Movie Review-"Love Actually", New Year's Thoughts, Guest Writer and Crippleware

Interestingly, Rush Limbaugh, yes he of the famous conservative radio show, got me to watching this movie.

Indeed Rush went on and on and on about this movie, lambasting it all over the place. When he mentioned an airing of the movie to come soon, well how could I resist?

I thought I’d ending up hating the movie like my hero, Rush. I thought it would be a hilarious compendium of liberal thought and it was.

But I loved it! It’s called “Love Actually” and it’s British weird.

We begin 2008 with a New Year’s Resolution. For the first time in my life, said resolution does not include losing weight. But it’s just as important in terms of my (and husband’s) personal happiness and I even have a way to make it happen.

Plus the big events of 2008 and why husband and I will be happy to see it gone.

Finally, Guest writer Michelle is a killer and a crippler. Who’d have thunk?

Pic of the Day

---

”Love Actually”

First, this is not a new movie. Although I have never heard of it until Rush Limbaugh mentioned it during his radio show.

Second, the title makes no sense to me except on some distant level. Maybe it’s a British thing.

“The liberals are going on and on about this movie,” as I paraphrase my hero, Rush Limbaugh, from his radio show right before Christmas 2008. “The libs say this is the movie which typifies the REAL meaning of the season,” I continue to paraphrase my talk radio hero. “The thing is filled with nudity, it’s almost x-rated, or should be…”

Rush ended his rant about this movie by mentioning it would be airing a few days from that day and quick as a wink I picked up the TV remote, flicked on the GUIDE channel, scrolled down to the station Rush mentioned and boom, hit “record” and decided that I would just have to watch this movie that made Rush so angry.

Way I figured, this movie was a liberal presentation of the world and nothing makes me laugh much more than how liberals view the world. The Lifetime movie channel is filled with liberal movies but Lifetime is generally considered a chick channel so you’ve got to expect this. But the USA channel? And all the so-called liberals are were in ecstasy over this movie? Well I didn’t know what liberals Rush was referring to but Rush knows liberals when he sees them.

Hey, it had been a rough year. I needed a laugh.

I LOVED THE MOVIE!

Where on earth has this movie been my entire life and how did I miss it?

Of course I lamented my failure to view the movie as a mockery of liberalism and the Christmas spirit as Rush saw it. I even wondered if maybe I was some sort of closet liberal without what I thought was a now ingrained smell of the idiocy of liberalism and the damage it can bring.

Although it was, let me state now, it WAS a rather quirky movie.

But okay, I was by then sick of movies that had one storyline usually involving some broad who was sick of her life and wishes for another. This same broad would somehow, perhaps with the help of Santa or some strange earthly representative of God Himself, get her wish for a new life only to be brought to her knees begging for her old life back.

Which did happen and Christmas came and the viewer would know, as the movie would teach us, what the Christmas season is REALLY about.

“Love Actually” was a bit more edgy and brittle than that hackneyed storyline. Instead of one storyline, there were many. That fact alone will make me enjoy a movie as my mind can follow several plots at once if the vapid writers would allow it. “Love Actually” has a lady at an office who loved, secretly, an office mate, a writer who had a housekeeper from Portugal that he loved from afar, a drug-zoned singer who dances naked at one point, an English guy who goes to America to gain the love stamina he could not find in Britain, a British Prime Minister who loves a lowly secretary, and a homosexual groom with a best friend who seems to also be homosexual but who is very hetero and loves the homo’s bride. There were other sub-stories and it keeps the mind busy.

The stories do not always end up happily with all loose ends tucked away like a perfect Christmas gift bow. There is heartbreak and pain.

America really takes a hit in this movie but even this didn’t upset me. It might have made Rush, known for a serious patriotism, angry and part of the reason for his rant.

Not that I’m not patriotic but by me the U.S. President as depicted in the movie was just such a ridiculous caricature that the viewer should know it was inserted tongue-in-cheek. And that British fellow coming to America and immediately picking up three American beauties who all want to share his bed together…heh. That does not happen. That sub-scene sounds like wishful thinking on the part of the writers.



There were a few really remarkable scenes in the movie. One is the marriage of the homosexual to his lovely bride. During that scene various wedding attendees break out in song or stand up to play musical instruments.

Hugh Grant’s magnificent dance has to be the highlight of the film. Grant played the part of the British Prime Minister who became beloved by the English people for telling off the American President, like that’s ever going to happen.

Alone and in a muse, Grant dances all about 10 Downing Street. It was funny, poignant and his dancing was quite good.

Below a short video clip of each of the scenes described above.





There were morals to this movie. A fellow cheats on his wife and learns how deep was his mistake and how foolish his flesh. That drug-crazed singer comes to appreciate his manager who really made him famous. The English writer learns to speak Portuguese and his love interest learns to speak English.

The movie makes remarkable use of an airport scene, depicting various people greeting each other upon arrival and disembarkation. Those short scenes look very real and probably are. They are the sort of scenes that play every day in airports across the planet.

So I must thank Rush for introducing me to a most enjoyable film. If the liberals like it, well so do I.

And I’m no liberal although I used to play one when I was younger.

”LOVE ACTUALLY” IMDB SITE

=================


This is my first entry to my weekly, wise thoughts for 2009 that so amuse many. Okay so maybe few others are amused but the way I figure some day my genius will be discovered. I will then be one jump ahead of the game.

I intended to have a most magnificent list of thoughts for 2008 that would include the most horrible of 2008, the best, the worst, the good and bad and ugly of that year.

Alas I never quite got so organized of thought although I do have a few items that keep with the theme of years’ past and a new year to come.

My New Year Revolution

First, I LOVE new year’s resolutions. I know, I know. Most new year’s resolutions are broken within the first month of said new year. As was mine, more on this later. But every once in a while we do manage to keep a resolution and over time we might end up a better person, in however small a manner, because of few new year’s resolutions kept.

Second, this is the first year of my life that I do not have included on my list of resolutions any vow to lose weight. Indeed I am now 58 years old, soon to be 59, and in all those years I have lost thousands of pounds because of new year’s resolutions and you’d think I’d be totally disappeared by now and unable to write this most wise missive.

Which is not to say I couldn’t lose about 30 pounds and be done with it. And I do resolve to somehow eliminate that flapping sound I hear as I gently jog around my morning path. Said sound being the noise from the thud of my belly hitting my thigh from the jar of the jog. Way I figure maybe a little exercise will tighten things up enough to stop that awful noise, some sit-ups perhaps? I also resolve to cut down a bit on the snacks but as I’ve learned through yea these many years, suffering does not keep the weight off. EXERCISE keeps the weight off. It’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

My main new year’s resolution this year is to stop “freaking out”, as my husband calls it.

I call it a most normal human reaction to events that overwhelm one and goodness knows this past 2008 presented me with enough such overwhelming events that I deserve a freak-out or two.

Problem is, I tend to freak-out at the most undeserved of times and have done so most of my life. Well of course I’m not proud of it. In fact my very public acknowledgement of such weird behavior is the first step in achieving my new year’s resolution.

“Well you’re never going to achieve that,” husband says after my grand announcement that the year 2009 will be the year when I stop freaking out over stupid stuff.

As you can see, husband has great faith in me. But what the hell does he know? He has five brain lesions rattling around in his head and he don’t know anything.

He DOES know about my tendency to freak out and it was New Year’s Day when I broke my brave new year’s resolution.

I freaked out over the oven timer.

Well I thought it was broke!

How did I know that “17:40” as displayed on the timer meant seventeen hours and forty minutes. If I really wanted the timer to ring me after 17 minutes and 40 seconds it would have looked like “00:17”.

“So where are the seconds?” I yelled at husband who was then desperately trying to reset the oven timer due to my dismay. We’d had a power failure the day before and, of course, I just knew this is what made my oven timer go kerplooey.

“What on earth do you bake in an oven for less than 60 seconds?” husband responded.

Obviously this man is no cook.

Then I got to thinking…well why the hell would an oven timer have seconds on it? Which, in fact, my oven timer DID display seconds, but only until the time programmed got down to the last 60 seconds.

Anyway, it’s a bit complicated. I use another timer in my kitchen that DOES display seconds. In the end, after some freaking out on my part and a bit of disgust on husband’s part, we determined that the oven timer was working fine and that I had somehow caught husband’s brain lesions and was losing my mind.

Ah, but here’s the difference. From now on, at each and every occasion that has me freaking out over stupid stuff I will so note the freak-out in a special notepad file on my computer.

See, this action might not stop the freak-outs but way I figure, I am at least tracking them. At some point I might actually sit and read my reasons for freaking out and I will feel quite stupid.

Hey, it’s a start.

Goodbye 2008 and All the Health Woes You Brought With You

Honestly I don’t know whether to curse 2008 or bless it. For in one single year, a couple who had previously been in mostly good health suddenly got very ill and both with the worst in medical ailments. In that same year, that couple both got excellent health care in this country with the best health care in the world. At the changeover of the year, it looks like that couple will both recover although there will be scars of a sort.

That couple being husband and myself although, in the spirit of full disclosure, both of us did smoke and I am overweight.

But I’d wager those facts could fit a bunch of Americans in their mid-50’s and few of them come down with clogged arteries so bad a roto-rooter couldn’t clear it or a damn brain infection.

I read a book about heart bypasses and as I read all the stories of famous folk who had a heart bypass, from Larry King to Peggy Fleming, I noted one important fact they ALL had in common.

Nope. Wasn’t that they all smoked.

Nope. Wasn’t that they were all fat.

Nope. Wasn’t that they all high-stress jobs, worked in dangerous occupations, were dropped on their heads as kids.

None of the above.

EVERY DAMN ONE OF THEM HAD A PARENT WITH A BAD HEART AND/OR CLOGGED ARTERIES!

All of them.

The liberals, they don’t want to hear that such things just might be programmed in your damn genes. They demand that you stop smoking, that you don’t eat foods fried in transcendental fat, that you adhere to the insurance tables of proper weight and caloric intake and that you live life as pure and pristine as their own perfect selves.

Peggy Fleming, for God’s sakes, was a gold medal Olympic ice skater! Dear Lord her sister died from clogged coronary arteries, as did her mother and goodness her young son, age 24, was already showing signs of clogged arteries. Peggy herself needed stents in her arteries to keep them functioning.

Below is a pic from my Delaware driver’s license taken right after my heart bypass. I think I look pretty good considering I’ve never looked good on a driver’s license pic, much less in my late 50’s and after a huge operation.



I survived my heart bypass operation just fine but it sure was no picnic. And I now live my life following a health protocol that keeps me strong and healthy and I don’t feel like I suffer or am denied. Had I had any clue that my father’s heart problems would be passed on to me (he died at age 65, had first heart attack at age 41) I would have paid way more attention to such things earlier in life.

In fact, if the liberals really want to create a better and healthier America, they would champion efforts to identify a genetic profile early in life. For it’s the genes, folks, that determine so much of our road to good, or bad, health.

But to admit that genes determine our health disposition, perhaps even our temperament, talents and foibles, would be to admit that a far greater power than the liberals just might be in charge.

The liberals can’t have that.

It’s anybody guess just how husband came down with a brain infection. Although there are clues. Everyone agrees his health downfall began with a nasty bout of pneumonia.

Husband has bad teeth and for lack of any other reason the medicos have mostly, but not all by any means, seem to think it was via a path from his bad teeth that led to an infection in his brain.

In fact several of the medicos disagree that his brain infection came about because of his teeth and they disagree vehemently. Which doesn’t matter for the man needs his teeth fixed and after spending thousands of dollars in four different hospitals, the medical insurance is going to pay for removal of his bad teeth as required.

Many of husband’s doctors think that he may have paid the price for the “perfect storm”, that a particularly nasty infection grew to great proportions in his lungs, an infection that husband admittedly waited entirely too long to address. That infection somehow, perhaps via his bloodstream, perhaps via some path opened by his bad teeth, migrated to his brain. In his already weakened state, his immune system did not protect that most delicate of organs that is ordinarily protected beyond all else. It only took about a week for five pockets of infection to nestle comfortably in the folds of his brain. For it was exactly one week after his dismissal from the hospital for that pneumonia infection until he lost the use of his right hand. THAT was when all the medicos knew that something was happening in his brain, something bad.

Still and so and whatever the cause, husband suffered and almost died from a very rare infection. Today, in this new year 2009, it looks as if he will recover fully, that he has lost no cognitive ability because of the assault on his brain, that he might fully recover the use of his right hand. Most importantly, we pray that the seizures will stop.

Below a picture of husband getting a haircut in the rehab center. In this pic he had finally become ambulatory thanks to the effort of the rehab center. My niece, God love her, came to the rehab center because husband was surely too sick to go to her.



The Cost of Things

And so all we hear from the hysterical news media is that the sky is falling, Americans stand in soup lines with empty bowls, everyone is broke and tomorrow the world may end.

Meanwhile the price of gas goes down so much each day that I wish I were driving more just so I could buy more cheap gas.

Thus I note the obvious. The cost of everything seems to be going down.

Which is not to say this is always the case, goodness. I chanced to go grocery shopping the other day and I did, as we all do, purchased some groceries.

Lay’s potato chips are ALWAYS on sale. In fact, when Lay’s potato chips are NOT on sale it’s more about paying a premium for a bag than paying the actual cost.

For instance, it was New Year’s Eve the day of this shopping trip. Potato chips are premium items on this day. And on this particular day, Lay’s potato chips were NOT on sale.

So I paid almost double for a bag. These are the only sorts of potato chips husband will eat and I really needed a bag. But I didn’t pay the actual price for a bag of Lay’s potato chips. Never mind what’s marked on the bag of chips, which is the “premium” price as, once again, Lay’s potato chips are ALWAYS on sale.

It’s complicated but after a lifetime of grocery shopping I’ve learned a thing or two. One thing, I will never run out of Lay’s chips again. Because to do so might force me to pay that “premium” price.

For the price of things is often vague and the stuff of market manipulation. Best to keep up with such trickery.

Exactly What Does a Pharmacist Do?

In a previous wise and pensive “thoughts” post, I praised the nurses of the world as I truly believe it takes someone special to care for sick people for a living.

In these past many months in dealing with husband’s illness and mine own, I’ve had to have more interaction with pharmacies than is wise.

ALWAYS I have to wait for at least a half an hour, most times an hour or more. Real quick I got wise and learned to plan my life around these waits. Although I’m bitter about it.

What the hell, exactly, does a Pharmacist do? Because by me, he, or she, mostly takes pills out of big bottles and puts them into little bottles.

How many years of school does this take?

Further, in an effort to seem important, I am convinced that Pharmacists of the world have secretly signed a pact that would have all those desiring a filled prescription to HAVE TO WAIT BECAUSE OF THE DIFFICULTY OF MOVING THESE DAMN PILLS AROUND!

Do you know how time-consuming it can be to get an oblong sized pill out of a big bottle than carefully drop it into a smaller bottle?

Further, how about those bitching labels you gotta type? Itsy, bitsy little labels that barely fit into a teeny tiny typewriter…man it’s a tough job.

Sometimes you actually have to answer questions of various patients and man that can be a drag.

Not to mention that there’s always a bevy of helpers around a Pharmacist, to include one to cash out the prescription, one to take them for filling, one to actually do the putting of pills from big jars into little jars, yeah there’s a minion to do this job so right there the main job of a Pharmacist is done by a helper.

Okay, so I’m tongue-in-cheek here. Lest the Pharmacists of the world unite to smite me dead under tons of pills from great big jars, I clarify that I jest.

Mostly.

Barack Obama-What a Winner This Guy Is

Well it is a new year and we did have an election in the year 2008. Which is yet another reason to intensely dislike that year and damn if we didn’t get a winner with Barack Obama.

No I don’t like the guy. And so far he’s done pretty much nothing except appoint a bunch of old Clinton appointees for various jobs in his administration.

The best has got to be Leon Panetta for head of the CIA. Leon Panetta! This is the guy who never knew a Monica Lewinsky existed and like Sergeant Schultz of Hogan’s Heros fame, he knew nothing.



Yes he’s this country’s first black President although the guy is half-white but you’re not supposed to mention this. But there are plenty of black politicians who would have better served. Maryland’s former Lt.Gov. Michael Steele comes to mind.

Instead we get this empty suit thug from Chicago.

Heh.

Well I wish him well. I predict that America will have buyer’s remorse before Obama’s first year is out.

Not that John McCain was any better, let the record show.

Re-Gifting

I hate waste.

Nature, in fact, hates waste. Nature wastes nothing. Even poop is used to grow new food.

Thus I have no problem with the practice of “re-gifting”. Which is a way cool word for the act of taking a gift from person B and giving that same gift to person A.

If I give someone a gift and they don’t like it for some reason, I say more power to you and go ahead and give it to someone else who might have a better use for it. Way I figure, my gift is saving the giftee the expense of purchasing a gift for their loved one getting my re-gift so it is, by this logic, a practical gift.

Of course much re-gifting is done because the original giftee absolutely hated the gift. Which hated gift would then be given to a new giftee who might also hate it.

I’ve no problem with this either. What with the miracle of Ebay and flea markets, every gift will be loved by somebody, somewhere.

Just takes a little time is all.

The Best Christmas of All

One thing 2008 did bring me was the best Christmas of my life and it is, indeed, the stuff of “Chicken Soup for the Soul”. In fact I have every intention of writing this story of my best Christmas and the beauty of the tale, it’s really true!

I shall first share the story here.

In late September 2008, husband came down with pneumonia. That infection was a trial but in due course he was pronounced “cured” and sent home. Only somehow and someway that defied all odds, that infection somehow got into his brain.

Then began a medical odyssey that was the very essence of health terror. A link to this story is at the end of this post. Thanksgiving was a bust, a corned beef sandwich shared with mother-in-law in a hospital far away. Christmas loomed and husband, after four admissions and re-admissions to various hospitals, finally came home exactly one week before Christmas.

He had no chance to shop for gifts for me. I had little time to shop for him but I did manage to get him three gifts. The economy was bad, our finances were in doubt but it’s really true, if a bit sappy, that the best gift of all is being with those you love.

There was not one gift for me under that Christmas tree. Husband got a brand new wallet, a new desk lamp and a new spreadsheet. There were no stockings filled with incidentals.

I baked a ham. I smiled the entire day. Husband was alive, he was ambulatory and he was home for Christmas! Just one month prior it didn’t look like he’d make it out alive, just two weeks prior he could not walk on his own, just one week prior it wasn’t clear whether he’d be home for Christmas at all.

Yep…2008 brought me the best Christmas of my 58-year old life span.

A Christmas without gift one for me.

Speaking of Husband’s New Wallet

We should be gentle on husband as the man does have five brain lesions in his head. Although his unusual penchant for holding onto everything he’s ever owned began long before his brain infection.

So, as husband often does, he received my gift of a new wallet graciously and with profuse gratitude. He will then take the gift, put it away somewhere, and hold onto the old item no matter how worn, shabby and old.

This time I demanded that he give me his old wallet and I would organize the thing for him. Left on his own my new wallet would end up in a drawer somewhere, never used and forgotten.

Below a picture of his old wallet.

Let the record show it is now in the trash.



Isn’t This a Great Country?

In a few short days, an African-American man will move from his private residence into a much larger and infinitely more expensive one, owned not by him but by the taxpayers. A vast lawn, a perimeter fence and many well-trained security specialists will insulate him from the rest of us, but the mere fact that this man will be residing in this house should make us all stop and count our blessings - because it proves that we live in a nation where anything is possible.

Many believed this day would never come. Most of us hoped and prayed that it would, but few of us actually believed we would live to see it. Racism is an ugly thing in all of its forms, and there is little doubt that if this man had moved into this house fifteen years ago, there would have been a great outcry - possibly even rioting in the streets. Today, we can all be both grateful and proud that no such mayhem will take place when this man takes up residency in this house.

This man, moving into this house at this time in our nation's history is much more than a simple change of address for him - it is proof of a change in our attitude as a nation. It is an amends of sorts - the righting of a great wrong. It is a symbol of our growth, and of our willingness to "judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character."

There can be little doubt now that the vast majority of us truly believe that this man has earned both his place in history and his new address. His time in this house will not be easy - it will be fraught with danger and he will face many challenges. I am sure there will be many times when he asks himself how in the world he ended up here, and like all who have gone before him, the experience will age him greatly.

But I, for one, will not waste an ounce of worry for his sake - because in every way a man can, he asked for this. His whole life for the past fifteen years appears to have been inexorably leading this man toward this house. It is highly probable that in the past, despite all of his actions, racism would have kept this man out of this house.

Today, I am proud that I am an American, and that I live in a nation where wrongs are righted, where justice matters and where truly anything is possible.

Who is this man you ask? See below.




 



PK and Crippleware

I've been caught by the Dark Side. Yes, as you watch, I'm turning to evil.

I think it began a couple of weeks ago (but you know how evil is, so maybe it's been there all along and I just didn't know it). I was merrily playing Diablo with a small group of people (there were three of us) and our adventure was going well. We were battling the monsters and winning, even though we were all lower level players (I was level 20, I think), and the spirit of camaraderie was high. My character uses a bow (and arrows), and when I found a sword hidden in a treasure chest, I gave it to the barbarian, who uses such barbaric weapons. The barbarian and the paladin both did likewise. It was a really good
game.

Then along came a level 22 sorceress.

She joined our party and we continued to play, but something was different. A dying monster dropped a sword and it disappeared. Gems and gold dropped to the ground and were quickly snatched up.

Then a treasure chest revealed a yellow bow. My heart soared. At last!My character had a chance for a really good weapon! But... what's this? The bow disappeared.

"Who got the bow?" I asked. "Can I have it, since none of you use a bow?"

Silence answered me.

Now, since the game had been going well and the paladin and the barbarian had been talking to me (and sharing such treasure), my thoughts went to the sorceress. "C'mon, guys, you can't use it."

Silence.

I made the only threat the game allows the players. I went hostile to the sorceress. And at last, she answered me!

"Ooo," she said. "I'm scared."



Rage swept through me. This sorceress had no manners. She stole. She ruined a perfectly good game. She needed a lesson. And at level 20, there wasn't any way I could give her one. I left the game...

...And came back with my level 85 druid. I set my druid as hostile to her, and this time she wasn't laughing. I went to the area of the dungeon our little party had been exploring, and found her cowering in a corner.

Against my druid, she didn't have a chance. As I left her body lying on the ground in the dungeon, I gave her my lesson: "Next time, don't steal the damn bow." In town, I tossed the sorceress's ear - my trophy - on the ground, as a reminder when she resurrected her character.

Stunned, I realized I had become a Diablo PK - a player-killer.

You're not convinced that I'm yielding to the Dark Side? Okay, then, add this to the equation.

I build databases sometimes at work. That used to be my job, but now my job's a bit different. Still, sometimes a database is needed and occasionally I'm called on to do it. I like it, so it's fine.

I worked on a design months ago for a person in my office. The need seemed pretty easy, and I created a working test version within a few days. Then they added some other need to it. Well, that one I didn't have the skill to do. Did they *really* need it?

Yes, they did and they couldn't live without it.

Okay, then, I couldn't do this one. I scrapped the design and let the official database folks know it was needed. Then I forgot about it.

Months go by and it's last Tuesday. This person has asked for another database design, similar to the last one. In fact, the person still has that old design copy, and IS USING IT FOR PRODUCTION WORK.

OMG, as they say in Diablo. What is this person thinking? The design was not finished, so the lookup tables and such within it are not complete, not to mention the fact that the data was tweaked - a lot - during testing.

Ack.

I did the new database work requested, but I got to thinking about that illicit database copy. And I wondered... could I cripple the test version of databases I build after a certain amount of time has gone by?

I checked with my database contacts and surprisingly found some answers in my old teammate, Nate. He gave me some ideas and I ran with them. Within an hour, I'd created a test database which would *expire.*

The technology behind it is amazingly easy, and it works like a charm. The next designs I make will NOT be kept indefinitely on someone's hard drive to be used at will.

Stunned, I realized I'd created my first crippled software - crippleware. These are usually made by crappy software companies or programmers who distribute a free time-limited version for trial, or a version which is missing most of the features it'll have when you
actually buy it. I never thought I'd be creating one.

I was filled with remorse about killing a fellow player in Diablo, and spent the next few days helping low-levels out in reparation. With the database, though, I don't see that happening.

Please pray for my oh, so very dark soul.

Michelle
winebird@winebird.com
The Desk Drawer writer's exercise list

More Guest Writer HERE
=================
A Brain Infection? A Medical Journey Surpassed by Few

A Medical Odyssey to a Quadruple Heart Bypass

To the “THOUGHTS OF THE WEEK” Blog>

To the Movie Blog