T - Rant - Government Web Sites

Why does it seem like any web site associated with the government was designed by idiots who last payed attention to the Internet back in about 1990? Their sites are horribly designed with absolutely no flow to them and the data input forms are archaic beyond belief. I just tried to put a date into the FAFSA web form and discovered that they want it as 02152010 rather than something a normal human might think up - like say 02/15/2010. I've been getting more and more pissed about these things lately because there is absolutely no excuse for them. It is simply a case of incompetent people being paid by the taxpayers to produce crap. Maybe they ought to think about firing them all and getting some web programmers who have at least basic knowledge of e-commerce and web programming. At least when an on-line merchant has an unusable site you can vote with your dollars. There just doesn't seem to be anything to be done about lousy government sites.

T - Recycle Bins

Driving around town today. In one neighborhood it was the first recycling pickup since Christmas. I found it very interesting to look at the bins and study the cardboard in them. Oh, this house got a new Wii, and this one got a Blu-Ray player, and over here they got an HDTV. It really is amazing how much our trash says about us. For many years police departments have cautioned people about putting boxes from high-end electronics out in the trash where burglars can use them as a shopping guide for which houses to break into. I never really thought about it too much until today when it was abundandly apparent that most people enthusiastically announce to anyone who wants to know that they have just gotten a new electronic gadget. Maybe a little thought and caution really is in order.

W - Sherlock Holmes

Went and saw this with my son the other day. He seems to get me out to new movies a lot. I really wasn't sure what to expect on this because the previews were a bit confusing in that they seemed to want to portray it as a comedy with occasional bursts of drama. The reviews I read, on the other hand, tried to compare it to the Sherlock Holmes books and seemed disappointed that the movie didn't live up to the books in terms of dramatic content. The previews seemed promising, however, so off we went.

The first thing I would have to say is that this is not the classic Holmes you've seen in the past. Robert Downey, Jr. does a fine job of being this interpretation of the great detective. He has the right blend of OCD, slackerdom and frenetic energy to make the character work.

Jude Law as Dr. Watson seems to come across more often as petulant than profound. The portrayal of the character somehow doesn't quite match the role Dr. Watson has in the film. But that is really a minor nit, the general feel between the two characters works most of the time. The female leads don't really have much point to them, but they do add a bit of eye-candy.

The plot itself is well-crafted, with that traditional Holmesian sense that you are dealing with the supernatural. Strange things happen and strange people do them. Mark Strong does a great job as the evil Lord Blackwood. I felt a bit like his character was not quite entirely developed, but he did a superb job of showing his contempt for Holmes and all ordinary mortals.

Finally, the cinematography was better than most recent films I've seen, without too much of the rapid cuts and scene changes that make it hard to watch so many films today. In addition the sets are very richly developed - even if a lot of the backgrounds are so clearly paintings.

Overall it was a film that I enjoyed thoroughly, not too heavy, not too deep, not too trivial (although without any particular moral), fun to watch and with enough twists and turns to the plot to keep me interested all the way through. I give it a slightly conditional B+ and recommend it with no real reservations.

L - That's me....

What more can I say?

R - Fallen Angels by Niven, Pournelle & Flynn

Fallen Angels is a collaboration by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn. Sometimes collaborations come off very well and sometimes they seem to miss a bit. In this case there is more of a feeling of missing a bit. The basic premise is interesting: The earth is pretty much taken over by environmentalist government that opposes technology. A new ice age is developing because of climate change and the governments are blaming it on the few humans living in a space habitat who regularly come down to scoop up a bit of air for the nitrogen in it. One of the scoop ships gets shot down and a bunch of pro-technology science fiction fans decide to rescue the pilots and then try to return them to space.

There's a lot of interesting thoughts in the book about government control and about those who use junk science for their own ends, but I got rather tired of the continual anti-environmentalist tone. The Sci-Fi fans also get a bit wearisome as they just don't have any real depth to them. In fact, if I had to make a single criticism of this book it would be that the character development is very poor. Niven and Pournelle have both written a lot of very good stuff, both individually and collaboratively, but this book is not one to put with their other works. It is trite, strident and ultimately unsatisfying. I can't give it more than a "B" grade and at least part of that is on the author's reputation alone. More realistic is a "C" grade and the suggestion that there is a lot of stuff out there that is more fun to read.

R - On The Road, By Jack Kerouac

Sometimes there is a book that just changes the way you think, that gives you new insight into who you are and what your role in the universe is. On the Road is not that book.

I read this primarily because it appeared on a list of "100 must-read books". I'm a sucker for those lists, since I read voraciously and with little discrimination. In this case we have a book that is supposed to have been world-shaking and life-changing. The blurb on the back says "The book the shook straight America", but in my opinion, the only shaking was the tremors that came from readers thudding to the floor unconscious from boredom. Now I realize that the world of 1955 may have been a bit different from today, but there is still nothing about this to make it stand out. I felt not one whit of sympathy for the characters (or even interest in their fate) and the events are just a series of typical young-man-on-the-loose vignettes. Maybe you have to be stoned to get anything out of it, or maybe it just isn't a very well written book. My money's on the latter.

L - That's more like it!

Now this is the kind of fossil fuel I can get behind!

R - Blood Red Snow by Günter K. Koschorrek

The Eastern Front was a pretty grim place for any German soldier at any time during the Second World War. Even when things were going well it was a hard-fought battle and when things started to go badly they quickly became very, very bad. I've long been interested in that Eastern Front experience and this is another of my books that covers it. Günter Koschorrek actually kept a diary during the war, even though that was forbidden by army rules, and that diary is the basis of his account. He did not fight in the actual Stalingrad battle, but basically fought throughout the long retreat. He was wounded several times and saw most of his friends die, so he basically writes this as a memorial to all those who died on both sides and to honor their memories.

Overall I can't rate this as the best WWII Eastern Front narrative I've ever read, although it is very personal in feeling. The major drawback for me is that there is very little explanatory material to put the local events into the context of the entire battle. The viewpoint is definitely solely that of the individual soldier in the trench, crouched behind his machine gun. Because of this and the diary format of the narrative (it is almost just a transcription of his diary in many places) the account seems rather disjointed to me and often left me trying to figure out just what was going on. Despite this I found it an overall good read with plenty of detail about both the daily lives of the soldiers and what they were thinking at the time.

I give this book a moderate recommendation with the caveat that if you have a particular interest in the Eastern Front or first-person WWII narratives in general then it is a worthwhile read if not addition to your library.

L - End of the rainbow

The house at the end of that rainbow is a multi-million dollar place. Almost as good as a pot of gold.

L - Chubby whaaa...

Wow! Gotta get me some of that!