“Now a Major Motion Picture!”

Did you ever notice that when a book is adapted to film, it is re-marketed with the words “Now A Major Motion Picture” on the cover?

First off, the book was not transformed into a movie. A film may have been made as an adaptation, but the film is not the book and vice-versa. That would be like taking a picture of yourself, displaying an enlarged version of it on a sign by the freeway, and affixing a label to yourself that says “Bob, Now a Major Billboard!”

Next, why the dramatic adjective “Major?” This is presumptuous and unnecessary. What need is there to distinguish major from minor adaptations? In our more is better culture, we sometimes are given to histrionics. Consider Extra-Strength Tylenol. When you get a chance, look in the pharmacy section of your grocery store. There are 10 different permutations of Extra-Strength Tylenol. Gel-Caps, liquid, tablets etc. But where’s is the regular strength Tylenol? It’s there, you just have to look hard for it. Like the word “Major,” “Extra-Strength” has lost its meaning.

Finally “Motion Picture” Who says this? In today’s world it’s a movie or a film. This is no doubt a reflection of the distant era in which this phrase was originally used. There seem to be certain things in the field of advertising that have not progressed from earlier times. For example, the “As Seen on TV!” label. This is usually printed in bold red exuberant letters on the packaging of cheap household items. That this product was advertised on television does not make it in any way special. When I see it, I don’t have any desire to purchase the item because it was on TV. I’m more inclined to think “this product is probably a real piece of crap!” Similarly, when I hear “Motion Picture,” I tend think “boring old movie.”

If something must be advertised on the cover, I suggest “see the film adaptation, now in theaters.” It’s contemporary and to the point.

A Day in the Life…

I’m writing this post mostly as a test to see if it shows up in my Facebook profile via the Networked Blogs application. I don’t really have a topic, I’m just free-stylin’.

Here’s what I did today…

I was a bit stressed out this morning…I had some residue from a busy day at work yesterday. I was able to go running this morning (I ran 2.5 miles…I’m working up to run a 5K in March, a 10K in June and a half marathon in September) and then went to Starbucks to get a Hazelnut Latte. Afterwards I felt better. My wife and I had some business to attend to, and we were able to get in a Valentines Day lunch at Akai Hana (Love the spicy scallop roll!) I then came home and took a nap. Dinner this evening was a trip through the KFC drive-thru (it’s been years since I’ve eaten there) After the kids were in bed, my wife went over to a neighbors house to chat with her friend. I’m here getting ready for bed and goofing on my computer.

Congratulations! You made it to the end of this post without nodding off or clicking to something else!

More interesting content to follow, I assure you.

The Laughing Skull

While stopped at an intersection on the way home from work, I noticed that the car in front of me had a silver laughing skull sticker displayed prominently on the trunk. Now, I’m not judging. People should have the freedom to display whatever they want on their cars. But I still wonder why people do this. What is this person trying to promote? Is he trying to inform me that he is a fan of the undead? Is he trying to inform me that he himself is scary? Is this some sort of tattoo reference?

Laughing skulls and the like I think serve to assuage our fear of death. If the skull was actually dead, then it would not be laughing. There seems to be a level of reassurance, likely in a person with no strong religious convictions, that there is an afterlife. It is likely that most would be truly frightened by the prospect that death marks the end of our existence.

I knew someone once that was a horror film enthusiast and spent a great deal of their time and energy immersed in this world. This all changed unfortunately when a close family member was the victim of an untimely death. Here the worlds of fantasy and reality collided. This person was shaken not only by the death, but also by the loss of identity when they could no longer watch horror films.

Existential angst is a normal part of life. It is, in my opinion, the root cause of all religion, philosophy and science. Because our mortality does not at some level make sense, we strive for understanding.

Flood

Today there was a flood in the building that I work in. Apparently, a fire hose broke on the second floor. I work on the third floor, and was not directly affected. It was really interesting to see places and rooms that I know and have worked in for 13 years with two inches of water on the floor. And of course, the water soaked through the ceiling and into the lobby and offices on the first floor creating a fine mess.

No one was hurt. Everything will be cleaned up. None of my stuff got wet. I offered help, but legions of maintenance workers from the four corners of the campus descended on our building.

This all allowed me the opportunity to be a casual observer of these events.

First of all, the water had a stale odor. I assume that the water in the fire hose lines are the same as the water fountains and sinks. Maybe this was due to the massive quantity of water with a higher net cumulative amount impurities for my nose to detect. I’m sure that over the next few days and weeks, the smell will only get worse.

It was also interesting to stand next to the elevators and hear the gushing of water down the elevator shaft. I wish I could have opened the doors to see it running. There was also the loud hum of the vacuums being used to suck up the water.

There were tons of people gathered around. Several maintenance workers were vacuuming, while several supervisors talked on their cell phones. There were also hordes of security officers staked out to keep out anyone who was not supposed to be there. (being somewhere where other people are not allowed to be always makes you feel special!)

There were stacks of soaked through towels and blankets thrown into strategic positions to act as makeshift dams. Some places this worked, some it didn’t. In one of the first floor office areas, the ceiling collapsed, and there were scattered bits of wet ceiling tiles and debris littering the floor. All of the offices had plastic hastily thrown over desks and computers.

The coolest part had to be the stairwell waterfall. Water was trickling down in an oddly out of context peaceful way. I wish that I had  video camera to film this. It made me think of the movie Titanic.

I’m sure there will be lots of damage caused by this incident, and there will be a lot of hard work to clean it up. I’m not making light of any of this. It’s nice to be able to revel in the nuances and details of some thing out of the ordinary. As I watched, I felt a sense of truly living in the moment.

So there is a down side to e-books

I have loved my Amazon Kindle since receiving it on my birthday last summer.

It is so nice to have the things that I’m reading very easily accessible and in one place. I also like to think that I am being environmentally friendly by not cluttering up my house with books. The best feature however is the Wispernet. This is like a cell phone network that allows you to browse and purchase books from Amazon without hooking into a computer or finding wi-fi. It is very easy to use.

But…

Last night i settled into to my comfy chair and started to read the book Death From the Skies (see my previous post “We Are Made of Star Stuff“) All of the sudden, I got an error screen. I found that I was also unable to open any of my other books. Grrrr!!

I called the Amazon Kindle support line, and they were extremely helpful. Because of the wispernet, he was able to troubleshoot from his end. After all was said and done, we discovered that the Death From the Skies book had corrupted data that in turn corrupted all of my other books. The solution was to reset the Kindle and re-download all of my books. This process was very easy also, but I was not able to re-download the book that I was reading. Grrrr!!

Now one thing that I can say about the paper and glue variety of book is that I have never had one crash and erase all of my other books. It also makes me realize that our world is becoming more virtual. Consider that if for some reason, natural or otherwise, our power grid goes down, then I will not have access to my kindle library.

Note to self: if you want to own a copy of a book on how to survive the apocalypse, don’t buy it with your kindle. Get a hard copy!

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Computer Parts

Photo by D a r i n k a* a Flickr.com user

Here’s a story that I heard from someone at work that she swears is true.

There was a man who lived in an apartment building who needed to go out of town for his work. He had a pet dog, and his elderly neighbor would watch it while he was away.

One day when the neighbor went to check the dog, she was horrified to find that it had died.

She was not sure what to do, so she called her friend down the street. The friend said that she wasn’t sure what to do either, but if she took the body to the vets office, they would know how to dispose of it.

She hung up the phone, and looked around for a way to carry the dog. An old suitcase that she found in the closet seemed to be the answer. She put the dog in, and struggled to carry it to the bus stop (she didn’t have a car.) As she approached the bus stop, a young man saw her struggling and asked what she had in the suitcase. She quickly replied, “computer parts.”

When the bus came, the young man offered to lift the suitcase onto the bus for her as they both got on. At the next stop, the young man ran down the aisle, grabbed the suitcase and bolted off the bus and down the street.

She chuckled to herself, and never saw him again.