October 30, 2006
It's a small town, after all.
The Norman Transcript - Norman man shot in face at Halloween party
Late Saturday night/early Sunday morning (depending on your viewpoint) I was out in the garage listening to the po-lice radio and cleaning the pistolas when this call was dispatched. As "unfunny" as it is that a man was shot, the only thing going through my head was that now-classic line from Pulp Fiction: "I accidentally shot Marvin in the face"!
Does that make me a bad person?
Late Saturday night/early Sunday morning (depending on your viewpoint) I was out in the garage listening to the po-lice radio and cleaning the pistolas when this call was dispatched. As "unfunny" as it is that a man was shot, the only thing going through my head was that now-classic line from Pulp Fiction: "I accidentally shot Marvin in the face"!
Does that make me a bad person?
// posted by wayne @ 10/30/2006 06:37:00 PM 
October 23, 2006
VERY Random Weekend Nonsense
I was trying to listen to the scanner this weekend while Aimee and I were driving around Saturday and it occurred me that after almost 40 minutes I hadn't hear one peep. Even though there were sirens all about, I was getting bupkus. I tried OHP and they were right there, as always. Same with CCS and OUPD. Everyone was around except Norman PD, Norman Fire and EMStat. This was quite disconcerting to say the least. So I jump on the internet and try to find what the backup frequencies were for City of Norman. While verifying I still had the correct frequencies and talkgroups programmed, I heard Norman dispatch sending out a disturbance call. What? I grabbed the manual for my radio and started flipping pages trying to find the section about locking out annoying talkgroups. Turns out everything was programmed correctly but those knuckleheads at the Norman PD CHANGED THEIR TALKGROUPS! No fair. To give you a quick explanation, imagine that you have all your favorite channels programmed on your car stereo's buttons. Now, for no good reason, the broadcasters change the channels and don't tell you where they've moved. Sure, you can still find them, but you don't know which one is which and if you've got them all, right? So now I've got to either wait for Radio Reference.com to sniff them out for me, or I have to break out the notepad and start making best guesses as to what's what. The worst part is that now I have to keep my scanner in "open" mode. This means that ANY talkgroup on that trunk will come through loud and clear. Including line and water maintenance, animal control, sanitation, street maintenance, park maintenance and freaking meter service among others! It's going to be a long week.
We're painting again! We've finally made it to the master bedroom and it is going to be sweet. Light blue on the ceiling and a bit darker blue on the walls. I think Sherwin Williams calls the colors Glimmer and Shimmer, or something like that. Hope to be done by this weekend, but we'll see how that goes.
After seeing much about her on the evening news (for Pete's sake) and all over yahoo, I finally checked out this LonelyGirl15 person on the YouTube. Trust me on this one: if you haven't seen her video posts, you don't need to. Not that it's bad. On the contrary, she probably puts more thought into her posts than the producers of most of MTV's shows. But let's face it, this is the video journal of a sixteen year old girl--not much of real interest. Seems her biggest issue was a religious "ceremony" she kept on and on about. As far as I can tell, from the 4 or 5 installments I watched (mainly trying to find out which religious ceremony), it is some type of pagan or wiccan ceremony associated with the equinox. The disturbing bit was that she had to go on some special diet and take some purity vows or something. The whole thing seemed a bit shady to me but I'm not a sixteen year old girl, a pagan or a wiccan so that's not too surprising.
Two documentaries you should make a point of seeing are Murderball and Dark Days. You've probably heard about Murderball, and I even saw Mark Zupan on the Conan O'Brian show plugging Quad Rugby. Murderball centers around Team USA and Team Canada and their preparations for the Paralympics in Athens, 2004. There is an especially sticky point in that Team Canada's head coach is a very bitter Joe Bishop who was Team USA's big man on campus during the late 80s and 90s. The film moves right along and has a nice, logical flow to it (unlike some OTHER films we've seen recently). They take some time out from the Paralympic aspirations to address the very personal nature of being quadriplegic, even spending some time with a guy who had just finished 10 months of rehab after cracking his neck in a MX accident. One of the best lines from the film is given by Zupan when a reporter asks him to tell us about Quad Rugby. He responds "We had been calling it Murderball, but you can't market Murderball to corporate sponsors." One last thing about this film: it asks the question everyone always wonders in the back of their mind but dares not ask out loud. Can a quadriplegic...how shall we say...get his freak on? I'll not ruin it for you, but I will say they leave no doubt. Just go rent it. And while you're out, get Dark Days. This one is a bit older, dating back to 2000, and chronicles the lives of a group of crackheads and ne'er-do-wells living in a shanty town UNDER NYC in the Amtrak tunnels that criss-cross the city. That one was hard to watch. Well not so much hard to watch as hard to decide how I felt about the whole thing. On one hand, I kept thinking that they are crackheads and deserved to reap what they had sown. On the other hand, I was thinking that no human should ever have to live like that and it is black mark against all of us for allowing that to happen to anyone. But then I'd come back to the "they're crackheads!" thing and realized that they would probably mug me or steal the CDs out of my car to buy toilet paper. Yeah, they had a better sense of community than most of us will ever know, but even among themselves there was a LOT of thievery going on. Every single one of them talked about how things had been stolen from them. Then there was the rats. Geeze, Louise I hate rats. There are very few of God's creatures that I will destroy without a second thought, but rats and roaches rate right up there. Seriously, I hate rats and would go out of my way to cross the street to destroy one if I saw it on the other side of the road. Anyway, the move has a bit of a "happy ending" but I'll let you watch it for yourself.
Still no word on the Shuffle. The guy at the Apple store in Penn Square told Aimee they should be shipping iPods the first of October. I decided to call that store to see if they had theirs yet (thinking mine wouldn't be far behind) and the lady told me they expected them to start shipping on or around the 14th. My account status page on Apple.com still says expected ship date is October 31. Looks like it will be October 31st after all.
And finally, for this early Monday morning, I will say that I am going to request a day of mourning for Wire In The Blood. Wire has to be the best tv show ever written. Period, end of subject. And this week is the season finale in a season that only brought 4 episodes. 4 EPISODES! I guess I should count my lucky stars that BBCAmerica brought it back in the first place and that each and every episode is a full 2 hours of crime drama goodness. Robson Green has played other characters kind of like this one, but I still say Tony Hill has to be the best ever brought to a TV show. You have to see it to understand it, but I love that he is so wrapped up in his own little brain-world that, for example, he finds it completely acceptable and matter-of-fact to show a cosmetic counter girl a picture of a severed foot so he can match the color of the nail polish! I may have to break down and by the DVDs just for the mere possibility there were one or two epi's the BBC didn't broadcast for BBCAmerica.
We're painting again! We've finally made it to the master bedroom and it is going to be sweet. Light blue on the ceiling and a bit darker blue on the walls. I think Sherwin Williams calls the colors Glimmer and Shimmer, or something like that. Hope to be done by this weekend, but we'll see how that goes.
After seeing much about her on the evening news (for Pete's sake) and all over yahoo, I finally checked out this LonelyGirl15 person on the YouTube. Trust me on this one: if you haven't seen her video posts, you don't need to. Not that it's bad. On the contrary, she probably puts more thought into her posts than the producers of most of MTV's shows. But let's face it, this is the video journal of a sixteen year old girl--not much of real interest. Seems her biggest issue was a religious "ceremony" she kept on and on about. As far as I can tell, from the 4 or 5 installments I watched (mainly trying to find out which religious ceremony), it is some type of pagan or wiccan ceremony associated with the equinox. The disturbing bit was that she had to go on some special diet and take some purity vows or something. The whole thing seemed a bit shady to me but I'm not a sixteen year old girl, a pagan or a wiccan so that's not too surprising.
Two documentaries you should make a point of seeing are Murderball and Dark Days. You've probably heard about Murderball, and I even saw Mark Zupan on the Conan O'Brian show plugging Quad Rugby. Murderball centers around Team USA and Team Canada and their preparations for the Paralympics in Athens, 2004. There is an especially sticky point in that Team Canada's head coach is a very bitter Joe Bishop who was Team USA's big man on campus during the late 80s and 90s. The film moves right along and has a nice, logical flow to it (unlike some OTHER films we've seen recently). They take some time out from the Paralympic aspirations to address the very personal nature of being quadriplegic, even spending some time with a guy who had just finished 10 months of rehab after cracking his neck in a MX accident. One of the best lines from the film is given by Zupan when a reporter asks him to tell us about Quad Rugby. He responds "We had been calling it Murderball, but you can't market Murderball to corporate sponsors." One last thing about this film: it asks the question everyone always wonders in the back of their mind but dares not ask out loud. Can a quadriplegic...how shall we say...get his freak on? I'll not ruin it for you, but I will say they leave no doubt. Just go rent it. And while you're out, get Dark Days. This one is a bit older, dating back to 2000, and chronicles the lives of a group of crackheads and ne'er-do-wells living in a shanty town UNDER NYC in the Amtrak tunnels that criss-cross the city. That one was hard to watch. Well not so much hard to watch as hard to decide how I felt about the whole thing. On one hand, I kept thinking that they are crackheads and deserved to reap what they had sown. On the other hand, I was thinking that no human should ever have to live like that and it is black mark against all of us for allowing that to happen to anyone. But then I'd come back to the "they're crackheads!" thing and realized that they would probably mug me or steal the CDs out of my car to buy toilet paper. Yeah, they had a better sense of community than most of us will ever know, but even among themselves there was a LOT of thievery going on. Every single one of them talked about how things had been stolen from them. Then there was the rats. Geeze, Louise I hate rats. There are very few of God's creatures that I will destroy without a second thought, but rats and roaches rate right up there. Seriously, I hate rats and would go out of my way to cross the street to destroy one if I saw it on the other side of the road. Anyway, the move has a bit of a "happy ending" but I'll let you watch it for yourself.
Still no word on the Shuffle. The guy at the Apple store in Penn Square told Aimee they should be shipping iPods the first of October. I decided to call that store to see if they had theirs yet (thinking mine wouldn't be far behind) and the lady told me they expected them to start shipping on or around the 14th. My account status page on Apple.com still says expected ship date is October 31. Looks like it will be October 31st after all.
And finally, for this early Monday morning, I will say that I am going to request a day of mourning for Wire In The Blood. Wire has to be the best tv show ever written. Period, end of subject. And this week is the season finale in a season that only brought 4 episodes. 4 EPISODES! I guess I should count my lucky stars that BBCAmerica brought it back in the first place and that each and every episode is a full 2 hours of crime drama goodness. Robson Green has played other characters kind of like this one, but I still say Tony Hill has to be the best ever brought to a TV show. You have to see it to understand it, but I love that he is so wrapped up in his own little brain-world that, for example, he finds it completely acceptable and matter-of-fact to show a cosmetic counter girl a picture of a severed foot so he can match the color of the nail polish! I may have to break down and by the DVDs just for the mere possibility there were one or two epi's the BBC didn't broadcast for BBCAmerica.
// posted by wayne @ 10/23/2006 01:59:00 AM
October 21, 2006
Parts? Oh yes, there will be Parts!
Well, kiddiewinks, here they are: every single small part, pin, spring, and bushing one needs to construct a working M1911A1 type pistol. For those unfamiliar with John M. Browning's masterwork, allow me to share just a bit. Back in the old'n times, the military used revolvers. Around 1900 or so, they decided it was time for a new service pistol. John Browning, being the sharp cookie that he was, came up with a single-action, self-loading design built around what we know as the .45 ACP cartridge. To make a long story short, the Army adopted it and it was dubbed the M1911. A few little tweaks later, and you have the M1911A1 service pistol. And it did just fine for about 75 years, until it was replaced in 1985 by the M9 pistol. More commonly known as--you guessed it--the Beretta 92FS. Which you have all come to know and love as Wayne's favorite shootin' iron. (Which is a bit of a misnomer, because it is primarily built from aluminum alloy and carbon steel). As most folks (most gun folks and military types, anyway) know, the switch from the venerable .45 to the 'euro-pellet' 9mm did not sit well with some branches and to this day, there are some out there who will tell you that Beretta PAID the folks in charge to win the contract. Whatever. All black-ops and conspiracies aside, there are some people out there, mostly those in the United States Marine Corps who are still using this ancient (by today's standards) battle-proven war horse. And that's the reason I've decided to build one. Well, there's that and then there's, as Kelly put it, "Every man should own one single-action .45". I'd have to agree. So these Marines, known as Marine Expeditionary Units (Special Operations Capable), still using the M1911A are actually using a modified pistol but the amazing thing is that they are still using some of the original Colt contract frames--some older than you and me! Granted, they are showing their age, I hear, so the search for a suitable commercially manufactured pistol is on. Rumor has it that for the time being they are using Kimber .45s. Anyway, the guys using this pistol are the real deal. If there was is a conflict, whether we've heard of it or not, these highly motivated, hard core individuals were probably there first and if this is their secondary weapon than it is MORE than capable of handling anything I can dish up.
The version I'm building starts with a standard 1911 frame, then they add Ed Brown's memory groove beavertail grip safety, a commander style hammer, either Pachmayer rubber grips or some other hard polymer panels (I don't recall which brand) and they keep the lanyard loop on the mainspring housing. I'm going to deviate just a bit by installing a single thumb safety instead of the specified ambi-safety because I am right-handed. The Corp's pistol has to be ambidextrous, but I don't. I've also decided to omit the lanyard loop for now because I don't have any current plans to have a lanyard attached to the gun or my body at this point. I want to make this as authentic as possible, so I may revisit the lanyard loop issue at a later time. Also specified are a Wilson's Combat barrel (the most expensive piece of the pie) and Wilson's 47D 8-round magazines. By the by, any time the original pistol spec's called for a certain maker's part I tried to get that maker's part, but if they didn't specify I just used either what I had on hand or what I felt to be the best part for the job. Most of these, as you can see from the picture, are made by Ed Brown. I chose Wolff's springs and the Chip McCormick parts you see are there just because they were a good deal on ebay. The balance I had previously purchased to "spruce up" my first .45 but they were later taken off when it was sold. Sights are by Novak and I absolutely love them on my 92FS so even if they hadn't specified the Novak's, I would've installed them anyway.
The only things I have left to order are the barrel, magazine, frame and slide. And as Aimee pointed out, that's pretty much "the gun" isn't it? I am going with Essex Arms for the frame and slide for a few reasons. First off, they are affordable and seem to be of good quality. The recent manufacture ones, anyway. Second, they are made in America by Americans. Third, I don't have a Colt frame laying around. And again, they're affordable. I could save up a bit more to get Brown's or Wilson's, but if the USMC armorers are using 50-year old gub'ment frames then I don't really see the need to add $400 to this project.
If all goes well, this should be done by February or March of next year so I'll keep you up to date on progress. Or pitfalls.
// posted by wayne @ 10/21/2006 03:54:00 AM
October 20, 2006
You should see this.
Dove
Jason sent me this link earlier today, and it is all about something which has appalled me for some time now. The way media (print and tv ads) treat real women--those who aren't a size 00 and have real (as opposed to airbrushed, not fake) skin--is absolutely disgusting. Look around at the majority of women you see on the TV and in mags, and then ask yourself if is it so hard to understand why women don't think of themselves as beautiful when everything around tells them they should be thinner and taller and weigh less than a 5th grader.
I am therefore giving Dove the Official Big Cliché Seal of Approval for their attention to this matter. And you should too.
Jason sent me this link earlier today, and it is all about something which has appalled me for some time now. The way media (print and tv ads) treat real women--those who aren't a size 00 and have real (as opposed to airbrushed, not fake) skin--is absolutely disgusting. Look around at the majority of women you see on the TV and in mags, and then ask yourself if is it so hard to understand why women don't think of themselves as beautiful when everything around tells them they should be thinner and taller and weigh less than a 5th grader.
I am therefore giving Dove the Official Big Cliché Seal of Approval for their attention to this matter. And you should too.
// posted by wayne @ 10/20/2006 05:41:00 AM
October 18, 2006
And you guys thought I was joking about the Peoples Republic of Taxachusetts
Not it! Mass. elementary school bans tag - Yahoo! News
Nope. Not a joke. Thanks to Chris S for the link.
Nope. Not a joke. Thanks to Chris S for the link.
// posted by wayne @ 10/18/2006 04:48:00 PM
October 11, 2006
Just a quick thought.
If any of you lib'rals out there are thinking that this Mark Foley thing has sealed the fate of the Republican party this November, I would offer you one name: Charlie Trie. What? Who? Never heard of him? Google him. Go on, I'll wait.
Back now? Good. Of all the crap we could've impeached Clinton for, we chose perjury. Not any of the criminal activity connected with ol' Chucky up there. Nosir. Monica Freakin' Lewinsky and Paula Jones. And yes, Freakin' is her middle name now.
Need more proof that America has the attention span of a cokehead with ADHD? Tell me, without Googlin', the name of the town where the Amish children were shot to death.
That's what I thought.
Back now? Good. Of all the crap we could've impeached Clinton for, we chose perjury. Not any of the criminal activity connected with ol' Chucky up there. Nosir. Monica Freakin' Lewinsky and Paula Jones. And yes, Freakin' is her middle name now.
Need more proof that America has the attention span of a cokehead with ADHD? Tell me, without Googlin', the name of the town where the Amish children were shot to death.
That's what I thought.
// posted by wayne @ 10/11/2006 05:14:00 AM
October 10, 2006
Someone, please...
Buy this woman dinner! And people wonder why their daughters have image/self esteem issues. Jeez, Louise. Gain a pound, or 20, wouldja?
AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere
AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere
// posted by wayne @ 10/10/2006 05:07:00 AM
October 06, 2006
Following up.
CNN.com - State lawmaker suggests arming teachers, principals - Oct 5, 2006
Dave W. sent this link over today and it had me again thinking about the best way to stop these school shootings. At first glance, I'm inclined to agree with the honorable representative from Wisconsin. However, upon further reflection, I'm not quite sure that is the best idea. And here's why.
A shooting situation has got to be one of the most "dear God in Heaven, help me" events any of us may ever encounter. I truly hope none of us ever have to live through that. However, if you're someone who's serious about firearms for home defense, you know your plans for dealing with a late-night visitor. It's a fair bet, in your own home, you know what's behind the walls. You know where your family sleeps and which shot angles are safe and which aren't. You know which is your safe room (and how to get there in the dark) and you have your mobile on your nightstand, not the kitchen table. You keep a flashlight stashed WITH your handgun or shotgun. In short, you are prepared for a home invasion scenario in YOUR home. Now let's say you are a teacher or the principal of a small high school. Even in good ol' Lex High School, referring to the main building, there were 6 entrances and only one of those was in clear view of the office. One of them entered directly into the chemistry lab which adjoined one of the classrooms. Anyone could stroll right on in the north or south entrances and anyone with a bit of motivation could break either one of the auditorium doors. I don't have the blueprints handy, but I recall there to be about 8 classrooms, two bathrooms, the library and the office. Do you think the average teacher or principal is trained and mentally prepared to not only make the shoot/no shoot call, but do it in a building with any one of 8 classrooms possibly in the line of fire? And let's not even think about them trying to clear the building before the PD can arrive. As pro-gun as I am, I just don't think I'm 100% on board with that.
So, with that in mind, I think there are two much more desirable options. The first being to keep unauthorized personnel out in the first place. It should be much easier, and safer, to set up a perimeter of fences, walls and security cameras for just this purpose. If you wanted to take this to the extreme, you could even arrange it so the school campus is a complex with a receiving area for the students completely separate and secure from the classrooms and athletic facilities. Real walls and fences and well-trained private security or off-duty LE maintaining a legitimate perimeter. Call it a gated community if you find that term more agreeable than "complex" but the idea is about the same--keep the baddies out from the start and you lessen the chances of them doing bad things.
The other option, probably best reserved for seriously high-risk areas, is to not only lock down the campus, but install very well trained security forces. I'm not talking Boyd Security here. I'm talking hard-core, well trained, very well armed emergency response teams who know the grounds, the building interiors, the maintenance areas and athletic facilities. They would train hard every year during the summer break with refresher drills during the school year that include the students and teachers so everyone is on the same page and knows what to do when the fertilizer hits the air conditioner. Remember folks: when the unthinkable happens, you will revert to your training--for better or worse.
So there you have it; my concept of how to curtail this kind of madness. I'll let you figure out how to fund it and sell it to the hippies who think having guns around kids is a scary, bad thing. I suppose you could always ask them which gun they'd prefer: the one the guard is carrying or the other one?
Dave W. sent this link over today and it had me again thinking about the best way to stop these school shootings. At first glance, I'm inclined to agree with the honorable representative from Wisconsin. However, upon further reflection, I'm not quite sure that is the best idea. And here's why.
A shooting situation has got to be one of the most "dear God in Heaven, help me" events any of us may ever encounter. I truly hope none of us ever have to live through that. However, if you're someone who's serious about firearms for home defense, you know your plans for dealing with a late-night visitor. It's a fair bet, in your own home, you know what's behind the walls. You know where your family sleeps and which shot angles are safe and which aren't. You know which is your safe room (and how to get there in the dark) and you have your mobile on your nightstand, not the kitchen table. You keep a flashlight stashed WITH your handgun or shotgun. In short, you are prepared for a home invasion scenario in YOUR home. Now let's say you are a teacher or the principal of a small high school. Even in good ol' Lex High School, referring to the main building, there were 6 entrances and only one of those was in clear view of the office. One of them entered directly into the chemistry lab which adjoined one of the classrooms. Anyone could stroll right on in the north or south entrances and anyone with a bit of motivation could break either one of the auditorium doors. I don't have the blueprints handy, but I recall there to be about 8 classrooms, two bathrooms, the library and the office. Do you think the average teacher or principal is trained and mentally prepared to not only make the shoot/no shoot call, but do it in a building with any one of 8 classrooms possibly in the line of fire? And let's not even think about them trying to clear the building before the PD can arrive. As pro-gun as I am, I just don't think I'm 100% on board with that.
So, with that in mind, I think there are two much more desirable options. The first being to keep unauthorized personnel out in the first place. It should be much easier, and safer, to set up a perimeter of fences, walls and security cameras for just this purpose. If you wanted to take this to the extreme, you could even arrange it so the school campus is a complex with a receiving area for the students completely separate and secure from the classrooms and athletic facilities. Real walls and fences and well-trained private security or off-duty LE maintaining a legitimate perimeter. Call it a gated community if you find that term more agreeable than "complex" but the idea is about the same--keep the baddies out from the start and you lessen the chances of them doing bad things.
The other option, probably best reserved for seriously high-risk areas, is to not only lock down the campus, but install very well trained security forces. I'm not talking Boyd Security here. I'm talking hard-core, well trained, very well armed emergency response teams who know the grounds, the building interiors, the maintenance areas and athletic facilities. They would train hard every year during the summer break with refresher drills during the school year that include the students and teachers so everyone is on the same page and knows what to do when the fertilizer hits the air conditioner. Remember folks: when the unthinkable happens, you will revert to your training--for better or worse.
So there you have it; my concept of how to curtail this kind of madness. I'll let you figure out how to fund it and sell it to the hippies who think having guns around kids is a scary, bad thing. I suppose you could always ask them which gun they'd prefer: the one the guard is carrying or the other one?
// posted by wayne @ 10/06/2006 03:30:00 AM
October 04, 2006
Here's a not-so-ancient Chinese secret for ya...
You know those "lucky numbers" on the back of the fortune from your (appropriately named) fortune cookie? NOT so lucky.
Last week, when the Powerball jackpot hit $203M, I decided I would have a little fun and play my "lucky numbers" from an obviously lucky fortune which read "You will always have good luck in your personal affairs". Now how can you get luckier than that? After all, they were the lucky numbers on a fortune which clearly states that I will indeed be lucky. The numbers I played were 1, 11, 18, 23 and 39 with the PB number 35. The winning numbers for that week's draw were 13, 21, 26, 45 and 50 with the PB number 20. Not a single freakin' match!
"Lucky numbers" my eye. Don't believe the hype, folks. Don't beleive it.
Last week, when the Powerball jackpot hit $203M, I decided I would have a little fun and play my "lucky numbers" from an obviously lucky fortune which read "You will always have good luck in your personal affairs". Now how can you get luckier than that? After all, they were the lucky numbers on a fortune which clearly states that I will indeed be lucky. The numbers I played were 1, 11, 18, 23 and 39 with the PB number 35. The winning numbers for that week's draw were 13, 21, 26, 45 and 50 with the PB number 20. Not a single freakin' match!
"Lucky numbers" my eye. Don't believe the hype, folks. Don't beleive it.
// posted by wayne @ 10/04/2006 02:57:00 AM
October 03, 2006
This has got to stop.
Today there was yet another school shooting. In Amish country, of all places. I'm sure you heard about it if you saw even 5 minutes of news today. What is this now, 3 in 10 days? And two of the shooters weren't even students. Why is that? What possesses someone to go into a school, take hostages and then shoot them? Yes, I know the obvious answer, but which devil? Actually, I guess that should be "which demon". You can take that literally or figuratively if you wish--the end result's the same.
The thing that always happens after one of these tragedies is one of the things that pisses me off most about newscasters. They always try to bring it home--they always ask stupid questions like "with the recent school shootings, are YOUR children safe at school?" Well, no. They're not safe, dimwit. None of us are "safe" and quite frankly I'm tired of you asking. The simple truth of the matter is that you may be killed while crossing the street. You may die choking on a slice of pizza. There's a better than average chance you may be killed as a result of a car collision. Life is not "safe". As the man said, "It's a dangerous business going out your front door." And it is STILL a dangerous business all these years later. So if you would be so kind, Mr. and Mrs. Newscaster, how about doing us all a favor: tell the story, get the details right and stop with the stupid questions already. Please.
Even though we'll never know if there was any way these shootings truly could've been prevented, I often wonder if we're not at the point where it's time to put armed security guards on all school campuses. Sure, some people would freak and you'd hear stuff like "no child should ever have to go to a school where armed guards are a fixture" but I bet you would get a different story from the families who've lost children in the last month. It's a fickle thing, apparently. Some parents are in the "whatever it takes to keep 'em safe" camp, while others cringe and hiss at the mere mention of armed guards on campuses. Even for me it's not cut and dried. Just as soon as I think the time has come to put heavily armed guards on every wing, I start to wonder about the numbers. How many schools are there in the United States? How many shootings have there been in the last 10 years? I guess the "numbers" don't really carry a lot of weight if you are the one burying a child.
I wish I had an easy answer for this problem, but you know as well as I that there isn't one. I know what the answer isn't, but I'm sure that's of little comfort to anyone who has lost a child, grandchild, brother, sister, cousin or just a friend. The only thing I'm certain of is that this has got to be stopped and we have got to figure out how before this happens again.
The thing that always happens after one of these tragedies is one of the things that pisses me off most about newscasters. They always try to bring it home--they always ask stupid questions like "with the recent school shootings, are YOUR children safe at school?" Well, no. They're not safe, dimwit. None of us are "safe" and quite frankly I'm tired of you asking. The simple truth of the matter is that you may be killed while crossing the street. You may die choking on a slice of pizza. There's a better than average chance you may be killed as a result of a car collision. Life is not "safe". As the man said, "It's a dangerous business going out your front door." And it is STILL a dangerous business all these years later. So if you would be so kind, Mr. and Mrs. Newscaster, how about doing us all a favor: tell the story, get the details right and stop with the stupid questions already. Please.
Even though we'll never know if there was any way these shootings truly could've been prevented, I often wonder if we're not at the point where it's time to put armed security guards on all school campuses. Sure, some people would freak and you'd hear stuff like "no child should ever have to go to a school where armed guards are a fixture" but I bet you would get a different story from the families who've lost children in the last month. It's a fickle thing, apparently. Some parents are in the "whatever it takes to keep 'em safe" camp, while others cringe and hiss at the mere mention of armed guards on campuses. Even for me it's not cut and dried. Just as soon as I think the time has come to put heavily armed guards on every wing, I start to wonder about the numbers. How many schools are there in the United States? How many shootings have there been in the last 10 years? I guess the "numbers" don't really carry a lot of weight if you are the one burying a child.
I wish I had an easy answer for this problem, but you know as well as I that there isn't one. I know what the answer isn't, but I'm sure that's of little comfort to anyone who has lost a child, grandchild, brother, sister, cousin or just a friend. The only thing I'm certain of is that this has got to be stopped and we have got to figure out how before this happens again.
// posted by wayne @ 10/03/2006 04:34:00 AM
October 02, 2006
Michael Haneke is the Devil
Normally, this would be the Random Weekend Nonsense post where I would tell you that we finally got around to staining the shed (or actually, it was finally cool enough to stain the shed) or I would tell you about how I cut down our neighbors tree because it was going to push down our fence if I didn't. I did ask their permission first, to avoid prosecution, but it's gone just the same! But this is no normal night. Oh no, friends, this is the night we watched Cache.
If you have any intention of watching this 'thriller' you'll want to go check your fantasy football scores or check the lotto numbers, cause I'm getting ready to put on the hip-waders and get knee-deep in this thing. And there will be spoilers. Oh yes. There will be spoilers.
First, a little background: Aimee taped the BAFTA awards so we could see what films were doing well overseas and thereby avoid even more of the crapfest being spewed recently by hollywood. This was only partially sucessful, however, because it seems like the same 4 films that won here in the states cleaned up in Britain as well. Except for this one film I'd never heard of before. It was French, but was directed by a Bavarian. Strange combo, but what the heck--everyone seemed to lavish praise upon accolades followed by even more critical acclaim.
After sitting through the 2 hours of torturous hell they called Cache, my guess is that they were all just really, really tired of hearing about Brokeback, so they all jumped on the Cache bandwagon. Honestly, we've turned off more exciting movies. Fully half of the scenes are long views with little to no discernable dialog, and it's very easy to miss what's going on if you aren't really looking for the characters. Then there's the most annoying thing I've ever seen in a movie that this one used over and over and over and over and over...well you get the idea. One of the main elements of this story is that someone is sending poor Georges two-hour long video tapes showing the outside of their home. Then they send another that shows his boyhood home. Finally, a break (or so we thought) when they get a video showing our videographer driving to an apartment. Of course, Georges goes to the apartment and finds an "unpleasent memory" as his mother calls it. The "unpleasent memory" turns out to be an Algerian boy Georges' parents were going to adopt after his parents were killed in some LA style riot that left 200 Algerians drowned in Paris back in the 60's. But before I lose you here, remember the Algerian, Majid, and his son are sending VHS casettes to poor Georges. But there's no indication that you are watching these videos as the characters would see them. That is until you hear the dialog and the scene pauses, then rewinds. I swear to you the first time this happened, I thought our DVD player was taking another giant dump. (We would've been watching this last night, but the DVD player jammed and we spent an hour performing a videodiskectomy.) It seems like the director did this to us at least a half dozen times, and it got more and more annoying each time.
So now we've got all the main elements in place: an annoying, jackass-guy, Georges, his wife (who seems to be the only one without any serious issues) Majid, the 'bad guy', if you can call him that, Majid's son, who it seems is the one actually making the videos, and Georges' jackass son, Pierrot, who desperately needs a haircut and an ass-whoopin. Georges confronts Majid who insists he's not sending the videos. Then a bit later, because he is a jackass, Pierrot stays at a friends house without calling his parents. Of course, they think Majid's got something to do with his disappearance and call in the local police. They arrest Majid and his son and they get to spend the night in jail. The following morning, Pierrot comes home and acts like, you guessed it, a jackass towards his mom whom he feels is having an affair with her boss. But they never tell us wheter or not she is and the scene ends up being about 4 minutes too long because she's explaining to him that she's not having an affiar. The movie is fraught with scenes that are either way too long because they are exploring crap that is irrelevant to the plot, or just plain not needed. They waste at least 20 minutes on Pierrot's swimming stuff. Did we need to know Pierrot is a swimmer? No. Did we need to know that he shouldn't breath on the turn? No. Was it in any way relevant to the plot? No. But there it is taking up time I could've been doing ANYTHING else.
"Well if it was so dang bad, Wayne, why did you keep watching it?" Simple. I was waiting for the big twist. I was waiting to see that it was really Georges' multiple personality disorder that was the culprit. I was waiting to see that it was their son who was doing this because he thought old moms was whoring around. I was waiting for anything. And I thought we finally got it when Majid invites Georges over to watch him cut his own throat. That was it. Don't get me wrong, that scene was plenty intense but that was it. Majid's son didn't go on some killing spree, Georges wasn't banged-up for murder and Georges' wife stll wasn't having an affair with her boss. Madid's son did turn up at Georges' office but only to ask what it felt like to have a man's life on his conscience. That was it. And he wasn't even mean about it. There was one last hope for redemption when Majid's son shows up at Pierrot's school and has a chat with him. I figured for sure he would cut Pierrot's throat with the same razor his father used right there on the school steps. Nope. And guess what? We didn't even get to hear what he told Pierrot because it was another one of those asinine long view shots with no dialog! The final insult? The school scene, without a word of dialog, was the last of the movie.
I told Aimee that I was sure we'd missed a scene because that could not be it. There had to be more. Had to be. But there wasn't. And now I sit here feeling like the victim of a very un-funny practical joke.
There are people out there who bought this treatment, hook line and sinker and now describe it as 'art', 'visionary', and 'brilliant'. Look people, just because he tried some new stuff (or maybe even re-hashed some old that we haven't seen in a while) does not make it 'art'. Taking us on a two-hour ride to nowhere by making us THINK he was eventually going to wrap up the story (as in the final scenes of Pulp Fiction) but then leaving it like he did is not 'visionary'. The only 'brilliant' part is that he somehow fooled a whole bunch of us into sitting through this wretched, stinking, vile, chuck-bucket of a movie for the entire two hours. As soon as they perfect that memory erasing technology they used in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I'm signing up to have Cache removed. Or at least hidden.
I'm so disgusted, I'm not even going to spell-check this post. I just can't be bothered.
If you have any intention of watching this 'thriller' you'll want to go check your fantasy football scores or check the lotto numbers, cause I'm getting ready to put on the hip-waders and get knee-deep in this thing. And there will be spoilers. Oh yes. There will be spoilers.
First, a little background: Aimee taped the BAFTA awards so we could see what films were doing well overseas and thereby avoid even more of the crapfest being spewed recently by hollywood. This was only partially sucessful, however, because it seems like the same 4 films that won here in the states cleaned up in Britain as well. Except for this one film I'd never heard of before. It was French, but was directed by a Bavarian. Strange combo, but what the heck--everyone seemed to lavish praise upon accolades followed by even more critical acclaim.
After sitting through the 2 hours of torturous hell they called Cache, my guess is that they were all just really, really tired of hearing about Brokeback, so they all jumped on the Cache bandwagon. Honestly, we've turned off more exciting movies. Fully half of the scenes are long views with little to no discernable dialog, and it's very easy to miss what's going on if you aren't really looking for the characters. Then there's the most annoying thing I've ever seen in a movie that this one used over and over and over and over and over...well you get the idea. One of the main elements of this story is that someone is sending poor Georges two-hour long video tapes showing the outside of their home. Then they send another that shows his boyhood home. Finally, a break (or so we thought) when they get a video showing our videographer driving to an apartment. Of course, Georges goes to the apartment and finds an "unpleasent memory" as his mother calls it. The "unpleasent memory" turns out to be an Algerian boy Georges' parents were going to adopt after his parents were killed in some LA style riot that left 200 Algerians drowned in Paris back in the 60's. But before I lose you here, remember the Algerian, Majid, and his son are sending VHS casettes to poor Georges. But there's no indication that you are watching these videos as the characters would see them. That is until you hear the dialog and the scene pauses, then rewinds. I swear to you the first time this happened, I thought our DVD player was taking another giant dump. (We would've been watching this last night, but the DVD player jammed and we spent an hour performing a videodiskectomy.) It seems like the director did this to us at least a half dozen times, and it got more and more annoying each time.
So now we've got all the main elements in place: an annoying, jackass-guy, Georges, his wife (who seems to be the only one without any serious issues) Majid, the 'bad guy', if you can call him that, Majid's son, who it seems is the one actually making the videos, and Georges' jackass son, Pierrot, who desperately needs a haircut and an ass-whoopin. Georges confronts Majid who insists he's not sending the videos. Then a bit later, because he is a jackass, Pierrot stays at a friends house without calling his parents. Of course, they think Majid's got something to do with his disappearance and call in the local police. They arrest Majid and his son and they get to spend the night in jail. The following morning, Pierrot comes home and acts like, you guessed it, a jackass towards his mom whom he feels is having an affair with her boss. But they never tell us wheter or not she is and the scene ends up being about 4 minutes too long because she's explaining to him that she's not having an affiar. The movie is fraught with scenes that are either way too long because they are exploring crap that is irrelevant to the plot, or just plain not needed. They waste at least 20 minutes on Pierrot's swimming stuff. Did we need to know Pierrot is a swimmer? No. Did we need to know that he shouldn't breath on the turn? No. Was it in any way relevant to the plot? No. But there it is taking up time I could've been doing ANYTHING else.
"Well if it was so dang bad, Wayne, why did you keep watching it?" Simple. I was waiting for the big twist. I was waiting to see that it was really Georges' multiple personality disorder that was the culprit. I was waiting to see that it was their son who was doing this because he thought old moms was whoring around. I was waiting for anything. And I thought we finally got it when Majid invites Georges over to watch him cut his own throat. That was it. Don't get me wrong, that scene was plenty intense but that was it. Majid's son didn't go on some killing spree, Georges wasn't banged-up for murder and Georges' wife stll wasn't having an affair with her boss. Madid's son did turn up at Georges' office but only to ask what it felt like to have a man's life on his conscience. That was it. And he wasn't even mean about it. There was one last hope for redemption when Majid's son shows up at Pierrot's school and has a chat with him. I figured for sure he would cut Pierrot's throat with the same razor his father used right there on the school steps. Nope. And guess what? We didn't even get to hear what he told Pierrot because it was another one of those asinine long view shots with no dialog! The final insult? The school scene, without a word of dialog, was the last of the movie.
I told Aimee that I was sure we'd missed a scene because that could not be it. There had to be more. Had to be. But there wasn't. And now I sit here feeling like the victim of a very un-funny practical joke.
There are people out there who bought this treatment, hook line and sinker and now describe it as 'art', 'visionary', and 'brilliant'. Look people, just because he tried some new stuff (or maybe even re-hashed some old that we haven't seen in a while) does not make it 'art'. Taking us on a two-hour ride to nowhere by making us THINK he was eventually going to wrap up the story (as in the final scenes of Pulp Fiction) but then leaving it like he did is not 'visionary'. The only 'brilliant' part is that he somehow fooled a whole bunch of us into sitting through this wretched, stinking, vile, chuck-bucket of a movie for the entire two hours. As soon as they perfect that memory erasing technology they used in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I'm signing up to have Cache removed. Or at least hidden.
I'm so disgusted, I'm not even going to spell-check this post. I just can't be bothered.
// posted by wayne @ 10/02/2006 02:47:00 AM
