Equivilence

Watching the (old) pilot for the (much, much older) Time Tunnel series, and it occurs to me:

The Time Tunnel is Quantum Leap.

CAMERAS

Today I discovered that taking pictures in bright sunlight with a camera phone is a very bad idea when the sun can easily glint off the display, so that you can see your own reflection better than the thing you're trying to photograph.  And having a camera phone which will switch from front to rear cameras with a light swipe on the screen will result in many pictures of your own scowling face -- not that you could see it at the time, due to the aforementioned sun-glinting-problems.

Technology.  Fun when it works.

Pronunciation

French pronunciation is seriously messed up.

Comment voyez-vous votre avenir, for example.

Sure, the first part is kohmon voyyay vooh, that's obvious.

But no way is votre avenir is  voh trav en eer.   It's clearly vohtruh veneer.  Clearly.

Argh.  Seriously messed up.

Talking

I have a new French conversation partner -- and she's a research physicist working in fluid dynamics!  Wow, this is going to be fun!

BP

Which in this case stands not for the destroyers of the Gulf but for Black Panther, the new movie being hailed as the rebirth of the superhero genre.  I went to see it yesterday, and upon resturning home looked again at one of the reviews, noticing this time that it said this was 'the best movie with a predominantly black cast'.  And exactly how many of those ever show up in North America?

I really wanted to like it.  Right up to the end, I thought maybe it will get better.  Never did.  Though I did like the character who was the evil relative.  He, at least, had character, force, strength, purpose.  The rest -- it kept making me think of other movies. Of the By our power combined chant of Captain Planet, of the battle scenes in Zulu (decades ago), of the wise and insightful elders of so many movies, of the Force mysticism and the attack on the Death Star from Star Wars.  Or, and the spunky kid sister who mocks the hero and secretly adores him.  As if the script's approach was lets try this, no, lets try that, wait, lets try.....

Maybe next time, guys. 

Thinking

This morning, I read two articles. 

The first is about the guy who was the team doctor for USA gymnastics for years, and who was convicted of molesting dozens of young girls.  The second is about a private club in London which would gather money for distribution to charities through private social events at which 'tall, thin, pretty' women were employed to do pretty much whatever it took to keep the rich, entirely male clientele happy.

I would not have believed either one, six months ago.  That something happened, yes, I would have believed that.  But that dozens odsf girls were molested?  That a private event right out of the 60s occurred?  Surely not.  Yet apparently something did happen, and happened often enough, in the first case, and egregiously enough, in the second , to result in legal proceedings.  That it took this long for such proceedings to start is dismaying, even now.  But it is happening,  I thought.  The facts are horrible, but action is being taken.

Then I read in the article about the USA doctor where the judge read part of the doctors statement aloud to the courtroom.  And one phrase got me. "The phrase caused a stir in the courtroom".  My goodness, what did he say? I wish I'd done more?  Damn, but that was fine? 

 No.  He said Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. 

That's what got people's attention? That's what the judge thought worth highlighting?  In all that you could have cited -- and in the case of the judge, did -- this is what upset people?

Don't misunderstand.  The guy in this case really does sound like a slimeball, as do the guys in London.  But when we get to the point where quoting an old proverb  ( from Wikitionary - First written as "Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd." in the 1697 play The Mourning Bride (Act III Scene 2) by William Congreve ) causes people to be startled? That seems a bit much to me.  Selecting it sounds to me like reaching.  This guy did wretched things, and people are upset by his literary allusions?

Why? 

Information

When will school principals learn that hiding the truth from students about catastrophic events rarely works? The kids are not stupid. 

In this case, my wife, who works at the school, called me to tell me that a student had killed himself, and that the school administration did not want to tell the kids unless they brought it up.  Surprise.  They knew.  Does buckets for belief in the trustworthiness of the school administration. 

A Minuet in Power

....and no, that's not a typo. It's a game, and it sounds fascinating.

Books

I really wanted the new book by the author of The Martian to be good.  I really did.

I keep hoping that it will improve.

The Line

An interesting article from Slate on whether a line exists between normal societal behavior and harassment, and if so, where.

Status

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that women have been subjugated-- not too strong a word, I think -- for the last two decades, and more, and that what I would have said was usually just teasing and harmless fun was sometimes perceived that way by the recipients, but sometimes, and maybe more often than just sometimes, perceived as a malign controlling influence that they could not combat, could not affect, just had to either live with or leave. 

I think But I'm not that way, and then I think Am I? Are they saying that every time - EVERY TIME - I've looked at a woman and thought Wow, sexy -- because thats usually the extent of my thoughts - I'm contributing to the culture that made this possible?  How could that be true?  And yet I suspect that there are people, not radical or irrational, who would say yes, that's exactly what you were doing, and you must change. 

Defenses occur to me. So, its okay for a woman to dress in a sexy way, but I'm not supposed to react to it?  Not notice, not think OMG, look at that?  Admire, compliment women I don't know -- Just wanted to mention that your outfit is really nice, quite stylish  -- this is supposed to be wrong now?  Its okay if she likes it, but not if she doesn't?

Like I said -- having a hard time with this.


 

Whether Weather

Once again the weather guys say oh noes, one to three inches of snow are coming!!!

Once again, we get less than an inch....significantly less.  Probably.  We think.

Tell me again why I believe them? 

Calling Names

Our resident French girl, coming into the kitchen after I'd made the dough for pizza, told me that I looked like a boulanger. I told her that was the nicest thing that anyone had said to me in quite some time.

Exchange

Having an exchange student living with you is pretty cool.   But we find that it helps to remember: these kids wrote their self-descriptions with an eye to sounding appealing to your average parent. They aren't lying -- well, usually -- but they perhaps aren't telling the complete truth. 

Such as when our current student said in her introductory note that she enjoyed reading and being at home with her younger brother.  Both true.  But not here.  As she put it when I asked her why she goes out so often with girls she's met here, despite leading us to believe she was more or less a homebody - That's when I am in France.  But this may be my only chance to come to the US, so I need to do as much as I possibly can - and if you're not doing something, I need to hang out with friends who are. Otherwise, I'm just wasting my time. 

Ah. 

Blocking

We get two or three calls about four days a week from some kind of spam service.  It doesn't leave a message.  Well, I thought, since it always comes up as the same number, why not block it?

How about Because Verizon doesn't think it's worth providing this service in your area?

The Phone Company.  Still demonstrating Lily Tomlin / Ernestine's sincere regard for warm, friendly, effective customer service. 

Library Fun

Nothing douses the warm feelings that libraries give me faster than finding out that for a new book that I lost (actually, don't even remember getting, but they say I did, so I'll believe them) -

• costs $35,00, new, hardcover, from Amazon,  and 
• Amazon is selling it for $20.97, but 
• the library wants to charge me the full undiscounted cost,plus
• a fee to do it.  

They must have a lousy purchasing arrangement.....

Grievances

Is it so terribly wrong that I feel that the people popping out of the woodwork with complaints about actions taken more than a decade ago have foregone their right to expect my support?  There are modifiers to that, of course -- how many times did something happen?  How serious was each event?  Did you benefit from acquiescence? 

I. know that some would say Oh, so now you're blaming the victim?.  I'm not.  I do feel, though, that some of them are looking for a free pass. I doubt they're lying, but -- why, this late? I know their answer --  Well, we couldn't speak, no one would believe us then, now the climate is right. I hear that.  But I don't entirely buy it.


And yeah, my ire is motivated when I see this latest event, with Franken, motivating Trump the Chump cawing about Oh so now Franken is exposed, you guys, lets all castigate him, while the GOP and half the known universe did and does NOTHING to castigate him -- murmurs of disapproval, thats about all I've seen -- seeing that makes it worse. 

Gaming

I just learned that it is common now to buy a game that won't let you do all of the flashy things  - launch missiles, or use specialized skills, or something -- unless you 'level up' by either playing for what I consider an insanely long time, like dozens or hundreds of hours, or by paying real money to the vendor in order to play at the advanced level.  This after you have spent real money to get the damn game.

This is like learning to play chess and finding out that the knight won't jump until you fork over some cash first. Or the queen can only go half the board length in one move.   Why would anyone do this?  Why is it normal? 

There are mobile homes...

... and then there are Mobile Homes.

Observation

If I get a communication from some organization, and the communication includes a phrase like We're excited to announce..., the odds are very good that I won't be all that thrilled, and maybe even actively pissed.

Also, the Run for Something organization is... interesting.  Even if they do have a millenials only bias.  I just added them to my list of people to whom we'll regularly donate. The Anti-Trump resistance: it is fractured and squabbling, but it lives.