Things Keep Falling Apart

Lately I have been having far too many items owned break down. This week it was my office chair, which collapsed when a cat jumped off me – seriously. While due for replacement by the end of the year from the upholstery tearing and the wood on one arm delaminating, the central steel tube tearing was not something I foresaw happening. So of course it did.

This followed having my Dell Axim PocketPC finally show its age and have problems with its batteries (I have a spare) and battery compartment, the already damaged (and cobbled together) halogen torchiere lamp burn out, and my subwoofer develop a noticeable fuzz. The Dell was replaced a couple of months ago, but I had to buy replacements for the lamp and chair this month. For a month where I was trying to save back a good chunk of money, I now find myself struggling to have enough to cover the bills.

At least I got some serious bargains in the process. The replacement lamp uses conventional bulbs (using GE Halogen ones in a experiment) while being 55% off at Shopko. The chair was 42% at Office Depot off and is getting its break in as I type this. The sub will not get replaced. Kindness to my eyes and to my back take precedence to my ears. Oh, and the light bulbs were on sale too.

The chair dated back to the mid-nineties, so I suppose I got every last iota out of it before it failed catastrophically. Likewise, the lamp was as old. But the timing was not great financially and that irks me. I would go beat on the engine compartment of the car, but thunderstorms are due today.

So I settled on blowing things up in a video game.

The moral of the story? Still working on that, but it might be that everything failed only when it was possible for me to buy things above my normal ability. Maybe I am being watched over no matter how much I whine.

Odds and Ends 4-10-2012

Since I have not done this in awhile, I will throw some links up to what has caught my attention lately.

Locally, the apple orchards that are such a part of the region are under threat thanks to the cold snap this week. The combination of unusually warm temperatures followed by unusually cold ones is lethal to apple buds. Not much can be done but hope there will be Honeycrisp’s this year.

Ah, those wacky Japanese using high tech to better humanity. Oh wait…

At least they are diverting resources from making robot women. Don’t get me started there.

Having watched the dot com bubble of the late nineties, I have been getting the feeling of déjà vu again. It turns out I am not alone in worrying over how the latest Internet startups are over priced. I suspect we are headed for a dot com bubble 2.0.

The media in all its forms is increasingly dishonest as things crank up for the elections this year. Race baiting is one of the more evil ways to stir things up and it is being employed fully as a rallying tactic for the left. Outright fabrications are being spread around to inflame tensions. The ends justifying the means rarely leads to anything good, but people never seem to learn that.

The mainstream media cannot be trusted to be guardians of the truth or public good and I wonder if they ever were worthy of it. Given how partisan they have become, they resemble the state controlled media of totalitarian states more and more. Maybe the idea that yellow journalism died out was an illusion in the first place.

One thing that has bothered me for a very long time is how humanity lost its willingness to take risks by the end of the 20th Century. We need to go to space, take chances, colonize, and build. Yes, people will die in the endeavor, but there are far worse things than death. One of them is stagnation. So it is sad to see plans from the 1950s aimed at going to Mars and realizing there is little chance that will happen this century.

I am probably not alone in that. An anime adaptation of Space Brothers has started airing in Japan and streaming worldwide at Crunchyroll. It is a rare thing these days to see an anime featuring characters that are all adults and dealing with adult problems. Set in the near future, it is about a pair of brothers hoping to make it to the Moon and beyond as astronauts. Warm and sentimental, it also catches some of the current cultural malaise in Japan. Man, it makes me wish we had real space programs and not the token jokes we have today.

For Easter

One of the lessons I have learned from the Savior is that at the heart of all good acts lies sacrifice. One must go beyond selfish wishes, or even the instinct of self preservation in order to do good. What a world we would have if everyone behaved that way, but alas, too many think of themselves above all others.

I am grateful for such a role model and messiah. Hopefully, I will continue learning at His feet and become a better man.

Pulling on the Dragon’s Tail

Anonymous went after the Chinese government in another coordinated attack on a large amount of websites. Given how much cyber warfare is conducted by that government, I would not be surprised to see Anonymous get hacked thoroughly in retaliation. There is a strong nationalist streak that has been inculcated in the populace for the last couple of decades which means there will be plenty of retaliatory attacks from outside the government as well. Break out the popcorn, this could get very interesting.

Health 4-4-2012

It is time to write one of those posts I hate to write. Part of keeping a journal here is keeping track of my health and I am doing a poor job of it.

For the past week or so, pinched nerves in the back have been worse than usual. The lower area has finally loosened up and than has been an immense relief. But the upper area took a strange turn for the worse and has been mostly immune to the stretching exercises learned over a decade ago. For several days it was so bad that I was loosing control of the right arm due to pain flaring and the arm refusing to accept commands.

Things have improved with a rearrangement of pillows when sleeping and trying to stay flat on my back. Still twitchy, though. The worst of it coincided with the cold suffered during the weekend.

Today started fairly well with crossword puzzle and Audiosurf going well. But mid afternoon I felt extremely tired and took a short nap. It should have been short, that is. Forcing myself up at 9:00 PM I found the rest of daylight lost, which is very annoying. So much for getting the new floor lamp (one has to love clearance sales) assembled and in place.

Insert Title Here

Pick a title, any title, my creativity is not flowing today. While I have more energy than I did over the weekend, yesterday was a busier than usual Monday and so today is already dragging and it is not even 10:00 am yet.

One thing worked on yesterday was revamping and partially rewriting an old movie review. While I have done this to a minor degree before, this is a much more comprehensive overhaul which makes it a learning experience. Today it should get finished and it is about time I figured out how to bump a post to the front page. If I remember to, that is.

It is spring, so thoughts of maybe following baseball have emerged again. I find it ridiculous that streaming MLBTV online costs $20.00 a month. How sports fans can continue to fork out insane sums of money for PPV, tickets, and merchandise is beyond me. All I can surmise is that it is the latest form of idolatry to afflict the masses and there isn’t even a dollop of spiritual rewards promised.

I am not pleased with the Supreme Court ruling on strip searches. While it is a sad testament to the decay of society that such searches are often needed, the ability to force them on a person if they are arrested for anything is way over the line. The argument that ruling against them would have a “chilling effect” on law enforcement is somewhat legitimate, but when are we going to stop ceding all our civil liberties to the government?

Meanwhile, President Obama took another step toward tinpot dictatorship by threatening the Supreme Court over Obamacare. Why he thinks this will work when even Franklin Delano Roosevelt could not pull it off? FDR was far more popular and had much broader support, but the public completely rejected his attempts to bully and replace that branch of government. Rallying the base is one thing, but when it alienates everyone else it is not even a zero sum gain. It is a loss.

That is a lesson that seems to have been forgotten by a lot of politicians across the spectrum of late.

The wrong hood was ordered for the car and a new one has been placed. Hopefully a sunny day will arrive soon (forecast says tomorrow) to continue work on straightening metal. There is still a radiator attachment made of plastic that I have not figured out how to repair. Since the only other option is replacing the entire radiator, it has to be solved. Normally, a pin could be inserted into a drilled out hole, but I am afraid of leaks from the area if I do drill. Sigh. I probably could seal it well enough if that happens.

I am puzzled how people think that increased manufacturing with decreased demand is a positive sign, even in the short term. All it means is inventory will increase, which is not a good thing in a “just in time” economy. But if there is one thing I have learned about economic experts and investors is that anything can be tortured into becoming good news when desperate.

My growing suspicion is that the US stock markets will become the last haven for money for the wealthy before that wealth is permanently destroyed. Metals and real estate are the best places to sink money into, because the value of both will never reach zero. You will not be able to avoid losing money so it is all about having something rather than nothing in the end.

On that subject, the single most awesome thing I have seen on the Web so far this year. See, the Canadians are good for something!

Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999) Review

aka Awakening of Iris aka Gamera 1999: Absolute Guardian of the Universe

The final installment of Shuseke Kaneko’s trilogy of Gamera films aspires to be more than a giant monster movie when the giant flying turtle faces multiple foes – with the most deadly being a teenage girl. An unrelenting rollercoaster of a ride, Gamera 3 achieves the feat of becoming the most serious kaiju movie since the original Gojira stomped onto the screen. Combining an emotional plot, terrific pacing, and high attention to detail makes for a memorable movie whose images linger on well after the end credits roll.

Opening with haunting and evocative music, Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris presents us with an unidentified location on the Ecuator in 1999. Doctor Mayumi Nagamine (Shinabu Nakayama) from Gamera: Guardian of the Universe has been called out to a remote jungle village where the body of a young Gyaos lays decomposing.  Absent from the second movie, the ornithologist has been spending her time researching the bird like monsters and now their return adds an ominous air to the proceedings.