a while, Harrison summoned her to the front yard, where I stood admiring my handiwork: it had come out 99% perfect, if perfect can have a percentage in your world. It can in mine.

Okay, okay, I was slightly disappointed by the bottom cut to the lattice. The slope of my front yard, from left to right, is a rise from 42" to 34", which is to say that the beam on the left edge of the front porch is a longer plumb line than the one on the right, which required me to cut an angle into the lattice sheets so that it would meet the sidewalk more-or-less constantly. There were a few points where there was a tiny bit too much lattice uncut, and a few bits where I had cut too much, but on the whole, the wife thought it was perfect, since she's going to plant flowers in front of it and nobody but me will ever know the bottom edge is somewhat ragged.

But I will always know. And then I checked the clock and realized it was Sunday Happy Hour and mixed a quick pitcher of margaritas, two of which convinced me that my handiwork was just fine. Ahh, tequila.

Also, Uncle Sam put back into my checking account some of the money he's been extorting from me over the years. He did so to lots of people, judging from the crowd at the Costco on Saturday afternoon. Most. Crowded. Ever.

"Looks like a lot of people are out stimulating the economy this weekend," I quipped.

My wife and kids didn't get it, so I just pushed the cart around while the wife shopped. Seriously, though, it was el crowdedo. I didn't see much evidence of a rush on flat panel HD TVs, though the first guy I saw with a cart after entering the store had a 37" LCD loaded and ready to go. But, I see that almost every time I go there. It'll be interesting to see if the vote-buying-scheme works and people go out and buy stuff to save our struggling (cough, cough) economy in these turbulent times of low unemployment and (mild) economic growth. If it gooses the economy this quarter, will we see any stories about how the federal government saved the nation's economy by a one-time return of "federal revenues" to the citizenry? Or are we going to continue to read stories about how bad the state of affairs is until a Democrat is elected president? Just saying, is all.

For us, it was just the normal quarterly re-supply run, and we spent about the same as we always do. Only instead of doing it next weekend when the appropriate job paycheck rolls in, we did it this weekend 'cause the Feds direct-deposited cash into my account. Note to the government: more of this, please.

Make of this what you will, but I found the opening few words telling:

I'm pretty much your consummate coastal elite (I biked back from the farmer's market today with a baguette and artisan cheese fastened to my rack)

Insty kinda-sorta links to it approvingly, referring to it as a smack down of an NYT article about chain restaurant food. I dunno. It sorta seems like a semi-slam against the NYT for semi-slamming the food the proles eat, as if they should know better, not, as Glenn links, another article defending the food the proles eat. You can't consider yourself an "elite" and pronounce on matters of the masses and try to empathize with them if your first example is defining yourself as an elite and then giving an example of your eliteness. And, this is also telling:

Remember folks -- most people probably still think of the NY Times as "liberal". And this is how they get the idea that liberals are a bunch of effete snobs.

Posted by: DAS | May 4, 2008 10:06 PM

Read the rest of the comments and you get the same sentiment. The left is trying to re-define the news stream most Americans consume as "corporate," and therefore "right wing.". In the minds of some on the left, these kinds of articles aren't leftist analysis of middle-America, but super-duper-double-secret pretend news pieces meant to make NYT readers think the NYT is trying to convince people that "liberals" look down on the "common man" whom would eat at such a chain restaurant.

It never ends.

But, alas, this post must, because I tire of writing it. Cheers!

Labels: normal blatheration

William Young 5:05 PM # 0 comments
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And Now For Something Completely Idiotic

Some of you may remember that I used to be a journalist - maybe I still am, who knows - who quit after 12 years in the business. Got tired of it. Specifically, I got tired of being forced by an editor to churn out little items like the one below. So, I present you, as perhaps my one-and-only blog entry of the day, with what I spent 20 minutes doing this morning while checking out the various mainstream media outlets I tune to.

And, yes, as a former reporter, I do email current reporters with observations about their work as journalists that are just like this one. I can't help it. The state of journalism in America sucks at all levels, and this level here is my local daily newspaper telling me about my community, and this is what they thought was important enough to lead the website as the most important bit of news of the day.

Dear Editor, I read this story accidentally and had these thoughts about it: Homeless man faces numerous charges

Suspect allegedly tried to cash stolen money order

By KEITH PHUCAS, Times Herald Staff

NORRISTOWN — A man was arrested after Norristown postal workers tipped off police that he came to the post office and tried to cash a money order he'd reportedly stolen from a woman earlier that day, according to police. --Really? THIS is a news story? And, it's overly cautiously written, don't you think? Todd Williams, a 42-year-old homeless man, was charged with forgery, receiving stolen property and disorderly conduct in the April 10 incident, according to a Norristown Police Department. --This happened 20 days ago and you think it's newsworthy on May 1? What the heck kind of news judgment is that? Aren't there useless AP stories to run or can't your reporters find news in Montgomery County? A woman who purchased a money order from the Norristown Post Office reportedly came into the building that Thursday morning and told postal clerk Teresa Lomax a man snatched her purse that contained the $75 money order. --"Reportedly?" Who teaches your reporters how to write? Did or did not the woman go into the building and tell postal clerks she was robbed? Less than a half-hour later, the suspect allegedly walked into the post office with the money order and handed it to Lomax's co-worker, Sharon Young. --Again, did the suspect walk into the post office or not? "Allegedly" is a useless modifier in this sentence. Something did happen, and we expect your reporter to find out what. People don't "allegedly" walk into places. "I heard Teresa (Lomax) talking to a lady customer about 20 minutes before about the money order," Young said. --THIS is a quote? This isn't even filler material for a police blotter item. This is embarrassing. Young reportedly noticed the money order still had its perforated receipt attached, which struck her as odd. A check of the serial number revealed it was identical to the one the customer bought, according to reports. Young then called 911. --Nobody is going to sue for libel or defamation over an accurate re-telling of a police report. You don't need this kind of a** covering. But, boy, isn't this story just compelling?!? A clerk noticed a receipt was still attached to a money order and called the police!!! When police received the call, the Montgomery County dispatcher alerted them to a man in a green jacket waiting inside the post office to collect $75 cash from a stolen money order, according to the report. --Oh, boy, you've got to be kidding me that this detail is even remotely interesting or needed. Police pulled up in front of the building soon after and got out of their car. --You have to be freaking kidding me. You mean to tell me that after the police were told to respond, they drove their car to the scene of the crime and got out of it to investigate? Really? REALLY!?!?!?! Aren't they supposed to go to Dunkin' Donuts first and get a dozen jellies first? "(Williams) was standing around in the lobby when police pulled up," Lomax said. --Lemme see, the suspect was still there but: But the suspect spotted the police vehicle, and when officers came in the front door, "He bolted," Young said, fleeing out another door leading to Airy Street. --He ran away when he saw the cops! And we needed a quote to set this bit of useless information up for us? Who teaches your reporters to write? Are they former goat herders lulled by the sense of urgency working in the media affords a person? All of this information is just so NEW and URGENT and IMPORTANT! Sheesh. Officers followed after him, yelling for him to stop, but the homeless man ignored them and kept running down the street, police reported. --Oh, how unsurprising. A person trying to escape from the police refuses a plea from the police to stop and be arrested, so the police have to run after him. Big freakin' whoop. Did your reporter ask the police why they just didn't shoot the suspect to stop him from running? If not, why not? I demand to know. Finally, the officers caught up to him on the 100 block of East Penn Street and took him into custody. --And, finally, the drama comes to and end! Suspect captured! Justice served! But why didn't your reporter ask the homeless man what his motivations were? Certainly he has a side of the story to tell, but your reporter doesn't tell it. How is this "fair and balanced" journalism if all you're doing is telling the story from the police point-of-view? I mean, you did bother to tell us, at all, so if you were going to bother with this bit of idiocy, shouldn't the reporter have fleshed it out a bit more? You had 20 days to investigate this serious and heinous crime against the community. What about the theft-victim's point-of-view? Why didn't you talk to her and detail her harrowing encounter with the purse snatcher? If you, as journalists, are going to put this mindless crime fluff nonsense in the newspaper, you might as well go whole hog about it and tell the whole story. This throw-away news item is useless and should embarrass everyone in the chain of writing, editing and publishing it. Sincerely, William Young

William Young 10:03 AM # 1 comments
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Influential People in Your Life

Sigh. These are the 100(+) most influential people in the world? Really? Some Japanese video game developer and a Korean pop music star are #1 and #2? The list is, ultimately, meaningless. Most of the people on the list are entertainers of one sort or another, and as such, are powerless and influenceless, if that's a word. Exactly how in the world is the cast of High School Musical a vehicle to influence anyone? And, what would be the message or influence?

This pointless exercise mimics the lists of The X Most Whatever that end up on the covers of magazines from time to time. You know, GQ magazine will have a cover in November that announces The 9 Men Who Inspire Us and you'll look at the men and they'll be actors in suits. And, then, some women's monthly will put out an issue with a cover boasting The 11 Women Who Matter Most Now and it'll have actresses, models and pop stars all dressed in white dresses.

Once upon a time I almost paid attention to the lives of celebrities, rock stars, Hollywood types and the like. Then I stopped subscribing to magazines. Now, my entire knowledge of the lives these kinds of people live is based solely on the covers of the magazines in the check-out lane at the supermarket. So, these people have no influence over me. But, really, do the people who follow these celebrities and such really care what they think about anything, or do they read for some other reason? If top-rated influential person Stephen Colbert told people that he thought anthropogenic global climate change was complete nonsense, would that move the buzz meter toward the climate change denialist end of the spectrum, or would his words melt into the ether?

Whatever. So, after much thought we decided to sign Owe up for little gridders football. He's of age for the entry level team, flag football, and we thought, "Why not?" Something to do. It's an activity, a physical activity, and it will get us out into the community at large. There's a minimum parental mandatory involvement requirement, and, after a little hesitation, I thought, "What the hell else do I have to do with my time?" Nuttin's what.

Went to register him after dinner and was told he would be too old for flag football and would have to start with the equipment team. Right. Six and seven year-olds wearing full kit. Should be fun, err, interesting. It seems like a disaster in the works on first blush, since when he "plays" T-ball he barely pays attention to what's going on. But, then, nobody taught any of these kids how to play baseball before making them play, so what would you expect? With the football league, there is a month of four-a-week practices before the first game, and then twice-weekly practices after that.

I didn't start playing organized football until I was in 5th grade, and I remember it took the first two seasons to win me over to the hardships of nightly organized practices. At first, I hated the laps, the exercising, the blocking drills and all the other aspects of learning the game. Then, one day, I liked it. I have no idea how Owe will take to a aged-down version of this, but if I know my little sensitive lad, there will be some tears at the outset. Unless he takes to it. But, even then, I predict a few sessions of teary denunciations of football and how he doesn't want to do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I should sign the kid up for piano (or guitar, as he's mentioned) at some point while he's young, and sit back and wait to see what kinds of activities take root, then encourage them over time to grow. I'm not one of those sports-oriented dads who pushes his kids into sports with the hope that they'll eventually make it to the pros. I don't care what Owe grows up to do, so long as he finds a pathway to happiness and can look back on his childhood with affection. If Owen is an artist at heart, I'll encourage that. If he's a science nerd, we'll do that. Whatever. It's his life, ultimately, and I want to make sure he's prepared for it.

But we're sure as hell going to make him experience as much as we can, tears be damned, so that whenever it dawns on him that there's a whole 'nother life waiting for him post-HS graduation, he won't stand there the summer of graduation wondering what the hell to do with his life.

I know: I'm still wondering. But: I know what I want to do, it's just that nobody is hiring me to do it. But I never stop trying to get hired.

Labels: normal blatheration

William Young 10:25 PM # 0 comments
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Let Me Tell You About My System

There must be money in it, or else the previously sucked wouldn't try to sucker another generation. I'm talking about all those "work from home" scams you hear about on the radio and as click-through links in Craigslist part-time "jobs" listings. These are all click-throughs from today's Philly Craigslist: 1, 2, 3. Don't bother checking, but if you do, turn the volume down on #1 because the page opens with automatic audio from a douchebag telling you he's going to teach you "his system."

Sheesh. Do all of the "systems" involve scamming the clueless looking for the easy life by charging them a fee to tell them how to build a web page that tells people they can teach other people "the system" of creating a phony "system?" On the radio, the offer is usually to call some phone number to get enrolled in some program - usually "totally free, leave your checkbook at home" - that will teach you how to make money buying and selling property without risking any of your own money. Right.

So if either of these scams is legit, why is there always a barrier to entry? With the web links above, you get no information about "the system," just hype about how successful some of the others involved in "the system" have become. You have to fill out some form and wait to be contacted back by the scammer. You see this same scheme with the "secret shoppers" and "fill out surveys at home" web sites.

Ultimately, you know the real purpose behind these sites is the removal of a modest sum of money from the "job seeker." If these schemes really made money legitimately, why would anyone want to create competition in the market place? I'm sorry, but there aren't that many charitable kind-hearts in society, and the natural state of things is competition for resources (your money), not cooperation for it.

I find it oddly troubling that there are so many people out there simply trying to separate the naive from their cash rather than doing something useful. It's doubly irritating that you hear these advertisement's on the radio, as if they were offering some actual and legitimate service. I guess the ad men don't care, it's just money. And, the money must be good, or there wouldn't be ads. Online want-ads and a web page cost nothing.

I mean: it is a scam to "steal" money from people and tell them that they, too, can get rich "stealing" money from people in exactly the same way. Or is it a legitimate job to take money from people and tell them that they, too, can take money from people by providing the "service" of telling them to create a phony website that charges money to teach people they need to build a phony website that charges people money. Why shouldn't I buy a domain name, take a few pictures of myself sitting on a Lexus with a wad of cash in my hand, create lots of blurbs on the page telling people it's easy to get rich without doing anything serious, work from home, & etc., just fill out this form, wait for me to email back that it costs $39.95 for the kit on "my system," take the money from the people and send the "a kit" that tells them to start their own web page and...

Aaargh.

So, yesterday was a typical Monday 'round here, filled with all the household chores that need to be done to get the week rolling. There's nothing to tell about that, really, unless you want my tips on laundering clothes and cleaning toilets.

Didn't think so.

But amid all that I discovered Owe and Harry at work in their room with construction paper, safety scissors and scots tape. I watched until they realized I was doing so, at which point they told me they were creating their own Star Wars costumes, with Owen being "the emperor's guard" and Harrison being Darth Maul. I thought this was awesome, and it was the kind of co-operative activity that I hadn't imagined possible with the two, and not because they don't play together, but because this was a creative artistic endeavor. With scissors.

It was at that moment that the word CAMERA! with exclamation mark popped into my head, and I scrambled quickly for it. Moments like these are like gossamer, and at any instant can turn into a snarling yell-fest followed by uncomprehending tears and a refusal to return to the moment of brotherly cooperation.

They wore these costumes for about an hour, then there was some yelling and some tears as a deflated Darth Maul came to me crying that Owen wouldn't help him repair his costume, which had suffered from Sudden Tape Failure. Well, how long would you expect scots tape to hold a sheet of paper to your shirt? Owen shrugged when asked why he wouldn't help, saying the tape was "broken." Alright, so I got out the duct tape and fixed the problem, but everything had changed, and the boys sat sullenly watching Return of the Jedi.

Oh, yeah, the child entertainment paradigm has changed, now, too. For the last year'n'change the boys have been wholly interested in playing with their Mega Brand Pyrates, Lego-like toys that don't snap together as universally as Legos. This is a longish story I'm compressing into a sentence or so, and that's that the boys were watching home-made stop-motion movies on YouTube of these Pyrates toys, during which they somehow found links to stop-motion home-made movies of Lego Star Wars toys. Then they realized - by looking - that I had the first - originally, anyway - three SW movies in the DVD collection and began asking every day for a different one.

And all this has happened after visiting the Star Wars exhibit at the museum in Philadelphia, meaning that trip would have been better made now. Oh, well. Only, now I have to get the new first three SW movies so that they can see them, as the boys have somehow come to understand they are critical to the telling of the story of Anakin Skywalker and his turn to the Dark Side. Crap. That means Jar-Jar Binks.

And I have met the first person, ever, who likes the freakin' Ewoks, and I can't believe it: Owen. He loves the Ewoks, which is a stunner, because I've always hated them and assumed everyone else had a natural hatred for the pint-sized Teddy bears. So, he'll probably like Jar-Jar Binks. Nuts.

And here's just a photo I took when I noticed what was going on and the word CAMERA! popped into my head with an exclamation mark:
I was making dinner at the time, and that's the Onyx the cat regarding Mocha the dog and vice versa, both noticing each other, apparently, for the first time. They stayed in these positions for about five minutes before Onyx got bored and walked away.

Anyway, they say the tax rebate/vote-buying-scheme checks and direct deposits are ongoing right now as I type, and I should get a wad of cash whenever it shows up. The wife and I want to save it although I'd like to use some of it to get a flat panel HDTV of some size. I'd also like to buy a pistol and go shooting on a regular basis with Pool Boy. But if history is any guide, I'll have a thousand dollar car problem pop up one day after the money shows up. My karma gods will not allow me extra money in the system. Never have, never will. There's always just enough to get by.

Outta here...

Labels: normal blatheration

William Young 11:31 AM # 0 comments
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