No Subject

This is how I like dealing with spam.

Hello,

How are you doing?please I'm sorry for taking a little of your time,please I have an important issue I will like to share with you concerning my inheritance and character of my wicked Uncles that wants to kill me to enrich themselves.On hearing from you on my email address and i will give you more details.
Have a nice day.Sincerely,alexa oko

Dearest Alexa,

Oh my goodness.  I can’t believe you’ve finally found me.  I’ve been searching for you for years, ever since our wicked Uncles initiated the coup and seized control of our dearest city.  However did you obtain my electronic mail address?  I lost many good men in trying to maintain its secrecy, and yet I see that the wretchedness of our Uncles is once again superior.  They quite simply must stop it at once.  I no longer have the time or energy to fight this struggle.  I’m haggard and bedraggled.  I’ve not had a warm meal in months.  This gruel I commandeer from a kindly but portly Middle Eastern baker down the street is all that keeps me going, at least in terms of nutrition.  At night I lie awake and devise schemes of destruction, of sneaking into our Uncles compounds at night and setting free the Fires of Heaven, of covering them in raw meats and releasing a pack of dogs upon their wicked souls.  Oh yes, I have dreams and take mortal delight in them each and every night my dearest Alexa.  I fear that my mind has been bent beyond what is acceptable; no longer am I the innocent child I was when I played upon the bloodred waters of my homeland.  I am a scarred individual with ruthlessness within my bones.   This is, I think, the most evil of all the heinous crimes our wicked Uncles have done.  For I’m sure you remember me when I was the embodiment of pure naiveté and innocence, ever clothed in white, ever surrounded by butterflies and the sweet aroma of the primrose.   How they have wronged me.  How they have wronged you.  And now they are seeking to kill you and enrich themselves!  Oh the humanity.

Thanks for the update.  Take care!

Have a nice day yourself.

Sincerely, logankstewart

The Hunger Games, a (sort-of) (film) Review

In 1998, the bombing of the World Embassy in West-Northwest Centersville, East Serbia, shook the world to its core.  In retaliation, the Serbian government conscripted all males under the age of 64 into their armed forces and established a quarantine around the entire country, with men at arms standing shoulder-to-shoulder along the perimeter.  After a fortnight of fortnights had passed and no one really noticed, the people of WNWCEB decided to stage a coup d'état and soon all the beatniks and yuppies were crowding the streets.  People complained, loudly, and the world continued to ignore them.

Far away, in the country of Panem, the President decided to start a new kind of Olympics.  Every year he would call up two children from each of the Twelve Districts and invite them to the Capitol to represent their communities.  If they won, they got prizes, usually in the form of a new Game Boy Advance game and sometimes a batch of homemade cookies, baked by the President himself.  If they didn't win, then they died.  It was a brutal sort of Olympics the President thought of.  You see, these Olympics, which he dubbed the Hunger Games, weren't really anything like the classical Olympics of old, but were instead a twisted game he devised to keep the people of Panem held under his oppressive thumb.  He figured correctly that pitting children against other children in a battle to the death would create a country of unrest.  Because of the President's totalitarian rule, people's magazines stopped arriving on time (and soon at all), and if they couldn't get their magazines and newspapers then their understanding of the world around them dwindled.  (This was pre-y2k, so the Internet hadn't yet came into fruition.)  As their freedoms compressed, their fear of the Hunger Games increased, and every year when the President made his phone calls, great tragedy would drop on to each of the Districts.

Or something like that.

I first read The Hunger Games in May 2010 (my review).  I enjoyed it quite a bit, actually, as much as one can enjoy this sort of senselessness.  Not entirely an original idea, but Suzanne Collins made a book with characters I cared about.  Katniss Everdeen was a fascinating heroine, but she was stubborn and a teenager, too.  While I can only guess at the thought processes of a teenage girl, I felt that Collins conveyed the mindset very well.

Keisha & I went and watched the movie rendition of The Hunger Games last Friday night.  The cinema was packed, of course, but everyone quieted down as the movie started.  I had some reservations about the casting of the characters, but shortly after the start I was fine with most.  The exceptions were Gale and President Snow, who I felt was too handsomely cast and too slovenly cast, respectively, if that makes sense.  (It doesn't, as I tried to explain this to Keisha and wound up making a fool of myself.)

Additionally, I, like many others, had issues with the camera work in the film.  I told Keisha during the thing that I felt like I was getting sick.  It reminded me of those roller coaster ride things with screens.  The kind that the People of Serbia no longer get to enjoy because of the problems going on over there, what with the border being closed and the ruffians crowding up the place.

Keisha's main problem was all the time spent outside of the Arena, focused mostly on Seneca and the Game Room.  She thought this pulled away too much, and I agreed.  Maybe those scenes were added to break some of the tension up?  Maybe the director wanted to show off some special effects?  Whatever the case, the wife and I didn't much care for all the Game Room time.  (Honestly, pacing leading up to the Games was a bit off, too.)

The film was tough to watch, especially when the Games began.  I knew what kind of bloodbath was coming, but still yet, wow.  And the tracker jacker scene!  Oh my.  Let's not forget the muttations, either, and how horrible that had to have been.

As I've already said, I enjoyed the movie.  It's been a few years since I read the books, so I had forgotten some of the fine details.  From my recollection, the film was a worthy adaptation of the book, though it could have done better at building up the characters.  No doubt there will be the sequels made, and no doubt they will rake in the money.  I am most interested to see how Mockingjay comes along, considering the way we Americans tend to like our movies.

I am reasonably sure that I've lost my mind somewhere along the way.  The truth is out there, and so is the fiction.  I'm not sure what just happened...

Talking With Salesmen

"Logan, there's a man in our living room cleaning our carpet.  He's here selling a vacuum cleaner.  I've done told him that we weren't interested, but he insisted on cleaning and shampooing our carpet for free.  He wants to talk with you cause he gets paid more if he can talk to both of us.  He said he'd still be here when you get home."

This about sums up the short phone call I got from Keisha yesterday afternoon at around 4pm, a good hour before I got off work.  We had been planning on getting our living room shampooed anyway, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity, especially considering the cost of $0.  Then she ended the conversation like this.  "Anyway, it's your job to get rid of him."

Now I usually try to give salespeople my time.  I figure most people are jerks and rude, and I'm not most people.  I'm a patient guy.  Pretty much I'll always let you do your spiel, figuring hey, it's your job.  So I got home and the guy introduced himself as Arthur.  He said I probably had things to do and would be quick.  I told him that yes, I did in fact have somewhere to be ASAP, thank you for your expediency, let's get this show on the road.

Arthur showed me the great and terrible power of the Kirby vacuum.  Like a terrible vortex of doom, no carpet was safe from the Kirby.  He talked as he cleaned my living room floor, showing me all the dirt and dust that lived beneath my relatively new carpet.  The man was smooth and suave.  And as time ticked by, I found myself growing a bit more impatient.  Me and Alex had planned on disc golfing at 5:30ish and the man already knew we weren't going to buy the machine.  Still, I held my tongue.

Then he called his boss and said she'd be over to talk with me about financing opportunities.  So in she came, dressed nowhere near as professionally as Arthur, which kind of made me skeptical.  Why was Arthur in slacks and a shirt and tie and this lady in a tank-top and jeans?  And why was she here in the first place when Arthur knew we weren't going to buy one?  Granted, the vacuum was quite amazing in its vacuuming abilities, but the $3200 price tag was enough to make me gasp aloud and clutch my heart, feigning cardiac arrest at the mere site of such numbers.  She made a few offers, all of which I shot down.  We have a budget, I said.  We just bought a brand new washer and dryer last week, I said.  We're trying to get out of debt, not rack up more, I said.  She, apparently, found it aggravating that I wasn't jumping on the remarkable deal.

Finally, after a time, I convinced them I wasn't going to buy the amazing sucking machine.  I know I'm a fool for knowingly living in a house that can contain all these allergens and hidden dirt-things, but I'm a fool, what can I say?  And the fact that the Kirby can convert into 15 machines, including a paint sprayer and a bed cleaner?  Bah!  They had all their stuff packed away and my living room carpets looked very nice, saving me a hundred dollars or so in shampooing costs, but were they done yet?  No.

They had to wait on somebody to come and pick them up.  Being the kind and hospitable type that I am, I offered them some lemonade and a seat.  I surely wasn't going to ask them to wait out in the 100 degree heat so I could leave and go play disc golf.  We sat around and idly talked about nothing, with every minute or so the salesfolk trying to get me to change my mind.  This only got more aggravating as time went on.  It seemed to me that they were getting frustrated at my refusals, too.

By the time they left, at a little after 7pm, I was ready to stab myself in the head with a trident.  (Not that I have tridents just laying around.  Those things are dangerous.)  We were horribly late, but still we went and played.  In the dwindling light I wound up losing a disc and we only managed to play 6 holes before we left. 

Turns out the vacuum folks spent almost four hours at Stewartland yesterday, from the initial doorbell ring-a-ling to the same door closing on their way out.  Granted, I did get my living room cleaned quite nicely, saving me money, but on the other hand, I lost a nice disc and didn't get to play very long.  I can't decide whether I made out good or not...

December

Happy December everyone. It's cold, bleak, and grey! Good luck to you all, with hopes that you make it through the hard month. And think, next month is basically a continuation of this one, just in a different year. I do like the winter, not as much as the fall, but pretty good, nonetheless. It makes me wanna put on old, tattered grey robes, grow a long white and whispy goatee and become a monk or something. A wizened man, all robed and thin. Or maybe it makes me wanna stay indoors where it's warm (sometimes extremely warm) and dry, away from the harshness of December...

This is my December.

Goodbye, friends, and farewell to arms. Have a safe and pleasant season. It promises to be a fun one. And our tree looks better than yours. And our stockings. And our nativity scene. And our wreathes. And I'm really tired, having studied macroeconomics for a while, and open channel hydraulics, and I haven't been sleeping much lately, and sometimes, y'know, you just feel like writing something that is more stream-of-conscience, while at the same time continuing on with a very, very long (possibly a run-on (I LOVE PARENTHESIS!!!)) sentence.
Rest in peace, Reginald. Your children are prospering, and Horatio has given birth itself, so now there are many, many of you. There'll possibly be more on this later. For now, I think I'll bite the bullet (trite) and hit the books (cliche).

Rosebud.