Long Week

I had my interview yesterday.  It went well, and as far as I could tell he hadn't read my blog.  He had been told to call me "Rasputin," but he didn't.  I got to see some old co-workers and had lunch with Mike (Happy Birthday, btw) so it was a good day.  It's not going to change my blogging style, and that's all I have to say about that.

I thought of something to blog about while driving home, but damned if I can remember it now.  So this might be it.  It's been a long week.

I have 961 days until I can retire, and you kids get off my lawn.

Just Sayin'

I can retire in 968 days.

I said in an earlier blog (56 days ago) that "I have a job ... that I don't hate (which I know makes me extremely lucky)...."

Even though I like the job I have now, for an assortment of reasons I needn't go into here, I've been looking for another for quite some time.  So along the way I've read many Internet articles on finding a job.  There is much advice out there, most of which I routinely ignore.

One of the most common pieces of advice is, to paraphrase, be careful of your online presence.  The guy doing your interview will have seen your Facebook page.  He knows how you ladies got all those Mardi Gras beads.  He reads your blog.

I bring this up because I have an interview next week.  In a major deviation from my usual pattern of behavior, I'm going to heed (somewhat) the prevailing wisdom, and on the off chance that my interviewer stumbles across this,  try to destroy the image I have deliberately concocted of a guy who's counting down the 968 days he has left, so he can bolt at the earliest opportunity.

Of course I'll cover that in the interview, and I'm not going to try to interview here.  I will try to "sell" myself, and point out the advantages of hiring a short-timer.  But I guess I need to make sure it can be seen here that I'm not married to that 2/15/15 date.  A new job, with new challenges (and new opportunities) would bring with it a new attitude.  Just sayin'.

(Alright, YOU.  Whaddaya mean it's gettin' deep?)

Like I say, I'll save the selling for the interview itself.  Until then, you kids get off my lawn.

(Oh, I forgot to mention: Operation Barbarossa began 71 years ago today.  Why?  Who knows.)

The Dog, Part 2

Last week I made this statement:  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "IDENTITY THEFT."

First, let's examine the concept of "theft."  If I steal your car, then I have the car and you don't.  I'm driving it around and you're walking.  I cannot steal your identity.  If I could, then I would be you, and you wouldn't.  What we have here is FRAUD.  I haven't "stolen" your "identity."  I have defrauded someone by saying that I'm you.

So let me tell you a story.  (Allegory warning!)

I go to an ATM in a bad part of town.  (Anyone who knows me can easily visualize this.)  I take out a hundred bucks and turn around, and there stands a guy with his hand in his pocket, who appears to have a gun.  He says "give me your money," I hand him the hundred bucks, and he runs off.

Now I start to stew on this, then I see you coming.  I step into the alley and watch you take your money out of the ATM.  I stick my hand in my pocket, point my finger and step out and say "Give me a hundred bucks."  You say "Here!  Take it all!"  I say "No, I just want a hundred bucks" and hand you back the rest.

Who robbed you?

(I did, in case you haven't figured that out.)  What we have here is a "transfer of victimhood."  What the banks have labeled "Identity theft" is in fact bank fraud, and they are the victims.  The reason they are victims it that they have failed in their duty to properly identify the people they do business with.  Rather than fix their problem, they have convinced their customer that he is in fact the "victim" of a crime that they have made up and called "identity theft."  Now I hear commercials asking you to pay about $400 a year for a "service" called "Identity Protection."

But I feel like I'm beating a dead horse.  I'll try to think of something interesting to blog about next week.  But for now I have 975 days until I can retire, and you kids get off my lawn.

The Dog

You know, the one the tail keeps wagging.  After long deliberation I have arrived at the conclusion that people are both stupid and lazy.  (Once again, I'm not talking about you.  I am however talking about me.  Not me alone, or necessarily in this regard but I am stupid and lazy.)  More particularly, people tend to miss the point.  Whatever the point may be.

For example, years ago, in the dim ages of another century, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and music was recorded on vinyl (as God intended,)  if you had money in the bank but not in your pocket, and you wanted to spend it you wrote a check.  For the benefit of any young people unfortunate enough to have stumbled on this blog, this was before the days of debit cards, even before ATMs.  Credit cards did exist (for rich people) but checks were like little, paper, one transaction at a time debit cards.  You'd fill it out, the store would take it, and the bank would give the store your money for it.  All in a mysterious banker sort of magic.

The problem was, anybody could write your name on a check.  This was a dilema for the store.  On the one hand, they didn't want to give their merchandise away for a worthless piece of paper, but on the other they didn't want to miss out on making a sale.  So they figured out ways to minimize their risk.  One of the things they did to make sure that the person writing the check was actually the person named on the check was to ask their minimum wage cashiers to look at a picture ID.  Since we're talking about high school kids making $2.10 an hour (less if you go back far enough) they needed a way to confirm that, so they asked the cashiers to write the customer's drivers' license number on the check.

Remember now, the store didn't want the number, they wanted to insure that the cashier looked at the license.  But, as I have already observed PEOPLE ARE LAZY!  First they would just recite the number from memory because they didn't want to get the license out, but soon, in a stroke of ABSOLUTE GENIUS they began to have the number actually PRINTED ON THEIR CHECKS.  I'm even more bewildered that the bank, equally concerned about worthless paper, actually printed those checks for these geniuses.  Now we're back to where we started.

Back then, signing someone elses name to a check was called forgery.  The concept of "identity theft" was still in the future.  And all of the foregoing is a setup for next weeks rant: 

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "IDENTITY THEFT."

And now I earnestly solicit your feedback on this post, before I proceed to solve the rest of the world's problems.  That said let me take care of a little housekeeping:  I still haven't "cleaned up" my Dark Shadows review.  As of right now I plan to retire in 982 days. 

Now get off my lawn.

I got nothin'

Not that there's nothing I want to blog on this week, but I will uncharacteristically allow my better judgment to prevail.

I have, however, enabled comments starting with this blog.  Not that I'm particularly interested in what the average web surfer has to say, but anybody reading this now is at least my Facebook friend.  I'm also moderating everything, so if I think you're an idiot ..., (no, not YOU, him over there) ... nobody else will ever see your comment anyway.

Feel free to comment on anything I've written so far.  I'm going to try to clean up the Dark Shadows "review" this week.

Other than that, I have 989 days to retirement, and you kids get off my lawn.

Bits and Pieces

Blogging weekly ain't easy.  I know last week's blog was incoherent, at least in places.  I intend to clean it up at some point.  I meant to do it two days ago.

I usually try to get these done Thursday night and set them to publish at close of business Friday.  Right now it is 10:12 PM 5/25/2012 and I am at my brother's house in Gee's Bend, Alabama.  (When asked where it is I usually reply "go to the middle of nowhere, and turn off the paved road.")  This blog may be shorter than usual.  I just want to get it posted by midnight.  Maybe I'll have two incoherent in a row.  That won't surprise anyone.

I do have a topic though.  Some might call it serendipity, or coincidence, or divine guidance.  Looking back I think it was actually inevitable.

A couple of days ago I was talking to my neighbor and mentioned I was making this trip.  She asked what route I would be taking, and I said I'd probably go through Mobile.  So of course we got to talking about cool places along the coast.  I mentioned the FloraBama Lounge (which I still haven't been to.  I've fallen behind in my dive bar exploration.)  She told me about a place called The Shed.  She told me the story behind it, described the place (as much as it CAN BE decribed) and said they had good barbecue.  She did mention that it was at exit 57, on Highway 57, but that didn't mean much to me.

Anyway, I took the day off to come here, dragged around the house and got on the road about 10.  Traffic on the Interstate came to a halt several times for no apparent reason.  Somehow I forgot it was a holiday weekend.  That happens I suppose.  Anyway, traffic had just started moving along in Mississippi, I was planning to stop in Mobile for lunch and gas, I had just checked my GPS (figuring about half an hour) and my clock (it said 1:00. straight up) and looked up to see a sign: The Shed, Exit 57.  Moving into the right lane there was exit 57.  Some things are just meant to be.

I'm not gonna try to describe The Shed.  I know I can't.  Go see it for yourself.  Thank me later.

I have come to prefer sausage over any other barbecue.  I know it's harder to judge, the sausage itself overwhelms the cooking technique, but I like it.  I'll have ribs next time.  There WILL BE a next time.  I had the sausage plate, with collard greens and potato salad.  Over the past half century or so I've had a lot of barbecue.  Over the last decade quite a bit of barbecued sausage.  If I've had better, I don't remember it.  The potato salad may have been the best restaurant potato salad I've ever had.  And I had a diet coke.  The next time it will be a beer.

Anyway, I have 996 days until retirement.  I'm in triple digits now.

Hmmm ..., I wonder what time I'll be passing exit 57 on the way home ....

Now you kids get off my lawn!

Dark Shadows

It occurred to me as I sat in the theater waiting for it to start that it would be impossible for me to "review" this movie.  A review would require me to be impartial, and when it comes to this I cannot be impartial.   But that's never stopped me from shootin' off my mouth, so why should it now.  

It was better than I had feared.  I wish they hadn't played it for comedy, but they did.  I wanted to see it a second time before I wrote this, but life is a lot busier now than when I could spend half a day on the steps of the Lake Theater waiting for the doors to open.  

How do I tell you about it without spoiling it if you haven't seen it?  I don't.  It's not really spoilable.  If you're reading my blog you're probably familiar with the original.  You have a pretty good idea of how it goes.  They definitely have a different take on it, but I think it was in keeping with the spirit of the original.  If you're worried about spoilers go see it, and come back and read this later.

I like the tone they set in the 18th century backstory.  I knew I would.  It was obvious from the trailer.  I wish they had maintained it throughout.  I found Barnabas' discovery of the Mark of Mephistopheles.  If you don't see that coming down sixth avenue I can't help you.

They hooked me on the train.  The original series started with Victoria on a train to Collinsport to start a new life.  After Barnabas was introduced there seemed to be some indecision whether Vicky or Maggie was the romantic interest, and I like the way that was handled.

The second point I appreciated was Barnabas introduction to Victoria.  If I had not been watching the original series on NetFlix I wouldn't have caught this, but they used the exact line from the series.

The seventies tone was well done, even if it was a little over the top.  I found the "business rivalry" had the tone of a seventies prime-time soap opera, Dallas or Dynasty, which was appropriate.  Of course I liked the music.

For some reason I was distracted (by Alice Cooper, I think) and missed the cameos at the door during the ball.  (The main reason I want to see it a second time.)  I have read that Mr. Frid did not enjoy the experience, and that saddens me.

I've had about all I want to see of overblown fight scenes, and in the immortal words of Forrest Gump "that's all I have to say about that."

The ending, also over the top (we're talking about Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, right?) I find more acceptable upon reflection.  When you consider the story of Josette from the original series you'll find we have a complete circle.

It's not the movie I would have wanted.  I hear there is more that will be on the DVD release, and I hope that's more satisfying.  But I don't think they've damaged the franchise.  They didn't "Howard the Duck" it.  There is certainly much more that can be done with this story.  The Collins Family deserves a place in American Mythology.  I hope the next version does the story justice.

And if my math is right I have 1003 days until retirement.  So until then you kids get off my lawn.