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.