Microsoft gets...perky?

You may, or may not, know, in the cut-throat, dog-eat-dog (which, by the way, is kinda sick, in a cannibalistic kind of way), Microsoft ranks a distant 3rd. Behind (of course) Google and Yahoo.

No, admittedly, I normally use Google. Why? I dunno, because it is habit I suppose. I used to use Yahoo...heck, everyone used to  use  Yahoo. It was the premier search engine. Lycos and Alta Vista were...meh....ok, but really didn't hold a candle to Yahoo. What I like primarily about Yahoo back in the day, was their simple interface. They had a white page,  with regular old HTML hyperlinks, a regular old HTML text box in which to type your search, and a regular old HTML button you'd use to submit the form.

But they veered away from that. they started adding color, and images, and videos,and advertising. Ok, I don't mind the adverts really. Hey, I am an unabashed capitalist. My belief is, 'If someone, somewhere, isn't making money on this, it should just not be done'. That is, of course, rather simplified....suffice it to say that I don't have any problem with people making money...LOTS of money. But, I digress....

Then, along came Google. I noticed, shortly after Google was launched, that Yahoo's search had a tag line "powered by Google' under their search box. Well, thought I, why am I using Yahoo, and not just going straight to the source? So I started using Google. I like it. It was back to the simple, white page, limited graphics, fast loading web search. They way it should be in my opinion.

The, last year, Microsoft's Live Search is launched. It's ok. It is a search engine, and now-a-days, they are pretty much all the same. I've used it (heh, my own sites come up higher on it than on Google, so I should be happy about that). I've used it, but not used it all that much. Though, it does integrate well with the Microsoft Desktop Search (integrated into Vista, and available for download for XP) which is a great way to find stuff  on your machine (much, much  better than that  stupid dog search thing).

Ok, ok,....I'm getting to a point here...I promise. The thing is, since Microsoft's failed attempt at purchasing Yahoo (the number 2 search engine - in case you didn't know), I'm certain they've been trying to figure out ways to increase the use of Live Search. And now they found something. Microsoft Live Search SearchPerks. SearchPerks is a deal where you earn 'ticket' for each search you perform using Windows Live  Search (up to 25 a day). You have to download a toolbar add-on, and have to be using Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 or better browser (sadly, Firefox - my default browser - won't work with it). At the end of the SearchPerks promotion (April 15, 2009), you can redeem your tickets for prizes ranging from cookbooks to video games to music downloads to frequent flyer miles. You can even donate your tickets to charity if you want.

Really, not a bad deal at all, to do 25 searches a day, earn the max number of points, and get some free swag. You can find out more at the SearchPerks website.

 

(oh...and uh...sorry about the crappy pun in the title...I couldn't help myself).

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And now, a message from your friendly neighborhood FBI:

Sometimes, you open your email, and you get a gem like I received this morning. Now, I'm used to getting messages from banks I don't use, telling me to login (via the link in the email...natch!) to ensure my account does not get frozen and all my funds (the whole whopping $6.32 of them) are continued to be accessible.

Then, there are what are known as the 'Nigerian Scams' where some guy named Ubuntu (or something along those lines) - sometimes though, it is a girl - who is somehow related to some deposed dictator of some smallish (nearly unheard of) third world country. Their deceased relative is dead, but left a large amount of funds sitting in a bank (usually in the millions of US dollars).

These people are super nice folks. They are willing you pay me a couple hundred thou, just to let them transfer the millions to my bank account so they can get it out of their country, and have access to it. I mean, c'mon, I was born at night, but not LAST night. Idiots don't really know who they are asking. If they transferred that money to my account, I'd end up taking it all out, and moving it out of their reach. Perhaps back to Nigeria, or where ever these rich and powerful people are who can't even influence the banking system in their own country.

But the one this morning, now, usually I just toss those types of emails without even looking at them, but the one this morning was just so awesome, that I could not neglect it. Coming directly from the (apparently) personal email address of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller, III, and bearing the seal of the National Security Branch of the FBI.

Now, I have to hand it to these people as they HAVE gotten the hang of using spell check (finally). Now, if only they could get grammar check working they might have a chance with some who is utilizing more than the 3 brain cells required for looking at pr0n online. Also, they might want to proof-read their messages to look for glaring contradictions.

Anti-Terrorist and Monitory Crimes Division.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation.
J. Edgar. Hoover Building, Washington D.C
Fax Number : (631)-961-3344
ATTN: BENEFICIARY
This is to Officially inform (not 'officially', but 'Officially' that capital 'O', makes you KNOW it is real) you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly completed an Investigated (good for them! They completed a verb!) with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you are having an illegal transaction (take note of how I have conducted an illegal transaction - we'll need this later) with Impostors claiming to be Prof. Charles C. Soludo of the Central Bank Of Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Aziza, Mr Frank Nweke, none officials of Oceanic Bank, none officials of Zenith Bank and some impostors claiming to be the Federal Bureau Of Investigation agents. During our Investigation, it came to our notice that the reason why you have not received your payment is because you have n Federal Ministry Of Finance (We have a Ministry of Finance? Really? What denomination I wonder) on your behalf and they have brought a solution to your problem (The only problem I have right now, really, is crappy emails like this polluting my inbox, did they solve that? NOOOOOOO) by coordinating your payment in the total amount of $800,000.00 USD which will be deposited into an ATM CARD which you will use to withdraw funds anywhere of the world. You now have the lawful right to claim your funds (Would these funds be the ones that I [allegedly] gained by conducting an illegal transaction? WTH?) which have been deposited into the ATM CARD.
Since the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been involved in this transaction, you are now to be rest assured that this transaction is legitimate and completely risk-free (Wow, now THAT is reassuring, because, at first I thought this was some sort of scam, but as the FBI is involved I KNOW it just HAS to be completely legit - and that whole thing about an illegal transaction...well...probably just a typo made by some secretary in the steno pool) as it is our duty to Protect and Serve citizens of the United States Of America. All you have to do is immediately contact the ATM CARD CENTER via E-mail for instructions on how to procure your Approval Slip which contains details on how to receive and activate your ATM CARD for immediate use to withdraw funds being paid to you. We have confirmed that the amount required to procure the Approval Slip will cost you a total of $250 USD which will be paid directly to the ATM CARD CENTER agent via Western Union Money Transfer / MoneyGram Money Transfer. Below, you shall find contact details of the Agent whom will process your transaction:
CONTACT INFORMATION
NAME: MR. PAUL SMITH
EMAIL: atmcashcardcenter@hotmail.com
Immediately contact Mr. Paul Smith of the ATM Card Centre with the following information:
Full Name:
Address:
City:
State:
Zip Code:
Direct Phone Number:
Current Occupation:
Annual Income:
Once you have sent the required information to Mr. Paul Smith he will contact you with instructions on how to make the payment of $250 USD for the Approval Slip after which he will proceed towards delivery of the ATM CARD without any further delay. You have hereby been authorized/guaranteed by the Federal Bureau Of Investigation to commence towards completing this transaction, as there shall be NO delay once payment for the Approval Slip has been made to the authorized agent.
Once you have completed payment of $250 to the agent in charge of this transaction, immediately contact me back so as to ensure your ATM CARD gets to you rapidly.
FBI Director
Robert Mueller.

NOTE: To ensure you have been AUTHORIZED to pay the required fee's stated above, kindly find below an Authorized Signature and also our Federal Bureau Of Investigation NSB ( National Security Branch ) Seal to accurately guarantee your safety towards completing this transaction.

Authorized Signature

 

 

Movie Thoughts: The Eye

Based on a Chinese movie of the same name (well, except that, the name is in Chinese, instead of English), this movie seems almost typical of horror flicks of late. It seems that gone are the days of Freddy and Jason hacking and slicing up barely dressed, large busted teens (thank gawd), which have been replaced with creepy, hardly seen shadowy, shaky monsters.

The effects are reminiscent of "The Ring" (which I LOVED - being the first of this new style of horror films - at least in the US), though, I think just about anybody could have played the lead role, it seems almost a waste of Jessica Alba's talent. The characters are kind of shallow, but the story is good, even if it is somewhat predictable. I don't even remember ever seeing commercials for this one before, but saw it at the Blockbuster and picked it up anyway (hey, it's got Jessica Alba - who could I NOT pick it up?).

The basic story is, Jessica is a violinist who was blinded at the age of 5. She receives a cornea transplant and is able to see again. But what she sees is not what she expected (queue the 'dum dum duuuummm' music). With her new eyes, she is able to see a kind of thin area between our world, and the next. Where grotesque creatures (who for some reason are really hissy and angry all the time) escort the newly departed (dead) people to where ever they get escorted too.

Now, to me, this isn't one of those "I'll never get that 90 minutes back" movies. However, if I'd never seen it, I wouldn't have missed all that much. It is rather predictable, and I think they spent all their dough getting Alba to play her role. Other than Alba, there really isn't anyone worth noting in the movie.

Another Friday the 13th

Happy bad luck day everyone! Most of you probably don't know, but our little slice of Americana was ravaged by storms last evening. The fam was at a restaurant called "El Mezcal" when the tornado sirens began to blast. Making their annoying-but-attention-getting warble ring and echo through out the city. It was just after we had finished and paid and were ready to leave they began. I ran through the downpour to get the family truckster. Just as I got in, the hail hit, and hit hard. As the hail pummeled the roof of the van, I thought it sounded an awful lot like I would imagine an army of squirrels throwing acorns at the van would sound.

By the time we got home, the weather was beginning to clear, and the sirens had abated. The tornado warning was over. There was a report of one just southeast of town, near a little burg called Berryton. But we managed to remain unscathed...relatively. We had already lost a tree in our front yard in Sunday's storm - mostly anyway. It was a nice redbud tree when we moved in. But over the last 7 years, it has taken a real beating. After Sunday's damage, there were only three branches left on it. It looked anemic. So I cut them down. While I was cutting the second branch, it was so rotted the thing just fell, nearly hitting my intrepid helper, No. 2 Son. We had a good laugh at that.

Last night, however, our satellite TV went kaput. This is not unusual during heavy storms (or even light ones at that). But when it didn't come back this morning, the 5/8 called the Dish folks. Who promptly put us on the schedule...for 2 July. Yes, that is not a misprint. Three weeks sans television. We are seriously considering switching back to cable TV. The problem is, that we pay more for cable, for less. Sure, cable has the local channels in HD, which we don't get with the satellite, but then again, the satellite has the Kung Fu Movie Channel and the Monsters Channel, both in HD. Which cable doesn't offer. Not that we have watched either of those channels hardly at all. But I look at it like a V-8 engine. You probably seldom use it to its potential, but it is nice to know its there.

At any rate. A decision has to be made whether to wait out the three weeks without the idiot box, or make the switch back to Cox cable, and pay more for less. Probably, because I'm such a cheapskate, I'll just wait it out. Besides, when the TV is out, more stuff seems to get done around the house. Or, I could attempt to reset the angle and azimuth of the thing myself. It is worth a try. After all, what am I going to do; make it not work?

GE: Imagine it works

Did I mention how badly General Electric sucks? I think I did, about month and a half to two months ago. The saga with our clothes washer continues to plague us. The confounded thing has once again decided to break. The 5/8 is livid. She called GE's so-called 'Customer Relations'. And was once again told that the washer will be repaired, and not replaced. This comes after the last time (which took a month to fix) we were told if it broke again, they would replace it.

At first, the nice and generous folks at GE told us me they can have someone out to look at (note: 'look at' - not 'fix') the washer on Tuesday.

Me: "Tuesday? You mean today?"
GE Putz: "No sir, next Tuesday."
Me: "Do you mean to tell me that your products are in such a state that all of your authorized repairmen are so busy nobody can get here in less than a week?"
GE Putz: "Everyone is busy Sir, not just us.
Me: "That's not true, I can call 'ACE Plumbing' and they'd be out tomorrow."
GE Putz: "Are they an authorized repair facility? If they are you are welcome to call them."
Me: "How am I supposed to know that? Isn't that your job? To know who is and isn't authorized to repair your junk?"
GE Putz: "Well, we can use a different company than last time. Do you want me to send out 'Dynamic Appliances'?"
Me: "I don't care who you send out. Hell, you could send out my neighbor for all I care, as long as they can fix it before next week."
GE Putz: *puts me on hold again - although only about 5 minutes this time* "Ok, Dynamic Appliance can be out on Friday morning, or Thursday if they can make it."
Me: "But it could be another month before its fixed right? If they have to order parts?"
GE Putz: "That's unlikely..."
Me: "Yeah, that's what I would have thought too, until last time. What will it take to get this thing just replaced?"
GE Putz: "We won't replace it as long as it is repairable."
Me: "Umm...ok, but where is my confidence that it will stay repaired?"
GE Putz: "I don't understand."
Me: "Ok, I have had this washer for about 6 months, and I have gotten maybe 4 months of use out of it. It seems it is in a constant state of repair. After this repair, how can I have any confidence that it will not break down again next month? This washer is a lemon. It get repaired, and then breaks again right away."
GE Putz: "If it breaks again right away, you need to call the repair facility that repaired it."
Me: "It isn't the repairmen that do a bad job of repairing it. It is your crappy parts that keep breaking, how can I get better parts?"
GE Putz: "Sir, all authorized repair facilities use proper GE parts"
Me: "Yes, but those are the parts that keep breaking. Is there another manufacturer for parts for your junk that maybe has some sort of quality control that I can rest assured they parts won't break next month?"
GE Putz: "The repair facilities use the proper parts."

I new it was going nowhere. So, at the end of the week, some repair guy will come out, look at the washer. Note, he is going to 'look' at the washer, not necessarily 'fix' the washer. My guess is that he will have to order parts. And if past performance is in any way indicative of future promises, those parts will be on back order. And probably take another month to get here. If that is the case, I'm going to buy a new washer. Then I'll have one for when this piece of fecal matter breaks down again.

And believe you me, I will make damn certain it will break down as often as possible. I will wash the rankest, heaviest and nastiest crap in that washing machine I can think of. I will over-fill it on a regular basis and basically treat it like garbage so that I make them asshats come out very couple of weeks if I can. I won't care because I'll have another washer that can be used for real work.

Next time I'll ask them if GE's blurb line should read "Imagine it works" instead of "Imagination at work." Don't you just hate it when you come up with a good zinger like that just a bit too late? I've got it saved now though, and will definitely use it with the next GE Putz I have to speak with.

Mmmmmm bratwurst...

It started out as a mostly uneventful weekend over here in fly-over country. There is a church here, Sacred Heart, which has traditionally serviced the German immigrant community. Not that there are all that many German immigrants to Topeka any more. But there was a time. There was a time, when a good portion of the Oakland neighborhood we populated by people from the "old country" so to speak.

I remember gramma Sachs fondly. She wasn't really my grandmother, and I'm not 100% on why we called her 'gramma' growing up. But that is really neither here nor there. I remember the smell of her kitchen. It seems she was always make her krautstrudal. I loved that stuff. Now, when mom made it, she made more or less individual portions. She would make maybe ten or twelve smaller strudels. But gramma Sachs...gramma Sachs would make this gigantic log of strudel. I always like that better, probably because it could fit more meat in it that way.

Sacred Heart every year has their "Germanfest" fundraiser in early June. Our Lady of Guadalupe has their "Fiesta Mexicana" in July. These are the two big cultural celebrations (ok, not counting St. Paddy's Day) the Topeka has. And the last time I went to Fiesta (a couple of years ago) I was not terribly impressed. Oddly enough, the two churches, Sacred Heart and Gualdalupe, are within a mile of each other, in the same Oakland neighborhood. The neighborhood, once ripe with heavily accented German immigrants, is now populated by heavily accented Hispanic immigrants. But that didn't stop an enormous crowd from gathering at Sacred Heart's Germanfest of good food and decent beer.

All the food at the Germanfest is hand made. Even the noodles, and the breads. All made from scratch which is what makes the event so good. There isn't much for the kids. A few things, but those are mostly for the really young kids, around 5 or so. Mine were told old to have much fun there. But the food was good, and the beer, while being regular, every day America lager, still went down smoothly. And the strudel, brats, sauerkraut and sausages were divine. I don't know if the ladies of the parish actually hand-made the sausage, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit.

The Germanfest runs from Saturday evening through Sunday evening. I've discovered that Sunday is the better day to go. Mainly because they have the beer garde open. I like to give the kids a dollar, and let them go about what ever it is they like doing, while I relax in the beer garden and people watch. But Saturday, the beer garden was nowhere to be found. So I ended up sitting under a big tent listening to the Hayden High School Drumline.

Now, those kids aren't back, not bad at all. But they also don't hold a candled to the THS Drumline. The kids from THS just seem to have more...I don't...passion? yeah, for lack of a better term, I'll call it passion. The Hayden kids were very technical, but didn't have any heart. I have no doubt they hit 98% of the beats (notes?) correctly and in time. But they had the blank expressions of mannequins. They didn't smile, they hardly moved. They played, but did not put on a show.

Heckvua storm

It rained last night. And I don't just mean it rained, I mean it rained, rained hard. Cats & dogs one might say. It was a regular cacophony of thunder and lightening and rain hitting the roof and windows so hard it almost sounded like the house was being bombarded with tiny little pieces of gravel.

The, the almost unthinkable happened. Something that has so rarely happened in the 7 years we've been in our house, it was nigh unfathomable. The power went out. Completely. Not just a little, but all of it. Across the street, in perfect Topeka fashion, they retained their power. Usually it is the other way around. The folks on the eastern side of the street lose their power, while our side maintains theirs.

My first thought, of course, was that we had to finish drinking what coffee had been made before it went cold because, well, I didn't want to heat a cup of coffee with a candle. The migration from beautiful, electric powered light to flashlights and candles was pretty smooth. The batteries mostly still worked, and which flash light batteries didn't work, we had spares.

So, we headed out to the front porch. We recently bought a table and chairs to put on the front porch. We put them there with the intention of being able to sit around the table and do whatever people do when sitting around a table on their front porch. I don't have much experience with that, so I don't really know. We'd bought the set a couple of weeks go, and it has sat dutifully on our front porch all that time just waiting to be used. So we sat and listened to the rain fall, and watched the lightening flash. And yelled cautioned the kids that since we really didn't need the flashlights right here, right now, they would be best to leave them off lest they run down their batteries and then, later, could not find their way to the bathroom in the dark.

I looked out across the street. I could see their lights on over there. The blue glow that can only come from a television. Their porch lights slicing through the wet darkness. All that light and electricity...glaring towards my house, which was dark, and powerless...mocking me. Now I knew. I knew what it felt like to be on 'that' side of the street. The one without power. The one which has been, in an instant, transported to time and space back to the dark ages. Well, maybe the late 19th century anyway (which was pretty dark at night, not being any electricity and all).

None of the other neighbors were out on their porches which, quite frankly, surprised me. I had fully expected them to be out. Better to sit outside in the darkness, than inside in the darkness. At least that is my point of view. We would watch the cars come roaring down the street. I keep threatening to make a giant sign and nail it to the tree near the curb. I'd make the background of the sign bright yellow. And in big black block letters, I would write "SLOW DOWN". Our street is wide. About three and a half lanes wide. Back in the day, the trolley went down our street, to the college. So even with cars parked on both sides, there is plenty of room for two cars and a motorcycle to fit across the street comfortably. All this with a 6 block stretch and no traffic control. No yield signs. No stop signs. So people tend to drive fast down our street. It is currently being restored to a brick surface. We're all hoping it has a traffic calming effect.

The cars would come barreling down the street, and slow quickly before continuing on. No. 1 Son noticed a car had stopped about 1/2 down our block, and somebody was out of the car and walking around. I went to the curb, the rain was dying down now, not much more than a light drizzle at this point, and looked. I saw two flares in the road in front of a branch. I beckoned the boys to come with me and see if we could move the big branch out of the road so nobody would hit it.

As we walked towards the branch, No. 1 Son said "Dad, I don't think we can move that branch". Indeed, it seemed the branch was grow exponentially as we neared it. Like something from some cheesy Sci-Fi channel movie. In fact, upon inspection, it was not a branch at all, but a tree. It had been hit by lightening and fell right into the street. The police had put some flares around it so people wouldn't hit it. I ran back to the house and got my camera because, with the smoke and the red flare fire, and the lights from the po-po car shining through the tree from the other side, it was all pretty cool looking. I stupidly neglected to get my tripod, so all my pictures had to be flash pictures. It would have been cool to get some extended exposure pictures of that scene.

I'll update with some pictures once I get them off the camera. But since my power was out last night, I couldn't really do it then. And since my work - as generous as they are - gives me a laptop with no card reader, I'll have to wait until I get home tonight before I can get the pictures off the camera.

After a bit, the 5/8 and Little Sister joined us. The the neighbors started trickling out of their houses. We talked about what happened "Did you see it?", "Did you hear it?" "No, but I heard the transformer blow". "Is Doc home?" "No, we don't know where he is." "Is there a car underneath the tree?" "Doesn't look like it". And other chit-chat about the tree, which then migrated to other things. All in all, I'm glad the tree fell. We were able to have some nice conversations with the neighbors. In these days, when it is either 90+ degrees, or raining, the neighbors are not out and about, sitting on their porches and what not, like they are in May or in September so we don't get to see them so much.

The 5/8 was restless though. We ended up going to bed about 9:30 last night. I mean, what the heck else you gonna do? No power. Sure, could mess on the computer for an hour or so before the battery finally declared that enough was enough - but no power = no Internet. And really, what good is a computer if you don't have it plugged in and online? I can play solitaire with real cards. The 5/8 made the comment "what did they do in the old days" to which I replied "sleep".

Literary Thoughts: Honk & Holler Opening Soon

Sometimes I run out of things to read. In those dire times, I'll usually fumble through the 5/8 selection of books to find something. Now, the 5/8 gets most of her reading material from my mother. This means, the books - at least from my view - aren't the greatest tomes. Usually rather pointless meandering stories about people from small dusty towns who have names like "Drake" and go about doing things like having babies in the Wal Mart.

"The Honk and Holler Opening Soon" is not much of an exception to that general rule. It was penned by Oklahoma native Billie Letts and follows a mish mash group of characters who don't seem to fit together well. The book it titled from the restaurant at the center of everything. It was supposed to be named "The Honk and Holler" but when Caney (the owner) ordered the sign, he was three sheets to the wind and in a drunken mistake, messed it up.

Caney is a wheelchair bound Vietnam veteran who hasn't left the diner in 12 or so years...since he opened it. His waitress is Molly O who had a big hand in raising Caney. Soon joined by people with names as unreal as Vena and Bui. See what I mean about strange names? It is almost as if these types of books want to try so hard to be more real or something, they the authors would never use a name like "Steve" for the main character. All the primary characters have names like that. Not ones you'd find very often in the real world. And of course, you have to through in some jerk guy who is bigoted and misogynistic to cause trouble for everyone involved.

The whole time I reading this book, I'm thinking, if it were a movie (it would be chick flick - natch) that Natalie Portman would have to play the role of Vena. And maybe Sigourney Weaver as Molly O. The whole thing reminded me of a movie I'd seen with the 5/8 several years ago where Natalie Portman played a girl who was homeless and pregnant, and ended up living in the Wal-Mart, where she had given birth to a baby. Then I realized, the reason for this was because that movie was based on a book by the same author. Déjà vu all over again.

It isn't that I disliked the book. It isn't that I felt it was a waste of time reading it. It just didn't grab me. This isn't a work where I was anxious to get back to reading it. Except after the half-way point, where I just wanted to get it over with and move on to something interesting. It wasn't a horrible read. It was rather quick, but just not all that interesting for me. The chicks will dig it though, I have no doubt.

Movie Thoughts: Cloverfield

I didn't know what this movie was actually about. I had seen the commercials, and the movie promo pictures. You know the ones, where the head of the Statue of Liberty is ripped from it's body, mangled steel beams jutting from it's decapitated body like some sort of metallic veins.

I knew it was a monster movie. And I knew it was created by J.J. Abrams, one of the creative minds behind what I would consider the best television show in recent history; "LOST". But other than that, it was a mystery to me.

This weekend we rented the movie. Some of the boys' friends and cousins who had seen the movie were not impressed with it. But this I learned after I had already rented it, so I was a bit leery of it, not quite knowing what to expect.

The entire movie is shot in POV (point-of-view) style much like the "Blair Witch Project" movie. It was all shot on a hand-held video camera - all shaky and erratic. In addition, no real 'name' stars are in it. Some I kind of think I've seen in something else, but not enough to really recognize. All this combined, with the dark atmosphere, and only momentary glimpses of the monster, made for a very compelling film.

I think the younger generation didn't like it probably because of the lack of gore. But it was well done, and the lack of gore and swearing, only heightened the quality of the film in my view. Any film which can keep you on the edge of your seat, and make you squirm at times, yet still be rated PG-13; that is a testament to a great film.

Maybe I've become an old fogy or something along those lines, but it seems to me that movies to often rely on the shock value to get their point across. The writers and directors are more interested in shocking the audience, than the subtlety of story telling, and dramatic sequences, angles and lighting. Then again, most of the movies the last number of years don't have much of a story to tell. As one guy at work today put it, 'this is the decades of remakes and sequels' and I think he might be right. Although, I would recommend this movie highly, if you like to be kept on the edge of your seat, without having to worry about seeing the kind of blood you might see in the latest Saw, or Hostel installment.

**** Some might consider the following a spoiler, so don't read on if you're afraid to learn the plot (but no outcomes) of the film ***

Cloverfield is, in essence, a retelling of the original Godzilla story. A strange creature come from the sea - at least, it looks like it comes form the sea. Terrorizes and mostly destroys major population area. New York City this time, instead of Tokyo. There is no man in a big rubber monster suit though, nor poorly dubbed soundtrack where people talk entire paragraphs of dialog in one breath. The CGI animation of the monster was incredible. Probably aided by the fact the whole thing takes place at night...over a time span of about eight hours or so.

The question I had to keep putting out of my mind to better enjoy the film was 'where do you get a video camera with a battery that will last that long?'. The whole thing, as stated before, is POV from the camera holder's perspective. I'm guessing the guy must have turned off the camera for long periods of time during the night, because in total, there was only a couple of hours of tape.

School's Out

Yesterday, at about noon, officially started the summer vacation in our not-so little house on the not-so prairie. For No. 1 Son, it technically started on Tuesday, at 11.:30 when the high school ended he 2007-2008 school year. The k-8 school the other two attend went until after Mass on Thursday.

Earlier this week, No. 1 Son's best friend, and what feels like my fourth kid, left for his summer trip to California. His father lives there, and he spends the summers there. He, of course, comes back with such fantastic tales. You just know 98% of it is complete shoeshine. But sometimes he gets some entertaining stories going...as long as he doesn't try too hard to make them sound convincing.

A dangerous thing happened on Wednesday though. No. 1 Son went to spend the day at his old middle school. He went there to see his old teachers- who put him to work immediately hauling boxes and getting things picked up so the school could be closed down (natch!). But that isn't the dangerous thing. It seems that No. 4 Son's girlfriend went to the same middle school as No. 1 Son. So the day after No. 4 Son leaves to spend the summer in California, No. 1 Son and the girl end up going to lunch at a great little diner downtown called (appropriately) "The Downtowner." Then spend the rest of the afternoon just wandering around downtown.

I told the 5/8 that this was a dangerous situation for No. 1 Son to be in. His best friend leaves for the duration of summer vacation, and the very next day, he goes traipsing around downtown with said best friends girlfriend. The 5/8 didn't seem to get the significance of that. She thinks nothing is going to happen between the two. But I remember being a teenager. And being a teenage boy at that. When you're a teenage boy, you don't think about consequences like that. You don't think about your best friend, who's 1/2 a continent away. You don't think that if you spend too much time with that girl, your setting yourself up for a scuffle when your friend gets back. Looks like I'm going to have to have a talk with No. 1 Son before he gets himself in too deep.

The 5/8 has pledged to take No 2 Son and Little Sister to the YMCA during the summer to exercise. We'll see how that goes. But both of the kids want to go. So if they pester her enough, she'll give in. She always does.

We were going to go to Cancun this summer, but Uncle Sam put the kibosh on that with the dismal tax return we got. So we put our vacation savings back in the bank, and we'll try again next year. With gas prices kissing the $4 mark, we probably won't be going anywhere for vacation. It sucks, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

As always...thanks for reading.

Movie Thoughts: Iron Man

What surprised the living begeezus out of me was Mother's Day. The 5/8 requested that the family to and see "Iron Man". Now, she isn't against movies, but her wanting to see a movie, made from a comic book character clad in metal, with ginormous explosions aplenty...well...I'll tell you this, I searched the basement for pods before we left for the theater.

I liked the movie. While I used to collect comics religiously, I never collected much in the way of Marvel comics. I know most of the main characters; Spiderman, Hulk, X Men, Submariner etc. But I've never read them with frequency. So my opinion is somewhat skewed from that of the (as Stan Lee would put it ) 'True Believers'.

When I first heard that Robert Downey, Jr. was playing Tony Stark (Iron Man's alter ego), I wasn't certain how good the movie was going to be. I mean, come on...this is the guy from movies like "Weird Science", "Back to School", "The Pick-Up Artist" and "Less Than Zero". Okay stuff, but certainly not anywhere near the character he took on this time. But then I figured, if anyone can play a hopeless drunkard...he certainly has the real life experience for it.

So, coming from the perspective of one who knows who Iron Man is, and has some idea of his origin and the like, but not being a complete fanboy, I have to say, I thought that movie ROCKED! Almost from the start. It never got slow or boring. And some of the scenes where Stark is upgrading/testing his armor are down right laugh out loud funny.

Of the recent crop of super hero movies, for pure entertainment value, I think I would even put Iron Man above Spiderman. With Iron Man, you have a great concept, but not a gigantic fanboy base like with Spiderman, so they didn't have to spend so much time on the creation, and could spend more time just having fun with it. And it shows.

Even if you're not a super hero movie fan, but like just good raucous fun, this movie is great. You could pretty much walk in at any point, and be entertained by it.

Motivation

I started this blog a couple of years ago for no real reason at all. I didn't have any set goal in mind when I did. I wanted to document some of the things happening in and around this part of the nation that is referred to as 'fly-over country' - that is to say the Midwest. It is amazing to look at the analytics and server logs and see that people actually stop by my little home on the range here. That people not only stop by, but that some continue to come back time after time. What it is that makes you come back, I can't figure out. The musings of some unknown guy in some nigh desolate area of the country that the vast majority of people think is still being kept in line by a guy named Matt Dillon.

I was fairly gung-ho about it in the beginning, but then slowly began to wane in the frequency of my posts. But then something happened. A friend of mine...well, really, my best friends wife to be exact started her own blog. And she wrote about her life and her families adventures up in the (even more) desolate area of Minot, North Dakota. For those of you not in the know, if you had a good arm, and a new baseball, you could probably through a baseball from Minot, and have it land in Canada. That's how far north it is. You can't get much more north and still be in the good ol' US of A.

At any rate. She started her blog, and it was good. I was an avid reader. Always interested in seeing pictures of her kids, and seeing what was going on up nawth. And she gave me inspiration to post more frequently, and (I think anyway) more quality stuff. To improve my writing skills as it were. To make something that wasn't just a ho-hum rambling of some faceless guy, in fly-over country. She had blessed me a couple of times with praise in her blog. For which I still am not fully certain I deserved. One simply has to wonder if she did so because we know each other. Our families actually shared a house for about a month up in Alaska (when both she, and the 5/8 were about 7 months pregnant), but that's a story for a different post entirely (and one that I promise I'll get to - eventually).

But, she recently quit took a hiatus from posting. She had a long, informative post about it all. Seems that she just ran out of things to say, or at least, things she wanted to talk about. Maybe she felt like she was getting whiney, or like she was maybe boring people. She wasn't, on both accounts (at least, she did neither in my views), but she made the decision.

Without even realizing it was happening, it seems that my own posts started to dwindle. And you can probably tell, the last couple have pretty much been nothing much at all. A movie thought or two. But looking back, I realized that this started about the same time that Military Mom quit posting on her blog. I think seeing her post so much, actually gave me some sort of motivation to post more myself. Not that it was a contest or anything. But part of it, I think, is that I knew for certain at least someone was reading this, and at least one person was actually enjoying what I wrote (or, at least, went through the trouble to 'claim' to enjoy it).

I've got some things I'm working on now, and hopefully I will soon feel they are ready to post. So I'm certainly going to make an effort to post more frequently. Seriously, I am. I know I've probably said it before, but I really mean it this time. Or maybe I just mean it, but like the 50 new people we see at the gym just after New Year's, it will go good for a while, and then peter out again. And what do I know anyway. Maybe that is like a cycle with people who blog as a passion. Maybe every six or eight or two months, it just gets pushed to the back burner for a while, while the old cranial batteries regenerate, or recharge, or whatever else.

There is a lot coming up. School is about to end for the summer. No. 1 Son was promoted to Corporal in the USMC Jr. ROTC program at his high school. So there should be plenty to write about - at least for the near future.

Movie Thoughts: I Am Legend

When I saw the first commercial for this Will Smith flick, what went through my mind was "this is a remake of 'The Omega Man'". I was right.

In this version, a doctor finds a cure for cancer. But the cure comes with a cost...the destruction of man. The cure causes a virus to be released which mutates man and beast alike into carnivorous, cannibalistic beings with a great hunger for human flesh.

Smith is the doctor that stays behind in an empty New York City trying to find a cure.

Why the writers or producers or whomever didn't just name the remake "The Omega Man" is beyond me. The "I Am Legend" title comes from the book that inspired this movie, along with The Omega Man (with Charlton Heston in the lead) and "Last Man On Earth" (with Vincent Price in the lead).

Some of the scenes in Legend are taken directly out of Omega Man (I've never seen "Last Man On Earth"). Near the opening in Omega, Heston visits a car dealership and drives of in a new Mustang. In the opening credits of Legend, Smith is racing around the empty streets of New York City in a new Mustang, hunting deer and trying to avoid the lions.

And the endings were almost exactly the same. Although I just realized there is an alternate ending on the DVD for Legend which I haven't watched yet (that'll teach me to ignore the special features). Supposedly the alternate ending more closely mirrors the book.

If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic-killer-vampire-like-zombie-creature movies, this is a pretty good one. It isn't scary so much, but maybe that is because I already knew the story. I saw the Omega Man the first time when I was just little kid, watching with my mom. I thought Matthias was creepy as hell. And he was much more intelligent than the protagonist vampire-zombie-creature-thing in Legend.

While I liked Legend, after watching it, I'm ready to watch Omega Man again. Don't get me wrong, I like Will Smith, I think he's a great actor...but he is certainly no Charlton Heston.

My Top 10 Picks for Windows Software

I have noticed there seem to be quite a few people discussing their top 10 picks for software for their computer. From these lists, I have found quite a bit of very useful, well written and completely bug-free stuff. Most of these items are free, and the few that aren't are almost-but-not-quite free. So here is my Top 10 Software Must-Haves:

1. Textpad: This isn't free, but it is worth every fracking penny! This is a notepad replacement text editor, but also does color coding for PHP, HTML and others. With displayed line numbers, and tabbed interface and all sorts of other goodies, I don't know that I could live without it. ($16.50)
2. Windows Live Writer: Honestly, I don't see how anybody that blogs can do without this beautiful little gem. It posts to a list of blog software longer than my arm. Blogspot, Wordpress.com, Wordpress (stand-alone),LiveJournal,LiveSpaces and the list goes on and on and on. There are also some great plugins for it. It is so easy to insert a picture, position the thing, give it a border or a drop shadow just to add that little extra 'oomph' for your readers. (Free)
3. IZarc: This free program is a great replacement for WinZip and it's rather limited capabilities. This thing opens just about every type of compressed file imaginable. I know, I know, file compression in the ZIP format is natively available in XP and Vista, but there are so many other formats that are not compatible with the Windows File Compression (or WinZip) - such as RAR, TAR, GZIP and a host of others. There is absolutely no reason what-so-ever to NOT have this thing on your machine. It is fast, and small and once you have it, you won't understand how anyone could not have it. (Free)
4. Paint.NET: When I first heard about this program,I'm thinking to myself. "Ho-hum, it's MS Paint, but written in .NET, so what, MS Paint is probably the absolute worst graphics program...EVER". But I visited the website anyway, and WOW, this thing does so much more than MS Paint could ever DREAM of doing. It uses layers, there are plenty of people making plug-ins and actions. This is a quick and easy light-weight (and FREE) Adobe Photoshop instead-of. There is also GIMP, but my opine is that Paint.NET is easier and much more intuitive than GIMP...but a long shot. For quick lightweight photo manipulation, or graphics creation, I always turn to Pain.NET. OF course, it is no where near as powerful as Photoshop, so is in now way a Photoshop replacement. But I've found about 70% of what I do with pictures, can be done in Paint.NET. (Free)
5. Firefox: The best browser money can buy - and it doesn't cost any money. I switched to Firefox before Internet Explorer 7 was released, because Firefox has tabbed browsing. You can open a multitude of pages in different tabs, in a single window. Awesome! Great for doing searches, as you can right-click the link and select "open in new tab" and still have the original search results available. There are very few pages any more that actually require MSIE, and for those that do, you can download an add-on for Firefox which adds "View in IE" to the right-click menu of any web page. Simple, elegant, and it works great. (Free)
6. StumbleUpon: This is actually a browser toolbar instead of a program, but I still dig it. You setup your account at StumbleUpon and install the tool bar. The tool bar gives you a"Stumble!" button. Get bored? Click the stumble button and StumbleUpon serves you up a random web page that falls within the "likes and dislikes" criteria to setup at their site. Plus there is a thumbs-up and thumbs-down button on the toolbar, allowing you specifiy "Yeah, this is cool, I like this kind of stuff" or "Stupid, I hate it, don't show me this kind of junk anymore". (Free)
7. Windows Live Photo Gallery: Another of Microsoft's Live offerings. It appears to integrate seamlessly with Windows - it has the same look and feel as the native image viewer, so everything is comfortable and familiar. Allows you to index, tag, keyword photos and videos, and upload them to both Windows Spaces and Flickr (Yahoo's very popular online photo album/sharing site). It doesn't natively upload to Google's Picasa, but then again, who want's Google to have all of their photos stored in a database that you can't ever ever ever delete anyway? (Free)
8. PCTools AntiVirus: I used to be an AVG fan. I really did. But then I started playing with Microsoft's new web-graphic flash knock off called Silverlight. The problem is, that AVG would block access to Silverlight files, so I was forced to investigate other options. I found PCTools, and haven't looked back. Look, everyone needs an anti-virus program running, even with Vista's beefed up security, it's just a darned smart thing. I hate Norton, it is slow, clunky, extremely bloated and seems to start up at inopportune times (read, when I've got Dingo in the sites of my Famas, and just ready to pull the trigger). PCTools, on the other hand, creates a smaller disc space footprint, and a much smaller memory footprint. Enough to make even Al Gore proud. (Free)
9. Google Desktop Sidebar: If you're not running Vista with its ultra-cool (and even somewhat functional) sidebar, then you should look into the Google Desktop Sidebar. You can put all sorts of widgets in it. Clock, calendar that hooks into your Google Calendar, file shredder, remote desktop connection, as well as many, many others. There is another sidebar supported by Microsoft called "Desktop Sidebar" but frankly, I found that one unstable, and sorely lacking widgets. (Free)
10. µTorrent: Oh c'mon, there are plenty of reasons to need a bit torrent client that does not include piracy or pr0n. I can't happen to think of any just now, but there are - people assure me of that. In any case, this bit torrent client is small and quick and is anything but a resource hog. You won't even notice it's running. (Free)

So there's my top ten free/nearly free programs for Windows. And just to show I'm not prejudiced against the Mac, here are my top 11 must-haves for Macs:

1. Windows Vista: An extremely versatile and easy to use OS. Has decent enough security, and there are oodles more programs (read: games) for Windows than any other operating system:
2. The ten other items listed above...

There you go, 10 for Windows, 11 for Macs.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

Twenty years ago, when the 5/8 and I were just 'a couple' and not yet a married couple, we sat in my parents' living room and watched the Kansas Jayhawks win the NCAA basketball championship. I can still remember the feeling of watching that happen. There was a kind of quiet pride. I didn't feel like hooping and hollaring, but I did remember this kind of peaceful happiness that came over me. Kansas isn't known for much see. We are the very definition of 'fly-over country'. People arrive in, or travel through Kansas because they have to - very few because they want to. So some positive recognition coming out of Kansas is always a good thing.

Last night, I got to feel that feeling again. Luckily I might add. With about 6 minutes left in the game, and Kansas quite a bit behind, I was contemplating turning the TV off and just going to bed. But, then I figured that in basketball, 6 minutes is an eternity. So I watched a little more. With 3 minutes left in the game, and the prognosis not much better, I began saving the work I was doing on the computer while watching the game, and shutting it down. Figuring we gave it a decent try, but just weren't playing to our potential, and we'd once again walk away from the championship game without the win.

But then that guy on the Memphis team missed his two free-throws, and something, it seemed, began to happen for the 'hawks. They seemed to sense that this gave them a fighting chance. The score now was very close, one possession could win or at least tie the game. And it did, ridiculously, with something like 2 seconds left in the game Kansas scores the tying field goal, and the game heads to overtime.

The overtime period was quite an exceptional display of what the 'hawks are capable of. They came out and played better during that period, than (I believe anyway) any other time in the game. Meanwhile, Memphis seemed to have lost their steam. It was truly a great game. And I send out a giant, heartfelt congratulations to the Kansas Jayhawks. Let's hope there are many, many more of these to come our way.

General Electric sUxX0r!!!!!

General Electric is a humongous company. If it exists, they probably either 1) make it, 2) make a part that goes in it or 3) consult on the production of it. They do everything from light bulbs, to airplane engines, to wind turbines, to nuclear reactors, to movies (Universal is owned by GE) to television shows (NBC is owned by GE).

I used to work for them. I know what they are like. They are all about 'The Process'. The Process is what is all fired important. It is, in fact, THE most important thing at GE. Even in the customer service arena, the customer takes a back seat to The Process. A CSR can have 1000 customers angry with their performance, but as long as the CSR followed the process, they don't have to worry about a poor review, or losing their job. Meanwhile, a different CSR can have 1000 customers happy as snails, and ready to throw away all of their appliances today, and spend their hard-earned Benjies on brand spanking new GE appliances, but if that CSR didn't follow The Process, they are in danger of losing their job and will undoubtedly receive a poor review. In GE, The Process is everything...always.

About eight years ago we purchased a new washing machine. It was a GE brand. It world great for us for about six years, then started to show signs of wear and tear. We have three kids. We do laundry probably five days out of seven every week. The machine was used and abused for six straight years. Then about two years ago we had to have the service guy out to fix it for the first time. Over the past two years, the service guy has been out to fix our old GE washer maybe eight or ten times. Finally, we decided that it was time to get a new machine.

We had such a great experience with the previous GE machine, we naturally gravitated to a new GE machine. What we ended up with was basically an updated model of the one we had. We had it about a month before it started making some gawd awful noise. We called GE since it was still under warranty, and they came out and fixed it. Some kind of stabilizing arm had broken. That should have been the first clue that this machine was made with quality that was almost-but-not-quite exactly unlike the quality of our old machine.

We had the machine a mere month before it broke down and we had to call invoke our warranty to have it repaired. I seems that some dohickey responsible for the stabilazanitator that connects to the thingamabob broke. Ummmmmkaaay...sure. They fixed it it all up and everything went humming along splendidly for the next five months. Then one night, after putting a load in the wash, and settling down to see what questions weren't going to be answered on LOST that week, a noise came rumbling up from the basement. It was an ominous noise. Not unlike (I would imagine) two buffalo fighting. I don't mean just butting heads fighting - the way animals do in Wild Kingdom - I mean real honest to goodness, John Wayne style knock-down drag out fighting. It seems the entire house was shaking.

Long story short, the washer quit...again. So now we've had this thing six months, and it has broken down twice. Call up GE again, they say they'll send someone out on Monday. Monday comes and goes, no one show sup. call them back. They say someone will come out on Thursday. This time someone actually shows up (surprise!). Bad news is, he has to order parts. Worse news is, one of the parts is back-ordered. Back ordered. The machine is six months old. I would expect a part for...say...a ten year old machine to be back ordered. But six months? Either this part that broke is so freaking rare that they don't feel the need to keep any in stock...anywhere, or the parts breaks so fracking much they can't keep them in stock. I'm leaning towards believing the latter.

Fast forward a month - that is a month, mind you, where we were spending $60+ dollars a week at the darned laundromat - and they repairman finally comes back to the house. All ready to make the machine purr like a kitten again (not to mention actually wash clothes). And...OOPS...there is yet ANOTHER part the guy needs. And guess what? They don't have THAT part in stock either, and need to order it from GE. The guy says he'll be back next Friday to fix it (I think he is assuming the part is not on back order - a pretty big assumption if you ask me).

So, we get to look forward to yet another fun Saturday afternoon at the laundromat.

I seriously cannot see myself buying another GE product, period. These people have really ticked me off but good.

Literary Thoughts: Knights of the Black and White

I'm not a big fan of fantasy literature. Sure, I've read "Lord of the Rings" and "Watership Down" and they were  enjoyable. But mostly, I'm not into reading stuff where people are named stuff like 'Glimmermear', just can't seem to get to into it. I mean, seriously, if you have refer to a glossary just to pronounce the names, it's just too much work to make for an enjoyable read. But I digress...

Jack Whyte is an author I hadn't heard of when I ran out of reading material and was at the local Dillon's store where I managed to find this book. It is book one of the "Templar Trilogy". Now, I've always been a sucker for the mysteries of the Knights Templar, the Priory of Sion, ancient Church societies and the like. So I picked it up. He starts his tale just before the first Crusade in the mid 11th Century. Knowing this, I was a bit curious how he would handle the Crusades and subsequent occupation of Jerusalem and other areas of the Middle East.

And true to any author in today's climate who doesn't want to have a fatwa issued against him, or be branded a racist, the occupying Muslims were all nice, peaceful folks until the Franks from Christendom invaded their land and brutalized everyone. And even after that, the Muslims (along with the group who were to become the Knights Templar) were the only people who had any honor.

Now, I don't mind books that are critical of the Church or Christianity. I loved Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" (even more than his "DaVinci Code"). And I know that throughout history, and especially in the early part of the second millennium, the Church was full of people who were only out for themselves. People who, by birth order, were pretty much forced into priesthood and what not. But come on, could Whyte not find one single Church official that would display at least some modicum of Christian ideals? For him, every pastor, bishop, cardinal and pope, everything they did, they did for some ulterior, self-gratifying motive. In addition to that, there must have been twenty or thirty pages, peppered throughout the book, where he kept repeating how evil and dishonorable the invaders from Christendom were. Once or twice, and I can get the message, but over and over ad nauseam. It started to remind me of that 50+ page speech given by John Galt in "Atlas Shrugged" (I have to be honest about that, I didn't read the whole speech).

But his misrepresentation of history aside, the book wasn't all bad. His descriptions of the people and the surroundings and the activities were well thought out. The story, while a bit slow to get rolling, did start to click along at a good pace once Jerusalem was conquered. I'm certain that I will finish the trilogy when the others come out in paperback - if only because I'm a sucker for stories of the Templars. Kind of like I'm a sucker for time travel movies, no matter how badly they stink, I can't not watch 'em.

Easter

It seems like it was just a couple of months ago that we were coloring Easter eggs. But that was a year ago, and this weekend, we were at it again. Boiling eggs, smelling that acidic vinegar smell as the little tablets of dye bubble and pop and dissolve into it. Covering the kitchen table with old newspapers to keep the dye - which will inevitably be spilt - from staining the table.

No. 2 Son is too old this year for coloring Easter eggs. No. 1 Son became too old a couple of years ago. So it was up to Little Sister and myself to color the eggs. She did a great job. The 5/8 had bought some egg coloring kits which came with little foam stickers. So, naturally for a nine year old, the more foam stickers you can use, the better off the entire world is. Needless to say several of the eggs were so covered with foam stickers, they could have been dropped from the top of the house without even cracking the brittle shell.

On Good Friday, it has become somewhat of a tradition that we get Long John Silver's for lunch, eat it at Gage Park (which, BTW, got a lot of print in Stephen King's "Dark Tower: Wizards and Glass"), and tour the Zoo. Two years ago we went, it was dreadfully cold and windy. Last year we didn't go. The weather man promised rain in the afternoon, so we skipped the Gage Park/Zoo tour. But the day was mostly nice, not near as bad as it was the year before. Lesson learned I suppose. This year, despite the gloom predictions of weather, we made plans to go anyway.

Our plans were delayed by the need to meet the Lowe's delivery guy at the Ol' Man's apartment building. The Ol' Man owns an old, mostly run-down apartment building. It was built eons ago. Sometime in the early part of the 20th Century, the building belonged to the American War Dads fraternal organization. The building has a gigantic, beautifully decorated (at one time anyway) basement which was hand-dug by the AWD. I can't imagine digging that basement, with 10 foot ceilings, by hand. I certainly can't see anyone doing that kind of work in this day and age. Instead, they would simply tear down the building and build a new one with a basement built-in.

At any rate, the Lowe's delivery guy called me about noon, just as we were getting ready to head over to LJS to get our food. He was wondering if someone would be there to help him unload the tons of carpet, ceiling tiles and linoleum the Ol' Man was having delivered. The Ol' Man is in his 70s, and about 8/10 blind. He has trouble standing, let alone walking or actually carrying anything, so we took a detour to the building to help the Lowe's guy unload the items.

The zoo was nice. It wasn't too cold, but chilly nonetheless. I have discovered over the last couple of years, that the best time to see the zoo is when the temperature is somewhere between 50 and 65. In the cool temperatures, the animals seem to be out and about much more than in either the cold or the hot weather. The bears were out playing and wrestling with each other. The Orangutans were outside, climbing on the impressively complex looking equipment their environment contains. Even the female gorilla, which usually only has her foot or knee visible from her hiding spot, was able to be seen.

Easter was...well...Easter. We spent the holiday with the in-laws in Lawrence. Not my favorite place to be. The 5/8 family, especially her sisters, tend to treat her like a red-headed stepchild. Constantly putting her down and pointing out her faults, even ones that aren't there. It ticks me off, and the kids are aware of the tension all around which usually lasts for a day or two after any visit to Lawrence. But this time, this time they seemed much more cordial than they have in the past.

While Easter and Christmas are closely related, it is clear to all that Christmas is definitely the bigger holiday. My kids know the reasons we celebrate these times. If you ask them, they'll acknowledge that of the two, while Christmas is a bigger celebration, Easter is the more important of the two. I'm thankful, and proud they know the reasons, not only in a way that they can recite that Easter is the "day Jesus rose from the dead". But that I get the feeling they really, really know what it is about. We haven't kept them close-in and sheltered from other faiths and beliefs. They know that Buddha, and Mohamed and a host of other religious founders were all born a natural birth, like Jesus. But they also recognize that only one of them rose from the grave. No re-incarnated, but re-animated. He conquered death, and with that, waits to absolve us of all our sins and fallacies.

With that, I extend to everyone a (belated) Happy Easter day, and season.

Cats & Dogs, working together

Are the end times upon us? Has anyone seen lions laying down with the lambs? I have to ask this because, in what I'm certain is a sign of the end of days, our cat and our dog seem to be in cahoots.

When the dog wants outside, she scratches at the door. The cat is not allowed outside. It's cruel I know. I fully support the notion that the cat should be allowed outside. Far, far away outside. Now, when the dog wants in, she again scratches at the door.

This morning, the dog scratches at the door. I get up, open the door and the dog runs to the end of the porch. Frustrated, open the door a bit more to whistle for her. That is when I noticed the movement, out of the corner of my eye. A dark slinky shape moving at an incredibly inhuman speed towards the open door, at an angle.

Luckily, I am wicked fast (well, not really) and closed the door enough to slow down the attempted egress of the feline, slow enough for me to reach down and grab it. The whole thing was timed with the precision of a Swiss watch. I can only conclude that the dog and the cat were in collusion.

Worries...

No. 1 Son left last Friday for a week trip to Orlando, Florida with the high school band. I was extremely proud of his efforts to earn his own spending money. He left with about $200 for spending. They left Friday morning, and arrived in Orlando around noon on Saturday. The 5/8 and I had given him another $40 to buy his siblings some T-shirts, not thinking it fair that he spend his own hard-earned money on stuff we wanted him to buy.

He thought he had a bundle of money. I explained to him that it really wasn't all that much. $250 works out to about $35 a day. He seemed to understand that. At least I thought he did, until he called this morning to let the 5/8 know he had blown through his entire stash of cash. In less than 36 hours, he managed to burn through all of his money. He is now 1/2 a continent away, and penniless.

He'll get $20 when they get back on the bus for the trip home so he can buy meals and what-not on the trip. They have meal tickets (I think about $15/day worth) for meals at the parks. But still....still it is hard. Knowing how easy it would be to pick up the phone, call the hotel and arrange to wire some money to him. But I can't. I have to let him learn and have this lesson indelibly burned into his psyche.

But I wonder. Am I being too harsh? Shouldn't I just wire 20 bucks to the kid? I haven't felt this kind of worry about any of my kids to date. That knot of tension in the back, just below the neck and between the shoulder blades. It isn't going away. He really only has two days left now. Tuesday and Wednesday. They leave Wednesday night for the ride back to T-town. So he'll be ok. He has the meal tickets, and the hotel supplies a large breakfast buffet.

So there he is 1/2 a country away, without money. If I do nothing, I feel callous and cruel. But if I give in and send money, he doesn't learn this valuable lesson. This is a lesson that cannot be taught any other way, period.

 

*sigh*

Whoa Nellie...

The wind was blowing with a good gale, and the air was cool to begin with. Which all added together made for a fairly cold day. The temperature hovered in the mid-thirties throughout the day Saturday. Saturday was one of those days where the stuff you have to do just doesn't seem to end.

My niece was having a birthday party in the morning. One just for the kids. I took Little Sister and dropped her off. I would have liked to stay, but had other things that required my attention. The party was rather unique, a candle making party held at a candle shop downtown. Then I had to run out to the east side of town to meet Sandy. Sandy has a daughter who used to be in girl scouts, but quit. She ended up though, with more than a few people who wanted girl scout cookies. So the 5/8 took her orders and Little Sister ended up selling some 250 boxes of cookies.

I met Sandy at the Sonic Drive-In on the east side of town. While I was waiting for her to show up, I idly wondered what the folks at the Sonic were thinking about the guy in the little red car who didn't order anything and didn't get out of his car. Then she pulled up in her big white Dodge Ram pickup and I got out and walked over to the truck. She handed me the envelope full of cash from the cookie sales. I thanked her, stuck in the inside pocket of my coat and returned to my car. After pulling out of the Sonic parking lot, I started wondering how long it was going to be before the fuzz pulled me over. I mean, how did that exchange really look? Some guy pulls up in a car, sits in the parking lot, then a truck pulls in. The guy gets out of his car, walks to the truck. The wind blowing the tails of his coat around his legs, takes an envelope full of money from the driver of the truck, gets back in his car and drives off. To me, that would look pretty suspicious. But I suppose the folks at the Sonic are either oblivious to their surroundings, or they see that kind of thing every day since the fuzz never did pull me over to see what the transaction was all about.

After the party, Little Sister's brownie troop were scheduled to meet at some stables south of town where the girls would get to ride horses and earn some horse badge thing. It was cold, and wet but thankfully the stables had an indoor arena so we didn't have to be outside. The lady running the show was nice enough, but she did have to go and talk about how much fun horse birthday parties are, and that she just happens to host them, right there at the stables. With that announcement she pretty much got on the dark side of every parent in attendance. I know for the last two days I've been hearing about how Little Sister just has to have a horse party or she will positively just die. *Sigh*

During our family movie (Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium - fab movie BTW) No. 1 Son called from Florida. He was all excited they had driven through Atlanta just after that massive tornado that tore up the city. He was telling me all about it when I heard some girl giggle in the background. Putting on my ultra-authoritative fatherly voice I asked "are you in a hotel room with a girl?" "No, dad, they just barged in...sorry dad, I gotta go" - click...buzzzz. Sounds like he's having fun anyway.

...And they're off...

Last Friday I went in late to work. I wanted to see No. 1 Son off. Make sure he got on the bus along with his trumpet and clothes and what not. The high school band had been invited to perform in the parade at Disney World and Epcot Center down in Orlando.

No. 1 Son worked his bum off earning money. Money to help may the 600 clams for the trip as well as earning some spending money. I was proud of the work he did. The savings he accumulated for spending money. We gave him about 40 bucks and instructed him to use that to purchase t-shirts for his younger sister and brother. I didn't think it would be fair for him to have to spend his own money on curios for his siblings. He would have, without hesitation, don't get me wrong. That's the kind of guy he is. He'd give you the shirt right off his back if you asked him for it, and he thought it would help you out.

I realized, as I was escorting him to the buses, then waiting for them to board, and the buses to pull away, how little I know if his school persona. I know some of his friends. Friends he had while attending Mater Dei school, and there is the kid from across the alley. Good kid, and No. 1 Son's best friend. But when we arrived, there were two girls, cute ones mind you, who were all jumpy and squealing when No. 1 Son arrived. One I know somewhat and I know they are just friends. The other, I don't know anything about. She's the one in the pic with the 'Home Alone' expression. No. 1 Son is on the left, the kid from across the alley is the other 'joe cool' with his sunglasses in a cloudy day. I don't know the Jayhawk fan, never seen him before.

I'm certain they're going to have a great time. And I trust No 1 Son completely. I have no fears at this time in his life that he would do anything inappropriate. Now, in the next year or so I fully expect that to change, but for now, I have complete faith in his  gentleman-ness and chivalry.

Determination

Browsing through the Google Analytics for this blog, I ran across an interesting keyword used to find it. The keyword was "nadine cross". While I know I've talked about Stephen King and The Stand at least once, I don't recall ever mentioning the wacked out woman who shares the devil's bed in the story, Nadine Cross.

Curious, I went to Google and entered the keywords. Whoever found this place by using that keyword must have been much more determined to find information regarding Nadine Cross than I was in finding where this place falls in the Google hierarchy concerning this character. I gave up after looking at 20 pages on Google.

News from fly-over country

It's been a weather induced roller coaster here in fly-over country. First we have 50+ degrees for a few days, then it hits near rock-bottom temps with even more snow and rain. Last week the weather man - who is affectionately known as Mr. Rogers because of his delivery style - informed us that we have had the coldest, wettest winter since sometime around 1895 or so. I sent Al Gore an email, asking him when we could expect our share of that global warming, but so far haven't heard back from him. Maybe he's out buying carbon credits or something.

Two weeks ago the 5/8 had one of her tonsils out, and some work done on the inside of her nose to free up something or other to make her breath easier. I couldn't understand 3 words the doctor said. He is Asian. A great doctor, but certainly has not mastered the English language, at least pronunciation-wise. I was expecting a few days of peace and quiet. If you ever know someone to get their tonsils out in this day and age, don't expect them to not be able to talk. It seems there is some new procedure whereby they freeze the things off instead of cutting them. Speeds up the healing and all that jazz. The downside to that is the patient is able to nag talk straight away.

Over the weekend Little Sister has been feeling down. I think she had a light case of that flu thing going around.  She missed a couple of days of school and pretty much felt miserable over the weekend. She is the only one of us that didn't get a flu shot this year. I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but No. 1 Son made high honors at school. A great feat. As a reward I got him "Burnout Paradise" an XBox 360 driving game. Near as I can tell the whole purpose of the game is to drive fast, do jumps, and run into things seeing how dramatic of a wreck you can have. The 5/8 started playing with it over the weekend, and now we can't seem to pry her away. I think the kids just lost their game console.

In local news, the premier local television station, WIBW is in a bitter fight with the local cable carrier Cox Communications, over money (natch!). WIBW wants Cox to pay them a penny a day per subscriber in order to carry their regular and High-Def content. Cox doesn't want to pay them anything. The contract between the two expires at midnight on 28 February. WIBW hasn't been the best of sportsmen in the quite a while. WIBW is the CBS affiliate for this burg. And there is a CBS affiliate over in Kansas City. Cox carries both, but most of the time if you were to tune into to the KC station, you would see a black screen with white scrolling letters informing you that due to some FCC regulation, the channel is blacked out at the request of the local affiliate. Fox, NBC and ABC - all with local and KC affiliates, never had this problem. I don't know what will happen, but I'm pretty certain that Cox would rather pay the KC station for HD content, than pay WIBW anything at all. I dropped Cox over a year ago, and glad I did.

Really though, that whole situation is crap. Nobody wins. WIBW will undoubtedly lose advertisers because their market share will dwindle. Cox will lose some customers as they switch to satellite. And those that stick with Cox will lose their local CBS affiliate.

Movie Thoughts: Across The Universe

I thought this was going to be a real chick flick. I picked it up because I know the 5/8 like those kind of films. I figured it would be some sappy love story set with the turbulent 60's as the backdrop, with a killer soundtrack by The Beatles. That's what the previews let onto anyway.

Now, to be fair, it is a sappy love story, but it isn't a story so much as a musical, with a killer soundtrack of songs by The Beatles. To be honest, the imagery was engaging, and it is a lot of fun to watch a musical where you know the words to all the songs.

It is rated PG-13, and while there was inference of some drug use, it wasn't blatant, and it wasn't all "hey let's get stoned because it's good". The 5/8 and I understood when they took drugs, and the kids figured it out when it went into the drug-induced imagery; including a great segment where Eddie Izzard belts out "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" which, if you can believe it, was last performed on the big screen by - get this - George Burns.

There was one scene where a woman's nipple was shown, but it was not in anyway obscene or vulgar. And another scene the bums of several guys were shown as they were swimming. All in all, it was not a movie that I had any problem with any of the kids watching - including Little Sister. And it made me want to listen to more Beatles tunes, and even possibly rent that 1970's hit rock-opera"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (you remember, with Peter Frampton and the Bee-Gees).

And, I have to add, that the drug-induced imagery did not hold a candle to the wild and wacked out imagery we get when viewing "Yellow Submarine". That is some crazy stuff man.

One size fits none

In our house, we have this large built-in cupboard. It covers and entire wall. A small wall, grant you, but still reaches from floor to ceiling and one end to the other. This is where we keep our plates and glasses and bowls and jars and pretty much everything we use for cooking save for utensils and pots & pans.

We have a enormous section of this cupboard wall dedicated to those little plastic containers that you never seem to be able to bring yourself to throw out. Butter cups, sour cream tubs, large yogurt containers, those rectangular plastic containers that a lot of sandwich meat comes in now.

In this cupboard wall, we have 132 round plastic containers. In addition, we have 178 round plastic lids.

Now, can someone PLEASE explain to me why none of the lids fit on any of the containers?

Lessons Learned

You have to remove the gunk from the bottom of your oven before you use the self-cleaning feature.

Movie Thoughts: Planet Terror

If you're old enough (like me) you'll remember the drive-ins. No, not drive throughs (sheesh, kids) but drive-ins. These were outdoor movie theaters where you'd pull up in your car, grab a tinny sounding staticy speaker from a post and hang it on your partially rolled up car window. Then look around (to make sure the manager couldn't see you) and pop open the trunk, letting out the three or four friends who managed to fit in there.

The movies at the drive-in weren't all that good. In reality, I don't know that people really went to the drive-in to watch the movie. Mostly it was to do other things. Make out, drink, cause general havoc and mayhem for the other patrons. The movies were mostly those "B" type monster films. Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead. Corning writing, corny characters and completely predictable. Mostly they were older movies too, and not not such good shape. Scratches and dust marks all over the film, the sound would warble at times. But like I said, you really didn't go to the drive-in to actually view the film.

All this comes back to me now because I recently watched Robert Rodriquez's "Planet Terror". I don't know why I rented it. Probably because on the cover, Rose McGowan was sporting a MACHINE GUN FOR A LEG!!! How crazy is that? Rodriquez was one of the directors behind one of my favorite films of recent years, "Sin City", so that, along with the chick having a machine gun for a leg, made up my mind for me. The movie was a bit more than I expected. I kind of expected that whole "B" movie experience, but really, it is more like a "A" movie, masquerading as a "B" movie - complete with the dust marks and scratches and warbley audio and everything. At one point, the film melts - just like the old days. I can't remember the last time I was in a theater and the film melted. It was awesome.

The movie is utterly and completely over the top in everything it does. It starts out with a faux "Coming Attractions" trailer for a movie called "Machete" during which the announcer declares "If you hire Machete to kill the bad guy, you better make sure the bad guy isn't you." Basic storyline is thus: Bad chemical escapes, people are being turned into zombies, a rag-tag group of people are immune, end up banding together to fight their way to safety.

This isn't a movie where you are going to be surprised, just thoroughly entertained (if you like that over-the-top campy kind of stuff).

Did I mention the lady with the machine gun for a leg?

8th Grade Education

Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895?
This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina , Kansas , USA . It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina , KS - 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,''play,' and 'run.'
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.

 

7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. Long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, t he distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas .
6. Describe three of the most prominent b attles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8. Name event s connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

 

Orthography (Time, one hour)
[Do we even know what this is??]

1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.' (HUH?)
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena , Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoc ..
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the incl ination of the earth.

Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.
Gives the saying 'he only had an 8th grade education' a whole new meaning, doesn't it?!

SNOWFALL

"They can put a man on the moon, but they can't keep this white crap from falling from they sky?" - Alex P. Keaton

Actually, I love the snow. It is my firm belief that cold weather is a complete and utter waste of time without snow. And we got the snow. Truth be told, we got more snow before Christmas this year than we normally get all year long. It hasn't snowed this much here in Fly-Over Country since I was a kid. I love it. My kids are lovin' it. The 5/8 is hating it.

When I got out of bed this morning, I looked out the window to the dark, snow-covered street below, it was calm and serene looking. A neighbor had his truck running, headlights casting shadows up the street as I heard the distinctive scrape, scrape, scrape sound that can only come from a shovel, shoveling snow off concrete. It didn't look that bad. I figured the kids were going to be in school, and the 5/8 would hate it even more for having to drive in it. But, being the dutiful and generous and loving husband I am, I sneaked downstairs and fired up the web browser and hit the local news station website.

WIBW Channel 13. That is the news station that everyone turns to for closings and cancellations. Oh, the other stations have the list, and run the ticker along the bottom and read the list on air. But if you were to ask any state employee, city employee, school teacher, pastor or just about anyone else, WIBW has the de-facto official list. Sister Corita would tell us it doesn't matter what is said anywhere except Channel 13. If Channel 13 doesn't say school is closed, then school isn't closed. And for those of you who know her, you know there is no arguing with Sister Corita - ever.

I took another look out the front door window as I worked my way to my cramped little den and turned on the monitor and logged in. Still, it didn't look that bad. Opening the school closings page, I was shocked to see that the schools were closed. 'Maybe it's because it rained all day yesterday, and the streets are really slick' I though to myself 'Oh well'.

I gingerly worked my way back up the stairs. Trying to make as little noise as possible on those creaky old stairs. Told the 5/8 that school was canceled and turned her alarm off. Watching the news as I was preparing for work, they were saying we received 7 inches of snow overnight. Looking out the window, it still didn't look that deep to me. They had some young lady out in their parking lot, making snow angels and sticking a ruler in the snow. Poor kid, she was probably and intern, they get the worst assignments. She measured 9 inches with the ruler. I don't know how scientific that measurement is.

Heading out the back door towards the garage I was stunned to see how much deeper the snow looked up close and personal. Oddly, it seems our street had been plowed. We live on a wide street that I would have thought would be a priority for plowing. Back in the day, the trolley used to run down our street. Even with cars parked along both sides, two fire trucks could drive down our street side-by-side, that is how wide our street is. But until today, I don't believe our street had ever been plowed. Today it was, and that was a pleasant surprise.

I was prepared (I thought) for the drive into work. I knew that other people, even people who lived in Kansas way back when it used to snow like this all the time, didn't really exhibit the skills required for snow driving. Having lived in Alaska for around four years really taught me a lot about driving in the snow. Add to that about three years of driving my Jeep through the mountains of Colorado, I learned how to keep a vehicle moving forward with minimum traction.

The key is using the front tires to constantly seek new traction. Let's say you're at a stop sign, and you have little-to-no traction starting out; one thing that has never failed me (yet) is to turn the wheels left to right continuously. I'm not certain exactly what this does, but I do know it works. I drive that little POS Honda Insight (which is great for highway commuting, but pretty much worthless other than that) and I didn't have any problems with traction or getting stuck. The folks at work were amazed I could get in to the office in that little thing. I told them I have skills - with a z.

The worst I had to deal with was somebody driving up Huntoon St. They were scared I'm certain, being very cautions, driving about eight miles per hour. I don't have a problem with people driving slow in the snow. If they are comfortable, and I'm certain that the slower you drive, and the more confident you are behind the wheel, the safer it is for everyone. But this guy was on a four lane road, and driving down the middle of it. Taking up two lanes, going eight miles per hour. I don't know why they didn't pick a stinking lane. I know my vehicle, and I know what I can handle. I know how fast I can drive in what conditions. And I knew that I would be comfortable and safe at around 20-25 miles per hour. But this guy would not relinquish the middle of the road so that I, nor anyone stacked up behind me, could get around them.

But other than that, it was a fairly easy drive in.