Time Flies

Thanks to PrivateCaller for this one.

If this doesn't make you feel old....then wake up from your nap, wipe the drool off your face, and think about it for a second.  Do the math...

Alternatively, you can go look for your glasses.

Margin Call - Star-Studded BOMB!

Demi Moore, Jeremy Irons, and Kevin Spacey...

BUT it still sucked royally.

Watching 30 minutes of this will surely feel like an eternity.

It's only something I recommend, well, if you can't fall asleep!

Margin Call is so horrible it actually makes Boiler Room look *well-done*.

Hollywood Hypocrites

Big info-graphic here...

I just want y'all to at least check out the beginning. I had no idea that Hollywood was essentially founded upon a mass act of *copyright infringement* and *piracy*!

Shocking Violence In Socialist Schools

Okay, the *Shocking* characterization in my title is tongue in cheek.

Look, even if your kid isn't bullied themself....the odds are that they are actually bullying some other kids beneath them in the pecking order - even if on a psychological level.

Lord of the Flies isn't what happens when kids are taken out of school/society...

No, it's what kids do to each other everyday when sentenced to *forced association*.

I watched two older Asian geeks at chess class yesterday tease my sweet-as-pie son. I mean these kids were certainly outcast dorks in their local government school penitentiary; and I don't even think they were mean kids, relatively speaking, by any stretch. But they were 11 and 12 years old - my son is 7.30 - and they probably just don't get many opportunities otherwise to flick another kid away like a fingertip booger.

The older homeschooled kids never, EVER tease my son; I mean almost everyone loves him.

When you do something as profoundly against the grain as keeping your kids out of school...it's nice to be continually, if not constantly reminded - even if by chess dorks - that you made the right decision.

I was no angel in school myself.

I used to bully the football players, the minority gang leaders,...

The idea that making a *cause* out of the *bullying epidemic* is going to do anything, at all, is absolutely ridiculous.

Movie Rec - Winter's Bone

This one is very well done:

Netflix characterizes Winter's Bone as *dark and gritty*, indeed it is - but my wife and I enjoyed it.

Movie Rec - The Double

This flick - The Double - is *okay*, watchable anyway.

Normally I'd put a video of the trailer here but it seems that the trailers on YouTube are *spoilers*.

Dos Movie Recs

I just went deep into my pocket for the free 1-month trial of Netflix (online streaming) and came across two terrific movies which I highly recommend:





As for The Fighter...

I can't believe that I grew up in Massachusetts and had really no idea who Mickey Ward was! BTW, they did a bang-up job portraying Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1980s. While I've never been there myself it came off as IDENTICAL to my hometown/city of Worcester. (There's very little diversity in that horrible State!)

I'm sure it was just a freak occurrence that I came across two really decent movies on Netflix right off the bat. Motion pictures have generally sucked for 15+ years now. Still it's a pretty good deal at $8 a month...

Prime Has Its Privileges!

I've been singing the praises of Amazon Prime ($79 for free 2-day Amazon.com delivery) for several months now...

And the the other day I mentioned that the condo I am renting in Naples at the moment doesn't have color cable TV so I tried out watching NBC's shows on my PC...

Well I just discovered that my $79 also gets me a whole bunch of FREE video content (TV & motion pictures) streamed from Amazon!

The selection is small at the moment but not bad and will surely broaden as time goes on.

Obviously Amazon is taking a run at NetFlix with this new venture.

I'm going to call it quits for the night right now and crawl into bed....Hope Floats is queued up and ready to stream...

Movie Skip - The Way Back

Looks good:

But was a dud!

You'd think a story about a 4,000 mile prison escape from Siberia would be teeming with drama. Except, there wasn't even a single memorable or well-done scene.

The acting was also weak and no doubt many viewers had trouble understanding the various fake foreign accents speaking English.

I'm sure the book was better.

Now I'm going to try to remember which fool it was that recommended this one to me...

Brookhaven National Boondoggle - Welfare For School Nerds

Today my son had a science class some 65 miles east at Brookhaven National Laboratory - pictured above.

I'd never even heard of it before and was AMAZED at how freakin' huge it was. I mean it was a few miles wide and I hadn't seen this many über-GEEKS since I was last in Cambridge, MA.

An alien visiting from outer-space and armed with today's conventional stereotypes would probably presume that these disheveled, socially-awkward pocket-protectors were homeschooled rather than in fact the *best and brightest* churned out by SCHOOLS.

While my son attended his class:

1) Blocks and Marbles: Students work in design teams to develop a solution to an engineering problem. Teams will construct a "ride" for a marble that must meet specified design criteria. Students will be introduced to the law of gravity.

2) Seeing the Light: What is light? How is a rainbow made? Through a series of experiments students will explore the properties of light. Discover how shadows are made, how light is reflected, and how light can be bent to make colorful rainbows. Students will also see the results of mixing the primary colors of light and experiment with our shadow wall.

3) Sounds Around: Discover how sound is produced and how it travels. Analyze how different pitches and volumes are produced. Experience sound waves as they pass through different states of matter. Watch your sound waves on an oscilloscope and try our invisible strings exhibit!

...I made my way around the *campus* and cafeteria and couldn't get over how much taxpayer money is essentially burned there. I mean all those Phd's make 6 figures+; and they were all moving at about the same speed as the obese women employed by the DMV.

Apparently it's an astounding $760 million a year - that's the annual budget for this boondoggle which employs 2,800 people.

The Republicans tried to cut its budget by 1/3 this year but failed - as they do in every other cost-cutting attempt. They fail so much a supporter of theirs ought to seriously wonder about sincerity.

Of course if I were President dictator....I'd close the whole thing up tomorrow!

I got real angry thinking about this but then I realized that there are probably a hundred of these boondoggles all over the country (esp. near Washington DC!) and that it's just the first one I really came into direct contact with.

My son's class? It was decent. And it was FREE....but only in a manner of speaking.

I was told that the 80s classic motion picture - The Manhattan Project - which I remember enjoying very much, was filmed at Brookhaven Labs:

It featured a young *Miranda* (aka Cynthia Nixon) as the girlfriend.

Another Anti-School, Pro-Education Movie

Well it's not out yet, but here's the *trailer*:

Although I won't give it my endorsement if it comes off as overly *make nice*.

Far too many parents who educate their own qualify their shtick with *well, school is great for some families*, etc.

They justify it too with, "Well I don't want to turn people off....I want to stay POSITIVE...."

Okay here's the problem with that.

Homeschoolers who refuse to take a hard, critical look at the shortcomings and *externalities* of age-graded, bureaucrat-taught, government schools are prone to make many of the same mistakes. At least they are in my admittedly limited experience.

What mistakes?

How about an antiquated focus on handwriting; taking the summers off; insulating kids from work and the important realities of economics; or trying to keep up with say the ridiculously low standards/expectations that exist in conventional schools. NEWSFLASH - if your child is homeschooled and only does math and reading *at grade level*....then you probably aren't pushing them hard enough.

You know what, I take that back.

I push math hard for many reasons; it's just happens to be my thang.

Kids on *individualized, parent-led* education programs certainly don't have to be advanced in math or reading....but they ought to turn out super-advanced in at least something - piano, computer programming, athletics, charity, cow-milking, or whatever.

A homeschooling parent who compliments the school system....well that's like a public school-advocating politician who sends their OWN CHILDREN to fancy private schools (Sidwell Friends!).

Of course these lying SOBs always say it's purely for *security reasons*...

Movie Rec - True Grit

Jeff Bridges was positively awesome; the little girl was okay; Matt Damon (was it really him?) was surprisingly weak; and the ending was flat-out weird.

Overall I'd have to say in this sucky-movie age....True Grit is slightly worth watching.

After The Bond Market Crashes...

Have any of y'all seen this:



???

I was watching it a week or so ago late at night but had to turn it off - a little too intense for right before sleep. The Road sports a very high IMDB rating - 7.4.

I haven't gotten around to the ending yet but it reminded me of that 28 Days motion picture.

Captious Shrugged

I read the book in 1996 or 1997 when I had just graduated from college and started trading options.

It didn't resonate with me at all - of course fresh off 16 years of *school* I was profoundly ignorant in the ways of the world, the lessons of history, and even the fundamentals of empirical economics.

For sure I'm a libertarian in the sense that I believe Big Government should ideally be halved in size and scope. I just hope this movie doesn't create an unhelpful caricature of me and my ilk.

Here's a *top comment* from YouTube:

If any of you see it please let me know what you think. Thanks.

A Rare Good Motion Picture For The Kids?

From a critic:

It's rare to find a teen-geared film that doesn't rely on crudity or titillation in order to entertain. What's more, there are positive messages about family and faith, two ingredients often left out of movies aimed at a young demographic. With their fully realized portrayals, AnnaSophia Robb and Dennis Quaid bring honor to Bethany and her father. Director Sean McNamara has used CGI with standout results, using effects to aid the story, not become it. And on top of that, this film will undoubtedly begin a dialogue between believers and those who don't understand what people like Bethany Hamilton have found, despite what they've lost.

No doubt many of y'all already saw the ads for this flick.

But I had to read about it online since I don't really watch color TV - AND, if I do, there's no way I'm going to break my string of 10+ years of skipping commercials via the DVR.

In fact we still don't have a TV in the house outside of the Zenith in our old bedroom which is now the guest room. No TV in the living room or in any other common rooms - a terrific tactic to keep away loafing houseguests! I'm trying to wean the family entirely off the idiot box and I've almost succeeded. The only junk that gets watched is really my sports (golf and basketball). But my wife keeps nagging me, hard actually, to buy a flat screen and hang it in our bedroom so she can watch 7 minutes of Desperate Housewives or some other crap before conking out. I've fought her as long as I could but she's getting pissed at me now and I may have to surrender. I've basically proved to her that she doesn't need one and that it can dangerously keep one if not both of us up later than we should be. But, a typical stubborn first wife....she doesn't care.

Last week I saw forty-something inch flat screens at Target for less than $350. Any suggestions?

I'm thinking I may need to get an idiot box that can stream Netflix or something. I really have no idea what's out there spec-wise or what I should buy. At least I waited long enough for the prices to crash - now I can buy 2-3 idiot boxes for what some Morons paid for a single one not long ago.

Dirt?

Have any of y'all eco-pagans seen this one:

It looks interesting.

Relax! I'm not about to start worshipping Father Nature/Gaia or anything anytime soon.

But I am probably close to getting a Netflix subscription so I can see random motion pictures like this when I feel like it.

Though first I'm going to have to buy a color TV and upgrade my BetaMax player...

Personal Luddite Problems

A local friend, that filmmaker dude who is going to get me cast in a romantic scene with Reese Witherspoon, on account of his industry has access to and possession of just about every motion picture DVD there is out there.

What a terrific resource to have nearby, right?

Recently he lent my first wife a few flicks: A Harry Potter movie for my son, True Grit, and something else.

The only problem was - as we found out the other day leaving our kids with their babysitting aunt - that the Harry Potter movie wouldn't play in our DVD player?

Why was that? I investigated when I got home to my disappointed brood/sitter.

There was no label on the disk but I think I figured out that my circa 1998 DVD player won't play what appears to be a Blu-Ray DVD.

Crap.

No problem. I think I saw $85 Blu-Ray players at the Sony Store around Christmas. And I have about 150,000 Sony Points on my credit card so I can upgrade our DVD player for free.

Oh wait, there is a problem.

It seems, after some Googling, that my fat-screen, circa 1998 32-inch color television (not a Zenith!) isn't able to display or perhaps even connect to a Blu-Ray player.

So now I'm going to have to buy a new freakin' TV too if I want to take advantage of this new friend of ours' motion picture collection. Double crap!

Oh well. I'm trying to construct a completely TV-free household. At best I think I'll be able to give up watching major sporting events, get rid of the cable box, and get by with one of those newfangled web-enabled TVs - perhaps with a $8 Netflix subscription.  Once I can pay for The Masters and Celtics/Patriots games a la carte I'm done with old-fangled cable - as I suspect many other people will be.

See also - Goal = Motion Pictures

A Homeschool Film?

Other than that *trailer* that I just saw....I don't know anything about this upcoming motion picture.

Here's the movie link.

Can't Wait To Do Something Like This!

Movie Skip - The Town

It's not the worst movie out there, but I found it just barely above average.

And I probably only liked it a little because I have a good friend in Charleston - a yuppie or *toonie*! - so I'm personally very well-acquainted with the neighborhoods where this motion picture was set.

While the casting was good, in terms of inserting realistic Charlestown Massholes....the plot twists were weak, the gunslinging *fantastic*, and the ending was somewhere between weak and borderline terrible.

Affleck float-out failed, if it was his intention, to create a remotely sympathetic hero.

And if that wasn't in his plans, well, he didn't exactly re-create Scarface either - which, BTW, was one of the more over-rated flicks of all-time.