The sun has set on another April 15, and here in the eastern time zone, folks have 2 hours and 12 minutes to get their returns to the post office.
Hating taxes seems like the American birthright. The colonies severed the bonds of the mother country in part because of unfair taxation policy that treated the colonies like an 18th century ATM. Apparently, in the intervening years, we have lost the distinction between fair and unfair taxes. The Revolutionaries' problem with things like the Stamp Act wasn't that it was a tax. It was that it was a tax levied by by the British Parliament. Colonists questioned Parliament's authority to levy taxes on colonists without consulting with the colonial governments who handled administrative issues in the colonies. It wasn't even a matter of a lack of Parliamentary representation. Parliamentary representatives at the time represented the good of the British Empire as a whole, including the colonies. In a way, everyone was represented, and no one was. Procedures existed for petitioning Parliament for colonists to sit in Parliament, but the logistics of actually having a colonial delegation were nightmarish, and besides, the colonies never asked.
We make the mistake of teaching this level of nuance in high school, at an age where students retain very little information about anything that does not have a cute butt. As a side note, this is why we need to teach American History using less of Gilbert Stuart's portrait and more of Horace Greenough's 1841 statue showing George Washington half naked and ripped. Since taxation policy isn't sexy no matter how you slice it, opposition to unfair taxes became opposition to any taxes. The annual national grumbling on April 15 doesn't help matters. Kids grow up hearing mom and dad moan about taxes in the middle of April, and the dislike of taxation transmits to another generation.
People hate taxes. You know what people don't hate? The stuff taxes gets them. They like Social Security and Pell Grants. They like food and drugs that don't kill them. They like roads (note to the department of transportation: they like roads that don't sprout the same potholes like clockwork every October even better). They like those military snipers who took out the Somali pirates. All of that costs money, and money comes from taxes. You really want to Support Our Troops? Stop bitching at the very mention of a tax increase, since taxes are how we pay our troops, and if we don't have enough tax money, we can't pay the Troops.
I actually don't mind paying my fair share of taxes. I get a lot in return. The police come when I call. The township keeps the road in front of my driveway from flooding. A taxpayer-funded program got me into college, and federal student aid kept me there. Without taxes, I'd probably still be in a job where I showered when I came home to get the nauseating combination of fryer fat and cigarette smoke out of my hair. So I'm OK with taxes. Not OK enough to pay more than I need to, but I don't mind paying for all the stuff government gives us.
Here's the kicker, though: I don't actually pay taxes. At least not this year. We paid the usual FICA stuff for Social Security and Medicare, but our income tax this year was $0, even with a gross income that places us solidly middle class for a family of two. We have an honest-to-goodness accountant (not the people at H&R Block) do our taxes and consult with us throughout the year on the tax consequences of major financial decisions. He advises us of ways we can reduce our taxes, but has never suggested anything more exotic than planning IRA contributions to maximize the available tax credit.
During the campaign, Obama talked about raising taxes on people earning more than $250,000. People oppose this, mostly because we want to believe that one day, we will be that person earning $250,000 a year. It's April 15, the time of year where our financial lives are slapped before us in black and white. It's a great time to assess the reality of your financial situation.
Take a look at Line 22 of your 1040 form. That's your total income. How close is it to $250,000? Be honest. If you need to, take a calculator, divide 250,000/total income and see just how many years it takes you to earn $250,000, gross. If that number is, say, four, can you envision a realistic scenario wherein your income will quadruple before you retire? If this scenario involves winning the lottery, factor in that any jackpot less than $5 million still leaves your 20-year annuity payments below the $250,000 threshold. For you hourly workers, can you envision a scenario where you are making $120.19 per hour, every hour? That's what it would take for 52 forty-hour workweeks to put you over the $250,000 mark. Even if you put in 80-hour workweeks and worked through Christmas, the family vacation and the worst case of stomach flu imaginable, you'd still need a job that paid a dollar a minute.
While you've got the calculator out, divide 3,500,000 by your total income. The result is how many years you would have to save every penny you make, not even buying a stick of gum or a kilowatt of electricity for light and heat, to have your estate subject to the estate tax. Life expectancy is around 78 years. Do you really have that many years and that much financial discipline left?
With bailout numbers in the trillions getting thrown around, it is easy to lose persepective on just how much $250,000 is compared to what we actually make now. With all the bubbles being burst in the economy, I almost hate to be the one to burst this one. Fact of the matter is, though, most of us are never going to make a quarter million a year, nor are we going to have $3.5 million to leave to the kids.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Bunny Thoughts
In another social media venue, my sister posed the question of why Easter, which is the more monumental Christian holiday, isn't as anticipated as Christmas. After much thought, here's what I came up with:
It all comes down to the date. It wasn’t until the fourth century that church leaders even decided that Jesus’ birth was something that ought to be celebrated, and by then, the exact date had been long lost (assuming anyone even took particular note of Jesus’ DOB in the first place). With only one easily overlooked temporal clue in the account of the nativity, basically, the entire calendar was the church’s oyster when it came to deciding a feast day for Christmas.
Pope Julius I (pope from 337-352) settled on December 25 for Christmas. Now, it wasn’t until 394 that non-Christian religions were actually outlawed in the Roman Empire, but the writing was on the wall by Pope Julius I’s time. Although the December 25 date runs contrary to the one textual clue for the time of Jesus’ birth, December 25 did have one thing going for it: Saturnalia, one of the big party days in ancient Rome. People don’t like to give up a good feast day.
Case in point: modern Christmas itself. In this multicultural, multi-religious society compounded by a legal mandate against state-supported religion, having a Christmas celebration in a government facility (e.g. public school) is legally untenable. Did people stop celebrating Christmas? No. They started calling it “Holiday” or “Winter Festival” or some religiously-neutral phrase, threw in a nod to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, and carried right on as they did before. People grouse about a War on Christmas, of course, but when given a choice between not celebrating or celebrating while calling the celebration by the officially-approved name, even modern Christians choose Option B. Early Romans did the same thing; they kept Saturnalia, tossed in a Nativity scene and called it Christmas.
The other great thing about December 25 is that it is only a few days after the Winter Solstice, which is a big feast day in pretty much all of the cultures that Christianity spread into. As it had with Saturnalia, Christmas could basically absorb the solstice celebrations, even if they had to move a few days, and call it good.
Easter doesn’t have that advantage. The textual clues firmly tie it to Pesach. Of course, Christianity couldn’t really appropriate Passover traditions for the celebration of the event that marks the break between Judaism and Christianity. Once you establish ham as the traditional holiday meal, any ties to Passover are pretty much over, except for the date. Since Passover and Easter are tied to the lunar calendar, they are a moving target and can end up several weeks off from the vernal equinox. Thus, Easter didn’t have the same success co-opting the equinox festivities of pagan cultures they way Christmas overlaid itself on the solstice. They managed to get the Easter Bunny and colored eggs from Germanic tribes, but that was pretty much it. At least Easter picked up the bunny. Without the colored eggs and marshmallow chicks, Easter is a holiday about brutal torture. Not only is that not exactly greeting card material, if Easter were a video game instead of a religious holiday, states would be passing laws against selling it to children.
It all comes down to the date. It wasn’t until the fourth century that church leaders even decided that Jesus’ birth was something that ought to be celebrated, and by then, the exact date had been long lost (assuming anyone even took particular note of Jesus’ DOB in the first place). With only one easily overlooked temporal clue in the account of the nativity, basically, the entire calendar was the church’s oyster when it came to deciding a feast day for Christmas.
Pope Julius I (pope from 337-352) settled on December 25 for Christmas. Now, it wasn’t until 394 that non-Christian religions were actually outlawed in the Roman Empire, but the writing was on the wall by Pope Julius I’s time. Although the December 25 date runs contrary to the one textual clue for the time of Jesus’ birth, December 25 did have one thing going for it: Saturnalia, one of the big party days in ancient Rome. People don’t like to give up a good feast day.
Case in point: modern Christmas itself. In this multicultural, multi-religious society compounded by a legal mandate against state-supported religion, having a Christmas celebration in a government facility (e.g. public school) is legally untenable. Did people stop celebrating Christmas? No. They started calling it “Holiday” or “Winter Festival” or some religiously-neutral phrase, threw in a nod to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, and carried right on as they did before. People grouse about a War on Christmas, of course, but when given a choice between not celebrating or celebrating while calling the celebration by the officially-approved name, even modern Christians choose Option B. Early Romans did the same thing; they kept Saturnalia, tossed in a Nativity scene and called it Christmas.
The other great thing about December 25 is that it is only a few days after the Winter Solstice, which is a big feast day in pretty much all of the cultures that Christianity spread into. As it had with Saturnalia, Christmas could basically absorb the solstice celebrations, even if they had to move a few days, and call it good.
Easter doesn’t have that advantage. The textual clues firmly tie it to Pesach. Of course, Christianity couldn’t really appropriate Passover traditions for the celebration of the event that marks the break between Judaism and Christianity. Once you establish ham as the traditional holiday meal, any ties to Passover are pretty much over, except for the date. Since Passover and Easter are tied to the lunar calendar, they are a moving target and can end up several weeks off from the vernal equinox. Thus, Easter didn’t have the same success co-opting the equinox festivities of pagan cultures they way Christmas overlaid itself on the solstice. They managed to get the Easter Bunny and colored eggs from Germanic tribes, but that was pretty much it. At least Easter picked up the bunny. Without the colored eggs and marshmallow chicks, Easter is a holiday about brutal torture. Not only is that not exactly greeting card material, if Easter were a video game instead of a religious holiday, states would be passing laws against selling it to children.
Friday, April 03, 2009
August Body, But August of What Year?
As with any episode of The Daily Show, the whole seven-odd minutes of this clip is worth watching, but the bit relevant to my commentary starts around 1:54.
I'm about to type a sentence I never thought would come out of my fingers.
As much as I loathe PowerPoint, this is the U.S. Senate in 2009. They should be using more advanced presentation technology than a middle school science fair circa 1992. Actually, circa 1992, we were already five years into the age of PowerPoint. My middle school was just a bit behind the curve. Why in the name of modern technology is our Most August Body still using easels and placards as visual aides?
I know we are in a budget crisis, but surely even an LCD projector, 100 thumb drives and the salary of a 14-year-old computer geek to run the projector--no, I don't expect senators to learn 20 year old technology--has to be less than the budgetary line item for printing all those giant placards. Those things don't come out of the inkjet by the receptionist's desk, after all.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| The Ever Spending Story | ||||
| ||||
I'm about to type a sentence I never thought would come out of my fingers.
Can someone please hook these folks up with PowerPoint? Keynote? Open Office Impress? Something?Now, I have never been a fan of presentation software, primarily because people tend to use it as a giant ass-backward teleprompter. In short, nothing any more useless than a giant blue placard that reads "$15,000,000,000,000" to impress upon us just how big 15 trillion is. The problem isn't that we don't know how many zeros are in a trillion and need it shown to us; the problem is that the human mind is only capable of comprehending numbers up to a certain point. After a while, more zeros are effectively meaningless, no matter what color the placard is.
As much as I loathe PowerPoint, this is the U.S. Senate in 2009. They should be using more advanced presentation technology than a middle school science fair circa 1992. Actually, circa 1992, we were already five years into the age of PowerPoint. My middle school was just a bit behind the curve. Why in the name of modern technology is our Most August Body still using easels and placards as visual aides?
I know we are in a budget crisis, but surely even an LCD projector, 100 thumb drives and the salary of a 14-year-old computer geek to run the projector--no, I don't expect senators to learn 20 year old technology--has to be less than the budgetary line item for printing all those giant placards. Those things don't come out of the inkjet by the receptionist's desk, after all.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Condom Comment
Let me add my voice to the noise in the blogosphere over this news item. To summarize for the non-clickers out there, the US Agency for International Development, the agency in charge of our international AIDS prevention efforts, has changed the suppliers they use for condoms for AIDS prevention programs in the developing world. The old supplier was in Alabama. The new suppliers are not American.
The article begins by asking the question:
Wrong. Not only is the answer wrong. That's not even the right question.
The American jobs in question here are making condoms for AIDS prevention programs in developing nations. Believe it or not, there are places on this planet where AIDS is not something you deal with by taking some wildly expensive drugs; it is something you die from, painfully, alone and ostracized by the community (but possibly not before trying some of the local folk cures which tend to do more to spread the virus than cure it). These are places where it is a non-trivial accomplishment to get to adulthood HIV-negative, places where preventing HIV spread saves lives. Not jobs. Lives. Human lives.
The question we should be asking is how many people have died in years past because we insisted on using a more expensive (and, buried down in paragraph 8 of the article, less reliable) supplier? How many human lives is an American job worth?
Sure, the lives saved are not your own, or your neighbor's, or anyone on this continent. They are the lives of anonymous people in developing nations. Human decency doesn't put food on the table when you've lost your job. Still, there is something about human decency that suggests we ought to value life over a job.
The article begins by asking the question:
At a time when the federal government is spending billions of stimulus dollars to stem the tide of U.S. layoffs, should that same government put even more Americans out of work by buying cheaper foreign products?The answer implied by the rest of the article is, "No."
Wrong. Not only is the answer wrong. That's not even the right question.
The American jobs in question here are making condoms for AIDS prevention programs in developing nations. Believe it or not, there are places on this planet where AIDS is not something you deal with by taking some wildly expensive drugs; it is something you die from, painfully, alone and ostracized by the community (but possibly not before trying some of the local folk cures which tend to do more to spread the virus than cure it). These are places where it is a non-trivial accomplishment to get to adulthood HIV-negative, places where preventing HIV spread saves lives. Not jobs. Lives. Human lives.
The question we should be asking is how many people have died in years past because we insisted on using a more expensive (and, buried down in paragraph 8 of the article, less reliable) supplier? How many human lives is an American job worth?
Sure, the lives saved are not your own, or your neighbor's, or anyone on this continent. They are the lives of anonymous people in developing nations. Human decency doesn't put food on the table when you've lost your job. Still, there is something about human decency that suggests we ought to value life over a job.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Happy Pi Day
Today is Pi Day (unless you are in one of those countries that puts the dates backwards...you lot don't get a Pi Day until someone redoes the calendar to include a fourteenth month in the year). Celebrate with all things circular, particularly pie. If you were planning ahead, you can even make pie in one of these. Me, I'm planning a blowout bash in 6 years, on 3/14/15. We'll start the festivities at 9:27, because we round fives up here at the Rookery.
And Happy Birthday, Einstein.
And Happy Birthday, Einstein.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Breaking Wind
I took part of the afternoon to work outside on the dry creekbed I am digging and landscaping so that my basement will remain dry. I had intended to take more of the afternoon for that particular task, but gave up when reminded why, when the wind is just right, it really blows to live downwind of the sewage treatment plant. Mercifully, the wind is not just right that often.
I find it exceptionally humorous that we are four houses down from the sewage treatment facility, yet we are not connected to city sewers. Once every 3-4 years, we pay a guy a hundred bucks to pump the human effluvia out of our septic tank and drive it four houses down to dump it at the treatment plant. Kinda seems like there ought to be a more efficient process, there.
I find it exceptionally humorous that we are four houses down from the sewage treatment facility, yet we are not connected to city sewers. Once every 3-4 years, we pay a guy a hundred bucks to pump the human effluvia out of our septic tank and drive it four houses down to dump it at the treatment plant. Kinda seems like there ought to be a more efficient process, there.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Whales and Space Rocks
The New York Times has an interesting set of essays from scientists on why people are so fascinated by killer asteroids. Two of my favorite astro-dudes, Seth Shostak and Neil deGrasse Tyson, throw their thoughts in.
Of course, internet commenting being what it is, some absolute idiots also throw their thoughts (and I used that loosely) in. I'll admire the restraint of taking 10 whole comments to get to "Let's just nuke the crap out the incoming killer rocks."
Well, for starters, this is what happens when you decide that you can blast your problems away:
The video report doesn't mention one of the unanticipated hitches in the plan: a half ton of TNT will not vaporize a whale, but it will scare the guano out of the seagulls and other scavengers, and they don't come back to eat the whale bits. At least ODOT has learned its lesson and is NOT considering TNT for the disposal of the whale that washed up this week. If blowing it up doesn't work for dead whale, what makes anyone think it works for a killer asteroid?
Of course, internet commenting being what it is, some absolute idiots also throw their thoughts (and I used that loosely) in. I'll admire the restraint of taking 10 whole comments to get to "Let's just nuke the crap out the incoming killer rocks."
Well, for starters, this is what happens when you decide that you can blast your problems away:
The video report doesn't mention one of the unanticipated hitches in the plan: a half ton of TNT will not vaporize a whale, but it will scare the guano out of the seagulls and other scavengers, and they don't come back to eat the whale bits. At least ODOT has learned its lesson and is NOT considering TNT for the disposal of the whale that washed up this week. If blowing it up doesn't work for dead whale, what makes anyone think it works for a killer asteroid?
Attention, Parents!
Not that I think movie ratings are worth the digital bytes required to display them at the beginning of the movie, but if a movie is rated R, there is a better than even chance that it is not kid material. The odds go up considerably from there if the poster for that R-rated movie features a smiley face with a bullet hole in its forehead. There really isn't that much nuance in a brained smiley face.
I have not yet seen Watchmen. Emp. Peng. has read the book, and others we know have already seen the movie and can speak to the content. They can also speak to the fact that parents are bringing toddlers to see this movie. Now, nature has ensured that procreating isn't rocket science. The survival of any species pretty much depends on ensuring that the process of getting another generation is reasonably idiot-proof (indeed, the movie Idiocracy--another one not for kids--is a keen look at the results of the premise that the idiots are better at it). Getting a child to toddlerhood takes a little more effort, so one can assume that anyone who manages to get a child to school age has at least 6 functional synaptic connections. It shouldn't take more than that to realize that the movie with the brained smiley face poster is not appropriate for the small fry.
Watchmen is based on a graphic novel. Near as I can figure, these parents haven't paid attention to comics since Batman fought a giant telephone booth in the 1960's, and you knew they were fighting because "Pow!" "Biff!" and "Bam!" Much like how chapter books encompass both Pippi Longstocking and Lolita, there are gradients of age-appropriateness in comics and graphic novels. Parents who wouldn't assume that, because there are chapter books for kids, all chapter books are for kids, somehow are under the impression that everything in a comic format is kid-friendly. Not the case.
Most comics aren't for kids. A 1995 audience survey from DC comics found that 80% of comics readers are over 18. I doubt the percentage has dropped significantly since then. If anything, that other 20% has gotten older. There are some great comics out there that are kid friendly, just like there are movies that both kids and parents can enjoy together. However, the readership for comics is overwhelmingly grown-ups, and as a rule, grown-ups just aren't that in to the type of reading material that kids find interesting. Somewhere after the fighting telephone booth, comics grew up. They gained complex plots and characters with moral ambiguity. Some, like Watchmen, got to a level that, were it not for the art, would land them on lists of Great Literary Works. The kind of stuff that is age-appropriate for a 5-year-old just doesn't make those lists. Five-year-olds are simply not capable of processing the nuance that makes a literary work great.
They are, however, capable of processing the non-nuance of a smiley face with a bullet to the brain, even if that smiley face is a cartoon. Would that their parents were. Once and for all, format has little bearing on the age-appropriate level of the material. For example, Disney and porn companies both make direct-to-DVD movies. If anything, movies based on comic books (as opposed to comic strips like Garfield) are less likely to be kid-friendly than other movies.
I have not yet seen Watchmen. Emp. Peng. has read the book, and others we know have already seen the movie and can speak to the content. They can also speak to the fact that parents are bringing toddlers to see this movie. Now, nature has ensured that procreating isn't rocket science. The survival of any species pretty much depends on ensuring that the process of getting another generation is reasonably idiot-proof (indeed, the movie Idiocracy--another one not for kids--is a keen look at the results of the premise that the idiots are better at it). Getting a child to toddlerhood takes a little more effort, so one can assume that anyone who manages to get a child to school age has at least 6 functional synaptic connections. It shouldn't take more than that to realize that the movie with the brained smiley face poster is not appropriate for the small fry.
Watchmen is based on a graphic novel. Near as I can figure, these parents haven't paid attention to comics since Batman fought a giant telephone booth in the 1960's, and you knew they were fighting because "Pow!" "Biff!" and "Bam!" Much like how chapter books encompass both Pippi Longstocking and Lolita, there are gradients of age-appropriateness in comics and graphic novels. Parents who wouldn't assume that, because there are chapter books for kids, all chapter books are for kids, somehow are under the impression that everything in a comic format is kid-friendly. Not the case.
Most comics aren't for kids. A 1995 audience survey from DC comics found that 80% of comics readers are over 18. I doubt the percentage has dropped significantly since then. If anything, that other 20% has gotten older. There are some great comics out there that are kid friendly, just like there are movies that both kids and parents can enjoy together. However, the readership for comics is overwhelmingly grown-ups, and as a rule, grown-ups just aren't that in to the type of reading material that kids find interesting. Somewhere after the fighting telephone booth, comics grew up. They gained complex plots and characters with moral ambiguity. Some, like Watchmen, got to a level that, were it not for the art, would land them on lists of Great Literary Works. The kind of stuff that is age-appropriate for a 5-year-old just doesn't make those lists. Five-year-olds are simply not capable of processing the nuance that makes a literary work great.
They are, however, capable of processing the non-nuance of a smiley face with a bullet to the brain, even if that smiley face is a cartoon. Would that their parents were. Once and for all, format has little bearing on the age-appropriate level of the material. For example, Disney and porn companies both make direct-to-DVD movies. If anything, movies based on comic books (as opposed to comic strips like Garfield) are less likely to be kid-friendly than other movies.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Broadbanned
Our (ha!) wonderful high-speed internet service crashed today, at the ISP's end (amazing what they can get away with as the only broadband option out here), leaving me without internet access most of the day. Now, it was bad enough that the lack of high speed internet meant I had an unanticipated day off work to do all those nagging chores like defrost the chest freezer and discover all the things I forgot were in there. Worse, I couldn't even complain about not having internet access, because everyone I would complain to is online. For a moment, I was thinking of calling PengSis, but we're so accustomed to video chatting through Skype that it didn't occur to me until today that I don't actually know her real phone number.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Attention, Hollywood!
You must immediately STOP casting voice over actors for their looks. I mean now.
I just finished watching Madagascar 2. Like Madagascar 1, there were not enough penguins in this movie. It ended up being a slog through my memory banks, trying to figure out who the voice of the pompadour lion was (Alec Baldwin, though for a while I was half sure it was William Shatner), punctuated by some well-voiced Penguin scenes. The penguins are the highest-billed characters in there voiced by actual voice actors. There were a couple of scenes in there where I actually found myself thinking, "You know, I bet this is really funny for people who know who is doing the voice of that hippo/giraffe/lion and are fans of their live action work."
You must start hiring real legitimate voice actors for animated movies. Starting now. Scratch that. Fire any face stars who are currently voicing animated movies and re-record their parts with voice actors. It's not enough to get a face actor who can do funny voices. The lemurs are the second funniest part of the Madagascar franchise, in no small part because of Sascha Baron Cohen. He did some funny stuff in Madagascar 1 that almost made me want to make an exception to my plea for face actors who can do funny impressions and voices, too. Then Madagascar became a franchise and not just a one-off movie. Even voiced by Sascha Baron Cohen both times, King Julien sounded different in the second installment, to the point that Emp. Peng. and I both thought that the directors must not have been able to get him back and hired a bad sound-alike. Now that animated movies are almost de facto franchises from the start, you need to hire people to voice them who can do a character consistently even if there are years between installments. Professional voice over actors can do that. Movie stars cannot.
While we're on that subject, since it is pretty much a given now that an animated movie is going to be a franchise with several direct-to-DVD installments that won't have the budgets for the big name actors from the first movie, why do you even start the roles off with the huge names? It just makes the direct-to-DVD movie sequels seem that much more cheaply done when all the major voices change between Part 1 and Part 2. Which is a shame, because you are probably hiring real voice actors for part 2, who are probably doing a much better voice acting job than the movie stars from part 1. If we weren't spending the whole movie noticing that someone didn't quite get the celebrity voice spot on, we would probably like the sequels better than the original.
I just finished watching Madagascar 2. Like Madagascar 1, there were not enough penguins in this movie. It ended up being a slog through my memory banks, trying to figure out who the voice of the pompadour lion was (Alec Baldwin, though for a while I was half sure it was William Shatner), punctuated by some well-voiced Penguin scenes. The penguins are the highest-billed characters in there voiced by actual voice actors. There were a couple of scenes in there where I actually found myself thinking, "You know, I bet this is really funny for people who know who is doing the voice of that hippo/giraffe/lion and are fans of their live action work."
You must start hiring real legitimate voice actors for animated movies. Starting now. Scratch that. Fire any face stars who are currently voicing animated movies and re-record their parts with voice actors. It's not enough to get a face actor who can do funny voices. The lemurs are the second funniest part of the Madagascar franchise, in no small part because of Sascha Baron Cohen. He did some funny stuff in Madagascar 1 that almost made me want to make an exception to my plea for face actors who can do funny impressions and voices, too. Then Madagascar became a franchise and not just a one-off movie. Even voiced by Sascha Baron Cohen both times, King Julien sounded different in the second installment, to the point that Emp. Peng. and I both thought that the directors must not have been able to get him back and hired a bad sound-alike. Now that animated movies are almost de facto franchises from the start, you need to hire people to voice them who can do a character consistently even if there are years between installments. Professional voice over actors can do that. Movie stars cannot.
While we're on that subject, since it is pretty much a given now that an animated movie is going to be a franchise with several direct-to-DVD installments that won't have the budgets for the big name actors from the first movie, why do you even start the roles off with the huge names? It just makes the direct-to-DVD movie sequels seem that much more cheaply done when all the major voices change between Part 1 and Part 2. Which is a shame, because you are probably hiring real voice actors for part 2, who are probably doing a much better voice acting job than the movie stars from part 1. If we weren't spending the whole movie noticing that someone didn't quite get the celebrity voice spot on, we would probably like the sequels better than the original.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Thank Goodness for the Generator
The Rookery has been on generator power for a couple of hours now. Fortunately for me, the first improvement we made to the Rookery was having a 15kw standby generator installed. Less fortunate for Emp. Peng., who is migratory tonight and roosting in a location that has neither standby generator nor power. Mine is the only house I can see with lights. Matter of fact, the only other light I can see is the glow from the Ohio Edison service facility out on the highway. I'm taking that as a good sign.
So I am cozy and still internet-enabled. We are having a doozy of a storm, with high winds on the heels of two feet of melting snow and a day's worth of thunderstorms. I expect to wake up to a lot of downed trees.
And, as I write this, we're back on grid power. For now. With the storm expected to rage until morning, I don't expect this to be the last of the power outages.
And there is the call from the electric company to verify that my power has been restored. Gotta give them credit for including the current time with the message, since odds are there are two dozen or so clocks that need reset. Ohio Edison now has a nifty service whereby you can report power outages via the internet. Which is great if you still have power to your computer and modem during the outage. Lucky for me, I do.
So I am cozy and still internet-enabled. We are having a doozy of a storm, with high winds on the heels of two feet of melting snow and a day's worth of thunderstorms. I expect to wake up to a lot of downed trees.
And, as I write this, we're back on grid power. For now. With the storm expected to rage until morning, I don't expect this to be the last of the power outages.
And there is the call from the electric company to verify that my power has been restored. Gotta give them credit for including the current time with the message, since odds are there are two dozen or so clocks that need reset. Ohio Edison now has a nifty service whereby you can report power outages via the internet. Which is great if you still have power to your computer and modem during the outage. Lucky for me, I do.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Gardenholics Anonymous
My name is Janet and I need to stop even looking at seed catalogs.
I was being really good this year. I glanced at the seed catalogs and threw them away without so much as being interested in the new cultivars. I inventoried my seeds, made a list of the stuff I wanted to plant, compared to my list and actually made a shopping list of the seeds I need for the garden this year. I went to three different garden centers and bought only what was on my list (well, except for the celosia, but I meant to put it on my list, really I did)(and the violas...those were in the plans, but I forgot to include the flowers when I made the list since those were the only flowers I was going to plant).
No one had yellow or orange bell peppers.
Emp. Peng. said I should just order the pepper seeds from Burpee.
I relapsed.
I dutifully only looked at the sweet peppers. Burpee's prices and shipping seemed a little excessive (as in, given my history with Burpee pepper seeds, it would be just as cost-effective and more efficient use of my time to buy the peppers), so I checked out Park Seeds, one of my other favorite dealers. Big mistake. They had yellow peppers, and a nifty type of orange pepper that supposedly does great in hanging baskets. That brought my order up to $4, including shipping.
Then I clicked on "shade-tolerant groundcovers." You see, I've been meaning to put some paths in around the house, and the flower beds out front really need some groundcover to choke out the weeds, and it was only $1.45 for a seed packet and didn't even up the shipping.
So I'm getting Mother of Thyme and Sagina. I was sooooo close to not having any impulse garden purchases. Soooooo close.
Forget blocking porn. I need a filter that blocks the seed websites.
I was being really good this year. I glanced at the seed catalogs and threw them away without so much as being interested in the new cultivars. I inventoried my seeds, made a list of the stuff I wanted to plant, compared to my list and actually made a shopping list of the seeds I need for the garden this year. I went to three different garden centers and bought only what was on my list (well, except for the celosia, but I meant to put it on my list, really I did)(and the violas...those were in the plans, but I forgot to include the flowers when I made the list since those were the only flowers I was going to plant).
No one had yellow or orange bell peppers.
Emp. Peng. said I should just order the pepper seeds from Burpee.
I relapsed.
I dutifully only looked at the sweet peppers. Burpee's prices and shipping seemed a little excessive (as in, given my history with Burpee pepper seeds, it would be just as cost-effective and more efficient use of my time to buy the peppers), so I checked out Park Seeds, one of my other favorite dealers. Big mistake. They had yellow peppers, and a nifty type of orange pepper that supposedly does great in hanging baskets. That brought my order up to $4, including shipping.
Then I clicked on "shade-tolerant groundcovers." You see, I've been meaning to put some paths in around the house, and the flower beds out front really need some groundcover to choke out the weeds, and it was only $1.45 for a seed packet and didn't even up the shipping.
So I'm getting Mother of Thyme and Sagina. I was sooooo close to not having any impulse garden purchases. Soooooo close.
Forget blocking porn. I need a filter that blocks the seed websites.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Public Service Announcement
We here at Penguin Perspectives would like to take this Groundhog's Day to remind everyone--especially those who cringed at 8 years of fearing "nukular" weapons--that we are now two days into a month that contains 2 R's (thus, I suppose, making it safe to eat twice as many oysters) and no double-o combination.
"Feb-you-air-ee" is going on my list of Things That Get People's Larynx Privileges Revoked.
And for our UK reader(s), yes we have looked up element #13 on the periodic table, with pronunciation guide, and yes we are astounded.
"Feb-you-air-ee" is going on my list of Things That Get People's Larynx Privileges Revoked.
And for our UK reader(s), yes we have looked up element #13 on the periodic table, with pronunciation guide, and yes we are astounded.
More Marmota-y Goodness
Here's an interview with Staten Island Chuck's handler, discussing the nature of groundhogs and how to cope with a wife and a groundhog under the same roof. I'll link to Chuck's prognostication when I can find it online.
UPDATE: Staten Island Chuck, like the rest of us, is ready for winter to be over and has prognosticated accordingly. Looking at the news footage, I think I prefer Chuck's forecast method to Phil's. Chuck gets lured out by the mayor of New York City wielding peanuts and half a cob of corn (note to Mayor Bloomberg: try pears. Woodrow loves pears). Phil gets yanked out by a guy wearing the height of 1862 fashion and hoisted, one-handed, overhead by his little marmota abdomen, flailing paws all over the place looking for the ground. Chuck also gets to sleep in, making his prediction a half hour later than Phil.
UPDATE: Staten Island Chuck, like the rest of us, is ready for winter to be over and has prognosticated accordingly. Looking at the news footage, I think I prefer Chuck's forecast method to Phil's. Chuck gets lured out by the mayor of New York City wielding peanuts and half a cob of corn (note to Mayor Bloomberg: try pears. Woodrow loves pears). Phil gets yanked out by a guy wearing the height of 1862 fashion and hoisted, one-handed, overhead by his little marmota abdomen, flailing paws all over the place looking for the ground. Chuck also gets to sleep in, making his prediction a half hour later than Phil.
This Just In
Punxsutawney Phil predicts winter will continue until the Vernal equinox. Safe bet, there. If anyone is wondering, here at the Rookery, Woodrow has more sense than to come out of hibernation when he would have to tunnel his way out of his den, only to have to tunnel down to food. Juding by the official pictures, Punxsutawney seems to feel the same way.
I am at the point in winter when I don't care when the marmota says it will end. I just want to know that the snow and meat-locker-cold temperatures to stop. I'm guessing that is why the Germans and the pagans they appropriated the tradition from slapped the rodential weather prognistication in early February. We are a good month and a half past the darkest days, but it is just when things start to get a little better that the sense of hopelessness sets in. We warmed up yesterday, and are down to somewhere around a foot and a half of snow on the ground. Down to. We topped out somewhere over 2 feet.
I try not to complain about the weather. It's hard when you have to bundle up in three layers just to take the trash out without getting frostbite, and by the way I'm not exaggerating there, but I try nonetheless. As my body aches from shoveling snow too deep and heavy for the snowblower, and my arms feel like gelatinous blobs because I have to heave each shovelful of snow above waist level to clear the ridges of accumulated prior snows on either side of the driveway, I keep my mind on perfectly ripe pears, warm blackberries, succulent fresh tomato salads and roasted yellow pear tomatoes (really, they are absolutely delicious, and just TRY finding yellow pear tomatoes for a price that makes you willing to fill a cake pan with them and bake them until they burst forth caramelized tomatoey goodness). The meat locker winters are why I can have apple cider on demand, or the sun-warmed peach that doesn't even make it to the house.
Back in the day, I took music appreciation from an orchestral conductor who personifies what one thinks of when one thinks of a conductor. He once lowered a refrigerator on stage to make a musical point. Oh, and he has the Conductor Hair that Emp. Peng., in spite of having a master's degree in conducting, never could quite pull off (not that he tried). It was intro-level music appreciation, meaning we went over things like Beethoven's Ninth. Maestro Sidlin observed that there must be something really great about the fourth movement that makes people willing to sit through the first three. That also applies to Ohio's climate.
As Emp. Peng. mentioned, a little more rant-ish than I prefer to go, there are those who think we must hate the winter weather here, and (and I will never understand this) people who say they could never move somewhere like here because of the climate. These people don't seem to think Ohio is such a bad place when they get Rookery-fresh produce or jam from home-grown fruit. So, no, I don't like the winters. You know what I do like: black raspberry ice cream. Being able to get that, fresh from the brambles, makes me willing to sit through the rest of Ohio's weather.
I am at the point in winter when I don't care when the marmota says it will end. I just want to know that the snow and meat-locker-cold temperatures to stop. I'm guessing that is why the Germans and the pagans they appropriated the tradition from slapped the rodential weather prognistication in early February. We are a good month and a half past the darkest days, but it is just when things start to get a little better that the sense of hopelessness sets in. We warmed up yesterday, and are down to somewhere around a foot and a half of snow on the ground. Down to. We topped out somewhere over 2 feet.
I try not to complain about the weather. It's hard when you have to bundle up in three layers just to take the trash out without getting frostbite, and by the way I'm not exaggerating there, but I try nonetheless. As my body aches from shoveling snow too deep and heavy for the snowblower, and my arms feel like gelatinous blobs because I have to heave each shovelful of snow above waist level to clear the ridges of accumulated prior snows on either side of the driveway, I keep my mind on perfectly ripe pears, warm blackberries, succulent fresh tomato salads and roasted yellow pear tomatoes (really, they are absolutely delicious, and just TRY finding yellow pear tomatoes for a price that makes you willing to fill a cake pan with them and bake them until they burst forth caramelized tomatoey goodness). The meat locker winters are why I can have apple cider on demand, or the sun-warmed peach that doesn't even make it to the house.
Back in the day, I took music appreciation from an orchestral conductor who personifies what one thinks of when one thinks of a conductor. He once lowered a refrigerator on stage to make a musical point. Oh, and he has the Conductor Hair that Emp. Peng., in spite of having a master's degree in conducting, never could quite pull off (not that he tried). It was intro-level music appreciation, meaning we went over things like Beethoven's Ninth. Maestro Sidlin observed that there must be something really great about the fourth movement that makes people willing to sit through the first three. That also applies to Ohio's climate.
As Emp. Peng. mentioned, a little more rant-ish than I prefer to go, there are those who think we must hate the winter weather here, and (and I will never understand this) people who say they could never move somewhere like here because of the climate. These people don't seem to think Ohio is such a bad place when they get Rookery-fresh produce or jam from home-grown fruit. So, no, I don't like the winters. You know what I do like: black raspberry ice cream. Being able to get that, fresh from the brambles, makes me willing to sit through the rest of Ohio's weather.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Mouseblogging Update
Nothing to see here, folks.
The mouse is still at large. I am beginning to suspect that the mouse has been in residence for a while. A few weeks back, I happened to look up at the top shelf of the pantry and found an open, half eaten quart of apple pie filling. I am now given to understand that what I took for insect larvae in the jar were, in fact, mouse scat. This means that the mouse has managed to a) climb to the top shelf of the pantry, b) pop the top of a mason jar of pie filling and c) eat approximately 12 times its volume of apples, sugar, spices and modified food starch. We may be dealing with a cleverer-than-average rodent here.
The mouse is still at large. I am beginning to suspect that the mouse has been in residence for a while. A few weeks back, I happened to look up at the top shelf of the pantry and found an open, half eaten quart of apple pie filling. I am now given to understand that what I took for insect larvae in the jar were, in fact, mouse scat. This means that the mouse has managed to a) climb to the top shelf of the pantry, b) pop the top of a mason jar of pie filling and c) eat approximately 12 times its volume of apples, sugar, spices and modified food starch. We may be dealing with a cleverer-than-average rodent here.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Live MouseBlogging
The first installment here will be on tape delay. About an hour ago, I saw an example of your standard issue field mouse scampering across the living room floor into the kitchen. I don't much blame it, since it is 22 degrees outside and we have roughly 2 feet of residual snow covering anything that would pass for a field around here.
About half an hour ago, Chakaal decided to get her 18 pounds, 14 ounces of inborn mousing ability trotting into the kitchen. She is now staring at a nook where, I assume, the mouse is hiding. The other two cats are taking the flanks.
More if it happens.
About half an hour ago, Chakaal decided to get her 18 pounds, 14 ounces of inborn mousing ability trotting into the kitchen. She is now staring at a nook where, I assume, the mouse is hiding. The other two cats are taking the flanks.
More if it happens.
Cream of Mushroom Soup
The good news is that the writing has been taking off like a shot. It's not the sort of thing that would make my BFA professors proud (then again, I doubt that any of them except one would be proud of anything vaguely comprehensible). Mostly, I write short summaries of this, that and the other thing, chock full of keywords to make it Googleriffic.
Which brings me to why the blogging has been light lately. I'm writing all day, for pay. Good for me, bad for you all. I will try to keep this up as much as I can, but I hope you all will understand that the paying gigs have to come first, and there will be times when neither my brain nor my fingers can stand any more time putting letters in order.
Which brings me to why the blogging has been light lately. I'm writing all day, for pay. Good for me, bad for you all. I will try to keep this up as much as I can, but I hope you all will understand that the paying gigs have to come first, and there will be times when neither my brain nor my fingers can stand any more time putting letters in order.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
How Cold Is It?
The Rookery is currently enjoying--OK, not so much enjoying as experiencing--an ambient air temperature of -3 Fahrenheit. Just how cold is three below zero? I looked out my kitchen window this morning and my icicles have frost on them.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Finally, The Government Understands the Real Danger
The government appears to have unwittingly caught on to the truth: the common cold is far more dangerous than terrorism. How do I know? As of this afternoon, I have had to show my ID more times to get rid of this blasted cold than to fly across the country, and that was before the identification shakedown to get nasal decongestant.
Since airlines have cut back to what appears to be a national average of 2/3 of a ticket agent per airport, no one checks ID when you get your boarding pass anymore. Quietly, over the past few years, they have reduced the airport ID checks down to one flash with your boarding pass at the TSA checkpoint as the person makes sure that your driver's license name matches your ticket name. Emp. Peng. and I flew from Columbus to Seattle and back, showing our identification a total of twice.
Coincidentally, that is exactly how many times I had to show my ID to buy 8 ounces of cold remedy. Since I tend to treat symptoms as I get them, I eschew the gazillion-in-one cold syrups in favor of ones that do one thing. The thing I need. I don't need to take a fever reducer if I am not running a fever. During the course of this cold, I have had chest congestion and a nagging cough, so I separately bought a bottle of expectorant and a bottle of cough suppressant, carded both times to prove that I am not a teenager looking to get 'faced on dextromethophan.
With chest congestion and cough having already put me on par with cross-country travel in terms of ID checks (although, thankfully, I did not need to have my shoes x-rayed at the Kroger pharmacy counter), I decided that my head congestion had become intolerable. I could actually feel the snot backup from the outside of my face, and the combination of painful congestion and a general inability to breathe through the standard oxygen-intake portals was leading me to emit a pathetic puppy whimper in my sleep and keep Emp. Peng. up half the night.
Time was, the remedy for this was to go to a store, pick up a box of Sudafed, pay for it and leave. That time was before someone figured out that you could use Sudafed to make methamphetamine and the DEA turned it into a List I chemical (basically, harmless enough on its own, but can be used to make controlled substances). Now, to get the Sudafed that contains pseudoephedrine, you have to show ID and fill out a form with your name, address and DOB and time and date of purchase, which will be kept on record for 2 years. Plus, you can only buy 9 grams of the stuff in any given month. That last one is not too onerous for the average cold sufferer, since it represents 300 doses. If you are that congested, you may have bigger problems than maxing out your Sudafed allotment. Nonetheless, that does mean that a three-symptom cold requires more ID check than a round trip airline flight.
You can, of course, walk into a store and get the new pseudoephedrine-free formulation of Sudafed with no questions or ID required. However, I find it telling that retailers and manufacturers have chosen to keep the old decongestant on the market, even with the inventory controls and extra work for the pharmacist that stocking it entails. I have to assume that, from a purely business perspective, if the new stuff worked as well as the old, no one would bother with the added work and expense of keeping the old stuff on hand, and the manufacturers would simply stop making it. But they don't, seriously implying that the new stuff could be about as effective as the blister pack it comes in.
Which is how I found myself this afternoon handing over the details of my identity to a lady at the pharmacy counter in exchange for nasal decongestant. When I am sick enough to need a decongestant, I'm not fooling around with the namby-pamby stuff. There ought to be some provision in the control of pseudoephedrine that, if you have to dig through pockets with more than half a travel pack of used, snotty tissues to get your ID, the pharmacist can assume you need the drug for legitimate nasal decongesting purposes and you are exempt from the background check.
Since airlines have cut back to what appears to be a national average of 2/3 of a ticket agent per airport, no one checks ID when you get your boarding pass anymore. Quietly, over the past few years, they have reduced the airport ID checks down to one flash with your boarding pass at the TSA checkpoint as the person makes sure that your driver's license name matches your ticket name. Emp. Peng. and I flew from Columbus to Seattle and back, showing our identification a total of twice.
Coincidentally, that is exactly how many times I had to show my ID to buy 8 ounces of cold remedy. Since I tend to treat symptoms as I get them, I eschew the gazillion-in-one cold syrups in favor of ones that do one thing. The thing I need. I don't need to take a fever reducer if I am not running a fever. During the course of this cold, I have had chest congestion and a nagging cough, so I separately bought a bottle of expectorant and a bottle of cough suppressant, carded both times to prove that I am not a teenager looking to get 'faced on dextromethophan.
With chest congestion and cough having already put me on par with cross-country travel in terms of ID checks (although, thankfully, I did not need to have my shoes x-rayed at the Kroger pharmacy counter), I decided that my head congestion had become intolerable. I could actually feel the snot backup from the outside of my face, and the combination of painful congestion and a general inability to breathe through the standard oxygen-intake portals was leading me to emit a pathetic puppy whimper in my sleep and keep Emp. Peng. up half the night.
Time was, the remedy for this was to go to a store, pick up a box of Sudafed, pay for it and leave. That time was before someone figured out that you could use Sudafed to make methamphetamine and the DEA turned it into a List I chemical (basically, harmless enough on its own, but can be used to make controlled substances). Now, to get the Sudafed that contains pseudoephedrine, you have to show ID and fill out a form with your name, address and DOB and time and date of purchase, which will be kept on record for 2 years. Plus, you can only buy 9 grams of the stuff in any given month. That last one is not too onerous for the average cold sufferer, since it represents 300 doses. If you are that congested, you may have bigger problems than maxing out your Sudafed allotment. Nonetheless, that does mean that a three-symptom cold requires more ID check than a round trip airline flight.
You can, of course, walk into a store and get the new pseudoephedrine-free formulation of Sudafed with no questions or ID required. However, I find it telling that retailers and manufacturers have chosen to keep the old decongestant on the market, even with the inventory controls and extra work for the pharmacist that stocking it entails. I have to assume that, from a purely business perspective, if the new stuff worked as well as the old, no one would bother with the added work and expense of keeping the old stuff on hand, and the manufacturers would simply stop making it. But they don't, seriously implying that the new stuff could be about as effective as the blister pack it comes in.
Which is how I found myself this afternoon handing over the details of my identity to a lady at the pharmacy counter in exchange for nasal decongestant. When I am sick enough to need a decongestant, I'm not fooling around with the namby-pamby stuff. There ought to be some provision in the control of pseudoephedrine that, if you have to dig through pockets with more than half a travel pack of used, snotty tissues to get your ID, the pharmacist can assume you need the drug for legitimate nasal decongesting purposes and you are exempt from the background check.
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