Get Low

I don't have much to post today except that the Presidential race this year may be one of the dirtiest we've ever seen. I'm already shocked and surprised at the lies and acid that are being slung about by both parties. I'd like to reiterate that I think lying in political ads and speeches should be illegal and the party that is found guilty of it should be automatically disqualified from the race.

And I am so tired of only hearing the far right and far left talk. We need moderation, we need consensus, and we need to work together to get America back on track. Why is it when my educated friends from the far left and right get together, we can agree on middle ground and reach consensus on most every issue, yet the country's official politicians can't do that to save their lives?

Protopage

Originally, I used Yahoo! as my home page. However, I never liked how everything sort of got clumped together with ads and other things that just made it seem overly cluttered and without any sort of purpose. When Google released iGoogle, I switched to that because I could finally create tabs of information, separate out things I wanted to see, and keep some sanity on my home page.

Google recently announced that they are doing away with iGoogle in November of 2013. At first I was upset by this, as I had used iGoogle for a number of years as my home page and it displayed information in a way that made sense to me. I had a lot of control over the display and how I saw and interacted with the data I wanted. But, now, I'm thanking them for making this decision, as it has turned me onto Protopage.

My wife sent me a link to an article that gave the pros and cons of both NetVibes and Protopage as good iGoogle replacements. After reading the article, I decided to try Protopage and see if I could recreate what I had in iGoogle quickly and easily. If I could not, or didn't like how it worked or what I had when I was done, I was going to move on and try NetVibes. However, I was able to easily recreate every tab I had in iGoogle with more color choices, more column choices, and more freedom of where and how I placed the widgets and gadgets of information. I was able to recreate all but two of the widget I had in iGoogle, and those two are really just "would be nice" ones (seeing my stock portfolio via Google's own stock ticker widget and the Dailyhoroscope.com widget that I can't seem to find a replacement for in Protopage... yet). Protopage allowed me even greater freedom.

I now have some widgets spread over multiple columns. I have at least four columns on each tab, and five on a couple (iGoogle couldn't do more than four, and had best results for three or fewer columns). There is even an option for manual placement anywhere on the page! I have color themes for each tab so that I can tell at a glance which one I'm on, and I am actually now using more widgets and gadgets than before, as I found it so easy to add them. There is a search tool at the top right that I customized to the things I most often search (Google, IMDb, Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Yahoo), and there are literally about 100 more I could turn on if I wanted to -- but I don't see a reason to clutter my search area up with those at this time.

In deciding to do away with iGoogle, Google said they felt there were plenty of other options available to users. Thanks to their decision, I have found one that, for me, works as well or better than their's. Thank you, Google!

ADDENDUM (1/4/2013)
Protopage has added a Yahoo Stock Ticker that you can put on your page. It is not complete and it only does certain stocks, but it is a start. Click Add Widgets and look in the Add a Widget section. There will be a "Stock Ticker" option.

The Dark Knight Rises

* There is really no way to discuss this without SPOILERS. *

After watching Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I was wowed. I left the theater wanting to discuss the movies and constantly thinking about scenes and story elements. Batman Begins introduced Batman in a way  that showed you exactly who Batman/Bruce Wayne was and what drove him. That opening scene in TDK introduced the Joker in exactly the right way to show who he was, what he was about, and how cold, calculating, and insane he was. The rest of the movie simply built on that.

TDKR is a different animal. The opening scene presents Bane, but doesn't really show you what he is all about. In contrast, although it is very poorly edited, the intro of Catwoman was excellent at showing you the character and what she was all about, reminiscent of the Joker scene from the previous movie. You know all you need to from her scenes, and understand her, without a lot of dialog getting in the way. Her actions and reactions show you.

The entire first hour of TDKR is mostly people talking about what has happened, what's going on, and what will happen, rather than showing the audience. It has some editing and a lot of sound issues, which I found unusual for a Nolan production. After watching it, as my wife and I discussed it afterward, I immediately came up with a way to show the same things and take about 20-25 minutes instead of an hour to do so. I'm sure most viewers can do so.

Once you get beyond that first hour or so, the movie starts picking up. The second act starts bringing together all of the disparate aspects of the story, as John Blake becomes a detective and works with Gordon, you see Catwoman working with both Batman and the bad guys trying to get information, and you watch as Bane's plans start to bear fruit. This section, combined with the long opening first act, really emphasizes that more story is being told than is needed:

• The entire Daggett subplot is not needed. He was only used to bring Bane to Gotham and then is killed off by Bane when he tries to exert pressure on the villain. Bane is smart enough and brazen enough that a better opening could have been written to bring him to Gotham without Daggett. This would have saved 10 or 15 minutes of film time.
• With the slow opening, Bruce deciding to suit up and go after Bane seems a bit too sudden. He doesn't listen to the advice of Alfred, who has never steered him wrong, and leads to a break with his manservant (which is out of character for Alfred). When Bane defeats him, it is anticlimactic because you know it is too soon in the story. Again, rewriting and redoing the opening Act would allow you to get to this sooner, and with more tension, and would allow you to break the Bat in a more organic way for his re-dedication to being Batman. The flow would be better in the film.

The second half of the second act and all of the third act are where the action and the tension reside. It is well done, taut, and action-packed. Batman actually goes after Bane with some smarts and detective work, rather than blindly rushing ahead. During this section, you finally learn that Miranda is really Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ras (from the first film), and is controlling Bane. And this isn't needed at all. Bane is a strong enough, interesting enough, and intelligent enough character that he could have planned and executed the entire plot without this needed "reveal" and extra villain. Even though Marion Cotillard does an excellent job with her role, she could have been written out (saving a good 30 minutes of film time) and the film would be better, tighter, and more exciting.

With so many people knowing who Batman was, it was inevitable that they had to "kill off" Batman. It is not the end of Bruce Wayne, or Batman, as revealed in the final scenes before the credits. How they do it feels alright and fairly organic to the story.

The breakout star for the movie is Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. She hits all the right notes, is excellent and believable in the role, and shows many facets and aspects to the character. She does such a good job that she makes Cotillard's Miranda unneeded as a love interest (and eventual twist reveal villain).

Things any viewer should be aware of going into the movie are:

• The bad edits throughout, but in particular in the first act of the film. During Selena Kyle's intro, there are some really bad edits between her scenes and other scenes. There is a scene with Bane at the stock exchange where they enter in daylight, start a program that needs to run for 8 minutes, and when they leave it is night time. Oops.
• There are bad sound issues. Most of the voice soundtrack is so low in comparison to the music and effects track that it is hard to hear people. Bane's mask also obfuscates Tom Hardy's role (both his ability to act and his voice) which, when combined with the sound issues, makes him very hard to understand.
• You just have to get through the first hour. You may find yourself looking at your watch during this time, but you need to pay attention so you understand all of the characters and the stories so that, when they start drawing together, you aren't lost.
• Similar to the "it is not what you say, but what you do that matters" in the first film, this movie sort of beats the audience over the head with the "anyone could be Batman" theme. Take a few of those out and let the audience come to it more organically.

Overall, I was entertained. The story is a good one, there is just more in it than is needed. The 2:44 run-time simply isn't needed; Nolan should have cut Miranda and Daggett from the movie, revised Bane to be the one and only villain, and put more Catwoman in it. This would have achieved a closer to 2 hour film that would be tighter. Blake was a good addition to become the moral center of the film, since Gordon cannot be that in this film. Alfred should not have left, and Michael Caine hits a home run with his scenes.

All in all, this is a good ending to the trilogy. It is about as good as Begins, but nowhere near as good as TDK. The payoff at the end is worth the first hour. I'd give it a solid B (compared to an A- for Begins and a solid A (or even A+) for TDK).

Penn State Fall-Out

The sanctions and penalties applied to Penn State just came out. I completely understand the $60 million penalty, specifically for use to fund anti-molestation and child protection services external to the college. I fully support the four-year Bowl ban; the people involved (and other college personnel at other colleges) need to know that covering up something this heinous is not proper behavior. I even understand the forfeiture of scholarships, as a lack of scholarships greatly impacts their ability to recruit and put out an excellent product, although all that really does is hurt the ability of some 20 student athletes that otherwise could have gone to college from going.

What I don't get is the vacating of all wins from 1998-2011. There were around a dozen coaches each year, each teaching the nearly 100 student athletes how to play football, how to be good athletes, and how to win games. How does one man molesting children (and, apparently, none of those he coached) and other men covering up for him in any way relate to the conduct and success of the students on the field? I agree that there is no more heinous action than child abuse in any form, but the players who worked out, practiced, and played in those game had nothing to do with it -- why would taking away their efforts be somehow an appropriate punishment for Sandusky (in jail, probably for life), Paterno (fired, shamed, and passed away), or the heads of the school (fired and likely won't be able to work in that environment ever again)?

When OJ Simpson was accused of, and found responsible for (in civil court), the deaths of Nicole Simpson Brown and Ron Goldman, there were some who wanted to take away his football accolades (Heisman Trophy, Hall of Fame, rushing titles, etc.). In the end, people rightly agreed that his accomplishments on the field were not negated by something he did years later and off the field.

When it is a possible one-to-one relationship, I can understand vacating wins and accolades. For example:

• Peter Rose betting on his sport and his team, which may have affected the outcome of games, or
• People taking steroids and getting phenomenal results that affected wins/losses by an individual or a team (Tour de France victories achieved while using PEDs, the many baseball players convicted of steroid use, Olympic athletes who used PEDs, etc.).

Unless someone has information I haven't found in the media about this case, in no way does Sandusky molesting children during his off hours affect the ability of the team to win games on the field. Is it that his coaching ability was so incredible that the team simply could not have won those games without it so, because Sandusky should have been fired and imprisoned long ago for these actions, the entire team could not have won any of those games without him? Even if that is true (he was, reputedly, a very good defensive coordinator), Sandusky retired in 1999, so the vast majority (all but two seasons) of those vacated wins was without him as a coach.

The other harsh penalties are all but killing the football program at PSU. Penn State's athletics will have trouble recovering from these sanctions. And rightly so. I simply do not see or understand the reasoning behind the penalty forcing the school to vacate wins. This makes no sense to me, and simply seems to punish the student athletes, the coaches, the boosters, the many people who were adjunct to the football program (cheerleaders, band, students who worked the concessions, etc.) and does not address the people responsible for, or negligent for, the child molestation. This penalty only harms innocents; sort of like Sandusky himself.

Lies

Both candidates are fabricating half-truths and lies that they think will help get them (re)elected. They are helped by the fact that, it seems, the majority of Americans will not verify the information for themselves, cannot think critically enough to understand the deceptions, and/or refuse to remember the past.

There should be a law that disallows any candidate from using fabricated, questionable, or misrepresented information in any advertisement or campaign speech. Basically, if it is not in the voting record, if it is not published, or if the inferences drawn from the information cannot be backed up with data, you cannot use it without a severe penalty. Any person or group who solicits an ad or a speech for a candidate, whether or not they have the candidate's endorsement, would also affect the candidate. In order to make this law have teeth, I would say the penalty for doing so is one warning. If it happens again, the penalty is immediate forfeiture of the race, or the office if they win the position.

For example, in a previous election a group allegedly not affiliated with Bush in any way produced a series of attack ads against Kerry. It was fairly quickly proven that those ads were almost entirely fabricated, but the damage was done. In this law, even though they were not affiliated with Bush in any way, the Bush group would get the warning. If another ad was produced "helping" Bush's campaign, the Bush campaign would forfeit the race.

My thinking here is that it causes both campaigns to actively seek out and stop any negative campaign ads by their own party or people associated with them in any way. Further, if a group knew they could potentially cause the candidate they are promoting to lose the race via their attack ads, they would be disinclined to run those ads. It's not a perfect system, but it is better than what we have now.

If the penalty was forfeiture of the race, you can bet that politicians would hire the best and the brightest campaign managers and people to run their campaigns. They would double- and triple-check all ads and statements they were making to ensure any comments about what they have done (if already in office) and what their opponents have or have not done are as accurate as possible.

My thinking with this plan is that it would be easiest to talk about yourself, your goals, and what you plan to do and push for when in office, rather than run a smear campaign against your opponent. And, of course, the side-benefit would be that then, once you had served a term, you could only use those things you actually accomplished while in office, or actually voted for, etc. in your re-election campaign, as to do otherwise would violate the rule (and make you forfeit the race). In other words, campaigns would be primarily positive and about the candidates themselves, rather than negative attack ads designed to destroy the opponent and make people vote for the remaining campaigner by default.

In order to be fair, a campaign ad review board would have to be set up to monitor the campaign speeches and advertisements. The group would have to be fair and impartial, so would likely need a conservative, a liberal, and a moderate member, at the least. It would be to these people that each advertisement and speech would be given. Working somewhat like the Supreme Court, they would review the information and the pertinent facts and determine, by majority, whether the ad or speech violated the rule. If they determined yes, the person's campaign would get one warning. If a second violation occurred, they would immediately forfeit the race (or office). I would make the law have strong teeth in that the warning and then forfeiture is total for all campaigns by that person. In other words, if you run today for President and get one warning, and then you run next election and you have another questionable ad, you are out... the four years between does not matter.

Is my solution harsh? Yes. But the attack ads and negative campaigning are getting so extreme that I think something harsh is the only way to solve the problem. Let's take back control of the government any way we can. Remember, people shouldn't fear the government, government should fear the people.

Next up, a plan to solve the PAC, super-PAC, and spending issues with campaigns.

ENT Response

Update:

Just heard back from the office. I can have my CT/X-ray scan at one hospital on July 17th and my hearing test and other stuff on August 8th at another hospital. They couldn't coordinate everything for the same day without pushing it well into August. Even still, I'll have to put up with the vomiting for at least almost another month, until I see the doctor for the review on August 8. *sigh
_______________

Three weeks ago today I had my first appointment with my new Ear, Nose, Throat (ENT) doctor for my morning vomiting issues. When I sat down, he read off the referral from my GP which pretty much said, "Patient is complaining of throat irritation."

With my medical history, all the years of chronic issues, and with all that I explained to my GP when asking for that referral, I'm more than a little shocked that he did not include more than that in the referral. Needless to say, that did not start out the appointment on a good footing.

First, I explained the sensations I have in the morning that lead to the gag reflex kicking in and causing me to vomit or dry heave (or have to fight it off, rarely successfully). I then told him about the four medications I am currently taking, which led to explaining the chronic conditions I have, which led to explaining the hiatal hernia I have, which led to the multiple endoscopies I've had, which led to the ulcer in my throat I had.

My doctor said, "Well, that's one I haven't heard before" when I described the initial problem and, by the end, was saying, "Jeepers" under his breath.

In the end, he decided to schedule me for X-rays of my nasal passages, some sort of scoping of my throat and nasal passages, a hearing test (I've had ringing in my ears for decades), and a consultation. The office was going to do its best to schedule time for all of these on the same day, at the Regional hospital, so that I could come in and get everything done at once.

Needless to say, he had a full page of notes scribbled out by the time we were done. He went back to the original referral, reread it out loud, and then gave me a sigh and an eye roll. He mentioned something about possibly calling my GP and suggesting that one line wasn't really enough.

In the three weeks since that appointment, I have continued to have the issues. This week, for example, I have not been able to overcome the gag reflex and have painfully thrown up every day starting Sunday through this morning. Pretty much every time now I am seeing either blood or dark globs in my sputum when I throw up. I am certain this is not a good sign.

Since I haven't heard back from the doctor's office yet, I called and left a message (their answering machine kicked in when I called) for them asking where my appointment coordination stands. I guess telling them I'm throwing up every day wasn't enough to light a fire under them to get this moving. I will be explicit when they call back (or if I get ahold of him first).

I already have: problems with gum recession, my tooth enamel, my throat, and headaches. Each of those issues is getting worse with nearly daily throwing up, as the acids are hurting my throat worse, eating away at the enamel on my teeth, causing worsening gum recession, and the painful way this is whole-body heaving doesn't help my headaches.

Hopefully I will hear back from the ENT soon on the testing appointment. Sometimes I really miss my GP, Gastro, and Arthritis doctors from Southern California, as they knew me well, and would have gotten me in to see an ENT or for further testing within a week or two at the most from lodging my complaint. Here, they usually get you in for tests either after you've died or after whatever was causing issues is cleared up; either way, they can say they didn't find anything and move on. But at least it is "free" (and by "free" I mean paid for with a high income tax and double-digit sales taxes). *sigh

Contract Negotiations

I have been reading many articles from the NBA and NFL about athletes who are asking for new contracts before the current contracts are done and saying they will not honor contracts to the new city if they are dealt by their existing teams.

I think all professional sports needs to have a standard, CBA-approved system by which a contract may be disputed. Outside of that system, a player should have to honor their contracts. These contracts are legally-binding agreements between the team and the player for services to be rendered by the player to the team.

Here are the steps I would institute in any professional sport in order to minimize this issue and (try to, at least) maximize the value that a player gets for the contract:

1. If a player decides to retire, hold out, or in any other way not play while under a current, valid contract, their contract terms are suspended until such time that they decide to play. At that point, the  original contract kicks back in and they either play for that team and that contract or they go through the CBA-approved dispute process (and are legally bound by the decision made during the process).
2. The dispute process will involve three arbiters who are hired by the sport's management, the sport's player's association, and one outside, neutral party. A majority agreement either positively or negatively will approve or deny the contract issue(s) in cases of a dispute. Once a ruling is made, the dispute is final and both sides agree to honor it.
3. Contracts will be for between one and four years, maximum. Rookie contracts will be for four years and veteran contracts (players who have been in the league a minimum of four seasons) can be as short as one.
• The younger the player, the longer the contract to help maximize the team's value for that player. The older the player the shorter the contract, so the player can try to get the maximum value for their play the longer they play (although both sides, if mutually agreed, can sign longer-term contracts if desired).
4. All contracts will have reasonable positive and negative incentives for both the team to play the player and for the player to play his best in order to maximize the value of the contract.
• I realize this is a tricky one, but I think "reasonable" is the key here. No incentives should be based on a snap count (too easy for the team/coach to decide to sit the player so they do not hit that incentive).
• Some incentives should be roughly equivalent to the "Franchise tag" in football; if you play equivalent to a top 5 player at your position, X incentive kicks in. If you play like a top 15 player at your position, Y incentive kicks in. If you are voted to the Pro Bowl (or equivalent, depending on sport), Z incentive kicks in. (Basically, you should get paid more if you play "above your contract," at least as an inherent increase to your following season's pay if not a bonus to that season.)
• Alternately, if you play in the bottom 5, 10, or 15 of your position, you should maybe be penalized (i.e., the team gets to keep a percentage of the pay for your position, or your salary for the following season goes down a tier, or similar).
5. Create a tiered veteran's minimum scale based on a block of years and/or a percentage increased based on quality of play.
• For example, the year blocks could be 5, 10, 15, and over 15 years. Five years is $250,000 minimum (this would be based partly on the sport, partly on the CBA for that sport, and partly on what the market can bear; consider all the numbers I put here as examples only), 10 is $350,000, 15 is $450,000, and over 15 is $550,000 minimum. However, if you are in the top 50% for you position, it is +10%. If you are top 25%, it is +20%. If you are top 10%, it is +35%. Top 5% would earn an additional +50% on that value (not including other performance incentives).
6. Some incentives could be based on aggregate goals for the position. For example, the sport could determine a baseline average for each position for things like offensive and defensive production and then base some bonuses and penalties on the player being a certain amount or percentage over or under those baseline statistics. Penalties can apply if the player is below those averages.

I'm sure others can come up with other, meaningful, and fair ways in which a team and a player can maximize profits and minimize disputes. It seems to me that highly incentivized contracts and a dispute resolution system that is binding are the first step.

Do you agree or disagree with my hypothesis and (generalized) plan to solve it? If not, how would you do it? Do you have any additions to these rules?

TiVo and Network Troubles

For a few months now, we have been struggling with an odd issue with our home network and Tivo setup. We have a total of five TiVos, but only four are installed and running on the network. Around the beginning of the year, we started noticing that the bedroom TiVo would drop all connections to the other TiVos (but usually not lose the connection to the TiVo emulator on my desktop PC). The other TiVos, meanwhile, could usually still see and get data from that TiVo. It would usually be alright for around 48 hours, then drop to this state, and then sometimes would drop to a state where it couldn't see out and the other networked devices couldn't see in.

What made this very odd is that we have an official TiVo wireless dongle. When plugging this in, the exact same thing would happen: for approximately 48 hours it would be fine, then it would drop the outside looking connections to the other devices but they could still see (and transfer from) this device, with sometimes it dropping completely and no connectivity is allowed.

Over the last month or so, we have been steadily testing every possibility that we could conceive. First, I contacted TiVo; the support rep confirmed what I was saying by logging into the machine and looking at its error logs -- the TiVo would connect for about 48 hours and then drop. All the testing he could do from his end indicated the TiVo was working properly internally. His suggestion was either send it in for testing and fixing or buy a new one. Since buying a new one was actually cheaper, we opted to do that.

We plugged in the new TiVo and, after a few days, it started doing the exact same thing as described above. The "bad" TiVo was moved to another room, plugged in, and has worked steadily ever since without issue. So, it must be the home network, right?

My wife is in IT and she brought home some testing equipment and we tested the wires between the fiber op modem and that TiVo -- everything tested fine (no shorts, nothing to indicate bad wires). We then thought maybe it was a bad switch at our network hub; using different ports and switching with "known good" ports resulted in the same issue after about 48 hours. We have used a total of three different switches, all with the same result. Wireless still had issues.

Finally, we had our entire internet go down. Turns out we had a bad fiber op modem, and the repair guy switched it out. I noted that when he was talking to his helper by phone (the guy who was pinging and testing from the company's side), one of the first things he asked me and something he reiterated later was 'how many devices do you have connected?' Since these devices can, standard, work with upwards of 255 devices, I found this odd and worth remembering. Maybe the company in question (Bell Aliant) manually sets a device limit in the modem?

Since the new modem was installed, things have been faster and more secure online. However, our network issue with that one TiVo has remained. We had a knowledgeable friend come over and fix the downstairs jack for us. Everything tested as working, but when we plugged everything in ... nothing. The light didn't come on in the switch at our network hub and the TiVo didn't even get a DNS or IP from the network. It was not connected.

Another friend had a good idea; bypass the jacks and wires in the network and run an ethernet cable directly from the TiVo in question to the switch downstairs and see if that works. Sure enough, this morning, I did just that. The light on the switch came on very steady and the TiVo grabbed a DNS and IP and is working. It can see all three other TiVos plus my PC without issue. This seems to indicate that it is an issue with the cables or jacks between the switch and the TiVo; the cables continue to test as fine and one jack has been replaced. We may have to replace the other jack to solve this problem (it is in an awkward spot and will not be easy to get at).

So, we wait. If, after about 48 hours, this is still working, then we know somewhat what the problem is and can try fixing it via the jack replacement. Hopefully that solves the problem.

But I'm still left with the question: why does the wireless connection have the exact same issue?

DC New 52 Revisited

When DC Comics decided to do a hard reboot of their comic book universe, the buying public stood up and took notice. Many new and lapsed fans came back to take a look, and many current fans went to the web to complain. I gave my first impressions here.

I initially planned to provide another review after six months, and then again at a year, if I was still reading. It has been 8 months, so I am a bit behind.

Changes

My initial impression was that they did not go far enough, and that still stands. A few titles have been canceled due to poor sales, and new ones issued. The cancelled titles are: Hawk & Dove, Men of War, Mister Terrific, OMAC, Static Shock, and Blackhawks. These cancellations are not very surprising to me, as two of them are war comics (rarely good sellers), and the rest are second-tier and not well-known characters in the pantheon. The new titles to replace them are: Earth 2, World's Finest, Dial H, Batman Incorporated, Ravagers, and GI Combat.

My initial response to the new titles is: didn't you learn from the six you cancelled? GI Combat will sell poorly (another war comic), Ravagers will have to have excellent writing and art to do well enough to keep, Dial H is more of a mini-series title than an ongoing. Batman Incorporated takes a bad idea from the previous universe and brings it into this one; Batman funds a global bunch of Batmen to take on crime around the world. It didn't sell particularly well last time and it won't sell particularly well this time.

The two standouts are Earth 2 and World's Finest. These titles, and Earth 2 in particular, are much more along the lines of what DC Comics should have done with all of the new 52 from the start. These titles are a completely new, fresh, from-scratch retelling of the creation of the Justice Society and introduction of Huntress and Power Girl into the new DC universe. Earth 2 feels completely different yet totally the same. Where the characters come from and how they got their powers is totally new. How they are starting to interact is also fresh. World's Finest is strongly written and has decent art and is interesting in showing the dynamic of these two characters as a team.

I have cancelled Firestorm, Nightwing, and Action Comics due to poor writing, poor editing, and/or boring stories. Nightwing was "gigolo in skin-tight costume screws women and occasionally fights crime," and it just wasn't holding my attention. Action Comic has one of my favorite characters, Superman, but the stories were told poorly, there were many plot holes, the art was childish and inexpressive, and it, too, did not feel like it was going anywhere. Firestorm was just too busy, what with there being more Firestorm-powered characters than normal human beings in the comic.

Titles

These are the titles I was/am getting and a brief impression:

• Action Comics: Bad writing, poor stories, and bad artwork made me cancel this. There are multiple moments where you can look at one panel on a page and the next panel has nothing to do with the previous and the story just skips ahead. Cancelled.
• Animal Man: One of the standouts from the new 52. Tight writing with good direction, decent artwork, and a good feel for what it wants to be (a superhero horror book) and where it wants to go.
• Batman: Good writing and art. As mentioned above, I would have preferred a complete reboot of this title, a cleaning of continuity and history, and a more modern approach to the background and character.
• Captain Atom: One of my favorite characters. DC changed him quite a bit; this is the one case where they may have gone too far. The character is so powerful it isn't really a superhero book any more, and he rarely fights super villains and hasn't interacted with any other heroes. They need to depower him, get him interacting, and improve the artwork on this one. I bet this is firmly on the "cancellation" list for DC, as its sales are pretty low. On the Cusp.
• Detective Comics: Pretty much "Batman, the Second Book." Good story and art keep me buying it, but I can't say for how much longer.
• Earth 2: Excellent. Good story, good art, and what the new 52 should have been from the start. Worth getting, so far. I look forward to each new issue.
• Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men: The problem with this title is DC took an accident that produced one, unique character and made it a virus that anyone could get. There are a dozen or so Firestorms running around in this title and the convoluted intrigue subplot was hard to follow and not very believable. Cancelled.
• Justice League: A solid title. I like what they've done with the characters, I think the art is fine. Some of the stories jump around a lot, and I hated the "suddenly, years later" jump that DC did. They need to take a look at Morrison's run of the mid/late 90s to show how to write these characters and have them interact. Right now, GL is a big jerk, Superman is a blank slate, Flash is "law boy," and Batman is pissed on. Doesn't make a lot of sense, especially after being together as a team this long (after the jump).
• Nightwing: As mentioned before, there just wasn't enough here to keep me reading. I like the character a lot, but was bored with his taking over the Haley Circus and his "Saiko" (Psycho) nemesis plotline and his interaction in Night of Owls and revelation he was supposed to be an Owl. Cancelled.
• The Ray: (Miniseries) With as well-received as this title was, I'm surprised it didn't get picked up for one of the new ongoing titles when DC cancelled some other titles. Good art, good writing, and a good revamp of a character had me reading and enjoying it.
• Superman: I keep getting this one, and hope it improves. Supes is a favorite of mine, but I still don't get the costume. I want to see more from one of the flagship characters. A new writer and artist is coming on board soon, so maybe things will improve. (I keep thinking that Superman and Justice League should be quarterly comics; that way, DC can solicit and choose to publish the best stories for both, rather than trying to come up with ongoing stories each and every month.) On the Cusp.
• Static Shock: I like this character, and he just didn't take off. The writing was horrible, the artwork was horrible, and I stopped getting it after 2 issues (and looking at the third). DC agreed and cancelled it, too.  He should probably join Teen Titans as an ongoing character. Cancelled.
• Teen Titans: Overall impressions are good, but the title jumps around a bit and is uneven. The cross-over with Legion was pretty poor, and the new Ravagers spin-off will likely go nowhere. We need a bit more back-story on some of the characters to start working its way into the title, like Wonder Girl. 
• Wonder Woman: One of the better titles of the New 52. The artwork is hard to take and overly stylish, which I wish they would change, but the amount of change to the character and the current stories are both well done. A bit more clarity on some of the introduced characters, so that readers can start to identify them and who they are in the pantheon, would be nice (I think the smoker is Achilles, but I can't be sure).

Overall

I am likely to continue to cancel titles rather than to add more titles. DC Comics had the rare opportunity to do something really good, unique, and lasting by changing their entire lineup, reinvigorating it, and bring it into the new millennium. Instead, it mostly just reissued new #1s and kept the same stories and characters. For example, as mentioned in my first post on this, Batman was a prime opportunity to really use the movies and today's technology to bring the character forward and make him new while also cleaning up years of convoluted history and back-story for him and the many other characters in Gotham City. Instead, they pretty much kept all of the characters the same and slapped a new #1 on the front cover. The Bat-universe will now have: Batman, Batman: The Dark Knight, Batman: Detective Comics, Batwoman, Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Robin, Batwing, Batman Incorporated, Batman and Robin, Catwoman, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Teen Titans, and Birds of Prey. That's fully 25% of their 52 titles based on one character and his support crew. When you take the four Green Lantern family titles, the four Superman family titles, and the various comics that have some or all of these three characters or their family in them (like Justice League, Teen Titans, etc.) into account, about half of all of DC Comics new titles deal with just three characters and their family members. Way to diversify.

I will likely become a (mostly) lapsed comic book reader again in the near future. The overall changes are not enough, the titles in general are not strong enough, and I'm already seeing similar stories to what I read for almost 30 years. When you couple that with Marvel Comic's soft reboot of their line (coming shortly, as of this writing) and that company's event-driven sales tactic, I can better spend my money elsewhere.

What I may do is buy the comics digitally, after waiting a few months for the title prices to drop. But, more than likely, I will just slowly winnow the list down to a few titles, like Earth 2, Animal Man, and Wonder Woman, that are the best, and cancel all the rest.

More Heaving

As I mentioned before, I have been having problems with vomiting in the morning. This has been going on for some months and the slow process of medical care here means that I finally have my Ear Nose Throat doctor appointment next week.

I mention it here because the vomiting has been slowly getting more violent and painful. This morning, for example, I was walking around collecting the trash when it struck me and struck me hard. Thankfully, I was holding a garbage bag. The pain and effort was such that I collapsed to my knees. The problem comes from having nothing in my stomach but air, mucus, and stomach acids. So, when the air and the mucus in my throat irritate enough to trigger a vomit reaction, all I have to throw up is more air, mucus, and stomach acid. And, since the trigger is air and mucus in my throat, I keep throwing up until the mucus in the throat is moved enough to no longer tickle things.

This whole event leaves me exhausted, feeling bad, sore, and out of sorts. This morning's session was so bad that I started having blood come out. In addition to those other reactionary symptoms, I now have an excruciatingly painful sore throat where the blood comes from. Because I have nothing in my stomach after a night's rest, and because the vomiting reaction is trying to remove something from my throat, my body is heaving much harder than in a normal, regular, flu-induced or bad food-induced vomiting scenario. As my wife can attest, my entire body is tensing and releasing and sometimes it seems like I won't stop (because the tickle remains in the throat and the heaving isn't forcing enough up and out to remove that feeling, or all the air).

I had an endoscopy not too long ago. Other than obvious signs of acid reflux, for which I take medication every day, they saw no other damage. I find this hard to believe with the fact that I have been throwing up (really, dry heaving) for months now, to the point where it is getting bad enough to cause blood.

If I can eat or drink early enough/quickly enough in the morning, the food and drink can wash the discomforting feeling out of my throat and help me to avoid throwing up. However, some morning even that is not tincture, and I throw up anyway (only this time with something in my stomach).

In the end, I hope that my ENT doctor is quality and will take the time to ferret out this issue and resolve it. It makes life much harder when you throw up (one of the most unpleasant things a body can do) nearly every morning to start your day. In addition, I'm hoping he can figure out a way to stop the near constant ringing in my ears I've had for around 25 years now. Boy, wouldn't that be some sort of awesome?

Dreams

Last night's dream was vivid and detailed. I was living in some metropolitan area that was both spread out (like LA) and with a large number of tall buildings (like NY). I was frequently visiting a friend, Sean, in his funky apartment that happened to be made from a former bank vault. It was a very nice apartment, done in a pseudo-70s style, and had the luxury of being the only one in the complex without a neighbor beside, behind, above, or below it. (This apartment has actually appeared in more than one dream; I often re-use people, locations, and things in my dreams. I guess my subconscious is frugal.) Sean was dating/seeing/married to (I never quite got the exact relationship) my sister. Two of my friends, Jay and Lisa, were often found eating breakfast at Sean's place.

Wherever this took place, I was going to school. The school was close enough that I often stopped by Sean's in order to visit, waste time, or eat prior to or after returning from school. On this particular day, it was raining like the rain we experienced after the U2 concert in Montreal, I was running late, and I couldn't find my class. I went to the building it was supposed to be in, but the classes there were all math related; I saw economics, programming, physics, and accounting classes and students. No one knew where my actual English class was, and I had to find it. (Interestingly, this part of the dream was also re-used; I had the similar dream a few months ago and it was located at the same school.)

I finally, soaking wet by this time and shivering, walked back to Sean's and tried to get in so I could call my wife to come pick me up -- I didn't want to stay out in the cold and wet any longer.

I do not go in for Freudian or any other sort of dream interpretation. I think dreams are just your subconscious's way of working on things and, most likely, if you dream about flying you are dreaming about flying and everything that comes with flight. In this case, I think some stresses with work are seeping in (the late, can't find the classroom, etc. parts), but what I am unsure of is why I am mixing in such an odd group of people who don't know each other. And why have I glommed on to the bank vault apartment in a few dreams now? Sean is recently married to someone who does not look or act like my sister. My sister is getting married to someone who does not look or act like Sean. Jay and Lisa know neither Sean nor my sister.

Made for an interesting night's rest, to say the least. What odd, disparate dreams have you had lately?

Adobe Redux

Part 1 is here.

I finally received all of the emails from Adobe needed in order to follow links, get my software, and install it... or so I thought.

This morning, I went to Adobe's Licensing website to download my install files and get the new version of the software on my system. I figured it would be pretty fast, and I could start using FM 9 this morning as I continue my project for the client.

The downloads went smoothly but I noticed on the Serial Numbers page of the website, only FM 10 was shown. I figured that the one serial number must be good for both products and continued with the installation of FM 9. I got to the serial number screen of the installation process and it wouldn't accept what I provided.

I went to Adobe's support site and got stuck in an endless loop of "Start here" and "if this page doesn't answer your questions" links that just took me from one to the other. I finally figured out where the Adobe support call number was, called them, and spoke with a nice woman about the issue.

Initially, she kept asking me questions that, apparently, the answers didn't matter. For example, she asked me if I was on the Licensing site now. Yes. Can you see the licensing for your former product? No. Oh, well, I wouldn't, she said. Er, okay. Why ask me then? Do you plan to continue using the FM 7 license? Probably not, I said. Well, it will still be valid regardless, she answered. Er, okay. Why bring it up then?

I briefly explained the entire FM 10 and a back license to FM 9 issue. I then explained that I was installing FM 9 but the emails said the Licensing website should have my serial numbers and it did not. I was stuck on the serial number entry screen and needed that number so I could complete the installation. She then told me that the reseller who sold me the back license should have provided it. I explained that he was explicit that it would be provided by Adobe via the Licensing website. She put me on hold for a few minutes.

She came back and told me that one of the two emails that Adobe sent me should have the serial number listed for the back license. I opened the two emails and read to her the part where it explicitly states to go the Licensing website to obtain that information. She put me on hold again, for a bit longer.

She returned and told me that with back licenses specifically the customer must call Adobe to obtain the serial number, that it will not show up on the website. I then reread the passage from the emails, explained that not one of the many, many people from both Adobe and the reseller ever explained this to me, and that everyone directed me to the Licensing website. I then asked how I was supposed to know that when the official information provided by Adobe contradicted what she was telling me? She put me on hold for even longer.

When she returned to the call this time, she explained that she went to her manager, explained the situation, and had the manager create a serial number for me. She provided me the working serial number, and then apologized on behalf of the company, the original Adobe rep I dealt with, and the reseller. She agreed with me that the email was unclear and said that she and her manager discussed it and were sending this issue report up the chain of command to see if they couldn't get the email more clearly worded to avoid this problem in the future. She then promised to send me an email containing the information. I thanked her and finished my installation.

When I received the email from Adobe asking for my opinions of the support case and how it was handled, I gave her generally high marks (she was, after all, able to solve my problem in one phone session). I also made sure to make the same comment about the how the email should be more clear on the process for obtaining serial numbers for back licensed products.

Adobe is a very large company with many product lines. It is in many countries. But the processes I had to go through in order to simply upgrade my software from an older version to a newer version would be daunting to many people. I know a few people who would not have been as persistent as I was in both getting the correct pricing as well as getting the serial number. Some would have been irritated dealing with an India call center (both for the pricing and for the support call); I'm not-- as long as I can understand you and get the information I want, I don't care who I'm talking to. I only have issue if I can't get the assistance I need or cannot understand the person with whom I'm talking.

In the end, it all worked out and I now have Adobe FrameMaker 9 on my system, which is the same version my current customer is using. We should not have any more compatibility issues with my projects going forward. But I should not have had to go through such a frustrating process in order to upgrade to this point, and especially not when dealing with a large company like Adobe. Customer service should always be job one, and they dropped the ball repeatedly in this case.

Take My Money... Please!

Sometimes I wonder if businesses actually want to take my money. I asked for a quote on an upgrade to my Adobe FrameMaker 7 license to FrameMaker 9. I started a phone and email conversation with one of Adobe's representatives, whom I will call "Jim." I explained my situation in detail, Jim told me that I could not upgrade to FM 9, as the company no longer directly sells that version, but that I could upgrade to FM 10 and purchase a separate back license for an additional $20. Because the pricing ($1120) was way too rich for my independent contractor finances, I thanked him and moved on.

About a week later Jim informed me via email that Adobe was having a short-term promotion where they were knocking $400 off the license fee, meaning I could get the same deal (FM10 with a back license for FM 9) for $720. Still way to expensive for software, but much more manageable than before. I checked to make sure I could write off the cost on my taxes (yes), talked it over with my wife (since we would have to pay for this out of our own money), and decided to pull the trigger on the deal.

Somehow, the details of the conversation I had with the Adobe rep got lost as he transferred them first to another Adobe rep, whom I will call "Roy," and then that rep sent them on to distributor (whom I will call "Lori") to process the transaction. She sent me a Purchase Order for FM10 for $740.

I emailed her back, re-explained the situation to her, and asked her what the issues were. She apologized for the confusion, she wasn't given the information on the back license (and she would have to talk with someone in house to make sure they could do it), and that they were from a different country, so the discrepancy in cost was due to the variations between the countries.

Lori verified the FM 9 issue and sent me a new PO. I got the new PO with FM 10 for $740 and the FM 9 license for $25. With that country's taxes, the grand total was a whopping $865. Still better than the $1120 I was originally quoted, but well above what I was expecting or wanting to pay. She called, we talked, and I told her I would hold onto the PO but I was going to try to get the American pricing from an American distributor if I could. She was fine with that arrangement.

Today, I sent Roy a follow up email and asked if there was any movement on this. He immediately forwarded my info to three other people. However, it is the end of the work day and I did not expect a reply until tomorrow.

And then my phone rang. It was a brand new Adobe rep (we'll call her "Mona"). She was verifying whether I wanted to proceed with an upgrade to my Adobe FM 7 license, as time was running out. Soon, there would not be an upgrade path from 7 to any higher version FM. Yes, I said, I know... Jim explained this to me when we spoke by phone and email. I had to explain to her that I was already in the loop, already trying to purchase this upgrade, but that Roy had needed to send my info to a new distributor as the first one was giving much higher pricing. She kept reiterating that the pricing was limited time only and I would need to upgrade soon. No matter how many times I explained it, she didn't seem to get what I was saying.

Adobe apparently uses India to answer these types of requests, as Jim, Mona, and Roy all have Indian names and accents. While Jim was very polite, understanding, and easy to talk to, Roy seems more of a delegator, and Mona was simply not getting what I was saying (and I was having a hard time understanding her). I'm hopeful that either Jim will get involved again or the new people that Roy sent my info to will get the pricing correct and get me a PO in short order that I can pull the trigger on. If they cannot, then I will go back to Lori, accept and pay for her quote, and just eat the extra $100+ cost, as she was easy to talk to, understanding, and personable.

Adobe should have a much lower solitary user license fee as well as a much simpler online process for making a purchase. Frankly, I didn't need to have all of these phone calls (4) and emails (12) for what should be a relatively easy upgrade. I'm not sure why my original request to Adobe wasn't forwarded to Lori   (or one of the new people) in the first place, and then she could call and I could speak with her directly. The run-around of going through an account rep, a second account rep, a distributor, back to the second account rep, to another distributor, and then having a third account rep call is frustrating and off-putting.

It's like the company doesn't actually want my money or is used to dealing with independent contractors.

ADDENDUMS
1. One of the new Adobe reps, whom I will call "Dan," just emailed me that he will be sending my information to yet another rep located in my area, whom I will call "Rich." Rich will be the one contacting me about the PO. Geez, Adobe, enough!

2. Rich just called. He isn't sure if I can go from 7 to 9 or 10 (he only has upgrade paths from 8 or 9 to 10) and he's not certain if he can provide the back license to 9 for me, even though I have been clear with every person that this is the primary reason for doing this. I asked him to call someone, a manager, anyone, and verify this before he sends me a PO. He was more than happy to and will call me back shortly with the results.

3. Rich called back; I was right, he was simply unaware of the promotion going on. I now have a PO for a grand total of $760.00, rather than one for $865 or $1120. I will pull the trigger on this deal before anything else changes!

Movie Attendance

The audience for movies is dwindling and has declined every year for quite some time now (I'm having trouble finding a definitive number online, but many sites all agree that, at least for 10 years now, the audience (aka, actual ticket sales) have gone down) even while the movie business has managed to stay steady or improve in profitability. For example, BoxOfficeMojo.com recently commented that, while MIB3 made close to the same dollar figure in its opening as MIB2,

"Adjusting for 10 years of ticket price inflation and 3D ticket prices, MIB 3's initial attendance was significantly lower than that of Men in Black II." (link) [Italics mine]

It is no wonder that the movie and theater business has had to consistently raise prices for the same period of time, is it? If you lose, say, 5% of your business every year for a decade, you have to raise prices to compensate, right?

Wrong. The audience is still there. Successes like The Dark Knight, The Avengers, Hunger Games, the Harry Potter franchise, Inception, and others all show that if you make a good movie, with an excellent story first and foremost, with great direction, good acting, and decent special effects, the audiences will come. A movie like TDK or Avengers cannot make $500+ million domestic without bringing in people who are not comic book fans, even when accounting for comic book fans going multiple times and 3D surcharges. Good word of mouth and good press puts butts in the seats, it is as simple as that.

Battleship recently bombed hugely at the box office. It had the same quality of special effects, similar direction and similar acting as The Avengers, so why did it do so poorly? It had a shitty story and pretty much no connection to the game on which it is based.

The problem is that movie people will look at The Avengers and say, "Well, see, we just have to put more heroes into one film; that will draw the audiences." Er, No. Just like the head of the studio saying they needed more "dark" comic book movies because TDK was a success was wrong, this thinking is wrong too. The Avengers is successful because it has a good story and good direction. If Warners had allowed Joss Whedon to make the Wonder Woman he scripted and wanted to direct in 2007, we would have seen this level of success earlier -- because Mr. Whedon respects the material, is a good TV/Movie writer, and is a talented director. In addition, this theory has proven false a number of times already, what with the overall lack of success of Spider-Man 3 (which the studio forced Sam Raimi to add Venom into, rather than waiting and getting the character into his own movie), the two Fantastic Four movies, and others.

The movie business is constantly re-imagining, re-making, and re-creating the same films audiences have already seen. This is because they see it as a win-win; the audience will go see X thing because it is familiar and they will get Y dollars from the audience. But this is a bad argument; usually those products are the ones they put the best talent behind to write a good story and direct it. Inception showed that an original effort can work just as well to draw in an audience, as did The Sixth Sense, Passion of the Christ, Finding Nemo, ET, and others.

The theaters are also to blame for the loss of audience; every time I go to Cheap Tuesday night, pretty much any show is mostly sold out and there are long lines at concessions. Every other night of the week, unless the movie has considerable buzz about it (like The Avengers currently), the theaters are half-full and the lines are easily managed. When I lived elsewhere, every time I went to the dollar theater, the lines were out the door for movies that had been out for 3-6 months, yet I always was able to get into even the biggest films on opening night at almost any theater. What this tells me is that people want the theater experience, but it is just too damned expensive. It used to be that a family of four could go to the movies for under $40, snacks included. Now, you're looking at close to $45 just for the tickets and another $20 for snacks. Dinner and a movie used to be a common date night, with dinner being the expensive part. Now, the movie is often the most expensive part of the night, what with tickets costing at least $10 each on an average day.

Example:
If I have a theater with two screening rooms, one that seats 250 people and one that seats 150 people, that's 400 total seats. At $10 a pop, that is a potential for $4000 per show for both theaters. But, at $10 a pop, I'm usually only seeing half-filled theaters, so I'm earning closer to $2000 per show total for both theaters. Let's say 1/3 of those that show up, or about 66 people, buy snacks averaging out to the cost of a popcorn ($4.50) and a drink ($3.00). I have made another $495. So my total income stands around $2500, per show for both theaters.

Now, I lower the prices to $7 per ticket. I get more butts in the seats, averaging closer to 80% per show, or 320 seats sold, and make $2240. The same 1/3 of people buy snacks. That's now 106 people, or $795 in concessions. This gives me a total of $3035 for the same shows, or a difference of $535 per screening.

Simply put, by lowering my prices, I have more people attending and make more money. Even without lowering concessions. Now, if I consider lowering concessions and get it closer to 50% of those attending getting something, then I have increased my profits yet again.

Good movies and lower prices can bring more butts to the theater and, in the long run, get the theaters and movie makers more money. The current gimmicks are already not working, the higher concessions and ticket prices are driving more people away, and there are too many other places for people to spend their entertainment dollar these days. The theater owners and movie makers need to make sure they have a product that people want to see at a price they want to see it at. It is a simple equation that can save their business and ensure they are making money well into the future.

NBA Refs

I argue that the NBA has the worst officiating of any professional sport, especially in North America. When it added a third on-court official, the refereeing actually got worse. How about, instead of fining players and coaches for pointing out what every fan knows to be true (i.e., that the NBA officiating is so horrible), the NBA simplifies its rules and cleans up the officiating? I know, I know, what a novel concept.

Here are some suggestions:

Right now, on approximately 8 out of 10 plays, the official who is completely blocked off from actually seeing whether a foul was committed is usually the one that blows the whistle. He assumes a foul must have been committed because he heard a sound or saw some movement by the shooter that suggested a foul. New rule: if you don't actually see an actual foul, you don't call it.

Also, frankly, the rules have gone too far toward allowing "act of shooting" calls to grant the person with the ball a foul shot. Let's make it so that if you aren't actively/currently in the act of shooting (i.e., the ball is in your hands and they are actively moving forward in a shooting action), then it is not an act of shooting foul. No more "two steps without dribbling," no more throwing your arms wildly forward after you hear the whistle and faking the ref into giving you a foul shot. Getting to the free throw line should be a rare and special occurrence, not a contest between the superstars to see who can get there the most in a game.

Oh, and let's actually use a rule that is on the books and make it more prevalent and important: the person who initiates the contact is the one on whom the foul is called. I hate watching a basketball game and Hubie Brown, Marv Albert, Mike Breen, or another announcer talks about the shooter "leaning into" the defender or trying to "draw contact" and getting a whistle. The rules state that the person who initiates the contact is the one who committed the foul. No more charging straight ahead, leaping into the air and into a defender, and it is the defender's fault for being in the way. If this rule was used and applied properly, more charges would get called and NBA players wouldn't feel the need to "flop" in order to get a call in their favor.

Also, let's expand the existing "hand is part of the ball" rule to say "the hand and forearm, up to but not including the elbow" is part of the ball and any incidental contact is considered part of the ball. Also, "the feet and lower legs, up to but not including the knees" is considered neutral territory, like the court, and incidental contact does not constitute a penalty. No more having two players running down the court and their feet get tangled and it is a foul on someone. I think most refs can determine if a player is kicking at another with intent as opposed to just stepping on a foot and taking a tumble.

If two people are on the ground wrestling over the ball, or someone is trapped on the sideline, they cannot call a timeout. If you are wrestling for the ball, there is always some, even minor, doubt as to who has possession of it, so no time out can be called. If you are trapped on the sideline by a defender, possession of the ball is starting to be in doubt (as you may not be able to escape, thus giving the ball to the other team either via the shot clock or by stepping out of bounds) and you should not be allowed to call timeout. Timeouts should only be called when possession is without doubt and only by the team with the ball (TV and referee timeouts are the only exceptions to this).

The NBA wants exciting games to draw the fans in. They want to make money. During the season, the refs call the game one way which allows for a lot of offense and higher scores. But when the game gets to the playoffs, they call it differently and much more defense is played. Yet more people watch the playoffs than watch individual games during the season. This is partly because there are so many games (82 during a regular season) that each individual game means very little but mostly because individual game in the playoffs have so much more meaning and value. It also shows that fans don't mind watching exciting, defensive games. So, let's bring the defense back into the league and allow the contests to be decided on the court, not by arbitrary calls by an official.

These are my suggestions. How would you fix the officiating in the NBA?

Rift

I fairly recently became aware of a new MMORPG called Rift. It generally uses the tropes and conventions of other online games of the fantasy genre, but it does something that few of the others do: it learns from the mistakes of past games and has put in place new ways of doing things.

Rift provides you with a lot of storage space, than can be expanded by larger sized backpacks. Many games make storage an issue so that you cannot carry around what you want to and have to make decisions (or as a time sink so that you have to constantly return to locations where you can sell items).

The game provides a button at each vendor to sell all "gray" or low-level, trash items that you pick up during your forays into the wilderness. This saves a lot of time at the vendors, and means you can more quickly get to reviewing and selecting which of the new, high-level items you wish to keep and use, and which you want to sell (or if you have stuff that is craft fodder and want to convert it).

While Rift has a craft system that is very robust, you do not need to waste backpack space with the craft tools. In LOTRO, for example, I have some Explorers. Each one has to waste up to three slots just to carry the sewing kit, pickaxe, and hammer needed for the crafts involved. In Rift, you simply take the crafting skill and the game provides you with the appropriate tools when you need to use it-- you do not waste any valuable slots on the tool. Backpack space is still needed for the materials you receive via crafting. In general, you can select up to three crafts that all work together so you are pretty much not reliant on other people for materials.

Each class has special abilities or powers they can use when a power bar level is achieved. For example, some of the Fighter classes build up "Attack Points," with a total of three available, while a Thief can build up their similar power bar up to eight. Each is built up using "Builder" powers and used with "Finishers." This is similar to many classes in other MMORPGs. In this game, however, once built up, those power bar are not lost until YOU use them. In most games (all that I have played, until Rift), whatever you build up slowly ebbs as you play or if you don't use it. In Rift, once you build up your bar, it remains on your character until you select a Finisher that uses some or all of it. In addition, all of your starting abilities/powers build up those bars. The use to build-up ratio may not be 1:1, but your starting powers all have at least a chance to give you one or more of those power build-up/energy/bonuses. (In most cases, it is very nearly 1:1. However, the fighter has to actually hit with its builders, so a strongly defensive or dodging opponent can make it harder for a fighter class to build up his Attack Points.)

One of the important changes in Rift over most of the MMORPGs I have played is that in Rift you select your main archetype from the four classics (Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Mage). But, within that selection, you have up to three "souls," or subclasses, that you can mix and match to tailor a character to your exact play-style and desires. For example, there are 8 subclasses of Fighter you can opt for, mixing and matching up to three of them together for various abilities. The subclasses are labeled as Offensive, Defensive, or Support. So, for example, I initially went with one of the default setups with my Fighter, which happened to have three Offensive subclasses selected. However, with my play-style of "slow and steady wins the race," I was finding I was dying a lot. I investigated the subclasses a bit more, and determined that by mixing in the right Defensive subclass, I was able to vastly increase my survivability with my play-style.

Another change to how Rift works as compared to many MMORPGs is that it uses fewer clickable powers (even though you have, in essence, three "classes" worth of abilities from your subclasses). Instead, each time you level, rather than always getting a new clickable power, you get abilities that modify your existing skills and abilities. On level up, you might select to increase your defenses, or ability to dodge, or the number of opponents the existing abilities attack, or add a new energy type to what your powers can do -- there are many choices, only some of which provide you with new clickable powers. In addition, many of the subclasses have synergies between powers and abilities that allow you to build up very potent offensive, defensive, and support abilities by mixing and matching what each subclasses does. For example, I stumbled on a combo of three subclasses on a mage character that each have powers that apply Damage Over Time (DOT) effects or that have abilities that enhance and improve DOTs. By mixing and matching, I have a mage that can case a few spells on the opponent and then move on to the next opponent, knowing that the DOT effects will take the first one out in no time.

One other aspect of Rift I really like is that there are a lot of aura and self-buffs that you can click and forget or buff for up to an hour on your character. Some of these are group buffs (or can become group buffs) and many are self-only buffs. You can, in general, have all of the buffs from any of your three subclasses working at once; which means if you select your subclasses carefully, you can create a character with many buffs going on and providing synergies at one time.

As a sidebar to the way the classes and souls are set up in Rift, they have made "respeccing" relatively easy and painless. In many MMORPGs, you have classes that can do multiple things in a group (for example, DPS and Tanking), but the player usually is specified (speced/specced) for one or the other. It is often expensive, irritating, and sometimes time consuming to respec your character to fit the other abilities when needed. In Rift, your second Spec slot is pretty cheap and each subsequent one is more expensive (you can have up to six Specs for one character!). Secondly, a respecced character in Rift can COMPLETELY respec from scratch for each one of those Specs -- while you have to stay within the main selection you made (Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief), the three souls/subclasses you use for each spec can be completely different. For example, my Cleric has a "Tank" build, that has two Defensive and one Offensive soul, a "Battle Tank" build that has two Offensive and one Defensive soul. This allows me to be do more damage while playing on my own, and to be more of a tank/healer when I am grouped with people. Switching between them is easy and quick. Also, as long as a subclass/soul is at 0, you can change it to something else. If you have spent points on a subclass, you can still change it by going to a class trainer and paying a relatively nominal fee to start over from scratch, and there is no limit (except for money) on this form of respeccing. All in all, respeccing is VERY easy compared to most MMORPGs.

Most MMORPGs have events or times when grouping is somewhat forced or required. Rift has a rather neat and elegant method for events: If you are in the area when the event is taking place, you can join the public group, continue to participate with others but as an individual, or ignore it completely (although you might get attacked if you get too close). Public groups, if enough people are around, can also merge into a super group containing multiple groups. If you decide to join one of the public groups that spontaneously forms when these events occur, your buffs and group abilities immediately populate to your new teammates (and theirs to you). It is quick, painless, and you don't have to spend minutes to hours in a group channel or chat posting "Looking for Team for X" -- you just go where the action is and group up as it happens. You can choose to stay together or go your separate ways afterward.

Another small, but very nice, change that Rift made as compares with most MMORPGs is that you can mail up to six items to other characters, in addition to money and text. Most games I've played either don't allow mailing items or reluctantly allow you to mail one item at a time to a character. Rift designers have realized that this is a needless restricting to paying customers and let you send six things at once. It makes rekitting a new character with your higher level so much faster and easier-- you can get right to the adventuring!

Picking You

My wife saw a picture of a cat that needs adoption and something sparked in her. On Sunday we went to visit the cat at its foster home. While the cat is loving and affectionate, we just did not feel that spark from the cat that indicated to us it was choosing us as its owners. A tad ironically, one of the foster owner's own cats seemed to spark and want to bond with us both and we sparked to immediately. But that pet is not up for adoption. For now, we'll continue being happy with our single pet.

What I have found over decades of pet ownership is that any time you force a selection on an animal, the relationship isn't as strong and the bond as pure as when you let the right animal choose you. Before getting our current cat, we visited a number of animals. Many were affectionate toward one or both of us, but generically so (similar to Sunday's cat). However, when we met and interacted with our cat, it was obvious he wanted to be with us. It was in the way he looked at us, the way he did not want us to leave, the way he puddled into our arms and seemed like he was at home and at peace.

Our cat has taken to our home easily, been easy to retrain from its previous owners, and easily fits into our lifestyle and ways of interacting with him. He makes just as much of an effort toward us as we make toward him. I am firmly convinced this is because he chose us.

Too often I see adults letting little children pick a pet based on color or activity level rather than on which pet takes an active interest in that family/person. Just as often, I then hear about them having problems training the pet, interacting with it, or that its personality just "changed" when they got it home and introduced it to its new environment. Whereas, when they were at the shelter or home and were interacting with the animals, there was likely one that came right up to the person and did its best to announce "Here I am, pick me!"

Awhile back, I had a cat die from liver disease. After a few months, I decide to replace the cat. When I went to visit a litter of kittens, there were a couple of kittens that immediately came over to investigate me. Two were orange, a male and a female. The male spent some time sniffing and playing with my shoelaces, but then got distracted by the other kittens playing and joined them, went and ate a little something, wandered back to me, and then went off to play with an old sock. The female cat, however, came over, stayed near me, and tried to climb my leg and get into my lap. She was totally focused on me the entire time and wanted to bond with me. She was picking me as the important thing and the thing to pay attention to and interact with. When I picked her up, she just melted into my arms and did not want to leave them. She purred and promptly fell asleep. It was obvious she and I had bonded, so she was my selection. And we had 10 great years together where she learned my routines, liked to be in my lap if I was reading or watching TV, and always waited for me watching the door when I came home from work. Had I insisted on the male orange tabby, I'm sure the relationship would have been very different and I might have even had trouble "taming" him. Instead, I went for the cat that chose me.

Pets are living beings with minds of their own. They need to pick their owners as much as their owners pick them. While you can take in an animal that does not chose you, the relationship simply will not be the same as when the selection, and the bonding, is mutual.

Genies and Bottles

Like it or not, the digital age is here to stay. We have smart phones (but dumb users), Facebook, Twitter, and the 24/7 news/opinion cycle. The moment one person hears something, it is out there for everyone to see, hear, read, and react to and cannot be taken back. You cannot delete something from the Internet, you can only remove the copy of something you posted at that time; all the other copies, reposts, reTweets, and spider-bots that look for and save copies of web pages will have their copies in perpetuity.

It astounds me that sports figures, celebu-tards, and politicians continue to try to use the "they hacked my account" excuse. That's so 2005. Haven't you learned yet that if you just apologize for the stupid, insensitive comment right away, the public is much more likely to believe you and move on to the next scandal? If you deny it, you just add wood to the fire.

One of my wife's family members died on Sunday, but the family waited until Monday to ask people not to post anything online about it. Too late. That should have been explicitly and clearly stated when they were making the phone calls announcing the death, otherwise it has become de rigueur to post whatever thoughts a person has immediately onto a Twitter, Facebook/Plus feed, or blog. In this case, a couple of family members were not told immediately, posted something, and the cat was out of the bag before the family could notify the rest of those they wished to call.

People need to remember:

1. Every single thing you post to the World Wide Web is permanent. You can never delete it or get every single copy removed. So think a second (and a third time) before posting it. Does not matter if it is a text message, email, blog, video, picture or other communication -- if it is posted to the Internet, it will always be on the Internet.
2. Assume that everything you post to the World Wide Web is public. A personal email may be accidentally (or intentionally) forwarded to the wrong party or someone may CC/BCC someone you do not want to read it. Something you post to your Twitter or Facebook may be listed as "private" but can easily and quickly become public when the person you posted it to responds. And, once it is posted or sent, refer to rule 1.
3. There is no such thing as "anonymous" on the World Wide Web. You may think what you are posting is done anonymously, but the government can requisition your information from the ISP, the content provider, or the social media site and quickly discover who you are. There are groups of "hackers" and never-do-wells who delight in breaking into accounts and posting your private information so that you can be publicly accosted (see the 4chan versus the little girl incident, for example). The best you can hope for is plausible deniability. Once it is posted or sent, refer to rules 1 and 2.
4. Be respectful of others. This is the one most lacking in today's online communities. But if you consider rules 1-3, this one becomes a no-brainer. If you thought you could call someone names and bully them, just remember what happened to the little girl and her family when 4chan decided to make them a project. No one is truly anonymous, everything can be made very public, and all of it will be permanent, so be nice. If you disagree, do it respectfully.

Remembering and assuming these rules can keep you safe(r) in the digital age. It makes you think twice before posting that picture or video. It helps you not send that inflammatory email to your boss, coworker, client, subordinate that can get you fired. It makes you think again before posting that blog containing derogatory comments.

I only post a blog entry every week or two. But I write many more blog entries. It is just that I write them, let them sit in my Draft folder for a while, and then delete them when I realize I was out of bounds, did not want whatever it was about to be public, or was not being respectful. And I realize my anonymity to the general public is easily compromised both by those few who know who I am and by those who wish to make an effort to find out. It just is not worth it to me.

Actually, in reviewing the four rules I typed above, I think they are salient points for everyone's daily lives, regardless of Internet use. If we would all assume that everything we say and do is permanent, that everything we do or say can become public, that we cannot maintain our anonymity, and if we are respectful to others in all aspects of our lives, the majority of the scandals, situations, and issues we see reported in the news today would not happen.

It would be one small step toward putting the Genie back into its bottle.

The Woman in Black

Special Note:
I did not read the story this film is based on prior to seeing the movie. My wife did. She shook her head throughout, as it seemed most of the movie was only loosely based on the story from which it comes. I'd recommend not reading the story before watching the movie, as I was much more entertained by it, because I had nothing to compare it to, than my wife was.

----

I like a good horror story. Classic ghost stories can be some of the most effective to put on screen, because the forced perspective of a film allows the director and writer to really play up the tunnel-vision we get while watching a movie and startle you.

The Woman in Black, a Hammer Films production released earlier this year and starring Daniel Radcliffe is a decent horror/ghost story. It has the right use of mood, music, lighting, and startle moments to be quite effective as a ghost story. The acting is good enough that it pushes the story along, and the cinematography and effects are quite good.

However, it is how they tell the tale, and especially the ending, that lets the movie down.

*START SPOILERS*

Radcliffe is a solicitor named Kipps sent to a creepy mansion in the boondocks to go through a dead woman's papers and make sure everything is ready so that his office can sell the house and property. When he arrives in the small town close to the house, he is treated poorly; everyone in the town wants him to go back to London, but no one explains why. It becomes a little absurd how they so blatantly try to push him out of town -- I think anyone coming into that situation would become a bit belligerent and stay.

After getting a ride out to the house, Kipps starts experiencing all the classic poltergeist signs: he sees shapes and movement, hears noises, and sees things have moved around the house. He also senses some malevolence.

When he returns to the village, the village's children start killing themselves in spectacular ways, usually in front of him.

He goes to dinner at the rich man's house and the man's crazy wife starts to tell him things about the ghost haunting the manor. What she says is important, because she is the classic "seer" of the story -- the person who lays out the ground-rules for the horror story and what needs to happen. After a couple of times talking with her, he realizes that the Woman in Black, as she is known to the villagers, is a woman who lost her child in the marsh, and they never found his body. This drove her to suicide. As a ghost, she now finds the children of the village and lures them to their deaths so that she can be surrounded by children.

This leads Kipps to realize that the ghost needs closure by finding her lost son. He and the rich man take the man's car out to the marsh and Kipps dives for thee wreckage where the boy died. They are successful at finding the boy's body, and Kipps brings it to the house and leads the ghost to it. As soon as she finds the boy, all the supernatural events around the house seem to cease, and he and the rich man break open her tomb and lay the boy's body with his mother, at rest at last.

Or is she?

As Kipps meets his nanny and his son at the train station, the Woman in Black appears, along with most of the dead children, and lead Kipps' son onto the train tracks. Kipps dives after him and they are both killed. However, they meet Kipps dead wife (and his son's mother), who leads them to the afterlife.

Fade to Black

The problem here is that the movie provides no explanation or reason why the rules of the world, as presented by the villagers and the seer, did not work. If the Woman found her son, which all the letters she wrote and what the dead children, through the seer, indicate needs to happen for the Woman to rest, there should be a happy ending to the story and the Woman in Black should not have killed Kipps and son. But she was not laid to rest by that action, which leaves the audience unsettled in all the wrong ways for a ghost story.

The problem comes in that I was left wondering, well after the movie, why the rules failed and why the Woman is still haunting the village. Why didn't the discovery of her son work? Why didn't she find peace, being reunited with him? Why did she seek vengeance on Kipps for trying to help her? With no explanation, not even a hint, as to why this action failed, you are left feeling like most of what you just watched was superfluous and without meaning. Why did they provide you with all of that information about the ghost if none of it was accurate? If all of it was inaccurate, why in the world would anyone continue to live in the village?

I have a feeling that this movie had a very different ending until they test-screened it and found that they likely had a modest hit on their hands. Once that happened, my guess is that they tacked on that ending to show the Woman is still around so they could make a sequel (which, by the way, is being written and produced right now).

*END SPOILERS*

All in all, The Woman in Black is a good horror/ghost story, mostly effective in all the right ways. However, the very ending scene leaves a bad taste in your mouth and, story-wise, invalidates everything you've just watched. The 90 minute running time is just about right, there is a quality cast doing a good job, and the effects, cinematography, and music are all effective and done well.

Shake It, Don't Break It!

Shaky-cam is ruining good films. Take The Hunger Games. A very good adaptation of a popular book that has good stars (Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, and Donald Sutherland). The writers did a good job of paring down the book's plot and characters for the movie (although I think they left out some things that may become important in Catching Fire, later). The two things that make this movie annoying as hell to watch are the use of shaky-cam and the quick edits.

I have said it before, shaky-cam is the last bastion of the inept director. If a director feels that he needs to use shaky-cam to "get you into the action" or "make you feel a part of the action" then that director has failed his audience. The large screen in the theater, the acting, the story, and the shared experience is what gets me into the movie, not your ability to shake what has become my entire visual field in the dark environment of the theater. All that does is make me sick to my stomach.

Gary Ross, the director of The Hunger Games, also uses very quick edits and blurring effects in addition to the shaky-cam. The end result becomes action sequences that may be thrilling... but the audience does not know because they cannot focus on anything long enough to see what is going on. The constant shaking of the field of vision makes many nauseated and left unable to watch what is on the screen, for minutes at a time. Last time I check, movie watching was a visual activity. If you stop your audience from seeing and watching, what, then, is the point?

What is more interesting about this movie is that Ross uses a steadicam just as often as he uses shaky-cam. So you have a scene where Katniss is running through the forest using shaky-cam, then fireballs fly at her using steadicam, then more running with shaky-cam. The switches between the two make the shaky-cam work seem even worse because your brain has a moment to stop and process everything and start to relax.

Worse yet, the first 45 minutes or so of the movie have the worst shaky-cam use. Then it calms down for a while and you get more comfortable, and then the action starts up and it is sort of hit or miss whether a scene will use shaky-cam. This inconsistency, as mentioned above, makes the return of shaky-cam more jarring.

Back to the quick edits. I have watched music videos. They use so many quick cuts that you would think that someone with ADD would have trouble paying attention. Yet, in some scenes, The Hunger Games makes these look tame. The edits are so fast, and often involve going from lighter to darker scenes and blur effects, that your eyes cannot adjust to the changes quickly enough to realize what you just saw. In some ways, it almost seems like Ross is going for subliminal action scenes... if he cuts fast enough you get the impression of action without him actually having to film action.

Taken as-is, I would have to give The Hunger Games no more than a B-. I think it has an A cast, a B+ script, an A for music and general effects, an A for costuming, and an A for how closely they kept to the actual plot and story of the source material. But Ross gets a C- for his direction and a D for the poor editing (overall) and jump cutting (specifically during action sequences).

All in all, if you have issues with shaky-cam making you sick, I would wait and watch this on the small screen where, I find, the field of vision is broader and the shaking on the TV screen does not cause as much issue.

Addendum:
Apparently Gary Ross is negotiating a new contract/deal to direct the second installment, Catching Fire, and the production company is hard-balling him. Good! At this point, my hope is that Ross would not be back and they would get someone who is better with action sequences to direct the next movie.

And, in case you are wondering, I have nothing against Gary Ross. He directed Pleasantville, one of my all-time favorites, and Seabiscuit, a pretty good sports story.

Second Addendum:
Gary Ross is out. He couldn't get the money he wanted, but is saying it was the aggressive turnaround time on the production that caused him to walk away. Now they can hopefully hire a director that is more comfortable with action sequences and one who doesn't need to rely on the schlocky shaky-cam.