Deep Something

• TV Pitchman Billy Mays was found dead in his home here in Tampa this morning according to TBO.com #
• Slow quiet weekend is over. On vacation this week, but lots of personal chores to get done. #
• Working on some design changes to http://deep.mastersfamily.org #
• Looks like lots of rain in Tampa today, but coming in very short spurts. Gonna clean the office today. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

From yesterday, we’ve got a “pig” traffic tie up out in Pasco County, and today we’ve got rain, rain, and more rain, and do you know what one calls 1,000 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean?

That’s right, yesterday morning during rush hour there was a big traffic backup at a big intersection over in Pasco County. Apparently there was a dead pig in the middle of the intersection blocking things up. I have been unable to get any more information about this one.

Yesterday and today we’ve had a ton of rain, and while it’s quiet now, the radar seems to show that we are going to get more. I’ve had to pump water out of the pool a couple times. We’ve needed some rain, but be careful what you wish for. We really got it, and it has come in downpours when it rains. I had to drive up to the north side of town to run some errands, and that meant making my way through several areas where the streets get very flooded.

In Tarpon Springs a police officer has resigned amid allegations that he slashed the tires on a homeless person’s bicycles. Apparently he was mad because the homeless addressed several times with racial epithets (reportedly the “n” word) over and over after he arrested the homeless person on a trespassing charge.

Tampa Tribune File Photo

So, the answer to the lawyer question above (What does one call 1,000 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean?) is “a good start.” A couple of months ago a thug named Richard McTear was arrested for allegedly throwing his teenage girlfriend’s baby on the concrete floor in her apartment, the tossing the baby from a car window out on the interstate. The baby died. Bedwell, the baby’s mother, is herself receiving services from DCF. She had problems with McTear, and had the Sheriff’s Department close a case against him, and DCF lower their concern level after she promised to seek a court order to keep McTear away. She didn’t, so now she is, big surprise, suing everyone in sight, including DCF and Sheriff’s Office.

But her money-grubbing attorney’s are also suing…wait for it…the apartment managers where she lived, because they supposedly didn’t provide enough security to keep this from happening.

I’m taking this week, so today I gave myself a little time with my hobby, Deep Something. If you’ve watched the stream, you noticed a number of posts sort of catching up on some movie reviews, and I still have a couple to do. I also incorporated some new functions into the front facing parts of the blog.

To start with, we can now keep the featured posts “featured” for a little longer. We’ve added a java script “slider” that will scroll through the four most recent posts to the featured category. This took some work, and I had to learn a little more about programming, as I wanted to plugin into the scrolling plugin. This captures the first image attached to the post and automatically converts it to a thumbnail and displays it in the featured area. I think it’s kind of cool.

I also added a Social Stream page which catalogs all my social site activity such as Twitter and Facebook. Why, I don’t know…mainly because there was an intriguing plugin that does that, so I decided to play around with it.

I’ve also cleaned up the side bars a bit using an according tabbed widget plugin. I hope you like what we’ve done.

It’s pretty hard to get over last week. Governor Sandford in S.C. taking off for a week to play with his girl friend in Argentina. Then we have the death of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and here in Tampa Oxiclean sales person extrodanaire Billy Mays, and then Sunday night, the 51 year old former director of the Florida Aquarium.

I guess that Mark Sanford was probably a bit glad for the rapture that apparently took place at the end of the week. It certainly helped get him off the front pages. I have always argued that these little sexual piccadelos shouldn’t be such a big deal, but when it’s one politics biggest “family values” guys, they deserve all the criticism they get and more. Sanford is also one of the guys who voted to impeach Bill Clinton for his BJ in the Oval Office, but now that Mark’s been caught leaving the State unattended to go spend nearly a week with his girl friend, he’s not about to step down. And Rush Limbaugh (I swear this is true) has found a way to blame it on the Obama Administration, and to proclaim that we need hypocrisy.

I’ve felt sorry for Ed McMahon these last few years. He always struck me as a class act, and was certainly the perfect foil for Johnny Carson for those many years. He’d apparently fallen on hard times financially, and was also in ill health. I hope he knows he brought a lot of joy to a lot of people over the years.

There’s no doubt that Farah Fawcett was a pop icon of her time. I don’t think there was a teenage boy in America in the 70’s who didn’t have that poster on his wall. Fawcett showed a lot of class too, especially in these last years as she invited everyone to journey with her on her fight against cancer. I think she fought the good fight, but in the end, it finally got her.

And the of course, Jacko. What a story he was always. Whatever you think of what he became in the last years, he stood pop music on it’s head and set the standard for music videos. The guy had talent, both as a singer and as an entertainer. Unfortunately, during these last years, he spent more time being a star than an entertainer, surrounded himself with the wrong people, and has now paid the price. The indication from the coroner’s office is that he was emaciated with injection marks all over himself. I think all his attempts to avoid pain and sickness, rather protecting him, led to his early death.

Who doesn’t know Billy Mays. I guess he was to “As Seen on TV” as Jackson was to pop music. The guy spent his life selling, and he was good at it. I actually kind of liked watching the new Discovery show, Pitchmen. It was interesting to see what went on behind the scenes. I’m sitting here reading some news Sunday afternoon, and can’t believe I see his death announced on TBO.com. Like Jackson and me, Mays was only 50, but according to the preliminary autopsy report, he had heart disease. You’d never know to see him. I guess he didn’t know it either.

And today, I read about a lesser known personality who died at age 51. Jeff Swanagan was the director of the Florida Aquarium in the late ’90s. He went on to start the Florida Aquarium, and had recently moved to Cleveland to be the Executive Director of the Cleveland Zoo.

So what a week it was. I’ll try to write more about Sanford and Jacko later. I have some thoughts on both of them.

An examination of the unintended consequences of the Iraqi war with a focus on events at Abu Ghraib prison which began to appear in global media in 2004. The prison quickly became notorious for the shocking photos of the abuse and torture of terror suspects by military men and women. Ultimately, it is the story of soldiers who believed they were defending democracy but found themselves plunged into an unimagined nightmare.

Genres: Documentary; Running Time: 1 hr. 56 min.; Release Date: April 25th, 2008 (limited); MPAA Rating: R for disturbing images and content involving torture and graphic nudity, and for language.

Starring: Joshua Feinman, Zhubin Rahbar, Merry Grissom, Janis Karpinski, Chris Bradley

Directed by: Errol Morris

Morris has covered some interesting and weird subjects. I hoped that Morris would explore the total human aspect of Abu Ghraib, the focus of the file,  and do a really good job of delivering this part of it.

Unfortunately what Morris produces is a film that is solid but not as remarkable as the subject deserves. There are films that do it better. Taxi to the Dark Side comes to mind specifically because it uses the prison as its starting point before following the smell upwards and outwards to paint a much bigger picture of failure and things that are impacting beyond specific acts of torture.

The early signs are good because I was surprised to see several of the main names/faces that I knew from the news coverage of the scandal and thus this was going to be the story from those involved firsthand. This was a gamble in a way because the problem with the aftermath of Abu Ghraib was that it was only the “little people” that got the spotlight and nobody else. By focusing on them, Morris needed to get a lot from them or else his film would end up the same way.

He does this to a point as they discuss in detail what they did and what they saw, and it does still have the power to shock and depress. In some regards the anger described makes the violence a little understandable but what I was shocked by was the sheer banality and boredom-inspired viciousness of it all. Everyone is a bit defensive and Morris doesn’t ever manage to draw much emotion from them in the telling - factually the material is engaging but Morris never really gets beyond that. While “Taxi to the Dark Side” moved up the chain of command, Morris needed to move into his interviewees’ soul - something he doesn’t manage to do.

The second failing of the film is the overuse of “recreated” scenes and asides. With so much shocking reality to discuss and so many real images, some of the recreations are out of place. I’m not talking about the creative sequences that Morris uses as a bed for dialogue (eg a cellblock full of shredded paper, the letters written back to a partner in the US) but rather the recreations and stuff “around” the pictures. It was unnecessary and distracted from what as real and powerful enough.

The film still works as a good summary of events within Abu Ghraib but it is hard to get excited about it since so much of it feels familiar. The tight focus itself is not an issue but it is when Morris cannot manage to produce searing questions, a bigger picture or intimate soul-searching it doesn’t ever do anything that makes it standout in a crowded marketplace.

Through most of this, I have been very sympathetic to the field soldiers who took the brunt of this. It was clear that most of the ones interviewed here were doing their best (a la Dick Cheney) to dimish what they did. I remained convinced that many of them were used as scapegoats, but Lynndie England, Charles Graner, and Megan Ambuhl did nothing to redeem themselves. In fact, in my eyes, they did much to prove the case against themselves. That does not mean I think everyone who should have been punished was…it simply means these three were clearly at fault here.

Two days before his wedding, Doug and his three friends drive to Las Vegas for a blow-out bachelor party they’ll never forget. But, in fact, when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning, they can’t remember a thing. For some reason, they find a tiger in the bathroom and a six-month-old baby in the closet of their suite at Caesars Palace. The one thing they can’t find is Doug. With no clue as to what transpired and little time to spare, the trio must retrace their hazy steps and all their bad decisions in order to figure out where things went wrong and hopefully get Doug back to L.A. in time to walk down the aisle.

Genres: Comedy; Running Time: 1 hr. 39 min.; Release Date: June 5th, 2009 (wide); MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, sexual content including nudity, and some drug material.

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, Justin Bartha

Directed by: Todd Phillips

We watched this weekend before last, and I have to say, it was pretty funny. I was frankly expecting “stupid funny,” but this was pretty smart slap stick stuff with lots of laugh out loud moments.The movie centers around four immature adults dumbfounded by the seemingly unexplainable result of a wild Vegas night catalyzed by the foursome’s out of control bachelor party. Set the day before one of the principle character’s wedding, the film is primarily seen through eyes of Doug (the groom-to-be), Alan (the lovable moron), Stu (the hopeless one), and Phil (the stud, and in many ways the leader of the pack). The director of Old School does not shy away from shock humor but embraces it, while gradually building confidence and self discovery within the characters.

Overall, the film triumphs through curiosity and chemistry. Just like the main characters, we are eager to find out what happens, or what DID happen. At the same time, the strong relationship developed by the characters makes the viewer realize how much he/she cares about what ultimately happens to them. Chemistry is the secret to a good comedy; it is about time somebody shows this understanding.

I don’t want to reveal too much, but let me tell you this: everything does get explained in the end (except for the chicken aimlessly walking around in the hotel room, but I mean, it’s a chicken). All of the actors succeeded in their roles admirably, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see these guys in more lead roles. Ed Helms hasn’t made me laugh this hard since The Daily Show. Seriously guys. Go watch this movie, you won’t be disappointed.

A widowed Brooklyn book-keeper is torn between her fiancé and his brother.

Directed by
Norman Jewison

Genres
Comedy, Romance, Drama

Cast
Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello, Julie Bovasso, John Mahoney, Louis Guss, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Anita Gillette, Leonardo Cimino, Paula Trueman, Nada Despotovich, Joe Grifasi, Gina DeAngeles

DVD

This is probably my favorite movie of all time. Loretta Castorini, a Brooklyn bookkeeper in her late 30s whose husband died several years earlier in a bus accident, decides it’s time to get married again. So she accepts the proposal of a nice, middle-aged fellow named Johnny Cammareri. Loretta is convinced her first marriage was cursed because she and her husband had gotten married at City Hall; this time, she’s determined to do things right, even as she admits to her mother, Rose, that she’s not really in love with Johnny. (To which Rose replies: “Good. When you love them, they drive you crazy, ’cause they know they can.” Rose speaks from rueful experience; she suspects, with good reason, that her husband, Cosmo, is cheating on her.) Loretta is convinced that marrying Johnny is the safe and sure thing to do - until she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, who tends the ovens in a neighborhood bakery. Loretta discovers that in startling contrast to the pleasant, mild-mannered Johnny, Ronny is moody and passionate; what follows are complications worthy of a comic opera.

‘Moonstruck’ is a love story. There is not one romance, there are at least three, but they all have to do with the same family. Loretta’s family. Loretta (Cher) is about to marry Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello). She doesn’t love him, but he is sweet and good man. When he leaves to visit his dying mother in Italy Loretta meets Johnny’s brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage). He and Johnny haven’t spoken each other in five years and Loretta wants to invite him to the wedding. Of course they fall instantly for each other.

How this story and love stories of Loretta’s parents and uncle and aunt develop is something you simply have to see for yourself. Every seen is a delight to watch, with Cher as the bright star in the middle of everything. She won and really deserved the Oscar that year. Cage is pretty good, and goofy as well, and Olympia Dukakis as Loretta’s mother and Vincent Gardenia as her father are terrific. This movie is funny, charming and therefore highly enjoyable.

Cher and Olympia Ducacus are outstanding in their parts. I don’t like Nicholas Cage, but even he was great in this movie.

• Outside chores today to get ready for a niece’s birthday party tomorrow. Oh fun. #
• Busy day, but I’ve got a proposal off my desk, and most of a statement of work done. Now to work on a survey thingy for the telemareter. #
• Maybe some rain today, but mostly still just hot. Lot’s accomplished yesterday, but will be busy today too. #
• Thunderstorms rolling through. Lots of rain, and the power was out for a while. Thank heaven for the UPS. Almost had to start the Generator. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

We had a big birthday party here Sunday afternoon as Dala, Lay’s niece turns three years old. She loves to swim and always throws a fit when it’s time to go home. She learned to jump off the side of the pool, and doggy paddle around with her little tube.

Click the photo to see the set.

• Typical Saturday. Pay Bills, clean house, run errands. At least I got the grass cut yesterday. It’s blazing hot today. #
• Well, Monday morning and it’s off to the races. I have a lot to get done today. Let’s hope I can keep up. #
• Just not getting as much done today as I need to. Can’t concentrate, and waiting on others for stuff. #
• Calling DOJ to ask the value they place on civil rights, given their argument that DOMA is Constitutional because it saves taxpayers money. #
• Wow, it was a crazy day. Spent mostly in St. Pete and Largo, but work was piling up back here in the office. Late last night, late tonight. #
• Sounds as if parts of my hometown got really smashed by a tornado. My Mom and her place are OK though. #
• This has been a long rough week, and I’m glad it is Friday. Of course we’re hosting a birthday party for a three year old Sunday. No rest. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

What now appears to have maybe two tornados pounded my hometown of Kings Mountain Tuesday evening. West Kings Mountain out through Bethlehem and Oak Grove communities seem to have been hit the hardest.

Some Kings Mountain friends I follow on facebook experienced damage from having windows blown out to golf ball sized hail. My mom has called and there are people I know (including my sister’s in-laws) have trees over on their roofs. Mom rode around a little today out through Bethlehem community and talked yards full of down trees and homes of people I know with their windows all blown out.

Mom was unable to get one friends house because the road was blocked, and I even saw one report where Interstate 85 was closed at some point because of tree across the interstate.

Here’s a video from one of the local TV stations, but it doesn’t really capture the scale of the damage as I’m starting to understand it.

Fortunately, Mom only had a few limbs down in her yard, as the tornado, reportedly an EF 1 storm (winds of 86 - 100mph) seemed to stay further to the west and south. However, it reportedly cut a 16 mile long path.

It’s a bad time there, as a lot of people in that area are out of work.