Blog number 442 ******** 30 November, 2010
So my wife and I are sitting in Barnes and Nobles waiting for her cousin and her cousin's friend, journeying up from Tucson. I'm reading a pretty interesting book about Baba Booey and listening to some really good Pink Floyd on my Walkman type radio. My wife is reading a magazine entitled, "How It Works." She taps my arm and signals for me to take the earpieces out of my ear so I can hear what she has to say.
I do this reluctantly, but I do it. She says, "Look. It says here that if you have anti-lock brakes on your car, then when you brake like when the road is wet, the brakes won't lock up and cause you to skid. What do you think of that?"
I say, "Probably why they call them "Anti-lock brakes."
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
SOME MYSTERIES DON'T MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL
Blog number 441 ******** 21 November, 2010
It is a truism in writing fiction that the writer never puts in anything that does not further the story. Especially one that has nothing whatsoever to do with the story - like the one in Fargo, the movie.
For those of you who have not seen Fargo, it concerns a pregnant North Dakota sheriff in a small town looking for the killers of a highway patrolman and two civilians. Damn good movie! Damn good story. Damn good acting, directing, writing and casting.
However - there is a scene where the sheriff meets an old friend from high school and has dinner with him. They talk, she later finds out he has lied about marrying an old high school friend who has died. He didn't and she didn't. And that's all there is to that. The story of Fargo seems to have been laid aside and this thing brought in for no reason whatsoever.
Is this scene something left over from a scene which at one time fit in the story, but when the rest of it was blue-lined, this part was forgotten? Was the male actor a great friend of someone and was given this little scene out of friendship? We never see him again. In fact, I have never seen him in any other production anywhere. What's the story here? I don't know and I sincerely doubt that anyone is going to tell me.
One of my most persistent fantasies and wishes is that I worked as a columnist for a newspaper - famous and trusted enough that I could get important people to talk to me, and then I could find out the answers to a lot of things like this that really bother me. But that ain't gonna happen.
Maybe next time.
What brought all this on was that I just finished reading "A Very Private Gentleman." The ending was a shootout between the protagonist and a man that had been stalking him. The protagonist kills the stalker. Spoiler alert.
Turns out that the stalker commissioned a woman to find a person that could make a gun to his specifications and the woman hired the protagonist. The stalker did not know who was making the gun, the woman did not know who the assassin was going to kill, and the protagonist did not know who was going to be using the gun, nor for what. The fact that the stalker was using the very gun the protagonist made was pretty ironic. This irony was completely lost in the movie. The stalker was getting revenge for the suicide of his mother which he blamed on the protagonist. This all made sense.
In the movie, "The American," created from that book and starring George Clooney, the ending was that the woman who commissioned Clooney's character to make a special gun to be used in an assassination was the intended assassin. In other words, she commissioned the protagonist to make a gun that she would then use to kill him. That's not ironic, that's stupid.
The woman was killed by a secretly placed exploding bullet while shooting at Clooney's character. This didn't make sense. How did he know she was going to use the gun on him? Did he ordinarily put exploding bullets in his guns? I don't think so. Why did she pick that particular bullet out of two cases of about forty bullets? Who knows? Why did she want to kill him? Who knows?
In the movie, there is no stalker. The woman just shows up, wants Clooney's character to make a special gun, they go on picnics, have a little fun, pfft. The whole movie didn't make any sense. Anywhere.
Why was the movie changed from a very good story into a mush of nonsense? The story in the book could have easily translated into a story movie. Was the screenplay done by a commission of writers so that nobody's theme could dominate? Who knows?
It is a truism in writing fiction that the writer never puts in anything that does not further the story. Especially one that has nothing whatsoever to do with the story - like the one in Fargo, the movie.
For those of you who have not seen Fargo, it concerns a pregnant North Dakota sheriff in a small town looking for the killers of a highway patrolman and two civilians. Damn good movie! Damn good story. Damn good acting, directing, writing and casting.
However - there is a scene where the sheriff meets an old friend from high school and has dinner with him. They talk, she later finds out he has lied about marrying an old high school friend who has died. He didn't and she didn't. And that's all there is to that. The story of Fargo seems to have been laid aside and this thing brought in for no reason whatsoever.
Is this scene something left over from a scene which at one time fit in the story, but when the rest of it was blue-lined, this part was forgotten? Was the male actor a great friend of someone and was given this little scene out of friendship? We never see him again. In fact, I have never seen him in any other production anywhere. What's the story here? I don't know and I sincerely doubt that anyone is going to tell me.
One of my most persistent fantasies and wishes is that I worked as a columnist for a newspaper - famous and trusted enough that I could get important people to talk to me, and then I could find out the answers to a lot of things like this that really bother me. But that ain't gonna happen.
Maybe next time.
What brought all this on was that I just finished reading "A Very Private Gentleman." The ending was a shootout between the protagonist and a man that had been stalking him. The protagonist kills the stalker. Spoiler alert.
Turns out that the stalker commissioned a woman to find a person that could make a gun to his specifications and the woman hired the protagonist. The stalker did not know who was making the gun, the woman did not know who the assassin was going to kill, and the protagonist did not know who was going to be using the gun, nor for what. The fact that the stalker was using the very gun the protagonist made was pretty ironic. This irony was completely lost in the movie. The stalker was getting revenge for the suicide of his mother which he blamed on the protagonist. This all made sense.
In the movie, "The American," created from that book and starring George Clooney, the ending was that the woman who commissioned Clooney's character to make a special gun to be used in an assassination was the intended assassin. In other words, she commissioned the protagonist to make a gun that she would then use to kill him. That's not ironic, that's stupid.
The woman was killed by a secretly placed exploding bullet while shooting at Clooney's character. This didn't make sense. How did he know she was going to use the gun on him? Did he ordinarily put exploding bullets in his guns? I don't think so. Why did she pick that particular bullet out of two cases of about forty bullets? Who knows? Why did she want to kill him? Who knows?
In the movie, there is no stalker. The woman just shows up, wants Clooney's character to make a special gun, they go on picnics, have a little fun, pfft. The whole movie didn't make any sense. Anywhere.
Why was the movie changed from a very good story into a mush of nonsense? The story in the book could have easily translated into a story movie. Was the screenplay done by a commission of writers so that nobody's theme could dominate? Who knows?
Friday, November 12, 2010
NOT ALL OF IT IS DONE WITH MIRRORS
Blog number 439 ******** 12 November, 2010
One of the authors whom I really respect and trust once said in a book, "magic happens all around us, constantly. But we never notice it."
Whenever I mention some weirdness to my wife, she usually - always up to this morning, says, "Oh, Don. You always think you are seeing magical things in everyday happenings."
I usually think, "Well, thanks for that explanation. What a relief."
I have this small notebook where I jot down book titles I want to put on hold at the library, and notes about things I want to look up or write about. It's a six by four inch loose leaf tan colored notebook. Lift up the cover and there are twelve lines of twelve notes and book titles, all lines crossed out except for two. On the other side of that page are four lines of one word each and four lines of one book title each.
Next page, four lines of notes and seven lines of jigsaw puzzle titles with prices of each.
That's all that is written in this notebook except that if you lift up the back cover you will find six lines of one book title each on one page.
Still with me?
Yesterday I was on the computer putting books on hold at a Phoenix library and one of the ones I wanted, "Sleepwalk With Me," they didn't have. They had the CD and DVD, but no books.
So I went to the web site of the Casa Grande library and since I couldn't remember exactly what the title was, I looked in my notebook - where I had read the title just a few minutes ago for the Phoenix library. And I couldn't find it. I looked again, very carefully going through the few lines in my notebook, and it wasn't anywhere.
I began getting kinda frustrated. I had just seen the damn thing not five minutes ago and now it was gone? And it wasn't as if there were a lot of entries to plow through. Two and a half plus a half page of 4 x 6 inch pages? And over half of these crossed out as already being done with?
OK, I got to go with my backup plan. I gave the notebook to my wife and told her the problem. And she couldn't find it either! She looked again. No luck.
I took the book back from her, determined to find it, since I KNEW it was in there. I had seen it just a few minutes ago. I ran my index finger down each line like I did when I first learned to read and I still couldn't find it. We finally gave up.
This morning I'm waiting in the car for my wife to finish with her doctor's appointment and I'm reading and I come across an unfamiliar word. I want to write it down so's I can look for it when I get back to my dictionary. I flip open the first page of the notebook and there, staring me straight in the face - almost spotlighted, is the title of that book! I run into the waiting room and show it to my wife and is she as surprised as I am? I dunno. Maybe. Does it make any difference?
*************************
This doesn't have anything to do with what I wrote above, but did any of you see that trail of flame and smoke following what the Pentagon* claimed was made by an aircraft the other day? Back to the old weather balloon and marsh gas explanations.
That thing looked exactly like a space vehicle taking off from Florida, and having lived next to a SAC base where B-52's took off every three minutes for hours every day, I can assure you it was definitely NOT a jet airplane.
Kinda reminds me of that Chick guy of Chick Publications who declares that the dinosaurs disappeared because they didn't have enough oxygen which enabled humans to run them down and kill them. Any explanation is better than no explanation, I guess.
Oh well, not my problem.
*A living person. We don't know who, but we do know it was one person - evidently an idiot.
One of the authors whom I really respect and trust once said in a book, "magic happens all around us, constantly. But we never notice it."
Whenever I mention some weirdness to my wife, she usually - always up to this morning, says, "Oh, Don. You always think you are seeing magical things in everyday happenings."
I usually think, "Well, thanks for that explanation. What a relief."
I have this small notebook where I jot down book titles I want to put on hold at the library, and notes about things I want to look up or write about. It's a six by four inch loose leaf tan colored notebook. Lift up the cover and there are twelve lines of twelve notes and book titles, all lines crossed out except for two. On the other side of that page are four lines of one word each and four lines of one book title each.
Next page, four lines of notes and seven lines of jigsaw puzzle titles with prices of each.
That's all that is written in this notebook except that if you lift up the back cover you will find six lines of one book title each on one page.
Still with me?
Yesterday I was on the computer putting books on hold at a Phoenix library and one of the ones I wanted, "Sleepwalk With Me," they didn't have. They had the CD and DVD, but no books.
So I went to the web site of the Casa Grande library and since I couldn't remember exactly what the title was, I looked in my notebook - where I had read the title just a few minutes ago for the Phoenix library. And I couldn't find it. I looked again, very carefully going through the few lines in my notebook, and it wasn't anywhere.
I began getting kinda frustrated. I had just seen the damn thing not five minutes ago and now it was gone? And it wasn't as if there were a lot of entries to plow through. Two and a half plus a half page of 4 x 6 inch pages? And over half of these crossed out as already being done with?
OK, I got to go with my backup plan. I gave the notebook to my wife and told her the problem. And she couldn't find it either! She looked again. No luck.
I took the book back from her, determined to find it, since I KNEW it was in there. I had seen it just a few minutes ago. I ran my index finger down each line like I did when I first learned to read and I still couldn't find it. We finally gave up.
This morning I'm waiting in the car for my wife to finish with her doctor's appointment and I'm reading and I come across an unfamiliar word. I want to write it down so's I can look for it when I get back to my dictionary. I flip open the first page of the notebook and there, staring me straight in the face - almost spotlighted, is the title of that book! I run into the waiting room and show it to my wife and is she as surprised as I am? I dunno. Maybe. Does it make any difference?
Ok, it's not a big thing, this magic moment, granted. But it is bigger seen than heard or read. It's one of those "you had to be there" things. I hope you were not expecting a story of teleportation or transmutation of wealth. I do not like to disappoint anyone - especially you.
*************************
This doesn't have anything to do with what I wrote above, but did any of you see that trail of flame and smoke following what the Pentagon* claimed was made by an aircraft the other day? Back to the old weather balloon and marsh gas explanations.
That thing looked exactly like a space vehicle taking off from Florida, and having lived next to a SAC base where B-52's took off every three minutes for hours every day, I can assure you it was definitely NOT a jet airplane.
Kinda reminds me of that Chick guy of Chick Publications who declares that the dinosaurs disappeared because they didn't have enough oxygen which enabled humans to run them down and kill them. Any explanation is better than no explanation, I guess.
Oh well, not my problem.
*A living person. We don't know who, but we do know it was one person - evidently an idiot.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
ALL LEGALITY ASIDE...
Blog number 438 ******** 09 November, 2010
There is really no purpose, no ulterior motive to this Blog entry other than to present an alternative to what seems to me to be a common and popular consensus amongst the populace here in motorized America. I refer to the conundrum that arises when a pedestrian confronts at ninety degrees, a moving automobile.
This was brought to my mind just this morning when my wife was driving through a parking lot at Safeway's. She stopped and waited while a pedestrian calmly strolled across our path. If I had been that pedestrian, I would have stopped and looked off into the distance behind me, or do a ninety degree turn myself and make it look like I had forgotten where my car was, thus getting myself out of the way of the car.
I told in an earlier Blog entry of hiding behind a bush waiting for a car to pass me by so I could continue on my way, but the driver of the car evidently knew what I was doing and waited me out. I was also once called a "damn artistic bastard" for refusing to walk in front of a car in another Safeway parking lot, this time in Sacramento and instead walked parallel to it so that it could continue on its way, trying to keep my facial expression as looking like I was preoccupied with other things. Evidently she saw through my ploy.
The "damn" in the "damn artistic bastard" in the previous sentence is an euphemism for the word actually used.
I was once chewed out by a fellow for not stopping to let him and his four year old son cross in front of me in a crosswalk, this time in Trader Joe's parking lot. And just the other day I got a dirty look for driving in front of another pedestrian - again in a Safeway parking lot. Seems like I do a lot of driving in Safeway parking lots, doesn't it?
The reason I drove in front of these two is due to what is called, "projection." I unconsciously put myself into their shoes and acted as I would want the driver to act if the shoes were indeed on the other foot. Or feet. I thought I was doing them a favor. Really.
My reasoning for this behavior and thinking of mine is this: The automobile is using much more energy than I am, there are probably more people than one in the car, so why should all that mass and individuals wait for one mere mortal? After all, in the water, the larger craft has the right of way over the smaller craft due to the greater agility of the smaller craft and the lesser mass that has to be adjusted. Same thing here, right? It's much easier and less time is wasted if the pedestrian makes way for the automobile. It's also easier for the pedestrian to get out of the way and thus avoid an accident. It is also easier for the pedestrian to see the auto rather than the driver see the pedestrian. Especially at night. I think walkers should be as careful walking amongst moving vehicles as they should be walking in the woods.
Doesn't all that make sense? Am I wrong? If I am, don't tell me. I only appreciate good things being said about me.
Is that wrong?
There is really no purpose, no ulterior motive to this Blog entry other than to present an alternative to what seems to me to be a common and popular consensus amongst the populace here in motorized America. I refer to the conundrum that arises when a pedestrian confronts at ninety degrees, a moving automobile.
This was brought to my mind just this morning when my wife was driving through a parking lot at Safeway's. She stopped and waited while a pedestrian calmly strolled across our path. If I had been that pedestrian, I would have stopped and looked off into the distance behind me, or do a ninety degree turn myself and make it look like I had forgotten where my car was, thus getting myself out of the way of the car.
I told in an earlier Blog entry of hiding behind a bush waiting for a car to pass me by so I could continue on my way, but the driver of the car evidently knew what I was doing and waited me out. I was also once called a "damn artistic bastard" for refusing to walk in front of a car in another Safeway parking lot, this time in Sacramento and instead walked parallel to it so that it could continue on its way, trying to keep my facial expression as looking like I was preoccupied with other things. Evidently she saw through my ploy.
The "damn" in the "damn artistic bastard" in the previous sentence is an euphemism for the word actually used.
I was once chewed out by a fellow for not stopping to let him and his four year old son cross in front of me in a crosswalk, this time in Trader Joe's parking lot. And just the other day I got a dirty look for driving in front of another pedestrian - again in a Safeway parking lot. Seems like I do a lot of driving in Safeway parking lots, doesn't it?
The reason I drove in front of these two is due to what is called, "projection." I unconsciously put myself into their shoes and acted as I would want the driver to act if the shoes were indeed on the other foot. Or feet. I thought I was doing them a favor. Really.
My reasoning for this behavior and thinking of mine is this: The automobile is using much more energy than I am, there are probably more people than one in the car, so why should all that mass and individuals wait for one mere mortal? After all, in the water, the larger craft has the right of way over the smaller craft due to the greater agility of the smaller craft and the lesser mass that has to be adjusted. Same thing here, right? It's much easier and less time is wasted if the pedestrian makes way for the automobile. It's also easier for the pedestrian to get out of the way and thus avoid an accident. It is also easier for the pedestrian to see the auto rather than the driver see the pedestrian. Especially at night. I think walkers should be as careful walking amongst moving vehicles as they should be walking in the woods.
Doesn't all that make sense? Am I wrong? If I am, don't tell me. I only appreciate good things being said about me.
Is that wrong?
Monday, November 1, 2010
GOOD LUCK OR BAD LUCK? YOU BE THE JUDGE
Blog number 437 ******** 01 November, 2010
I have a nephew that lives in a "choice of a thousand" type small town in North Central Iowa. He read my Blog entry (#435 ) about false confessions and sent me the following.
"When I blew up the house, the fire marshal came and interviewed me. I told him that I had turned on the valve for the boiler and had trouble lighting it. I fiddled with it awhile and finally got it lit. I smelled a little gas all this time but thought it was because I had the pilot light held down for too long. I lit the pilot light, stood up and KaBoom!!!
After I told the fire marshall what happened, he looked at me then looked at the insurance guy then back to me then thought awhile and repeated the process. I was starting to get real nervous like someone was going to pull something on me. He looked back at me and said," no that didn't happen," and took the insurance guy into the house.
I was trying to think up a new story to tell him while he was in the house. My memory is not great - never has been, so the truth really would be easier. But the truth obviously wasn't working.
As I was sweating it out, he motioned to me from inside the doorway. I still hadn't thought up an alternate story, which turned out to be fortunate.
The fire marshall showed me that a different valve had failed on a pipe that went through a wall of the basement. The pipe was open on the other side of the wall, spewing gas out into the air. When the gas filled the wall cavity and my wife's closet above it, the gas started to fill the basement room that I was in, which was 8 x 8 and block walls. When I stood up I still had the match in my hand and the flame must have lit the gas at ceiling level. The force of the explosion was outside of the room I was in. It blew out a window, paneling off the walls, walls off the outside foundation, the garage wall out and the washroom at the back of the house. The house did a little jump in the air and settled back a little off the foundation. Then a fire started.
The marshall said I was one lucky boy cause they almost always are doing corpse recovery on deals of this nature.
I have a nephew that lives in a "choice of a thousand" type small town in North Central Iowa. He read my Blog entry (#435 ) about false confessions and sent me the following.
"When I blew up the house, the fire marshal came and interviewed me. I told him that I had turned on the valve for the boiler and had trouble lighting it. I fiddled with it awhile and finally got it lit. I smelled a little gas all this time but thought it was because I had the pilot light held down for too long. I lit the pilot light, stood up and KaBoom!!!
After I told the fire marshall what happened, he looked at me then looked at the insurance guy then back to me then thought awhile and repeated the process. I was starting to get real nervous like someone was going to pull something on me. He looked back at me and said," no that didn't happen," and took the insurance guy into the house.
I was trying to think up a new story to tell him while he was in the house. My memory is not great - never has been, so the truth really would be easier. But the truth obviously wasn't working.
As I was sweating it out, he motioned to me from inside the doorway. I still hadn't thought up an alternate story, which turned out to be fortunate.
The fire marshall showed me that a different valve had failed on a pipe that went through a wall of the basement. The pipe was open on the other side of the wall, spewing gas out into the air. When the gas filled the wall cavity and my wife's closet above it, the gas started to fill the basement room that I was in, which was 8 x 8 and block walls. When I stood up I still had the match in my hand and the flame must have lit the gas at ceiling level. The force of the explosion was outside of the room I was in. It blew out a window, paneling off the walls, walls off the outside foundation, the garage wall out and the washroom at the back of the house. The house did a little jump in the air and settled back a little off the foundation. Then a fire started.
The marshall said I was one lucky boy cause they almost always are doing corpse recovery on deals of this nature.
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