Ramdom thoughts on the Atlas movie...

Usually, I'm not too particular about when I see movies that I want to see. Often, as long as I see it on the big screen, whenever will be fine. The movie "Atlas Shrugged, Part 1" is different--knowing how much stock Hollywood puts into opening weekend returns, I want to see the movie this weekend; I'd have seen it opening night if the mall weren't a madhouse on the weekends. Ever since I heard about it, it's been at the top of my list for upcoming movies.

What I'm trying to figure out is why I want to see the movie so badly when I've already read and reread the book. For movies where I haven't read the book, the movie is a quick and easy way to experience the story. However, my enthusiasm in this case seems more difficult to explain.

I suppose it's possible that it's a quick way to experience the book again. As with the books where the movie is the quick way to see what's it about for a first time, it could also be a quick way to experience it again.

Somewhat going against that idea, though, it occurs to me that seeing the movie is a way to see the book as others envision it and get new perspective on it.

A third idea is that the simple idea that a good novel would represent a solid start on the way to making a good movie. This one may apply a bit less to the "Atlas Shrugged" movie than most cases--the movie was made by an entrepreneur who has never produced a movie before, the director has little experience, and I've never heard of most of the stars, and the budget is small by Hollywood standards. So, while I like the actress who's playing Dagny, I have some apprehensions about how the movie will come out.

I think the main reason I'm looking forward to the movie so much, however, is that it's a way to celebrate the book. It's a way of going out and saying, "this is a great book--pay attention!" One reason why I tend to lean most heavily on this theory is that I've been trying to urge Donald to see the movie--alas, it seems, to no avail. I also tend to think this is the case because I really want to see it opening weekend so it'll have good returns in the way the movie industry seems to care about, and have them despite the limited release.

Regardless, though, I'm glad to finally see that Atlas Shrugged will make it to the big screen.

Until the cows come home...

My dad recounted a story from his days as a banker the other night: He once asked a prospective dairy farmer if he knew anything about raising cows. The farmer replied that he didn't, but the cows knew.

My old movie review website is closing!

Well, an era of indecision is ending.

Eleven years ago, I started an online movie review service. For about a year and a half, I posted regular movie reviews on the web on GeoCities (free web-hosting--an essential component when no one is paying you), and sent them out in e-mails to subscribers (also free). Then I got a writing job with a magazine in Washington, and subsequently, burnout. The result of that was that since 2000, my website had been in limbo--I never officially closed it, but didn't post any new reviews either.

Yahoo!, for whatever reason, is closing down GeoCities for good. I can only fault Yahoo! for this--it was great to have free web-hosting even if it meant carrying their ads and bandwidth limitations. Corporate greed (there‘s a heavy push for us on GeoCities to move to their very expensive paid hosting--I'm not going to pay), incompetence (blogger.com, YouTube, MySpace, and a zillion other sites prove there‘s still a place for free hosting online), and shortsightedness (there are very few web services with a 15 year history--that alone would be a reason to try to keep it open) are the only explanations I can imagine.

In the meantime, I’m going to officially pull the plug. I plan to redirect the domain name here (another free writing project I don’t tend to as often as I should, but that’s another issue), and copy the content over here (marking it with the tag "ReviewsbyJohn"). That way, I’ll be able to keep the reviews online without having to maintain a new site. However, ReviewsbyJohn as a separate service is no more. I will, however, leave the reviews over there for the benefit of anyone with old links, and so they’ll still be available here, if Yahoo! reconsiders.

And I will miss the film-reel graphic--I made that myself with Windows Paint.

Here’s looking at you, kid.

And the chicken said...?

Earlier today, I was trying to think about what my earliest memory was. One of the candidates was a memory of a trip to the Staten Island Zoo when I was very young (three or four--so this trip would have been in 1977 or 1978). What I remembered in particular was a talking chicken exhibit. I think the chicken had a name (I want to say Rodrigo or something like that, but I'm very, very far from certain about the bird's name). I also remember seeing a speaker (a metal box with slats on a post)--which makes me think that the whole thing was faked. At the very least, I'd be sure that the chicken's vocal talents were played-up greatly.

My dad had no recollection of the chicken, and a Google search found nothing that stuck out. So, I thought I'd ask if anyone out there had a memory of the "talking" chicken.

The AC unit is dead--and nearly took the house with it!

While we were out on the road, we got a call from Donald--the AC unit died.

We got home at 11 on Friday night. I tried calling the AC repairman--to my amazement (since they didn't with American Home Shield), they came on a Saturday!

To make a long story short, the problem is that the cutoff switch basically fried itself. It's not clear whether it burned, blew up, or simply melted. One thing is sure--it very nearly burned the house down: what was left was clearly charred. The outside unit has been nothing but trouble since we got it--ever since American Home Shield had it installed in 1997, we've had an average of at least one heating or AC failure each year. It was clear they only paid for the cheapest unit possible and they installed a piece of junk. The failure of the unit in 2004 is why we finally dumped the company, and the cutoff switch that the outside unit overloaded was installed in 2005. (That was because of a crooked repairman: he said that it wasn't safe to work on the unit without a cutoff switch, and that he could install it for a couple of hundred extra. When I asked him to sign a paper to the effect of the work being substandard, he backtracked--we still needed the switch installed, but all of a sudden, he couldn't install it; we'd need to get an electrician.)

The repairman today recommended that we replace the outside unit, saying he thought it overloaded the cutoff switch. Since it has caused so many problems--including an obviously serious one this week, I agreed to replace it. We're even getting a new cutoff switch and a new thermostat thrown into the deal.

And good riddance to the old unit!

License to promote government websites

Today was the day for the trip down to the tax collector's office to get a new license plate for the Camry.

I would note: I live in Florida. I do not live in myflorida.com; that's not even a state. If the State of Florida is going to promote their website on license plates, they ought to pay car owners for the advertising; the $37 check that changed hands did not go from the county to me.

As long as I'm griping, two other points. First, what genius decided that Floridians need a new license plate every five years? Is the aluminum lobby in Tallahassee that strong? I mean--it's not like the old plate wore out. Second, I note that Florida's website is a .com. The .com domain was intended for PRIVATE companies. Florida is a state; it should have a .fl.us domain.

Snowy and death

Snowy passed away today. It wasn't unexpected--the vet said back in January that he probably had less than six months less to live. Last weekend, he stopped eating, and was clearly had trouble walking. When I took him to the vet today, she said what I had feared--his death was imminent, and euthanasia was the most human choice.

I believe in an afterlife, and I believe that animals--at least animals as evolved as cats--go there. One of my main reasons is a story where Snowy was the center. Since I've been recounting it today, I thought I'd offer it here, also.

In 2002, Mrs. Heinlein went into the nursing home. Snowy came out to live with us. He was aloof. This didn't surprise me, he had always been aloof, at least to me. My main contact with him before he came to live with us was things like hurricane evacuations and computer repairs--which I'm sure he regarded as disruptions in his life.

In any case, on the night Mrs. Heinlein passed away, I was up late on my computer. (BTW--as an aside, the cat pictured with Mrs. Heinlein in the above link is Snowy.) At about 4:30 that night/morning, Snowy started yowling. Peabrain yowls randomly--but that was always uncharacteristic for Snowy. For a couple of minutes, he was yelling his head off mournfully. Then he settled down. Sometime around 5:30 or 6 that morning, the nursing home called--Mrs. Heinlein passed away in her sleep. The following evening, Snowy jumped up on my lap. He had barely approached me before then. After then, he was a habitual lap cat.

Somehow, Snowy knew Mrs. Heinlein passed away--and before we did, probably exactly when she passed away. The only explanation that makes sense is that he sensed her soul leaving her body.

My belief in the afterlife presents me with a philosophic quandary. I prefer reason to faith, and I don't like to believe in things I don't understand and/or can't prove. While the episode with Snowy is a compelling anecdote in my mind, I didn't have the presence of mind to even haul out a tape recorder when Snowy was acting up--I have no evidence to prove it happened. (Not that a tape recording of a cat meowing would prove anything metaphysical.) I also have to admit, I also want to believe something of our minds live on after death, beyond what's shown in our works and our progeny--and that desire could color my judgment. At the same time, I don't have a hypothesis of HOW the soul could separate from the body and live on. Nor do I have a great deal of confidence in any particular traditional description of the afterlife. But I don't have a better explanation for what could have set him off. A "psychic bond" is just as tenuous as an "immortal soul"--that explanation also has scant proof and involves the mind reaching beyond the body; in the sense that both involve the cat sensing her soul, it's essentially the same explanation. Could he have heard something, or could something have set off that magnetic sense cats are supposed to have? Atlantic Beach is more than 30 miles away, with the city of Jacksonville in between--I'd think that would drown out any sensory information.

In any event, today was Snowy's turn to find out the real story about the afterlife. Believing that something of him lives on out there somehow, doesn't make his death any easier. Rest in peace, Snow Cat.

Flood at home and no room at the inn

You might not have noticed because I am irregular with my blogging, but the past couple of weeks, I have been online much less than usual.

On April 20, we went out to dinner. Donald used the bathroom before we left the house. By the time we were back, the water was to the front door. The handle of the toilet had stuck before, but this time (unlike before), it didn't drain through the bowl and out, but flooded the house. By the time we got back from dinner, it was to the front door.

I called Servpro, realizing the cleanup was beyond my abilities. Their estimate was over $10,000. It was covered by insurance, so the cost was not an issue. However, we had to clear out of the house.

My dad and I booked into the Comfort Inn Orange Park along with Snowy, Chessie, and Peabrain. (I planned to board Dulcinea and Ninotchka at the vet from the start--their history of hiding under beds made them poor candidates for a hotel stay, and five cats in the room was too much.) On the following Tuesday (the 22nd), they came into the room to clean the carpet. Later that night, one of the cats urinated on my bed. The desk clerk gave me new sheets, and told me to contact the maid to spray disinfectant the following morning, so I figured no great problem. The following morning, when I spoke with the maid, she responded, "Oh, you're checking out today." I called the front desk to clear up what I thought was a misunderstanding, and learned that way we were being evicted. The manager complained about the cat urinating on the bed, but also claimed the smell in the room was intolerable--a claim I find curious based on the fact that no one complained to my father or me when the carpet was cleaned (and if any hotel staff were in the room after that time, it was without our knowledge), and the fact that the only smell I could detect in the room was whatever solution was used to clean the carpet; the manager's further complaint about lost revenue (based on the need to deodorize the room) was also very dubious, since, even if the cats needed to be boarded, we'd have been willing to stay in the room (which I think further comments on the overall decent state of the room). In short, the reasons given by the manager don't mesh with the facts as I know them, and I'm still furious about being evicted for, as I see it, little reason and on very short notice; I'm on a crusade to discourage people from staying at the Orange Park Comfort Inn.

So, as of now, we're staying at the Rodeway Inn across the street. The cats are all boarded at a vet in Mandarin (their usual vet has a two-week limit on boarding; I went there first, but moved the cats the other day). A week ago Monday, Servpro declared the house dry. Sometime next week, the general contractor will do his work (mostly baseboard and trim work--repainting and recaulking, maybe some minor repairs beyond that), with the flooring people coming in when he's done.

The whole experience has been frustrating. Some people (such as State Farm and the contractors) have been very helpful in getting things back to order. Others (especially the Orange Park Comfort Inn's manager)--well, I'd be happier if they never stepped into my life.

Dis-charging

My dad and I ate tonight with a friend at the restaurant where he works (so I don't want to mention his name or that of the restaurant here). We picked up the check as usual--it was $52 and change not counting the tip. I handed the waiter our charge card. He comes back with a receipt reading, "DECLINED: Amount Cannot Be Less Than One Dollar" (sic--I don't know why they capitalized each word). I asked the waiter to run the card again, and the same thing happened again. We finally had to pay with a different card.

Two thoughts crossed my mind: that we were less than $1 from the limit, or that the code might have been a euphemism used for suspect charges. So, I called the credit card company. We're more than $10,000 below the limit (which shocked me, since I thought that card had an $8000 limit), and the charges the lady read off were all legitimate ones. Further, the credit card company didn't even know there had been an attempt to run the card.

Have you ever heard about something like that before?

Why life is brief

A very dear friend of mine lost her mother today (or rather, since it's after midnight, yesterday). I did so over the phone, but I should again offer my condolences here.

I'd been trying to collect my thoughts to write some sort of longer poem--my friend's loss was a jolting reminder that today is the fourth anniversary of my mother's fatal heart attack, and I've never managed to write through my thoughts and feelings on her loss.

While I was composing my initial thoughts, I kept thinking back on how many philosophers and theologians emphasize that one of the things that makes live precious is its brevity--that scarcity and value are inexorably linked. Dwelling on that thought, I came up with a haiku--posted below.



Death makes life precious--
That's not much comfort when faced
With a loved one's loss.

Found dog, need advice

Tonight, a dog followed me home.

I saw him earlier when I went over to a friend's house--half a block away, he was following a couple of joggers, and I thought "gee--I wonder why they don't have their dog on a leash." It was because it wasn't their dog. When I came home later, the dog followed my car the half-block up to our driveway, and then up to the front door. He was extremely friendly--I'd be shocked if this animal wasn't someone's well-loved pet. As I write this, I think the dog is still on our front porch.

I took a picture of the dog, and posted ads on Craigslist, Backpage, and Petfinder. Other than that, I don't know that to do. I don't dare bring him in--I can't know he'd be safe or OK in the house. I'm hesitant to even feed him or give him bedding--if he lives near here, I don't want to deter him from going home on his own. However, he doesn't have any collar. Lost it? Indoor dog who never had one and got out anyway? Who knows? I also worry I'm turning away an abandoned dog.

If you know someone who lost a dog in Orange Park, FL, please have them look at the pictures. If you have advice for me, I'm listening.

LIFE - My dad's stroke

If my blog has been "off" for the past few entries, I have had a major distraction in my life; June 3, 2006 was probably one of the worst days of my life--and it wasn't even for something that happened directly to me.

Before I woke up that day, my father left the house per his routine to get the newspapers and have lunch.

While he was out, he had three separate car crashes. I still don't know all the details of what happened--his memories of the car accidents are fuzzy, no one was with him, and the police reports are confusing and contain errors. The first accident happened around 1 in the afternoon in the parking lot or coming out from the lot of the supermarket where he gets his newspapers. The second was in the parking lot of Grumpy's (a restaurant he frequents). The third was elsewhere in the town of Orange Park.

I spoke with the owner of the car he hit at Grumpy's--she is an employee of the restaurant--so I have more details of that crash, despite not having a police report for that accident. While the police report for the first accident claims it happened at 2 PM, Grumpy's closes at 2, so the time on that report must be wrong. I am furious at the cop who responded to that second accident--that cop knew my dad had been in the earlier accident (he mentioned the ticket from earlier as the reason why he didn't issue another ticket), and he should have seen that my dad was exhibiting some symptoms of a stroke at the time--including fuzzy memories of the crash that had just happened and inability at the time to remember his own phone number of 15 years; however despite all this, he did not call the paramedics, though he did call the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to start proceedings to take away my dad's license. (I am not a big booster of the local police lately--and consider the "to protect and serve" slogan to be a lie.) The lady from Grumpy's also told me (informed by the officer, who is another regular at the restaurant) that the third accident happened on U.S. 17; though the police report for that one says it happened in a residential neighborhood three blocks to the west. (Since we don't know anyone in that area, either the report was mistaken or my dad was lost and disoriented from his condition.) The car was not drivable after the third accident, but is reparable--the total damage was $3700.

When the tow-truck driver brought him home (you read that right--the police didn't even take him to the hospital after the third accident--they sent him home in the tow truck), he was obviously shaken, but there was nothing that pointed to anything beyond a fender bender by that time. I asked him if he wanted to see a doctor, and he didn't. However, about an hour later, he said he felt dizzy. That turned "do you want to go to the hospital?" into "We're going to the hospital, now!" The hospital kept him for observation until Monday the 12th. Much of that time was because they placed him back on Coumadin, so they had to wait until the INR was in the correct range. They also did a battery of tests, which confirmed he'd had a stroke.

My dad is probably giving up driving; however, we need to talk with an elder law attorney to tend to other matters, and have decided to ask the lawyer how to proceed with the state's demand that he retest for or surrender his license. One bright spot in the whole affair is that my dad was the first to suggest the idea--even if he ultimately returns to the road (the big question in that regard being how great is the risk for another stroke), I'm proud of him for considering the possibility--so many older drivers don't have the intellectual honesty to consider giving up driving when they should, thereby endangering themselves and others. My dad was and is able to take an honest look at his ability.

Considering his and our family's cardiac history, his age, and that he didn't get prompt treatment when he first had the stroke, the prognosis for him is very good. However, he needs to be on Coumadin now, and he had problems with that blood thinner in the past. He also continues to have some trouble finding the right words when he's speaking--a question when he sees the doctor next week will be whether he'd benefit from a speech therapist. I'm hoping and beginning to think he's out of the woods at this point, but I'm still worried for him and would appreciate it if you kept him in your thoughts, hopes, and prayers.

LIFE - Niña in Palatka

When I learned a replica of Columbus' Niña was docked in Palatka for the week, I had to check it out. It tours around the U.S. and the Caribbean--if it stops by near you, it's worth a look. (I don't know if there's a replica of the Pinta out there. There's a Santa Maria in--of course--Columbus, Ohio. Of course, being replicas, there could be more than one of any or all of them.)

Whatever else, good or bad, you can say about Columbus, he had guts. That's a small ship to cross an ocean of unknown width.