Author Archives: Phred the Elder

Silly Season Holiday Edition

So just another brief rant about artificial holidays, but this one is definitely an artifact by marketers. The geek in me should rejoice in Star Wars Day, but the pragmatist just can’t achieve buy in. Too campy, too contrived.

Ill, I am. Sick, it makes me. (Channeling my inner Yoda)

Sweetest Day, Secretaries’ Day, and Grandparent’s Day were bad enough. Artificial celebrations created specifically to generate additional revenue. How many people took the day off work to do a movie marathon watching them all? Maybe 6 or 7?

You could make a similar argument for Pi Day in March, and you would be right. Except for the point Pie day is a once in a millennium  occurrence. When the next one comes around, You, your children, grand children, and their descendants of several generations will have come and gone. I think there is no way NOT to celebrate such a rare event with at least a nod to its propriety.

And it continues tomorrow. I have to go out and get chips and salsa for the party tomorrow, though I still don’t understand.

Why American recognizes the importance of a sink full of mayo…

Phred

post 62 of n

Updated Definition Of Insanity?

“Doing the same thing but expecting a different outcome” is one working understanding of what insanity is (maybe not a clinical term, but a working one for us non-medical people). I know deep in the dark recesses of my inner self that, unless I make real, significant changes in my way of thinking, I will continue to exhibit the same, reoccurring pattern of self-defeating behavior and the physical and psychic decay that marks my current state of existence.

Each morning I leap climb crawl out of bed with the vision that today will be the day I am successful in [INSERT PET IDEA OF THE WEEK HERE]. Each evening (or more likely, several hours past midnight) when I slip crawl collapse into bed and review the day’s events I am forced to conclude that I have totally failed at [INSERT PET IDEA OF THE WEEK HERE] and will have to try harder tomorrow (or more likely, later this morning).

Apparently I’m insane, as I do this daily.

Take my computer activity for instance. I know if I start working on a project I tend to get so focused that I can easily spend a couple of hours straight at the keyboard without ever moving more than 8-10 inches. When my vision drifts toward yellow and the needs of the flesh become insistent I am reminded remaining stationary for extended periods is NOT a good way to live with arthritis.

[Insert commercial for Depends here.]

There have been several “get up and move” assignments for the PET IDEA OF THE WEEK with the “expected” result (or lack of same). As I pointed out in an earlier post, ” I am only a good intention. I am a really, REALLY bad implementer of change.” So I guess I must submit the plea “not guilty by reason of insanity” for my actions.

Except maybe today can be different. With the death of my I-Pad, I have broken out my Palm Pilot again (mostly to use as as calendar app; my cell phone version is worse than my old Franklin Planner after dropping it in the toilet a few times). One of the apps on the expansion card is a program called PocketDoan that can be used to signal the passing of a series of time periods.

I think it was made to assist people in meditation / prayers / yoga / psychic activities, giving a gentle tone to start the next activity. [2 minutes pass here.] By shifting the burden of keeping track of how long you are doing [INSERT ACTIVITY HERE] from your conscious mind, you can better focus on  successfully accomplishing [INSERT ACTIVITY HERE].

My “Computer Work” program is a 20 minute period of productive work, followed by 2 minutes of “rest eyes” time (when i stop looking at the screen and either do distance vision exercises or just palm my eyes). This cycle repeats twice and after a third work period I get a 10 minute “get up and move” notice. So I get an hour of work time every 74 minutes with an “enforced” break to stretch and keep the joints from freezing up.

This post is being written in the third cycle tonight. So far, I have gotten up twice in the last couple of hours and this is two times more than I would have earlier in the month (week) [day]. And my eyes have been allowed to “rest” more than they do in a week of normal life (sleep not included).

It is way too small a sample to determine if here is a repeatable pattern or change in habitual behavior as a result of this experiment, but I am cautiously optimistic about the future. I will try again tomorrow and see if I can keep up with this new “program.”

Except…

What if I make a successful change in activity but there is no change in results? The presumption inherent in the initial paragraph is “if A implies B” (same action generates same results). The thought is if I change the action it should change the outcome or “if NOT A implies NOT B” in logic form. What if this is invalid logic? What if it really doesn’t matter what I [10 minutes pass here] do, that the outcome will be the same if I try or not (Yoda not withstanding)? What if another working definition is “doing different things but experiencing the same outcome”? What if Pavlov’s legacy is no longer valid?

I am fearful, but will press on. Perhaps tomorrow will be better and the signals from my Palm will allow me to breakthrough my current rut. I can be hopeful.

And Dilbert was right, the pellets are excellent.

Phred

post 61 of n

Blender Update: May 2, 2015 (Updated with new pictures)

I guess this is overdue, too. By putting something on the web it provides an encouragement (goad) to make more productive my sessions. Now, I have an incentive to actually make progress on my project(s) and can rely on you, gentle readers, to keep me honest.

My current project involves modeling my workstation, the desk I sit at while playing reindeer games. I haven’t gotten very far, but my time is broken between the project and skills practice based on the recent videos I have watched. Most of these are one offs that I don’t even save, just a trial to demonstrate understanding of concept. (Sometimes there are MANY needed to understand….)

One of the ideas gleaned from reading Rework was the article “Ignore the details early on.” Most of the previous attempts at modeling something was to take a piece and spend as much time as needed to get it perfect, then move to the next piece. It has been hard to keep up the momentum and interest in the whole project when it took so long to build each minuscule piece. So here is a “bigger picture” image of my desk project. It’s early in the process, and there is many hours still ahead, but already I can relate to the wisdom of starting with fuzzy glasses on at the start. It allows me to work on a piece at random, when the impulse strikes, and can leave partial progress in relative comfort.

blender image of my desktop, early in modeling process

blender image of my desktop, early in modeling process

better sample of the current state of the desktop model

better sample of the current state of the desktop model

Even better update. Did work on bookcase and monitors tonight.

Even better update. Did work on bookcase and monitors tonight.

Check back later to see the path this project takes.

Phred

post 60 of n

Glimpse Of A Vision

I believe I am spending too much time wandering through various addictions within the internet. To my limited frustration, I have discovered looking at some of the pages I check daily are sponsored (or actually made) by Lay’s (the potato chip people). Bets that I can only eat watch just one are all off. The worst two offenders are Facebook (which I really don’t understand) and YouTube.

I don’t do too much on FB as a participant, but will look down the home and news post lists, only to find an hour passes before I am aware of it. Kudos to Travis for posting some of the craziest and funniest links I have seen. (It would be nice, though, if you could limit them to less than 20-30 a day so I can get some actual work done.) Occationally I find something I can relate to too much and add it to my page / wall / whatever it’s called (told you I don’t understand this place).

The addiction to YouTube is somewhat more problematic. I use some of my subscriptions as a learning tool for my Blender education. So I can’t really afford to stop wandering around the site, but some of the links are more practical than others. Some provide useful information while others are simply eye candy, useful for a distraction or to unlax if needed.

One of the less productive sites is my Adult Swim subscription. Or so I thought until today. I don’t watch this channel much, but today it showed up on my “we think you’d like or should see this” list and I started watching an episode of Food|Off the Air and the part with the banana mask (about 15 seconds in) was really funny. I kinda lost interest shortly afterward and started fast forwarding through the rest of the episode until I got to the Western Spagetti segment (at about 4:18). I was totally fascinated by the segment and fast forwarded (after watching it 3 or 4 times) to the credits to find out who made it.

The  PESfilm channel in YouTube has 44 videos involving stop action animation. Since one of my year’s intentions is to become a CG artist, learning animation is a part of the task I am working on. Stop action uses a series of still pictures where items are moved slightly between frames. I ended up watching over a dozen back to back before I needed to leave (late as it was for my meeting, but I didn’t care). When I got back home I continued where I left off.

Spaghetti Western is one of my favorites. It is really well done (as are most of the films archived) and I would highly recommend it for a smile. I’ll link to it on my FB page to share the joy with others.

Later I will post more about my artistic progress so far this year, but I can’t just yet.

There’s still a couple of unread emails and several vid’s to watch….

Phred

post 59 of n

A Single Serving Of Alphabet Soup

Our government is great when it comes to making acronyms. I use a few myself, mostly caryover from my time in the Navy (CEFGW meaning “Close Enough For Government Work,”  as in “this bolt meets CEFGW standards” and DORD for “Department Of Redundancy Department,” where we actually had a rubber stamp made for our fun). There’s a couple I’ve been considering lately that I want to comment on: WMD and MAD.

Weapons of Mass Destruction is fairly recent (at least in general usage) being invoked in the interest of finding nuclear weapon development in the middle east. The concept, of course, goes back a long time and has been used in nearly every world war. Not limited to atomic weapons (although they provide the biggest “bang for the buck”), air-fuel bombs, white phosphorus weapons, jellied petroleum devices (NAPALM) and even the “carpet bombing” runs of conventional weapons could be considered WMDs based upon the level of destruction resulting from their use.

As terrible as these weapons are, I am actually more concerned in massively constructed weapons causing minimal (or no) destruction while causing extensive personnel casualties. Weapons in this category might allow an attacking force to take possession of a local essentially intact after taking out combatants and civilians in the area. Most of these weapons would fall into the CBW class (Chemical / Biological Weapon) of producing death. Toxic nerve agents, for example, could be dispersed and make an area impassable without total protection for weeks to months. Simply walking to your mailbox a week after surviving an attack could be lethal. Biological weapons may be slower but perhaps more insidious, as the amount of global travel could spread a pandemic weapon far beyond the initial deployment area. Again, going to the market to replenish supplies could bring home a bigger package than what has been purchased.

Switching gears for a moment to consider the idea of MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction was the principle device used in the cold war against Russia to prevent nuclear war. The basic idea was to provide a “second strike” capability such that when an enemy launched an initial attack, there would be (more than) enough weapons available to launch a counter-strike that would cause at least as much damage to the aggressor. The concept was to “persuade” a potential foe launching a preemptive strike would be futile as the resulting devastation from the counter attack would not be worth the projected gain.

Growing up in the 1960’s with the mandatory air-raid alerts and practice drills in the school hallways was a quarterly (occasionally monthly) reminder we were only a moment from horrific death from above.  That the launch never occurred is a (kind of) proof of the validity of the concept.

Today, I fear the concept no longer is valid. To have an effective projection of MAD requires both sufficient weaponry (and it’s staging) to make such an attack feasible, in fact virtually certain) and the determination of the highest members of government to make the call. I suspect America in 2015 fails on both accounts. The military has been substantially gutted in its size and power, and our leadership has given little encouragement to suppose a willingness to “pull the trigger” to deliver a knock-out blow to any conceivable enemy. Even a couple of decades ago we projected enough power to give any potential attacker pause, but today….

Even more disconcerting is the rise of terrorist attacks independent of an official nation-state sponsor. Should a massive attack occur (say, in September?) when there is no clearly defined enemy, where would we focus the MAD counterstrike? Even if there is a hypothetical devastating nuclear attack against a single target (the most likely terror strike) and the country of origin could be positively identified, what would be a “correct” response? Would it be rational to wipe a nation from the face of the Earth to retaliate against a single loss? Does a “tit for tat” destruction of one of their cities give a large enough incentive to cease forever making foolish decisions? Would 3 cities, or 10% of their population, or 30% of their national resource production capability? And would the powers that be make the decision?

I don’t know. I doubt if anyone does. But the concern of a WMD without the balancing effects of MAD lead ultimately to a WTF realization.

World Terrifyingly Frightening.

Phred

post 58 of n

Celebrating The (Bio)Rhythms Of Life

This week has been a rough one, both from a productivity and physical point of view. Starting early this past Sunday, I have had a severe bout of pain from my arthritis thingy. For the most part, I’ve been either in bed or on the couch every waking moment since, until today. Three truly bad days with little to look forward to. The meds weren’t doing very much, and as long as I was reclining I was fine, sitting in my wheelchair at the computer for more than 10 minutes led to the (near) impossibility of getting up and collapsing back on the couch.

Today things seem to be getting better. I can move around the apartment without the horrific pain of earlier in the week, and am able to spend some time at the computer (as this posting is proof). The week has not been totally non-productive as I have been able to view the blender documentation and tutorials on the TV (thanks to YouTube and the PS3 web browser apps), so the 14+ hours on the couch were not constrained to endless reruns of 70’s-80’s sitcoms or the Judge Judy marathon that shows up on the local Fox channel. Still, there is a limit to how much “book lernin'” you can absorb without actually getting your hands dirty. Today was a pleasant change of pace.

I know there are a number of reasons for the pain to wax and wane, but I have not been able to identify specific causes. Sometimes a change in weather will trigger a bout, as will an unusually diverse (and extensive) selection of goodies over and above my normal dietary needs. Historically I have been treated for gout, never in my big toe but my major joints (knees, hips, and shoulders). Since that’s what hurts it seems possible it exacerbates the symptoms. I am not convinced, based on 20+ years of experience. The kinds of activities triggering gout in the past were absent this last cycle.

For giggles, I powered up my Palm Pilot m130 to run a biorhythm program, to see what my cycles showed for this week. Surprise! Both my physical and intellectual cycles bottomed out this week (emotional critical day was Sunday as well).

Now, how reliable is this pseudoscience? The idea that our lives pass through cycles of ups and downs is pretty reasonable (ask a woman…). That there is different cycles for different life elements also seems like a valid idea, and that they have different periods is entirely possible. But did they cause a spike (or rather a crash) in my life this week?

I don’t know. I really don’t care. In my “younger” days I tracked my biorhythms closely and decided there was at best a slight correlation between the cycle and my daily functioning. The theory remarks that it is more significant on the critical days when a cycle passes through the “0” point on a chart than to peak or valley. These critical days are times when you can do either very well or really poorly, more than you might expect on either border day. On the rare occasions when two  (or more so all three cycles) were critical you were to be especially careful, lest a horrific “catastrophe” should take place. I did, and “it” never happened.

Do I believe the number of days I have lived have a direct effect on the mundane events of my life, more or less so if the number is divisible by 23, 28, or 33? Not really, I guess. I suspect it’s more coincidental than causal but it is fun to look at. Not that I would use it solely to make any life critical choices. And with an intellectual level at -100, I’m SURE not buying a lottery ticket today.

Not for at least another 16 days…

Phred

post 57 of n

Introduction To Econ010: Economics For Normal People

I am not a very observant person (you need to smack me in the face 4-5 times with a dead mackerel before I realize you have a fish in your hand). I don’t really make a point of watching other people when I go anywhere but lately I’ve been listening to talk around me. The people discussing next week’s election proposals on taxes, millages, proposals, and other conversations on minimum wage and inflation, interest rates and the economy in general has led me to an obvious conclusion: the average [American] knows nothing about economics.

Long, long ago in a galaxy college far, far away, I graduated with a BBA in Accounting. The following year, the dean at the school decided I could help to repair the damage to universal karma by teaching a couple of courses as retribution. I agreed to the sentence and was assigned to teach Basic and Advanced Algebra (not unexpectedly, as I was the only tutor for Calculus in the college and had a couple of students travel 60-90 minutes each way to come to my tutorial sessions, along with the countless others assisted in all math classes locally). Then she announced (with a strange gleam in her eye) I needed another class to fill, and casually announced I would take the 10:00 AM slot in Macroeconomics.

I thought I would choke to death. My protests of inadequacy and that I had only just completed the course the year previously were brushed off without a thought. “You’ll do fine” she announced and it was settled. I would teach mornings Monday through Friday and have office hours from nine to noon on Saturdays. There were over sixty victims in the two algebra courses and only 2 fatalities in grading.

The Econ group consisted of just seven brave souls and a terrified teacher. The principle truth of the education process is that you don’t necessarily need to know MORE than your students, just that you need to learn FASTER than they do. Eventually we finished, all much wiser (and at least fractionally smarter) than when we started. I felt we had accomplished a great task, that there were at least eight people in my local area that understood more about how the world worked that when we started.

Recently I discovered my notes from that class and, with the above mentioned observations, I have decided to write a series of posts to help others get an overview of this topic. I will setup a table of contents page (not sure where it will be or what it will look like, but I’ll get it worked out for you) listing articles as they come out, including a glossary with terms used for review. All relewant postings will start with the title ECON010 (based on the numbering system of schools where 1xx classes are first year, 2xx are second and so forth…while 099 is normally used to do remedial classes like refresher English or Math, I think the current level of general knowledge requires a remedial class to take the remedial class…). The goal is to post an article a week to this topic (a new Category and Tag will be made just for these postings) and there is at least a dozen lessons to cover. I suspect some (many) [most] {all?} will need to take a couple of posts to cover the materials, so eventually it will probably go to several dozen posts altogether.

I expect the first will come next week, the first full week in May. Of course it will depend on the available alternative choices and ultimately where the greatest utility lies (teaser) but I hope to have at least a small input in the lives of several people over the next year. So that (perhaps) the next time I hear a discussion at the mall I might hear something other than pointless drivel spewing from the participants.

Then again, maybe I need to move further away from the cell phone sales area…

Phred

post 56 of n

49 Shades of Gray

I guess it was inevitable. I got a question from a friend about the use of the “strange” numbers in my book and movie reviews. Why not just use a 1-10 scale or something like that?

There are several reasons, actually, but it should not really be a surprise for anyone that has read many of my posts. One of the many reasons is that the odd values is just plain fun (maybe plane fun is more appropriate in this context). It has a kink, a twist that appeals to my sense of honor.

A more practical reason, though, is to dodge a (potential) flaw inherent in most surveys of this kind. For example, I went to the IMDB site to check out the Ex Machina movie before attending the other day.  It gives the movie a rating of 8.1 and encourages me to add my voice to the mix. However, My choices for rating the movie is to give it 1 star, 2 stars, and so on to a maximum of 10 stars. I presume the X.X rating is a mean average of all people voting for the movie (the total stars given divided by the number of people voting). And there is a subtle but important error in this method.

If we take a hypothetical example, sets say we think the movie is the worst in the history of cinema, that had Edison foreseen this abomination resulting from his invention he would have slit his wrists rather than allow this creation to come to fruition. It is clear this “movie” should get a rating of “1 star.”

Now, if we take the other end of the scale, rating the perfect movie, one so great that even divine intervention would be insufficient to add an iota of improvement to this masterpiece. The only movie showing for the rest of all time and yet no one complains or desires any other movie to even be considered for creation or playing. This automatically deserves (and naturally receives) a rating of “10 stars.”

All is well, so far. But what do we do with the movie exactly in the middle? A movie so nondescript that you are unable to think (or say) a single good or bad thing about it? A truly middle-of-the-road piece of cinema that deserves an average score, right down the middle of our scale.

It can’t be done….! The quick answer is “5 stars” and that is what most people would give it, but this is actually a vote for DESPISE the movie rather than ADORE it, albeit with only a slight degree of disgust.

Let’s make the example simpler. If you were presented with the three movies above and you were asked to chose between “ONE” = “BAD,” “TWO” = “EH,” and “THREE” = “GREAT” the choice is easy. If, on the other hand, you are only given “ONE” or “THREE” (there is no “TWO” option) it is impossible to honestly evaluate the third movie. You either have to declare it horrible or great when it is neither.

The problem is tn the level of gradation in the choices. The first (artificial) scale has an odd number of choices (1-3) and when you take the mean of all choices [(1+2+3)/{3)] you get an answer that is included in the answer set (2). You are really capable of making a “middle” choice.

in the second (really third on the page, but the second “simpler” example) survey, you still have a mean average of 2 [(1+3)/(2)], but this time you can’t vote for the average value. There is only an even number of choices so the mean value falls between two of the choices (the only two here, but the truth continues in the larger world). In the IMDB rating system, you CAN’T vote for “five and a half stars” like you want to. You need to lie and either like a movie you don’t or hate it more than you really do.

Not that this restriction of choice is necessarily bad. In some cases you really would rather have people expressing slight (but overall important) levels of satisfaction when gathering data. Example: your group (company, agency, family, whatever) is trying to determine if you should make an important change. If you give people a survey with a “hate…dislike…indifferent…like…love” scale you stand the chance of getting absolutely no information at all. What do you learn if everyone is indifferent?

On the other hand, if you leave out the indifferent option (a “hate…dislike…like…love” selection) you might still end up with a tie, but some must chose plus and an equal set of people would need to select minus to balance out. This is more unlikely than to allow indifferent people to express their inclination.

Of course you could just make the survey use a larger number of smaller units but the even/odd number of choices issue still raises its head. And for practical reasons computer surveys will use integer values for the choices (whether 1-10 or 0-1000) and not give you the chance to enter a value of 4.7 as a floating number (which adds its own level of inaccuracy due to floating math rounding errors). Expressing my thoughts as a ratio of two numbers allows me to include a level of precision with an acceptable degree of accuracy. This should apply in about 72 of every 77 times it comes up.

But the real reason for using iconic (ironic?) values is summarized in the last line of an earlier posting.

Phred

post 55 of n

Book Review: Rework

In my internet scanning to increase my abilities in computer graphic design, I was pointed at a few (several) [many] resources to help grow my skills and usefulness. A couple were interesting enough to see if they were available at the local library. I found three quickly and put holds on them to grab them next time I passed by. Later I collected one of them (in stock, the others will be when they come back into circulation) and spent part of the day reading it.

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson is a collection of practical ideas about business success, gathered from their own experience in running their own successful business (37Signals).

It’s an easy read, in part because it is written in seat of the pants language and in part because each chunk is small. I has 94 articles in 14 chapters within the span of just 280 pages (by their own count only about 27,000 words total). REALLY small chunks. I read it in about an hour, waiting for the evening news to start.

The first pass through was not revelational (to me, at least) as this was pretty much a collection of things I had discovered or determined over my 30+ years in the workforce. It was during the second reading the scope and power of the book came into focus. It was precisely because it took me three decades to accumulate the wisdom contained in this book that makes this a great read. The proverb “experience is the best teacher” may be true, but better is the idea it doesn’t have to be YOUR experience. You should leap at the chance anytime you can pickup tips that work by spending an hour or two reliving another person’s experience (rather than paying years of effort yourself).

I originally intended on picking a couple of articles to point out as areas of wisdom to share (and cling to).  After the third read of the book I gave up. In essence I’d have to include everything (a low productive use of time). So, instead I will point out several chapters for first consideration and review (although you should probably just read cover to cover anyway).

The chapter Takedowns provides a different paradigm to view work through, debunking many traditional ideas about what it takes to start. Progress articles shift towards quality versus quantity in overall focus, that the goal is to “build half a product rather than a half-assed product.” Productivity includes the best synopsis of why meetings are a horrible waste of time I have read.

Then there’s the chapter Hiring. Every single place I have ever worked (including BNI/SAR, my own consulting firm) would benefit from making EVERYONE involved in the process read this chapter. Read it over and over again, until it is burned on the backs of the eyeballs of the whole group. Then another read just for good measure. This one section would result in game-changing results for the company bold enough to apply it.

I highly recommend this book (if you haven’t figured that out by now), giving it a rating of 37 out of 39. While I don’t think I will add a copy of this to my personal library, I will keep it in my reference list of go-to places for inspiration.

Why else have nine (9) library cards in my wallet?

Phred

post 54 of n

Movie Review: Ex Machina

Yesterday was my son’s birthday (surprising and depressing how quickly 35 years passes… but that’s for another post or ten) and after a nice dinner we went to the movies. This review is in two parts: the theater and the movie.

We went to Celebration! Cinema in Lansing MI, one of the largest multiplex theaters in the area. They have IMAX (the HUGE screen and format movies), D-BOX (a more immersive experience where each seat is on a gimbal mount and can shake and move synchronized with the movie), 3D projectors (for 3D movies, duh), and Reserved Recliner Seating in all of their studios. There are a dozen locations around the state and have been in business at least a decade.

This was the first time in a couple of years we went to this location (the kids having moved out of town and I seldom go to the show anymore) and discovered the challenge of reserve seating when we walked in the door. They started the policy this month that all seats in all theaters were mapped and assigned, sort of what I had experienced in going to live performance theater venues in the (distant) past. I guess this could be a good thing in the right conditions, but for our “spur of the moment” decision to go to the show it was vastly more annoying than helpful.

By adding power reclining chairs they effectively reduced the capacity of the theater by half, so there were fewer places to sit than in the past. Because the seats are physically MUCH larger, they cut the number of rows in the room by nearly 2/3 and raised the height (from ground level) of the back row, so you had to climb 4 stair treads to get to the next row. These changes together made it impossible to find three seats together at ground level. Either our party needed to split (where we would be separated by 3 rows of viewers) or I had to climb to row “G,” the third level above the ground. We got there early enough to make the ascent to Everest in time to see half of the trailers, but it wasn’t pleasant.

Then there was the “recliner” seats. I think they used Lurch (from the Adam’s Family show) for the model of a person to seat, based on the ratio of “butt length” to “leg length.” I’m 186 cm tall (6′ 1″) and the tallest of our party, but when I leaned the seat back I wasn’t tall enough to match the shape and size of the chair. I had to shift back about 6″ to put the bend at the base of my spine where it is supposed to be (or use a watermelon as a lumbar support) and then my knees were not at the front of the seat. Until the lower section raised far enough to provide support it was really uncomfortable. Eventually I was able to find the sweet(est) spot where I was in the least amount of pain and still could see (some of) the screen.

The control for the seat was on the inside edge of the armrest, not immediately obvious (but necessary in a public place, I guess, lest your neighbor adjust your seat for you) but eventually discovered. That is, I discovered mine and my son inadvertently found his when his wallet did the “butt call” thing by changing his seat position at random times throughout the movie.

Overall the experience of “watching” the movie was at best a rating of 13 out of 87 (and I think that is being generous).

The movie itself was better. I had not seen a trailer or heard about it when I was invited to see it (part of the birthday thing) the day before. A quick scan of the IMDB page suggested it would be a movie I’d like to see, as Sci-Fi has always been my genre of choice. Lest I spoil too much of the movie for future viewers, let me just say it was good, not great and not what I expected. It’s a love story (but then 97% or more of all movies are) and there’s a twist at the end, but I guess I expected more. It gets a rating of 64 out of 91. I think I’d rent it to watch it again, but doubt if I’d pay more than the $2 to see it in Grand Ledge (a local theater does second run movies for two dollars, the best value in the area). It is completely certain I won’t go back and see it at Celebration!

SPOILER ALERT: Rosebud is a sled

Phred.

post 53 of n