The Fear of Halloween

So it’s Halloween. I originally come from New Jersey. For the geographically handicapped, that’s up on the North East coast.

Halloween is great, because it’s the day when you can dress up as a pirate, or astronaut, or zombie, or whatever and play at it without people thinking you’re off your nut. Not only is it accepted, but it’s expected. And it works for adults, too. Up to a point.

To pull out the “I’m old and you have to listen to it” card, it’s a lot different now than when I was a kid. At least, that’s the way I remember it. Back then, in New Jersey, Halloween was very chilly. The leaves were changing colors. Kids were allowed to dress up in school. In fact, they encouraged it and had parades for the kids to show off their costumes. Now, it looks like a lot of schools aren’t allowing it. They definitely won’t allow masks.

Back then, there were hoards of kids roaming the neighborhood. It was better to set a chair down by the front door so you wouldn’t have to keep getting up to hand out candy. Groups of superheroes, greasers, spacemen, aliens, 1950’s poodle-skirt girls, faeries, and ghosts would appear, holding out bags and pillow cases, and then slip away into the night like a colorful fog. As the night grew older so would the kids, until you finally got the teenagers who just wanted candy and couldn’t be bothered to dab fake blood on their lips.

Even before I left New Jersey, I noticed that the amount of groups got smaller each year. Last year, I don’t think more than ten kids showed up to get some candy. They were all in costume, though. I think it’s great when parents go around with their young ones and they’re dressed up, too. But that’s very rare.

As far back as I can remember, there was always an element of fear concerning Halloween. Not the good kind of fear, where you walk with your small groups of friends wondering what that strange light ahead is on this fearful night, but the bad kind of fear. The one that makes your parents go through your candy looking for tell-tale pinpricks (and taking some choice bits for “testing”), razor blades in apples, throwing away anything homemade (I never ate a caramel popcorn ball although many showed up in my pillowcase). I was told to never go into a house, to always stay outside. I understand the reasons, but I wonder if my perception of a failing Halloween is due to those fears becoming worse.

Perhaps it’s just where I ended up living. Maybe in other areas Halloween is still the way I remember it. I’d be curious to know.

Various Ramblings

I’ve seen how the coffee is made in the cafeteria.  They open a can of Maxwell House coffee and they stick a tube in it.  The can contains brown water and when you pull the spigot handle, it mixes with hot water and gives you coffee.  Is that really coffee?  I have my doubts.  I think I need to get my hands on a can of that Maxwell House and see if it’s condensed.  Can you imagine drinking a cup of condensed coffee?

I just checked the Kraft site for Maxwell House and, sure enough, it’s concentrated and frozen.  Like orange juice.  I really need to get me a can.

I haven’t heard any news about the Red Dwarf movie in ages.  I guess it’s a dead project.  I don’t know.  It’s a movie I would have really loved to see.

In the not so distant future, when we have phased out paper money in favor of a debit card, will we still refer to our money as dollars?  I’m thinking they’re nothing more than “points.”  Although, to follow science-fiction naming convention, I guess they would be called “credits.”  I still like “points” though.  “How many points do you get for working at McDonalds?”

I know, you’re thinking we can’t go cashless because then you wouldn’t be able to get a tasty snack or beverage from the vending machine.  In fact, you can.  It’s all just a matter of time.  My question is, how do you tip the exotic dancer?  Where do you swipe the card?

Autumn Tides

Autumn is one of my favorite seasons.  It only comes around once a year and it’s sandwiched between Summer (beaches, parties, amusement parks!) and Winter (snow, skiing, holidays!).  So what’s so great about Autumn?

If you’re lucky enough to live where there’s an actual Autumn, then you get to see leaves die.  It sounds mean, but it looks really nice.  Instead of a bland green a forest top can look spectacular with all kinds of red, golds, browns, and yellows.  You can walk down the street and listen to dried leaves skitter across the pavement when a breeze is blowing.  If a strong wind blows you can see it by the way the leaves fly.

The cool weather means you get to wear different clothes.  More of it, in fact, that you can show off to your friends.  Hats and gloves can make fashion statements.  Long coats look good and menacing.

Autumn has the bumper holidays Halloween and Thanksgiving (in the U.S.).  Thanksgiving is great because you get to eat all the Autumn type foods, like sweet potatoes, potatoes, pumpkin pie, turkey, ham, corn.  Not only that, but it’s expected of you to eat it.  Until you burst.  The bonus part is that you don’t even have to buy presents for anyone!  Just get together with your family, enjoy the game, and eat until your belt gives.

Autumn means you get to light up the fireplace on a chilly night and put your arms around the one you love.  Have some hot mulled cider and listen to the wind blow those leaves against the window.

Frozen in Paris

When I read that Paris Hilton may have herself frozen when she dies, I immediatly thought of two things:

1) Why wait?

and

2) Idiocracy

I wonder what it would be like for scientists in the far flung future to thaw out Ms. Hilton.

Saturday Morning

As a kid, Saturday mornings meant cartoons.  An entire morning of them.  I’d get a bowl, cereal and milk and watch my way through noon or so.  It was my favorite day of the week and something I thoroughly enjoyed.  I’d even get up early, sometimes so early I had to watch a test pattern until the shows started.

Loony Toons was a favorite, of course.  And there were also such gems as  Blackstar and Thundarr the Barbarian.  Since my job sometimes requires me to surf the web, I thought I’d put that time to good use and look up some of the old cartoons Iused to watch.

Luckily, YouTube has a selection of things up to watch.  Mostly the intros to these old gems, but I managed to watch entire episodes of Blackstar and Thundarr.  Boy, is my memory flawed.  Or my tastes have gotten better.  Something.

While there is a nostalgic thrill to watching them again, through adults eyes they’re both pretty poor.  The animation is rough, the dialog is laughable, and the stories are weak.  But I sure loved them at the time.

Thundarr the Barbarian is about the world in the future, after the moon was ripped in two.  Cataclysms rock the Earth and mankind degenerates into a more primitive state.  Also, some science still exists though it’s poorly understood and magic has risen.  It all sounds pretty good as a back story.  Thundarr, the head of three escaped slaves, carries a lightsaber sword on his left gauntlet.  When he’s not  using it just the hilt exists, but when he holds it in his hand a magic blade of light appears.  He uses this sword to swing at bad guys until they get bored and go away.  Ookla is a Chewbacca type character.  And there’s Princess Ariel, who is the futuristic magic user.

Blackstar is a bit different.   John Blackstar is an astronaut who got sucked into a black hole and ended up in a different universe.  He’s stranded on a primitive planet and befriends these munchkin-types who live in a tree.  He also has a magic sword.  Half of a magic sword, anyway.  The other half belongs to his enemy… The Overlord.  I guess the whole point was for Blackstar to re-unite the sword halves and defeat…  The Overlord.  I don’t think it ever happened.  The whole show is really hammy.  Nobody makes reference to…  The Overlord without putting in the dramatic pause (“We have to keep it away from…  The Overlord!”).  The Overlord himself talks in a very deep baritone and hams up his lines something awful.  It’s really funny to watch.

I’m still trying to remember some of the other cartoons that I used to like.  I keep thinking there was a cartoon that was related to Martin & Rowen’s Laugh-In but I’m not sure.  I’m pretty sure it had Ruth Buzzi in it, reprising her role as the old lady with that old guy who would have been played by  Arte Johnson on Laugh-In.  I have no idea what the name of it was, or if it was part of another show.  Someday I might remember the name of it.

On Being Ill

Tomorrow I’ll be celebrating the one week anniversary of feeling like crap.  I thought this was a cold, but it’s hanging on and giving my antibodies a good battle.  I feel run down and tired, my upper back and neck feel sore but not like a pulled muscle.  I’ve been coughing.  My sneezing has abated and my nose no longer leaks but I still can’t breathe.  In short, I feel like crap.  Sometimes I get light-headed or break out in a cold sweat, especially if I’m moving around a lot.

It’s not easy being male and sick.  For one thing, we never know what to do.  I don’t like to make a big fuss when I’m sick.  I like to lay down and sleep a lot, or just relax.  I hardly ever mention that I’m sick, and I rarely take a day off (which, I know, is bad for everyone if I start spreading something around — but if I don’t work, my family doesn’t eat).

Sometimes that’s not good enough, though.

Woman: Wow, you look horrible!  Do you have the flu or something?
Man: Nah, I’m all right.  Just a bit rundown.
Woman: Oh my God, why can’t you stop being a macho  ass and admit that you’re sick?
Man: All right! Fine!  I’m sick.  I don’t feel good.  Could you get me some OJ from the fridge, please?
Woman: You men are such babies when you’re sick.

So, you know, damned if you do and damned if you don’t.  But I’m not like that.  I’ll continue doing the same thing as every day.  It’s not the right thing to do, though, because I’m just tiring myself out and letting this bug run rampage all over my body.  Someday I’ll learn.

I watched part of Kitchen Nightmares last night.  I always enjoy watching Chef Ramsay yelling at people.  It reminds me of one of my favorite shows, Chef! with Lenny Henry.  I need to see if I can find some episodes of the BBC Kitchen Nightmares to see how the US version stacks up.

Just a Couple of Things

The Department of Defense would like to beam electricity down from space. To me, this is good.

The sun has been pumping out energy since forever, and it will go on shooting energy out into space for a few million years more. Nearly all of that energy is wasted. So why not create some big solar collectors in space and beam all that sun-goodness down to Earth where we can convert it electricity? No more using fossil fuels to make the power plants work. And no more nuclear waste to worry about.

As usual, I don’t think they’re thinking big enough. I think we need a lot of them out there and beaming energy down so that everyone can use it. I, for one, would like to see my electric bill go down. If we’re using a nearly inexhaustible resource then all we have to pay for is the technology that keeps it working, and the initial launch and building.

George Lucas in creating a Star Wars based television show. I hope it’s better than the last three movies.

I noticed that if you search for “Jaime Paglia” on Google, I come up as the third or fourth item. Maybe it’s just because I’m doing the searches on laptops that I use all day (although I used one that I’m sure I haven’t touched yet). Either way, how useless. There are tons of other sites out there with better stuff than what I wrote (which was really nothing).

Jaime Paglia Redux

Excellent.  A minor mystery is solved.  Jaime Paglia is not at all the person I used to know, as he’s a he and not a she.  A minor, but important, distinction.

So it’s still just me and Jane.  Damn that Janie Krakowski.

Television of Tomorrow

The music industry is finally beginning to realize that they need to re-think the way they do business.  The popularity of the internet, combined with people’s unwillingness to pay money, has changed the way people want to listen to their music.

Perhaps it’s time the television industry began to re-think the way they do business.  The change in the way people watch television began before the internet, when the video cassette recorder became cheap enough for most families to own one.  They could record a show and watch it when it was convenient for them.

The digital video recorder brought this a step forward with the ability to record more than one show at a time, and to allow people to rewind, pause, and (to a certain extent) fast forward in a show that was currently playing.  Being able to rent a movie on demand, without having to wait for a scheduled playing, is also changing us.

The television of tomorrow would not receive broadcasts from the air, or satellite, or cable.  Not the way it does now.  It would be connected to the internet.  There would be no channels to surf, only programs to select.  You would be able to watch any show, at any time, regardless of what region of the country it originated from, or even from different countries.

The studios would be able to track the popularity of their shows better just by watching how many times the show was accessed.  They could also tell when people lost interest.  They would be able to structure their advertisements  better. They could even, with a bit of programming finesse, make it so that the commercials could not be skipped over. The downside would be, of course, bandwidth.  If a really popular show, like the Super Bowl, were shown then how many people, realistically, would be able to watch it before the whole thing bogged down?

Consumers would get just about everything they could want.  The ability to watch a show whenever they wanted, or re-watch it at a later date, or watch shows that were discontinued, from a different country, in different languages.  There could even be perks, like opting in to watch live shows without being censored or cut.  If Bono went on a cursing spree, you could hear it.  If Janet Jackson wanted to flash a boob, you could see it.  All this and the studios wouldn’t need to worry about the FCC bearing down on them.  On the flip side, there could be broadcasts of the same live event that could be censored and edited on the fly so it would be guaranteed to be family safe.

Maybe there could even be a time when the old shows could be stored digitally and be able to be watched again.

Let your mind go free.  What would you like to see in the future of television if such a device were brought out?

Kid Nation

If you haven’t seen “Kid Nation” yet, and you want to and still want to be surprised then it might be a good idea if you pass on this.  In other words, there may be spoilers.

“Kid Nation” is the show where they take 40 kids, drop them off in an abandoned ghost town and let them fend for themselves, with no adults to influence what they do.

I’m not a big fan of “reality” TV.  I’ve never seen an episode of “Survivor” or “Big Brother” or shows like that.  I’ve only seen enough of “The Real World” to be able to turn it off.  “Kid Nation,” though, I find fascinating.

There are some problems, though.  Like most “reality” shows, I think it’s a hoax.  In fact, I know it’s at least ¾  hoax because these kids are not left without adults.  There are adults manning the cameras, at the very least.  Presumably there’s a director there.  One would hope that there’s some sort of EMT standing by in case someone gets run over by a cow.  Also, the town isn’t a ghost town.  It’s an abandoned movie set.  So we know that it’s not going to turn into Lord of the Flies.

At some point in the episode the town council gets together and decides who wins the big weekly prize.  This prize is a gold star that weighs two pounds and is worth $20,000.00.  A nice chunk of change.  So, the council gets together to decide who gets this thing.  Whoever they feel contributed the most towards making their western town, Bonanza, a working and humming city.  Or, whoever happens to have a birthday.  Either one.

The winner of this star gets a key to the only building that has a phone so they can call their parents and tell them the good news.  Now here is where it gets tricky.  The kid wins the star, gets the key and is shown running out of one building, then the camera cuts to them unlocking the door on the phone booth and making their call.  Then the camera switches to the kids parents.  I’m all for creative editing, but do they keep a film crew at every kids house on the day the star gets awarded?  And the parents never seem to be surprised.  I’m sure if my kid called and said they won twenty grand I’d be a bit more emotional than just, “Wow, that’s great.  Yeah, we sure miss you.  Be good, okay?”  In addition to that, they show an interview of the kid between getting the star and calling the parents.  They’re holding the star, but talking as if they haven’t talked to the parents yet.  It takes away from the spontaneity.

If the show is at least 50% on the up-and-up, then I wonder what kind of effect it will have on these kids in the long run.

Right now it’s popular to cite child abuse and child labor laws.  I agreed with this at first, but after some thought I’m not so sure.

I think about what life must have been like, back in the 1800’s and early 1900’s, for kids.  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t easy.  I know that there were chores that needed to be done, and if they weren’t they got a whoopin’ for it.  The chores could be anything from cleaning the house to slopping the pigs to beheading chickens for dinner.  It was hard work and there was no time for boredom.

In one episode of “Kid Nation” they did behead chickens.  I thought this was horrible at first but, if we’re still working on the assumption that the show is mostly honest, it was the kids’ choice to do this.  Will that act turn these kids into psychopathic serial killers, or give them an understanding of the food chain that we all follow?  Will it give them an appreciation of life?  Yes, these kids do some dumb stuff, like chasing down cows and walking around in a sand storm.  But these are things that they would be doing anyway, if given half a chance.  I know I used to do some dumb things when I was a kid and didn’t have an adult standing over me.  Should any of the adults nearby step in and stop them?  I’m not so sure.

Maybe we’re too soft on children today.  Maybe we’re creating the problems that we see today by cutting down on the amount of homework they have, by not giving them more chores to do at home, by not giving them a whack on the butt when they get out of line.

When I watch this show I see a group of kids trying to do something.  They’re learning to work together to complete a challenge.  They’re learning that by putting in a lot of work on a challenge it gives them a chance to relax a bit later on.  They’re learning that money must be earned and that if you want to buy something from the general store then you need to have saved up enough money to buy it.  They’re learning that some of their fellows kids are slackers and, rather than let them slide, they take them to task about it — even if it means bringing them to tears.  They’re learning to work together, to make choices that are good for everyone, not just themselves.  Is that worth sleeping on the floor or uprighting a fallen outhouse?

Look at your own house.  Do you see kids who sit around watching TV all day?  Giving you a hassle about picking up their clothes or doing the dishes?  Wanting money, constantly, without doing anything for it?  Do they talk back and sass you?  What will these kids be like when they grow up?

Maybe we all have too much free time on our hands.  All of us.