I started this blog almost than nine years ago. I had a lot of spare time and thought I would use some of it to try to write a different kind of chess blog that focused more on the people and experiences I encountered instead of the self-congratulatory and self-immolation blogs that were the usual fare of the time. After detailing my 2009 adventures at the U.S. Open in Indianapolis I was side tracked from chess writing by the Yankees World Series championship quest, a new job, the passing away of my two awesome dogs Queenie the beagle and her son Tuffy the half beagle, and the arrival of my equally awesome beagles Daisy and Baxter.
The fall of 2010 ushered in my peak chess writing years as I resumed working in faraway Des Moines and started a six year stretch of running the West Des Moines based St. Francis Chess Club in return for having the facilities available for a monthly youth tournament. This brought me into contact with a lot of awesome young chess players and parents and into conflict with a lot of decidedly less than awesome chess administrator types. Writing about all these experiences gave me a new perspective on youth chess competition and the competition for youth chess tournaments. The writings themselves resonated with a larger audience and emboldened me to submit my blog for the annual Chess Journalists of America awards. After finishing last in my first attempt at a humorous column I won the 2011 Best Chess Blog Award, beating out exactly one other entrant. The award only cost me a little over $40 in nomination fees and allows me to forever call myself an ‘award winning journalist’ although I tend to leave out the part about being a self-nominated chess journalist. I even wrote a blogging column for the Chess Journalists of America magazine ‘The Chess Journalist’. The magazine has decayed from a quarterly magazine to not having been published in over four years. I was asked to submit an article for the reboot of the magazine last year. I wrote an article on chess ‘YouTubers’ which is now dated by being ten months old and I have yet to hear any comment on it other than the editor received it but was too busy to look at it.
After my rush of chess writing I had pretty much written all I had to say about youth chess and the politics of same. I reserved my chess writing for tournaments I played in and directed. The highlight of my year used to be directing and writing about the Okoboji Open which had a great tournament venue and great people running it. Running a close second was my yearly pilgrimage from my workplace in Des Moines across town to the Iowa State Fair for the speed chess tournament where I finally won the elusive blue ribbon after seven fruitless attempts and close calls. Both those events went by the wayside for me a couple of years back when I felt I was being asked to do more at Okoboji than I was comfortable with and not working in Des Moines which made a trip to play in the Iowa State Fair a two hour drive instead of a trip across town. The most surprising thing about my Iowa State Fair blue ribbons (aside from the fact that I won them) was that before I won my speed chess exhibitions at the local mall were well attended while after I won no one wanted to play against me at the same exhibitions.
I still found plenty of things to write about instead of chess. My movie reviews and reviews of post-apocalyptic television shows like ‘The Walking Dead’, ‘Falling Skies’, and ‘The Last Ship’ are surprisingly well-read as are my forays into the stock market. My most popular non-chess posts were from my guest bloggers Daisy and Baxter. I would publicize their beagle’s eye view of the world on the reddit beagle page and the Daisy and Baxter posts occupy some of the top spots on my most read list according to Google Analytics. I even had my pet cockatiel Harry write a couple of guest columns for me which were well received if not well read (the cockatiel section of reddit must be less frequented than the beagle section). In truth almost everything I write about that is not related to chess gets more looks than my writings on chess. One of my best read blogs of 2015 was my review of Marshalltown’s refurbished Dollar Tree - not because of my writing but because a picture of the toothpaste aisle was picked up by a bigger blog displaying the quality of items available at the Dollar Tree.
If you didn’t see the title of this post you may be wondering why I’m writing about all my last eight plus years of blogging but if you saw the title you probably realized that this is going to be the last Broken Pawn post for the foreseeable future (I always reserve the right to change my mind). With the new/old job that I wrote about last month it feels like Jerry’s monologue in Edward Albee’s classic play ‘The Zoo Story’ where I have gone a long distance out of my way to come back a short distance correctly. This has led me to the feeling that since I started this blog at my current place of employment rejoining the company (as a 'permanent' employee instead of a contractor) is the proper place to end it. Writing the blog has been great fun. Over the years I have written everything I’ve wanted to write about, more than I should have written about on some topics, and probably not everything I needed to write about. I think the blog is a pretty accurate picture of my life over the last few years and should provide me some entertaining reading in a few months or years when I read it from start to finish.
So to close this blog for I’ll quote one of my favorite people, the inimitable Yogi Berra, who said “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over”. That is the popular quote but what is less well-known is that he followed that by saying “but when it’s over it’s over” making the complete quote:
“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over but when it’s over it’s over”
Friday, July 6, 2018
Friday, June 29, 2018
Full Circle
Four months ago I started my new job in far-away (60 miles) Urbandale, Iowa. The job was a six month programming assignment with the carrot held out of being hired on full-time if my performance was found worthy. Although I do like carrots I negotiated an hourly rate that was higher than the other contracting jobs that had been shown to me and less than the admittedly windfall-like rate that I got when I contracted directly with a company last year instead of going through a staffing agency like the one I used to get this position.
My thought was that I would work my six months and if the company wanted to hire me we would negotiate things like salary or being able to work from home a day or two a week. I expected the company to wait as long as possible before making me an offer since the closer I came to the end of the six months the less leverage I would have at least in theory since most workers that take on contract to hire positions are not in a position to miss the paycheck or two that a job search would entail. My windfall last year left me in a good enough situation that I could walk away from the job when the contract was up but my employers would have no way of knowing that.
The job was unusual in a number of aspects. I was part of a team of programmers and engineers based on three continents tasked with making a major upgrade to an existing project. In addition to the three groups there was also a research and development group whose software the existing project needed to interact with. Most of the people on the project (including the R&D group) had been with this company for at least 10 years with most of them having 20 or more years at the company.
With so many people spending so many years at the company I thought that I could be told what I needed to do and pointed to where I needed to make changes by the more experienced hands. This was not the way it was. I was told what end results I needed to create but the company language was a kind of shorthand that required years to comprehend exactly what needed to change and what side effects could occur and finding where things needed to be changed another matter entirely. No one seems to have the complete picture of the project. Finding out who knew what was cumbersome and frequently making me seem more like a nuisance than a part of the team.
I liked the people I worked with but I didn’t care much for the work at all. All the programming groups seemed to distrust each other and it appeared that they would occasionally go out of their way to make other groups or group members look bad. It reminded me a lot of a place I worked in New Jersey in the late 1980’s / early 1990’s when I first started programming. Everyone there seemed frustrated most of the time and a lot of the people contracted stress related diseases. I didn’t know how that dynamic evolved and 30 years later I don’t understand this group dynamic any better. I recognized this situation as something I’d encountered before and that kept me from getting too frustrated but it is not an environment I want to spend the rest of my working life in.
After a few weeks I settled in and was getting my feet under me. I didn’t have to ask nearly as many questions but had to redo my work often because of my lack of understanding of the project, other changes breaking my changes, a misunderstanding on the part of the person asking for the work or any combination of all three factors. I had taken my name off the lists that recruiters use to cull applicants but in May I got a call from the recruiter that got me the interview with a company in Marshalltown right before I took my current job. Someone had retired and there was another opening. I said I would apply if I could start in July so I could finish up my current projects. This was acceptable and I started the application process once again.
Since I had recently applied at this company I didn’t have to go through the entire process. I had a phone interview and breakfast meeting in place of an in-person interview and lunch. I found out a week later I had made the cut to the final three applicants and a week after that was asked to submit my information for a background check. I passed the background check and was offered the job which I accepted and will start on Monday. I gave two weeks’ notice at my current assignment and true to the dysfunctional nature of the place arranged to leave on Wednesday with the person who approves my time sheets and when this person went on vacation someone else asked me to stay on until Friday and work late and on the weekend from home. I agreed to stay until Friday and work from home but was not given any work to do at home.
I will be getting less pay at my new job but the savings in time, gas, and car usage commuting five miles instead of 60 miles will make up for some of the shortage and being part of a health care plan instead of buying my own through COBRA or the staffing agency’s non-subsidized plan should take care of the rest. This is the same company I worked for a decade ago after leaving my job of 13 years writing shoe store software the company was sold to a group from out of state. I was a contractor back then and when the recession of 2008 hit the contractors were taking pay cuts and getting laid off in a terrible job market. I liked working in town but the circumstances of a recession (no pay raises) and no benefits (buying my own health care and not getting paid on holidays OR the ten-day Christmas shutdown) dictated I get a ‘permanent’ role with benefits even though it meant traveling a couple of hours a day for another ten years. I wouldn’t have felt good about taking a contracting role again with this company but feel pretty lucky to have landed a full-time job with benefits at the same place. I’m not naive enough to think that having a job close to home will suddenly make my work life a paradise. It is called work for a reason and I have worked here before and know that every place has its share of disagreeable people and practices. There is a lot of unknowns at any job but if my hand wasn't forced almost a decade ago I wouldn't have left a job so close to home. I feel like I am closing a loop and I expect a pleasant experience to be working so close to home again.
My thought was that I would work my six months and if the company wanted to hire me we would negotiate things like salary or being able to work from home a day or two a week. I expected the company to wait as long as possible before making me an offer since the closer I came to the end of the six months the less leverage I would have at least in theory since most workers that take on contract to hire positions are not in a position to miss the paycheck or two that a job search would entail. My windfall last year left me in a good enough situation that I could walk away from the job when the contract was up but my employers would have no way of knowing that.
The job was unusual in a number of aspects. I was part of a team of programmers and engineers based on three continents tasked with making a major upgrade to an existing project. In addition to the three groups there was also a research and development group whose software the existing project needed to interact with. Most of the people on the project (including the R&D group) had been with this company for at least 10 years with most of them having 20 or more years at the company.
With so many people spending so many years at the company I thought that I could be told what I needed to do and pointed to where I needed to make changes by the more experienced hands. This was not the way it was. I was told what end results I needed to create but the company language was a kind of shorthand that required years to comprehend exactly what needed to change and what side effects could occur and finding where things needed to be changed another matter entirely. No one seems to have the complete picture of the project. Finding out who knew what was cumbersome and frequently making me seem more like a nuisance than a part of the team.
I liked the people I worked with but I didn’t care much for the work at all. All the programming groups seemed to distrust each other and it appeared that they would occasionally go out of their way to make other groups or group members look bad. It reminded me a lot of a place I worked in New Jersey in the late 1980’s / early 1990’s when I first started programming. Everyone there seemed frustrated most of the time and a lot of the people contracted stress related diseases. I didn’t know how that dynamic evolved and 30 years later I don’t understand this group dynamic any better. I recognized this situation as something I’d encountered before and that kept me from getting too frustrated but it is not an environment I want to spend the rest of my working life in.
After a few weeks I settled in and was getting my feet under me. I didn’t have to ask nearly as many questions but had to redo my work often because of my lack of understanding of the project, other changes breaking my changes, a misunderstanding on the part of the person asking for the work or any combination of all three factors. I had taken my name off the lists that recruiters use to cull applicants but in May I got a call from the recruiter that got me the interview with a company in Marshalltown right before I took my current job. Someone had retired and there was another opening. I said I would apply if I could start in July so I could finish up my current projects. This was acceptable and I started the application process once again.
Since I had recently applied at this company I didn’t have to go through the entire process. I had a phone interview and breakfast meeting in place of an in-person interview and lunch. I found out a week later I had made the cut to the final three applicants and a week after that was asked to submit my information for a background check. I passed the background check and was offered the job which I accepted and will start on Monday. I gave two weeks’ notice at my current assignment and true to the dysfunctional nature of the place arranged to leave on Wednesday with the person who approves my time sheets and when this person went on vacation someone else asked me to stay on until Friday and work late and on the weekend from home. I agreed to stay until Friday and work from home but was not given any work to do at home.
I will be getting less pay at my new job but the savings in time, gas, and car usage commuting five miles instead of 60 miles will make up for some of the shortage and being part of a health care plan instead of buying my own through COBRA or the staffing agency’s non-subsidized plan should take care of the rest. This is the same company I worked for a decade ago after leaving my job of 13 years writing shoe store software the company was sold to a group from out of state. I was a contractor back then and when the recession of 2008 hit the contractors were taking pay cuts and getting laid off in a terrible job market. I liked working in town but the circumstances of a recession (no pay raises) and no benefits (buying my own health care and not getting paid on holidays OR the ten-day Christmas shutdown) dictated I get a ‘permanent’ role with benefits even though it meant traveling a couple of hours a day for another ten years. I wouldn’t have felt good about taking a contracting role again with this company but feel pretty lucky to have landed a full-time job with benefits at the same place. I’m not naive enough to think that having a job close to home will suddenly make my work life a paradise. It is called work for a reason and I have worked here before and know that every place has its share of disagreeable people and practices. There is a lot of unknowns at any job but if my hand wasn't forced almost a decade ago I wouldn't have left a job so close to home. I feel like I am closing a loop and I expect a pleasant experience to be working so close to home again.
Friday, June 22, 2018
The Season Never Ends
The NBA season ended earlier two weeks ago and not soon enough for me. After my basketball prediction program crashed and burned with its first losing season in the six years I had applied it to seasonal data I found myself $110.50 down at the end of the regular season with half of this losses coming on the last three days of the season. I made up $47 in the first three rounds of the playoffs with a 60% (30-20) success rate with only the finals left to complete my comeback story. I decided to make $5 bets on the first two games to get a feel for the series. I picked the Warriors giving 12 points in game one which turned out to be the only game in the Finals that the Cavaliers managed to cover even as they threw the game away in the closing seconds. I picked the Cavaliers to cover in the first half of the second game which turned out to be a Warriors blowout. I remember how the Cavaliers hung tough in games three and four of last year’s finals so I picked the Cavaliers in the third game but they once again threw away the game in the closing minute and threw away the cover to boot. In game four I was down $84.5 and picked the Cavaliers on the money line for $20 getting 1.55:1 odds. My idea was the Cavaliers would win and get my losses to under $55 and I would go double or nothing on the Warriors to cover in Game five. It seemed like a good idea but the game turned out to be a Warriors blowout and I finished the playoffs only $6 ahead of where I started with a total 148-152 record and $104.50 in losses.
During the playoffs the Supreme Court made a decision that allows any state to legalize sports betting. The NBA has been ahead of the curve on this issue and Commissioner Adam Silver has long been a proponent of the NBA receiving a percentage of all bets as an ‘integrity fee’. I thought this was an insane idea but after the revelation that Cavaliers superstar LeBron James played the last three games of the finals with a self-diagnosed ‘broken hand’ after punching a whiteboard following the game one debacle I think the league is in dire need of integrity. Warrior bettors got a gift because of the lack of transparency on this injury. I probably wouldn’t have changed my picks but I certainly would have gotten more points on the Cavaliers in games two and three if it had been known James had a broken hand.
I still plan on placing wagers on next year’s NBA season but since my computer prediction program is in a state of disrepair that I cannot fix by retrograde analysis due to schedule and changes and changes in how players are rested I will leave my prediction program in the ashes of history. I will not be blogging about my betting adventures since I deservedly received no subscription income for my advanced picks. I may move my wagering to a United States betting site as soon as one makes its way to Iowa. I can see sports gambling and the Internet combining to make a betting experience where gamblers will not only bet on games but gamble on the result of a play, what team or player makes the next score, etc., etc., etc. Gambling is going to be the next big revenue stream for sports as soon as they can figure out how to cash in.
The next big events on the NBA calendar after yesterday’s draft is the free agent signing period which starts July 1st. I don’t follow college basketball and find the draft to be a big guessing game where every year players are picked in the top ten but fail to make a meaningful impact and are shipped off to another team in a couple of years while some passed over players become contributors to winning teams. I’d much rather wait to see which players pan out before congratulating a team for managing to draft a highly touted player who has yet to play an NBA game.
While I don’t pay much attention to the draft I do pay great attention to the free agency and trade period where teams shuffle their rosters and star players pick their next destination. The top free agent is once again LeBron James Four years ago I wrote that James had two years of being the best player on a championship team. James has proven me wrong as he is still playing at a championship level after 15 years in the league. Like any superstar player he needs to have the proper team around him to win the championship but James is still the best player in the game. There are rumors that James will attempt to create a new super-team with the Lakers or join the talent laden Rockets or 76ers in his quest to get a fourth, fifth, or sixth championship. James career arc reminds me a lot of the great Wilt Chamberlain. Chamberlain was a supremely talented player that generally played on flawed teams most of his career and was maligned for being a loser since his team’s only beat the Bill Russell Celtics one time just like James’ Cavaliers could only get past the Warriors once in four tries. At this stage of his career Chamberlain forced a trade to the Lakers to join Jerry West where he one 1 more championship in four finals appearances. I can see James following the Chamberlain path to the Lakers but think it is more likely that he would join the Rockets since they are already a championship caliber team that could have beaten the Warriors in the playoffs without the inopportune injury to Chris Paul. If I had to place a bet I would pick James staying with the Cavaliers since that is where his family lives but time will tell.
Time will also tell on the destination 2014 Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard of the San Antonio Spurs. Leonard has one year left on his contract and the Spurs are in position to offer him a ‘supermax’ deal worth $219 MILLION DOLLARS. This is $40 million more than he can get from any other team. Despite this, Leonard he has reportedly demanded a trade from the Spurs. Leonard missed all but nine games of the past season with a quad injury. He was cleared by the Spurs medical staff but he claimed he had lingering pain and continued his recovery with his own set of doctors in New York., there seems to have been a lot of acrimony about the misdiagnosis about Leonard’s injury with his teammates and coaches taking veiled shots at him. If Leonard doesn’t trust his team’s medical staff I can’t see him ever playing for the Spurs again. There are rumors that Leonard wants to go to the Lakers and there will surely be a host of teams looking to make a deal for his services. Leonard was the best player on a championship team in 2014 but that was five years and an ankle and quad injury in the past. I would be very leery about trading draft picks and star players to get a player that missed an entire sason due to injury. As disparate as the Lakers are for a superstar player I don’t see them mortgaging their bright future for Leonard. The teams I can see making a pitch for him are the 76ers who have young players, draft picks, and after the Brian Colangleo twitter fiasco the franchise may be looking to make a big splash. The other team I can see making a big play is the New York Knicks. The Knicks don’t have much in the way of talent to offer but it would be a very Knick thing to do to mortgage any semblance of a future for a superstar’s scrapbook.
During the playoffs the Supreme Court made a decision that allows any state to legalize sports betting. The NBA has been ahead of the curve on this issue and Commissioner Adam Silver has long been a proponent of the NBA receiving a percentage of all bets as an ‘integrity fee’. I thought this was an insane idea but after the revelation that Cavaliers superstar LeBron James played the last three games of the finals with a self-diagnosed ‘broken hand’ after punching a whiteboard following the game one debacle I think the league is in dire need of integrity. Warrior bettors got a gift because of the lack of transparency on this injury. I probably wouldn’t have changed my picks but I certainly would have gotten more points on the Cavaliers in games two and three if it had been known James had a broken hand.
I still plan on placing wagers on next year’s NBA season but since my computer prediction program is in a state of disrepair that I cannot fix by retrograde analysis due to schedule and changes and changes in how players are rested I will leave my prediction program in the ashes of history. I will not be blogging about my betting adventures since I deservedly received no subscription income for my advanced picks. I may move my wagering to a United States betting site as soon as one makes its way to Iowa. I can see sports gambling and the Internet combining to make a betting experience where gamblers will not only bet on games but gamble on the result of a play, what team or player makes the next score, etc., etc., etc. Gambling is going to be the next big revenue stream for sports as soon as they can figure out how to cash in.
The next big events on the NBA calendar after yesterday’s draft is the free agent signing period which starts July 1st. I don’t follow college basketball and find the draft to be a big guessing game where every year players are picked in the top ten but fail to make a meaningful impact and are shipped off to another team in a couple of years while some passed over players become contributors to winning teams. I’d much rather wait to see which players pan out before congratulating a team for managing to draft a highly touted player who has yet to play an NBA game.
While I don’t pay much attention to the draft I do pay great attention to the free agency and trade period where teams shuffle their rosters and star players pick their next destination. The top free agent is once again LeBron James Four years ago I wrote that James had two years of being the best player on a championship team. James has proven me wrong as he is still playing at a championship level after 15 years in the league. Like any superstar player he needs to have the proper team around him to win the championship but James is still the best player in the game. There are rumors that James will attempt to create a new super-team with the Lakers or join the talent laden Rockets or 76ers in his quest to get a fourth, fifth, or sixth championship. James career arc reminds me a lot of the great Wilt Chamberlain. Chamberlain was a supremely talented player that generally played on flawed teams most of his career and was maligned for being a loser since his team’s only beat the Bill Russell Celtics one time just like James’ Cavaliers could only get past the Warriors once in four tries. At this stage of his career Chamberlain forced a trade to the Lakers to join Jerry West where he one 1 more championship in four finals appearances. I can see James following the Chamberlain path to the Lakers but think it is more likely that he would join the Rockets since they are already a championship caliber team that could have beaten the Warriors in the playoffs without the inopportune injury to Chris Paul. If I had to place a bet I would pick James staying with the Cavaliers since that is where his family lives but time will tell.
Time will also tell on the destination 2014 Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard of the San Antonio Spurs. Leonard has one year left on his contract and the Spurs are in position to offer him a ‘supermax’ deal worth $219 MILLION DOLLARS. This is $40 million more than he can get from any other team. Despite this, Leonard he has reportedly demanded a trade from the Spurs. Leonard missed all but nine games of the past season with a quad injury. He was cleared by the Spurs medical staff but he claimed he had lingering pain and continued his recovery with his own set of doctors in New York., there seems to have been a lot of acrimony about the misdiagnosis about Leonard’s injury with his teammates and coaches taking veiled shots at him. If Leonard doesn’t trust his team’s medical staff I can’t see him ever playing for the Spurs again. There are rumors that Leonard wants to go to the Lakers and there will surely be a host of teams looking to make a deal for his services. Leonard was the best player on a championship team in 2014 but that was five years and an ankle and quad injury in the past. I would be very leery about trading draft picks and star players to get a player that missed an entire sason due to injury. As disparate as the Lakers are for a superstar player I don’t see them mortgaging their bright future for Leonard. The teams I can see making a pitch for him are the 76ers who have young players, draft picks, and after the Brian Colangleo twitter fiasco the franchise may be looking to make a big splash. The other team I can see making a big play is the New York Knicks. The Knicks don’t have much in the way of talent to offer but it would be a very Knick thing to do to mortgage any semblance of a future for a superstar’s scrapbook.
Friday, June 15, 2018
TV Review - Fear The Walking Dead Season 4 Episodes 1-8
WARNING : FEAR THE WALKING DEAD SEASON #4 EPISODES 1-8 SPOILERS BELOW!!!
I spent the last two months watching AMC’s ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ for my Sunday night post-apocalyptic viewing. The show had gotten better and better over its three-season run and I had high hopes for the fourth season. Season three had our zombie apocalypse survivors trying to escape from their latest home – a dam that was in the middle of an armed takeover. The dam had been booby trapped and Nick was on top of the dam holding the kill switch while his mother Madison, sister Alicia, and con-man Strand were escaping in motorboat. Nick blows up the dam and attempts to escape with special ops agent Daniel Salazar. We don’t know if anyone survives except Madison who is washed up on a shore as the last scene of the season.
This seemed like a great cliffhanger well in keeping with the show’s history of having a new locale every half season four our survivors before finding themselves on the run once again. Then changes to the show runners and cast were introduced with the chief content officer role turned over to The Walking Dead show-runner Scott Gimple and the announcement that Morgan from ‘The Walking Dead’ was moving to ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ and a new cast of well-known character actors would be coming to Season 4 including Maggie Grace (Kim from the Taken movies), Jenna Elfman (Dharma from Dharma and Greg), and Garret Dillahunt (Simon from Burn Notice). I assumed the addition of Morgan was to goose the ratings and I liked the idea of new cast members since I always felt this show is not beholden to a comic book like the Walking Dead proper and could accommodate a cast of characters that die off and are replaced.
The season started well enough with Morgan’s journey from the parent show conclusion to the All-Out War arc in Virginia to the southwest where he meets Althea (Grace) and John Dorie (Dillahunt) and the trio form an unlikely alliance after battling a group of scavengers with the help of Althea’s awesome fully loaded SWAT vehicle. At the end of the episode the trio are shanghaied by main cast members Nick, Alicia, and Strand.
For me this was the high point of the season as the remaining seven episodes in the half-season turned into a mashup of flashbacks detailing the fall of the baseball stadium home that the original survivors had apparently spent a year in before being besieged by a group called ‘The Vultures’ who ride around the area scavenging everything that can be scavenged and trapping zombies in buildings or oil tanks or etc… while leaving banners proclaiming the zombie inventory outside each container. The Vultures send the young girl Charley in the stadium to get intel and then camp in the stadium parking lot where they offer the residents a choice of joining the Vultures or dying of starvation because of the weevil infestation of the crops.
The action continues to switch from the past to the present. There are some veiled references to how Madison found the rest of the group which would have made an interesting half season in itself except we have been fast forwarded to a disconnected future that we are seeing in the past. We never see Madison in the present and the rest of the cast hints around a terrible fate that befell the stadium at the hands of the Vultures but we also never see that until the season finale. One major event takes place in the third episode when Nick is shot dead by Charley after killing her ‘Vulture guardian’ in a fit of rage. The death was sudden and shocking and a high point of the season. I liked Nick the character a lot but the death seemed foreordained as it was revealed that actor Frank Dillane wanted off the show. The death was folded nicely into Morgan’s story arc as he warned Nick that killing the Vulture wasn’t going to work out the way he wanted and even seemed to be getting through to him before his untimely death. What made the death less meaningful was that Nick continued to show up in flashbacks with a lesser role in each episode.
The season continued to teeter-totter between the past and future as we find that the woman John has been looking for all season (Laura) is really Naomi (Elfman) from the baseball stadium. There is an entire bottle episode of John and Laura’s time in his cabin before she runs away since Naomi not only can’t tell anyone her real name (it is revealed to be June in the season finale), she continually tries to run away from the stadium and is revealed to have joined the Vultures at the end of episode six while the flashbacks show the ballpark making a successful run for supplied and seeds to restart planting food at the ballpark which leads to the vultures leaving.
The seventh episode has the ‘climactic’ showdown between our group of survivors and the vultures but it happened before we understand that the vultures had a split in leadership that led to one group deciding to take the ballpark by force using all their stashed zombies while the other group wants to leave the ballpark alone. The siege ends the seventh episode flashback while the current day timeline has our survivors heading back to the ballpark to get medical supplies. In the mid-season finale we see an interview between Althea (a compulsive journalist that tapes the story of everyone she meets) and Madison between the end of season three and the discovery of the ballpark, fights between our survivor factions, and Madison sacrificing herself by leading the zombies into the ballpark and locking herself and the zombies in the stadium while the rest of the crew escapes. The finale ends with our survivors settling their differences over a feast of ramen noodles and ready for more adventures in the second half of the season. Yes, all it took was some ramen noodles to get everyone to forget their differences.
The new characters were great, the music and cinematography gripping, and there was more than enough zombie action to make this half season a great one but the constant time jumps led to a confusing story line that made the half season a jumbled mess. It is possible that binge watchers may find this half season more cohesive but I doubt it. Not seeing the missing parts between the end of season three at the dam and the beginnings of the ballpark and having almost all the ballpark scenes in flashback made me not care about the ballpark at all. The struggles of the survivors to secure the prison in ‘The Walking Dead’ made me feel a real sense of loss when it fell. I had no similar investment in the ballpark. Once Nick died in episode three there was no point in showing him in flashbacks in the rest of the season. Having the dual timelines was a bold move that didn’t pay off due to poor storytelling. It would have been far better to have had the timeline run in sequence even if Madison’s ‘death’ (we never saw her die, after all) had to happen in episode four or five. A sequential timeline would have left no doubt to the characters motivations (why Nick wanted to kill Charley’s Vulture guardian and why Alicia wants Naomi dead so bad) instead of leaving the viewers wondering why our characters were getting so out of character.
The best thing that can be said about this half season is that it is over. Hopefully with what amounts to a new interesting cast with holdovers Strand, Alicia, and Luciana (Nick’s old girlfriend who took most of season three off and suddenly reappeared), the show runners can explore the zombie apocalypse landscape of the western U.S. with story lines that don’t needs flash backs and flash forwards to be interesting. Since Maggie Grace is already in the show I humbly suggest that the show runners do whatever it takes to get her Taken dad Liam Neeson to show up for a guest spot or even be a series regular. Neeson’s Bryan Mills character would instantly be the baddest actor in the apocalypse and would give an astronomical boost to the sagging ratings. Failing landing Neeson, I hope Daniel Salazar can make a return to the show since Ruben Blades portrayal of the Costa Rican black ops soldier would give Mills a run for his money in the bad actor department.
I spent the last two months watching AMC’s ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ for my Sunday night post-apocalyptic viewing. The show had gotten better and better over its three-season run and I had high hopes for the fourth season. Season three had our zombie apocalypse survivors trying to escape from their latest home – a dam that was in the middle of an armed takeover. The dam had been booby trapped and Nick was on top of the dam holding the kill switch while his mother Madison, sister Alicia, and con-man Strand were escaping in motorboat. Nick blows up the dam and attempts to escape with special ops agent Daniel Salazar. We don’t know if anyone survives except Madison who is washed up on a shore as the last scene of the season.
The big bad of season 4 of Fear The Walking Dead was the oddly civilized 'Vultures'
This seemed like a great cliffhanger well in keeping with the show’s history of having a new locale every half season four our survivors before finding themselves on the run once again. Then changes to the show runners and cast were introduced with the chief content officer role turned over to The Walking Dead show-runner Scott Gimple and the announcement that Morgan from ‘The Walking Dead’ was moving to ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ and a new cast of well-known character actors would be coming to Season 4 including Maggie Grace (Kim from the Taken movies), Jenna Elfman (Dharma from Dharma and Greg), and Garret Dillahunt (Simon from Burn Notice). I assumed the addition of Morgan was to goose the ratings and I liked the idea of new cast members since I always felt this show is not beholden to a comic book like the Walking Dead proper and could accommodate a cast of characters that die off and are replaced.
The season started well enough with Morgan’s journey from the parent show conclusion to the All-Out War arc in Virginia to the southwest where he meets Althea (Grace) and John Dorie (Dillahunt) and the trio form an unlikely alliance after battling a group of scavengers with the help of Althea’s awesome fully loaded SWAT vehicle. At the end of the episode the trio are shanghaied by main cast members Nick, Alicia, and Strand.
For me this was the high point of the season as the remaining seven episodes in the half-season turned into a mashup of flashbacks detailing the fall of the baseball stadium home that the original survivors had apparently spent a year in before being besieged by a group called ‘The Vultures’ who ride around the area scavenging everything that can be scavenged and trapping zombies in buildings or oil tanks or etc… while leaving banners proclaiming the zombie inventory outside each container. The Vultures send the young girl Charley in the stadium to get intel and then camp in the stadium parking lot where they offer the residents a choice of joining the Vultures or dying of starvation because of the weevil infestation of the crops.
Great set pieces like this zombie invasion failed to make up for the poor storytelling...
The action continues to switch from the past to the present. There are some veiled references to how Madison found the rest of the group which would have made an interesting half season in itself except we have been fast forwarded to a disconnected future that we are seeing in the past. We never see Madison in the present and the rest of the cast hints around a terrible fate that befell the stadium at the hands of the Vultures but we also never see that until the season finale. One major event takes place in the third episode when Nick is shot dead by Charley after killing her ‘Vulture guardian’ in a fit of rage. The death was sudden and shocking and a high point of the season. I liked Nick the character a lot but the death seemed foreordained as it was revealed that actor Frank Dillane wanted off the show. The death was folded nicely into Morgan’s story arc as he warned Nick that killing the Vulture wasn’t going to work out the way he wanted and even seemed to be getting through to him before his untimely death. What made the death less meaningful was that Nick continued to show up in flashbacks with a lesser role in each episode.
The real time death of Nick was much more shocking than if it had been presented in flashback version...
The season continued to teeter-totter between the past and future as we find that the woman John has been looking for all season (Laura) is really Naomi (Elfman) from the baseball stadium. There is an entire bottle episode of John and Laura’s time in his cabin before she runs away since Naomi not only can’t tell anyone her real name (it is revealed to be June in the season finale), she continually tries to run away from the stadium and is revealed to have joined the Vultures at the end of episode six while the flashbacks show the ballpark making a successful run for supplied and seeds to restart planting food at the ballpark which leads to the vultures leaving.
The scene was intense but I had no way of knowing why Alicia in particular was so upset since I hadn't seen the flashbacks yet.
The seventh episode has the ‘climactic’ showdown between our group of survivors and the vultures but it happened before we understand that the vultures had a split in leadership that led to one group deciding to take the ballpark by force using all their stashed zombies while the other group wants to leave the ballpark alone. The siege ends the seventh episode flashback while the current day timeline has our survivors heading back to the ballpark to get medical supplies. In the mid-season finale we see an interview between Althea (a compulsive journalist that tapes the story of everyone she meets) and Madison between the end of season three and the discovery of the ballpark, fights between our survivor factions, and Madison sacrificing herself by leading the zombies into the ballpark and locking herself and the zombies in the stadium while the rest of the crew escapes. The finale ends with our survivors settling their differences over a feast of ramen noodles and ready for more adventures in the second half of the season. Yes, all it took was some ramen noodles to get everyone to forget their differences.
The new characters were great, the music and cinematography gripping, and there was more than enough zombie action to make this half season a great one but the constant time jumps led to a confusing story line that made the half season a jumbled mess. It is possible that binge watchers may find this half season more cohesive but I doubt it. Not seeing the missing parts between the end of season three at the dam and the beginnings of the ballpark and having almost all the ballpark scenes in flashback made me not care about the ballpark at all. The struggles of the survivors to secure the prison in ‘The Walking Dead’ made me feel a real sense of loss when it fell. I had no similar investment in the ballpark. Once Nick died in episode three there was no point in showing him in flashbacks in the rest of the season. Having the dual timelines was a bold move that didn’t pay off due to poor storytelling. It would have been far better to have had the timeline run in sequence even if Madison’s ‘death’ (we never saw her die, after all) had to happen in episode four or five. A sequential timeline would have left no doubt to the characters motivations (why Nick wanted to kill Charley’s Vulture guardian and why Alicia wants Naomi dead so bad) instead of leaving the viewers wondering why our characters were getting so out of character.
Madison's death would have been much more effective if told in real time instead of flashback-style.
The best thing that can be said about this half season is that it is over. Hopefully with what amounts to a new interesting cast with holdovers Strand, Alicia, and Luciana (Nick’s old girlfriend who took most of season three off and suddenly reappeared), the show runners can explore the zombie apocalypse landscape of the western U.S. with story lines that don’t needs flash backs and flash forwards to be interesting. Since Maggie Grace is already in the show I humbly suggest that the show runners do whatever it takes to get her Taken dad Liam Neeson to show up for a guest spot or even be a series regular. Neeson’s Bryan Mills character would instantly be the baddest actor in the apocalypse and would give an astronomical boost to the sagging ratings. Failing landing Neeson, I hope Daniel Salazar can make a return to the show since Ruben Blades portrayal of the Costa Rican black ops soldier would give Mills a run for his money in the bad actor department.
Friday, June 8, 2018
TV Binge Review - Better Call Saul
Better Call Saul mixes sophomoric lawyer 'action' with some of the best characters on television.
Two weekends ago I found myself alone with my beagles while Kathy went to Long Island to get Ben back from school and visit Matt in Virginia. I didn’t have any side programming work to occupy myself with and it was a three day weekend to boot. With all the extra time on my hands I decided to have Daisy and Baxter’s now annual fried chicken taste test and in addition I had enough time to binge watch the first three seasons of AMC’s tragi-comedy 'Better Call Saul'.
Better Call Saul is a prequel of sorts to the highly thought of ‘Breaking Bad’ which chronicled the transformation of high school science teacher Walter White into the drug kingpin known as Heisenberg. The prequel stars White’s lawyer Saul Goodman who left Breaking Bad in the next to last episode by paying a fixer for a new identity saying he would be lucky to be managing a Cinnabon in Omaha’. And that is where Better Call Saul starts – with Saul managing a Cinnabon in Omaha with a name tag listing his name as ‘Gene’. Each of the three seasons starts with a ‘Gene in the Omaha Cinnabon’ scene and then flashes back to the past which is the present as far as the show where Saul is Jimmy McGill, a con-man turned lawyer with his own cast of characters including a lawyer brother that is homebound due to a supposed hypersensitivity to electromagnetic fields, his girlfriend Kim who works for his brother’s law firm, and Howard who is brother’s law firm partner.
The show perks up considerably when Mike Ehrmantraut is on screen.
The first season of the show starts out with Jimmy as a primordial Saul Goodman. He is not as slick as the later version but nearly as cynical and just as clever. He runs scams to try to convince an embezzling couple to hire him and shows off his pre-law scamming skills by conning bar patrons with his friend Marco. There is a slow but steady mix in the series to most of the Albuquerque drug underworld that became staples of Breaking Bad. The first episode featured appearances by Tuco Salamanca and Mike Ehrmantraut and later seasons have brought in Lydia, Gus, and Hector Salamanca.
The progression of Jimmy is interesting to watch as his scams evolve from tricking marks at a bar out of a few hundred dollars to bribing a bus driver to fake a breakdown for time to convince his elderly nursing home passengers to join his class action lawsuit. His scams culminate in stealing documents from his brother’s house and changing the data to get the client to switch to his girlfriends new practice. This last scam gets him suspended from the bar for a year in a case of self-sabotage since the early Jimmy has a soft heart and confesses his chicanery to his brother to keep him from thinking he has made a terrible mistake and turning into a recluse, never suspecting his brother was scamming him and tape recorded the conversation. This is typical Jimmy who convinces one of the elderly members of his class action suit to settle for the first big offer by turning her friends against her but later getting her friends back by exposing his complicity. Jimmy and the law firms he competes and cooperates with is sort of LA Law in a funhouse mirror and entertaining but not something that would make this appointment television for me.
One way to bring down a truck!
What did make me watch 25+ hours of ‘Better Call Saul’ was the adventures of the aging bald ex-Philly-cop turned parking lot attendant Ehrmantraut who is far and away my favorite character on the show. I know Mike as a enforcer for drug dealing Gus in Breaking Bad and his ‘breaking bad’ journey in order to first avenge his son’s death at the hands of some crooked cops to taking on odd jobs as a protection enforcer or second story man is fascinating. Ehrmantraut needs the money for his daughter-in-law and granddaughter but finds himself increasingly drawn into the drug business. Mike ended season three avenging the killing of a good samaritan who was killed as a result of Mike's robbery of a Salamanca drug running truck by making a deal with Gus to launder $200,000 in stolen drug money to give to the samaritan’s wife.
My favorite Mike Ehrmantraut scene!
My affinity with Mike probably comes from my being an aging balding man myself. I have no pretensions that I ever was or could be the bad actor that Mike is but I can still dream. To me Mike is the star of Better Call Saul. My favorite Ehrmantraut scene is when Steven Ogg (Simon of Walking Dead fame) is giving him grief about not bringing a gun to a bodyguard job. Mike says if he needs a gun he’ll use one of Ogg’s and then proceeds to prove his point by taking Ogg’s a gun out of his hand, cracking him in the neck with the gun, and then relieving the choking Ogg of his other weapons. Another great Ehrmantraut scene shows him letting his granddaughter drill holes a garden hose while explaining to his daughter-in-law that he needs a soaker for some outdoor plants. Mike then puts spikes in the holes and uses the hose as a lightweight device to disable Salamanca’s drug running truck in the desert so he can rob it.
I found the investment of 25+ hours watching Better Call Saul well worth my time. The action, storytelling, and cinematography are exceptional. I am of the opinion that I would not be nearly as enamored with the show if I hadn’t binge watched. Each episode had plenty of slow moving parts which were not as irritating when a morning or afternoon would have multiple scenes with Mike to balance out the lawyer drama stuff that I find boring. The show is scheduled to air Season 4 on Monday nights starting on August 6th. My live television viewing is mostly reserved for Sunday night apocalypse shows but as soon as season 4 of Better Call Saul ends I will head right to Netflix to binge watch the show.
The more Better Call Saul delves into the New Mexico drug running world the better I like it!
Friday, June 1, 2018
Beagles on Chicken
It's time to once again turn the pages of the Broken Pawn to those most literate of beagles – Baxter and Daisy
to recount a memorable Memorial Day Weekend!
And speaking of chicken we had a great Memorial Day weekend tasting chicken! Hank got a three piece dark meat meal from every place in town. We got to eat a drumstick and Hank shared the rest of the chicken with us! YUM!! We mainly judged each chicken meal on the taste of the chicken but we considered other factors also, Baxter! That’s right, Daisy. The size of the chicken and the quality of the sides are important. The better the sides the more chicken Hank shares with us! And the price is sort of important since Hank has to work to pay for our chicken. And the more chicken Hank can afford… …means more chicken to share with us!
For such wonderful in-house food, Pizza Hut's to-go chicken is so tiny! The butter is almost as big as the chicken leg...
Pizza Ranch – 2 paws
Hy-Vee has large chicken pieces. This year the chicken tasted way better than years before...
Hy-Vee - 3 1/2 paws
Haley's has the best broasted chicken but it got mixed up with the potato salad in Hank's car. If 10 pieces are $12, how come 3 pieces are $10?
Haley's – 3 paws
KFC gave us 2 thighs and 1 leg! More chicken! YUM!! And they gave Hank a soft drink to fill him up so he could share more chicken with us!
KFC – 4 paws
So that’s the end of our fried chicken contest for another year, Daisy. It’s too bad we can’t have one every week. I know Baxter. It’s so sad when our chicken weekend is over. All the chicken was excellent and the KFC proved that last is not least by coming from behind to beat a vastly improved Hy-Vee fried chicken experience. So it's back to beef stick treats and Hank sharing his bologna sandwiches for another year but that's not so bad, Daisy. We do love our beef stick treats and bologna but I'll miss fried chicken after eating nothing but for a whole weekend! Cheer up Daisy! Maybe it will be only one dog year! We are dogs, you know. Oooh... I like it! How long is one dog year? Let's see...52 weeks divided by 7 carry the 2...add 1...it might be Saturday!
Friday, May 25, 2018
Scattered, Covered, Smothered, Chunked, Capped, Peppered, Topped, Old, and Alone
The best part of any trip to Kansas City!
I spend the week leading up to Friday distracted by the prospects of my first Waffle House meal since last September when we went to Gaffney, South Carolina to attend my father-in-law’s retirement dinner. There are no Waffle Houses in Iowa or my native New Jersey. I had to wait until I was 26 and living in Florida to fall in love with Waffle House staples like T-Bone and eggs and hash browns scattered (on the grill), smothered (in onions) and covered (in cheese). Since then the Waffle House has expanded their menu, now offering hash browns chunked (with ham), capped (with mushrooms), diced (with tomatoes), peppered (with jalapeno peppers), topped (with chili) and country (covered in country gravy) in addition to scattered, smothered, and covered.
After dropping off Ringo the mourning dove to his rescue center, we stopped for gas at the Cameron, Missouri Valero - home of $2.59 gas and 99 cent 16 oz. Cokes. With gas in Iowa at $2.89 and 16 oz. Coke cans $1.19 I wonder why Missouri is so cheap?
There was a side trip to Des Moines with our temporary guest Ringo the mourning dove. Kathy found Ringo unable to fly a week before and put him in an old birdcage in the garage. The Saturday before we let Ringo loose and he flew away but a few hours later we found him in the driveway with a cut on his head like he flew into a window. Kathy put him in the garage again and found a bird rescue person in Des Moines to take Ringo in. After the side trip we were on our way to Kansas City.
The original plan was to have Sunday breakfast at the Waffle House on our way back home but we were making such good time we didn’t stop for lunch. There was no argument from me when Kathy say a Waffle House sign in Liberty and suggested we stop there to eat. In 2015 I also ate at the Waffle House in Liberty but after looking at the Waffle House store locator there doesn’t seem to be a Liberty, Missouri location so I must have been in a different town altogether. I didn’t recognize this Waffle House as being the same one as last time which was a welcome surprise because it was way cleaner. The grill, pans, and waffle irons were sparkling and there was no food covered tables like my last visit.
We sat at the counter and our server came over to greet us and ask us what we wanted to drink. I asked for a coffee and Kathy a glass of water. Kathy then ordered scrambled eggs with toast while I had hash browns ‘all the way’ except for peppers and country gravy. The server gave our order to the cook who proceeded to expertly place the hash browns and all the toppings on the grill while frying Kathy’s eggs and laying down the toast. The server then started talking to the cook about how he was mad at his mother for disrespecting his friends when they came to his house to play video games in the basement. Then the server told the cook that he told his mother that he was going to move out now that he had this job at the Waffle House and that she was going to die “old and alone and feeding cats”. The cook had that look of someone who had heard this story once or twice and went to the back room, returning a few seconds later with four cases of eggs (15 dozen eggs in a case) which he proceeded to place in metal racks while keeping an eye on our food.
The server apparently wanted the cook’s undivided attention and wasn’t getting it so he went to a booth on the other side of the Waffle House (there was only two other diners in the restaurant) and got on his phone where he told the person on the other end of the conversation that his f@#$% mother had disrespected his friends and that he was f#$%^ sick of her disrespecting his friends and now that he had this F%^&( job at the Waffle house he was going to move out and his mother was going to f^&*)* die old and alone and feeding cats. He then went into the restaurant’s back room where I could see him waving his arms like a bird while he was yelling behind the thankfully soundproof door.
The cook put 720 eggs in baskets for the next day's breakfast while creating my hash brown masterpiece!
The scattered, covered, smothered, topped, chunked, diced, and capped has browns were awesome and well worth the trip. Kathy liked her eggs and toast as well but not as much as I enjoyed my hash browns which is my personal highlight of 2018. The other two diners were ready to leave but the server was still in the back room so the hard-working cook took over the register. The other diners used a credit card and the server had the pen so the cook had to get the server out of the back room again. The server came out and helped the two diners and gave me our check while he was at it. We were about done so I waited for the serve to start for the back room before I got up to pay. I told the cook I thought his hash browns were awesome and didn’t give the server any tip at all but I did ask him for a paper receipt after he gave me my change and closed the cash drawer in a futile attempt to get him to curse at me. I suppose I’m not the motherly type.
The next day and a half was full of food in addition to my niece’s wedding. There was barbecued brisket, ribs, beef, sausage, and chicken at the rehearsal dinner. After that we ate ice cream at the fantastic Betty Rae’s Ice Cream where I had a plum chocolate chip parfait with berries. The next morning at the wedding brunch I had a hot ham and cheese sandwich. After the wedding there was another dinner with salmon, pasta, and tacos. All this food and ice cream was great but paled in comparison to the hash browns I had on Friday afternoon at the Waffle House.
Great ice cream and great weddings are incredible but ultimately everything pales next to an incredible plate of Waffle House food!
It was an eventful trip to say the least with the best event being the awesome hash browns at the Waffle House in Kansas City. I was a little upset when I realized I didn’t get a picture of our Waffle House server at first but soon came to the conclusion that he needs his job more than I needed to print his picture and if the server lost his job the biggest victim would be his mother (who probably can’t wait to die old and alone and feeding cats).
Friday, May 18, 2018
A Rabbit's Tale
Oreo (2007-2018)
Our next rabbit was a big brown and white Dutch rabbit named Pogo. Our neighbors had gotten him from the high school and were moving so we took him in. Pogo was never scared of the dogs and had the run of the kitchen where he would hang out with the boots in the boot tray in the winter and sneak around to steal pieces of Queenie’s dog food (Queenie was a notoriously slow eater that would eat a little of her food every hour or so). One day in 2007 we woke up and Pogo was dead just like Buster.
Within a week Kathy got a black and white Dutch rabbit from the local Earl May store. The new rabbit was named Oreo and was slightly bigger than Buster. While Buster was a homebody that was scared of the dogs and stayed in his cage and Pogo was content to hang around in the boot tray, Oreo was a rascally type that would roam all around the kitchen and beyond. Our house has a stairway that leads upstairs from the kitchen. If the door was left open, Oreo would scamper upstairs and hide in a bedroom under a bed. He rarely chewed on wires and had an affinity for staying under the bed just out of reach. I always had to get a baseball bat or a cane and chase him from under the bed, after which Oreo would hop at top speed down the hall and back downstairs to his kitchen area.
Oreo was never afraid of Queenie and Tuffy and shared the kitchen with them happily. He did have a beef with the kitchen broom and would attack it whenever it got too close to him. For such a gentle fellow Oreo was surprisingly fierce when confronted by the kitchen broom. One day Kathy was substitute teaching and took Oreo with her for the kids to play with. Oreo was a big hit but never went back to school because Kathy found the kids couldn’t concentrate with a bunny nearby.
A couple of years after we got Oreo, Queenie and Tuffy passed away within weeks of each other and I was suddenly dogless. I was depressed and spent a few minutes each day putting Oreo on my lap and petting him until he would get bored and start scampering around. Oreo was a good substitute dog and just the friend I needed. Oreo got along good with Daisy and Baxter when we got the beagle puppies a few weeks later but the little beagles were so rambunctious we were afraid they would stampede Oreo so we split the kitchen in half with a three foot fence and reduced Oreo's running area in half but he didn't seem to mind at all.
At Matt’s high school graduation party one of the parents saw Oreo and told me how he had a pet rabbit who lived in a hutch outside that just loved twigs from apple trees. I started mentioning how Oreo got grapes, cheese, lettuce, etc.… when the parent saw our apple tree outside. We went outside and picked out the perfect twig from the apple tree, cut it to the perfect size, and brought it in to give to Oreo. Oreo took a look at the twig, sniffed it once, and treated the twig with the disdain a food critic might display towards a Whopper.
We knew Oreo was a pretty old bunny but he was as active as ever (except for not sneaking upstairs through the back steps). I picked him up on most days to give him a few pets and could tell he was getting a little bony and losing his body mass. Earlier this year I found Oreo laying on his side more than a few times having what looked like convulsions which he would recover from once I gave him some pets.
Last Monday, Oreo didn’t come out of his cage for sandwich time and had that raggedy look that I’ve seen all too often when an animal is near death. I was hoping I was wrong but I wasn’t. When I came home from work Oreo was laying on his side in his cage. I didn’t know if he would be alive the next morning but he was still laying on his side. He didn’t come out for sandwich time but when I gathered my sandwich and grapes and fruit for lunch there was Oreo hanging out by the refrigerator. I gave him a grape but he didn’t eat it. When I came home Oreo was hanging out by a window with his head on a little shelf and not moving very much and not eating. On Wednesday Oreo didn’t come out of his cage but Kathy took him into the backyard for some fresh air and it seemed to perk him up a bit.
This video from 2010 is the only one I have of Oreo to go along with the hundreds of pictures.
Friday, May 11, 2018
Unplugged
My favorite toy is without question my iPod. I use it to answer emails, listen to music or podcasts, trade stocks, play and study chess, and more. I am never very far away from this device which connects, entertains, and informs whenever I am in need of connection, information, or entertainment. At least I wasn’t very far away from my iPod until four Saturdays ago when it was in my jacket pocket while I took Daisy and Baxter on our 9am walk while Kathy was playing in a pickle ball tournament in Ankeny. When we started on our walk the early morning rains had subsided but a half block into the walk there was a slight mist which tuned into a drizzle after two more blocks and a torrential downpour as we reached the halfway point of our walk.
The rain got even worse as we made our way back home. I was listening to music from my iPod’s Napster app while my two beagles and I got our waterlogged selves home. I took off my coat, dried off Daisy and Baxter, and emptied my pockets as I got out of my wet clothes. My wallet was soaked. I took out all my cash and cards to dry and went to turn off my iPod but it wouldn’t turn off. Even though I have a waterproof cover for my iPod it had gotten soaked from being in my coat pocket and was stuck and unresponsive to the on-off switch, touch screen, or the volume and home buttons.
I put the iPod in a Ziploc bag of rice like I have seen and heard others do. Kathy soon arrived home and we took our normal Saturday morning trips to the local thrift stores for additions to her Christmas candle collection. I figured my iPod would be dry soon enough so I took it with me along with its bag of rice home. About a half hour in I noticed the iPod had seemingly turned off so I reached into the bag of rice and pressed the home button to see if it was responsive. The iPod lit up but would not respond to the ‘slide’ command so I could enter my password and worse seemed like it was getting really hot. I closed the Ziploc bag but after another 24 hours in the rice bag the iPod would no longer turn on.
If you are thinking I was too hasty in turning my iPod on I would agree with you. Luckily, when I purchased this iPod (my 4th) from the Wal-Mart I bought the extended warranty so on the Sunday after my soaking I went to the Wal-Mart's Asurion website and started an on-line chat with a service representative. The rep efficiently diagnosed my problem and sent me an email containing all the information I needed to bring the iPod to any UPS store and the device would be packed and shipped for repair at no charge. I left the iPod with Kathy on Monday and I went to work for the first time in years without my iPod.
The drive in to work wasn’t so bad. I listened to sports radio instead of podcasts. At work was a different story. I have a work computer I used to check emails but there was no music or podcasts unless I wanted to try to set up my apps on my work computer which I was not going to do. I was much more distracted than normal without any music or podcast to provide background noise for me. The drive back home wasn’t much better with the sports radio stations providing regurgitation of the morning sports talk discussions.
When I got home from work I walked the dogs with Kathy and didn’t miss my iPod until I got back home. If I wanted to do some chess puzzles or check on the scores I had to be in front of my computer because I had no iPod. At night I was having a hard time getting to sleep because I’m used to listening to music or white noise on my iPod which I no longer had.
I hadn’t realized how dependent I was on this little device. The next morning I get my old iPod out of storage. I had replaced it because it wouldn’t charge unless I held the cable just so but to my relief I found that the Apple cable from my latest iPod would charge the old iPod just fine except for having to reseat the cable every so often. I took my iPod to work and was able to listen to podcasts and music once again in my car and at my desk. This iPod is three years old and very slow compared to my new iPod but functional nonetheless. I could listen to podcasts and music and check email but the apps for getting scores and trading stocks kept on crashing. I expect this was due to the apps being obsolete and the underlying web services not compatible with the older operating system on this iPod. I had been doing some chess puzzles on my Chessimo app every day but the old iPod didn’t have any record of my progress over the past year so I decided to wait until I got my repaired iPod back so I could restore my data. I was frustrated at the limitations of the old iPod but happy I had it to give me music and podcasts to listen to at work and the commute.
I finally got my repaired iPod back from Wal-Mart on Wednesday which was 26 days after it got soaked. I restored my data and am now back enjoying my new iPod’s blistering speed and am even back to doing my daily regimen of Chessimo puzzles. One thing I haven’t done is use my iPod to listen to music to help me get to sleep. After a week I started sleeping better without the music and got in the habit of leaving my iPod downstairs at night. It took some time to resist the temptation to check the sports scores and email in the middle of the night but I am now in the habit of not using my iPod at night and have no desire to resume my old ways. The month without my new iPod has me thinking it had become more of a necessity than a toy and I want to make sure that it stays a toy to be enjoyed instead of a device I have to have ready at all times.
The rain got even worse as we made our way back home. I was listening to music from my iPod’s Napster app while my two beagles and I got our waterlogged selves home. I took off my coat, dried off Daisy and Baxter, and emptied my pockets as I got out of my wet clothes. My wallet was soaked. I took out all my cash and cards to dry and went to turn off my iPod but it wouldn’t turn off. Even though I have a waterproof cover for my iPod it had gotten soaked from being in my coat pocket and was stuck and unresponsive to the on-off switch, touch screen, or the volume and home buttons.
I put the iPod in a Ziploc bag of rice like I have seen and heard others do. Kathy soon arrived home and we took our normal Saturday morning trips to the local thrift stores for additions to her Christmas candle collection. I figured my iPod would be dry soon enough so I took it with me along with its bag of rice home. About a half hour in I noticed the iPod had seemingly turned off so I reached into the bag of rice and pressed the home button to see if it was responsive. The iPod lit up but would not respond to the ‘slide’ command so I could enter my password and worse seemed like it was getting really hot. I closed the Ziploc bag but after another 24 hours in the rice bag the iPod would no longer turn on.
If you are thinking I was too hasty in turning my iPod on I would agree with you. Luckily, when I purchased this iPod (my 4th) from the Wal-Mart I bought the extended warranty so on the Sunday after my soaking I went to the Wal-Mart's Asurion website and started an on-line chat with a service representative. The rep efficiently diagnosed my problem and sent me an email containing all the information I needed to bring the iPod to any UPS store and the device would be packed and shipped for repair at no charge. I left the iPod with Kathy on Monday and I went to work for the first time in years without my iPod.
The drive in to work wasn’t so bad. I listened to sports radio instead of podcasts. At work was a different story. I have a work computer I used to check emails but there was no music or podcasts unless I wanted to try to set up my apps on my work computer which I was not going to do. I was much more distracted than normal without any music or podcast to provide background noise for me. The drive back home wasn’t much better with the sports radio stations providing regurgitation of the morning sports talk discussions.
When I got home from work I walked the dogs with Kathy and didn’t miss my iPod until I got back home. If I wanted to do some chess puzzles or check on the scores I had to be in front of my computer because I had no iPod. At night I was having a hard time getting to sleep because I’m used to listening to music or white noise on my iPod which I no longer had.
I hadn’t realized how dependent I was on this little device. The next morning I get my old iPod out of storage. I had replaced it because it wouldn’t charge unless I held the cable just so but to my relief I found that the Apple cable from my latest iPod would charge the old iPod just fine except for having to reseat the cable every so often. I took my iPod to work and was able to listen to podcasts and music once again in my car and at my desk. This iPod is three years old and very slow compared to my new iPod but functional nonetheless. I could listen to podcasts and music and check email but the apps for getting scores and trading stocks kept on crashing. I expect this was due to the apps being obsolete and the underlying web services not compatible with the older operating system on this iPod. I had been doing some chess puzzles on my Chessimo app every day but the old iPod didn’t have any record of my progress over the past year so I decided to wait until I got my repaired iPod back so I could restore my data. I was frustrated at the limitations of the old iPod but happy I had it to give me music and podcasts to listen to at work and the commute.
I finally got my repaired iPod back from Wal-Mart on Wednesday which was 26 days after it got soaked. I restored my data and am now back enjoying my new iPod’s blistering speed and am even back to doing my daily regimen of Chessimo puzzles. One thing I haven’t done is use my iPod to listen to music to help me get to sleep. After a week I started sleeping better without the music and got in the habit of leaving my iPod downstairs at night. It took some time to resist the temptation to check the sports scores and email in the middle of the night but I am now in the habit of not using my iPod at night and have no desire to resume my old ways. The month without my new iPod has me thinking it had become more of a necessity than a toy and I want to make sure that it stays a toy to be enjoyed instead of a device I have to have ready at all times.
Friday, May 4, 2018
Movie Review - Avengers : Infinity War
WARNING : AVENGERS : INFINITY WAR SPOILERS BELOW!!!
I went with Kathy to see the Avengers : Infinity War in our local movie theatre for the Saturday afternoon matinee. Most of the opening weekend matinees I’ve attended have had attendance in the single digits but Infinity Wars played to a packed house which leads me to think this movie is on pace to the biggest super hero movie gross of all time.
The movie follows three separate plots of ‘mini-teams’ that are trying to thwart the quest of Thanos to collect the six infinity stones and become the ruler of all reality. Thor and a part of the Guardians of the Galaxy are on a quest to create a weapon worthy of killing Thanos, the rest of the Guardians team with Iron Man, Dr. Strange, and Spiderman to fight Thanos on his home planet of Titan, while Captain America leads the rest of the heroes to battle Thanos’s army in Wakanda to protect Vision and his ‘Mind Stone’. The first third of the movie sets up the teams in their locations and provides some funny character interactions. The rest of the movie is devoted to the battle and the star of the movie, Thanos.
Make no mistake, Thanos is the star of the movie. We hear him repeatedly explain that the reason he needs the infinity stones is because he is the only being that has the will to bring balance to the universe by killing half the life in it. In the comics Thanos is in love with the personification of death and wants to kill every living being as an offering of his love. I have to say I like the half-measured Thanos better. Thanos tells Tony Stark how his homeworld had more people than resources but his calls to eliminate half the population went unheeded and everyone (except Thanos of course) died but the worlds where he eliminated half the populations are flourishing. The movie even gives a flashback to how he adopted his daughter Gamora while having his troops bring ‘balance’ to her world by killing half the population which includes her mother.
Josh Brolin and the Marvel CGI team combine to make a fine Thanos. He was menacing and powerful enough to beat the Hulk in combat but was relatable enough to show his relationship with his daughter Gamora. At a point in the movie he has to prove his love for his daughter (in a twisted Thanos type of way) and is able to show it in a way that made me believe that he really believes killing half the universe is the only way to save it. In this way he is no different than other Marvel galactic beings like Ego, Galactus, and Eternity who have the proverbial 10,000 feet view of all things celestial.
The CGI for the Marvel films just gets better and better. Spiderman’s new suit with mechanical extendable arachnid legs was especially cool. Tony Stark’s new nanotech embedded Iron Man armor that can generate any number of weapons and shapes made him believable as someone who could go toe to toe with Thanos. After taking a beating from Thanos, the Hulk doesn’t want to take over for Bruce Banner anymore which led to a number of ‘almost-Hulk’ transformations. Doctor Strange was another beneficiary of the improved CGI. His mystic powers are very dependent on CGI and the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak seemed to crackle in his hands.
The actions scenes were also great. The battle featuring Thanos’s ‘war dog’ army against Wakanda was the lengthiest battle. It was fierce enough to rivet me to the screen but didn’t distract me with cutting back and forth in each mini-battle like ‘Transformers’ movies tend to do. Even the non-battle scene of Thor restarting the planetary forge in order to create his Thanos-killing weapon was exciting. As if that wasn’t enough the interactions between Tony Stark, Dr. Strange, and Spiderman along with Rocket Racoon and Thor were hilarious without being the sort of out of character interactions looking for laughs that creep into many Marvel films.
There was nothing techinal about Avengers:Infinity War’s acting, special effects, of film-making that I didn’t like and yet I left the theater disappointed. Why? Lots of characters die the extremely unsatisfying death of turning to ash with a bare minimum allowed to utter a few last words. The first few deaths were shocking but after awhile I was pretty numb to it all and it is obvious that not many if any of these deaths will carry through past the next Avengers Movie scheduled for next year since lots of the newly dead actors and characters are scheduled for future movies. The death scale was so rapture-like with cars and helicopters crashing in New York as half the world’s population turns to dust that the only solution will have to be either an ‘alternate-reality switch’ or a ‘changing of the past to wipe out the entire Infinity War future so it never happened’ plot device.
Avengers: infinity War is a great film but spending 2 and a half hours watching with no resolution and more questions than answers makes me think it a mediocre movie despite all the great components.As a youngster I always preferred DC comics to Marvel comics for this very reason – a DC comic ened with a conclusion while a Marvel comic always made me feel like I was missing out if I didn’t read the last issue or I would never find the resolution if I didn’t have a quarter to spare the next month. I’m Ok with leaving our characters in the wind like Captain America and his crew at the end of ‘Civil War’ or the Hulk after ‘Avengers : Age of Ultron’ but a year long cliffhanger with such a down ending is too much for me. I’m sure the Marvel universe show runners have it all figured out and the next Avengers will likely break all the records that Infinity Wars set but I would rather have had an extra half hour added to the film to make it a three hour movie and resolved the Thanos conflict once and for all or perhaps even ending this movie before Thanos kills half the universe and start part two with it. This ending seems very much like ‘the Walking Dead's’ much maligned fake ‘Glenn’ death and I could have done without it.
Avengers : Infinity War is Marvel Studios newest record breaking hit...
The movie follows three separate plots of ‘mini-teams’ that are trying to thwart the quest of Thanos to collect the six infinity stones and become the ruler of all reality. Thor and a part of the Guardians of the Galaxy are on a quest to create a weapon worthy of killing Thanos, the rest of the Guardians team with Iron Man, Dr. Strange, and Spiderman to fight Thanos on his home planet of Titan, while Captain America leads the rest of the heroes to battle Thanos’s army in Wakanda to protect Vision and his ‘Mind Stone’. The first third of the movie sets up the teams in their locations and provides some funny character interactions. The rest of the movie is devoted to the battle and the star of the movie, Thanos.
Make no mistake, Thanos is the star of the movie. We hear him repeatedly explain that the reason he needs the infinity stones is because he is the only being that has the will to bring balance to the universe by killing half the life in it. In the comics Thanos is in love with the personification of death and wants to kill every living being as an offering of his love. I have to say I like the half-measured Thanos better. Thanos tells Tony Stark how his homeworld had more people than resources but his calls to eliminate half the population went unheeded and everyone (except Thanos of course) died but the worlds where he eliminated half the populations are flourishing. The movie even gives a flashback to how he adopted his daughter Gamora while having his troops bring ‘balance’ to her world by killing half the population which includes her mother.
Josh Brolin and the Marvel CGI team combine to make a fine Thanos. He was menacing and powerful enough to beat the Hulk in combat but was relatable enough to show his relationship with his daughter Gamora. At a point in the movie he has to prove his love for his daughter (in a twisted Thanos type of way) and is able to show it in a way that made me believe that he really believes killing half the universe is the only way to save it. In this way he is no different than other Marvel galactic beings like Ego, Galactus, and Eternity who have the proverbial 10,000 feet view of all things celestial.
The CGI for the Marvel films just gets better and better. Spiderman’s new suit with mechanical extendable arachnid legs was especially cool. Tony Stark’s new nanotech embedded Iron Man armor that can generate any number of weapons and shapes made him believable as someone who could go toe to toe with Thanos. After taking a beating from Thanos, the Hulk doesn’t want to take over for Bruce Banner anymore which led to a number of ‘almost-Hulk’ transformations. Doctor Strange was another beneficiary of the improved CGI. His mystic powers are very dependent on CGI and the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak seemed to crackle in his hands.
The actions scenes were also great. The battle featuring Thanos’s ‘war dog’ army against Wakanda was the lengthiest battle. It was fierce enough to rivet me to the screen but didn’t distract me with cutting back and forth in each mini-battle like ‘Transformers’ movies tend to do. Even the non-battle scene of Thor restarting the planetary forge in order to create his Thanos-killing weapon was exciting. As if that wasn’t enough the interactions between Tony Stark, Dr. Strange, and Spiderman along with Rocket Racoon and Thor were hilarious without being the sort of out of character interactions looking for laughs that creep into many Marvel films.
There was nothing techinal about Avengers:Infinity War’s acting, special effects, of film-making that I didn’t like and yet I left the theater disappointed. Why? Lots of characters die the extremely unsatisfying death of turning to ash with a bare minimum allowed to utter a few last words. The first few deaths were shocking but after awhile I was pretty numb to it all and it is obvious that not many if any of these deaths will carry through past the next Avengers Movie scheduled for next year since lots of the newly dead actors and characters are scheduled for future movies. The death scale was so rapture-like with cars and helicopters crashing in New York as half the world’s population turns to dust that the only solution will have to be either an ‘alternate-reality switch’ or a ‘changing of the past to wipe out the entire Infinity War future so it never happened’ plot device.
Avengers: infinity War is a great film but spending 2 and a half hours watching with no resolution and more questions than answers makes me think it a mediocre movie despite all the great components.As a youngster I always preferred DC comics to Marvel comics for this very reason – a DC comic ened with a conclusion while a Marvel comic always made me feel like I was missing out if I didn’t read the last issue or I would never find the resolution if I didn’t have a quarter to spare the next month. I’m Ok with leaving our characters in the wind like Captain America and his crew at the end of ‘Civil War’ or the Hulk after ‘Avengers : Age of Ultron’ but a year long cliffhanger with such a down ending is too much for me. I’m sure the Marvel universe show runners have it all figured out and the next Avengers will likely break all the records that Infinity Wars set but I would rather have had an extra half hour added to the film to make it a three hour movie and resolved the Thanos conflict once and for all or perhaps even ending this movie before Thanos kills half the universe and start part two with it. This ending seems very much like ‘the Walking Dead's’ much maligned fake ‘Glenn’ death and I could have done without it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
