Bittermen, Controversy, Oz and Jack Johnson.

Yay! I survived Valentine's Day relatively unscathed!

Now, I'm not one of those bittermen that rail on the holiday for being a vapid, commercial tool of manipulation; I'm all for love and smooches, eh. If people want to get all mushy and snuggle and exchange gifts, I say, go for it! You have my envy. Hey, don't get me wrong, I am a bitterman in many other ways... just not about Valentine's Day. Still, I expected it to be dismal this year, and it wasn't. It was very neutral - which is actually a big, unexpected, pleasant surprise. Vive l'amour!

I won't go into detail... I have to be careful what I write in here now, ever since that teacher got suspended for complaining in her little blog about her students, coworkers and group of district clowns that she is associated with. She didn't name anyone, of course, or even say the name of the school she works for. Apparently, she usually blogs about food-related interests to the half-dozen or so friends and family that occasionally reads her rambling. But a couple times, she blogged about her school, and someone turned her in to the Thought Police.

Imagine! Someone getting mixed up in a controversy for writing opinions in her little corner of the world, being skimmed by a handful of readers! Soft, little words, spoken in the dark, for the amusement of a few fellow travelers, to brighten their day a bit. Bitten! Forced to answer for herself! Taken to task! Made a public spectacle, and an example! Oh, the horror!

:D

I'm just glad that's never happened to me. Twice.

So, lately I've resisted the urge to buy more games I'll never play. Are you proud of me? I'm finally showing a modicum of common sense! It's about time, eh!? Well, it hasn't spread to other areas of my life just yet. I bought a couple more books to add to my large Shelf Of Books I May Never Ultimately End Up Reading. I bought a copy of The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie, and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin.

Here, let me shamelessly post the pictures of their covers, in a vain attempt to add filler to tonight's post!

Ooh! Nice and bloody!

Ooh! Nice and... uh... castley!

I made the command decision to buy the Kindle editions of both, so the only dust they will be collecting is virtual dust. On the one hand, it will be nice to take them along with me everywhere, in case I wanna read'ems. On the other hand, I can't loan them out to anyone, and, sadly, I won't be able to mail them to one of my virtual pals (ahem... Logan!... ahem), like I have done in the past. Meh, you gotta take the good with the bad, I guess.

I've read good things about both books, so they are added to my collection!

OMG, they're making a sequel to The Wizard of Oz! Look!

OK, I'm kidding. Sorry for the false alarm. That's what happens when I have a funny picture in my archive, and no reason to post it. But share it, I must! It's what I live for!

Actually, this next part is true. I recall reading a recent article about talk of remaking Wizard of Oz, shooting the exact same script that the original was shot from, and instead of going from black-n-white to color when Dorothy enters Oz, they'll go from 2D to 3D. Then back to 2D again at the end. Not sure what to make of that, actually. I see the logic in the 2D/3D thing, but to not update the script at all? That doesn't make sense.

They should let George Lucas direct it. Wait, hear me out here! The biggest disaster in reference to those gawd-awful Star Wars prequels was by far the script. You can't really fault the actors for their ridiculously bad performances (except Hayden perhaps), since, as I like to say, "a gourmet chef can only do so much with baloney." The scripts were ridiculous. However, if they are, in fact, going to run with the original script, that problem is solved.

Plus, Lucasfilm has the technology and the resources to potentially make it as big a spectacle as it will need to be, and the dough to hire the big names it will no doubt need in the cast. But the biggest selling point for letting Lucas do the remake is the fact that, as was recently revealed, for the past few years, he has been buying up the rights to the images of dead hollywood actors, so he can use kick-butt CGI tech to bring dead actors back to life, so to speak, and cast them in movies. So he can bring back Judy Garland, if he wanted. Or heck, cast Marilyn Monroe or even use Bette Davis as the wicked witch. Think of the cameos!

Of course, that brings us one step closer to every film actor's nightmare: the time when they'll no longer be needed. When computers will be so powerful and sophisticated that they will be able to generate artificial performances that are not only believable, but Oscar-worthy.

This is my current Favorite Song



So, I've been watching streamed content each night on my iPad, using the NetFlix app. Tons of cool, if you ask me. I watched a Ken Burns documentary on the rise and fall of the first ever black heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson, called Unforgivable Blackness. Lots of great archival footage from back in the day - he became champion in 1908. Man, am I ignorant about my own country's history. Society was SOOO friggin openly racist back in the day, it is mind-boggling. What a shame. I mean that.

Anyway, he was so unbelievably dominant, and such a strong personality, I had no clue. He absolutely demolished everyone he faced, and always with a big smile. He'd hold people up, and go easy on them, just to make the fight last longer, so the crowd would feel they'd gotten their money's worth. Anyway, that's one thing I love about all of the content available to watch streamed on Netflix. I learn a lot, and I'm entertained at the same time. Ken Burns always does quality stuff. If you ever get a chance to watch this doc about Jack Johnson, I highly recommend it.

In fact, let me shamelessly post a picture of Jack Johnson, in another vain attempt to add filler to tonight's post!

It's hard to get an appreciation for his size in pictures of just him... he was big, strong, and intelligent.

That's how most of his opponents ended up...

OK, one picture of a flying beagle, and I'm done for the night.

Until we meet again, my friends! (Did you notice how optimistic I was in pluralizing "friend" there? That means I'm assuming more than one of you will actually read this post!)

Dave the Goof