##What a year!

Thanksgiving is probably the quintisential American holiday.
It’s a time of reflection about the past year, what’s been good, what’s
been not so good, how can we make things better next year.

##The Lists

Here’s some things I’m thankful for this past year (in no
particular order)

* Our “New House News |title=New House” !!!
* My wonderful “Family”
* Good [[And let your best be for your friend]]
* My job (after a near 50% reduction in force, I should be thankful!)
* My health (both mental and physical. There were times this year that I thought I wouldn’t make it! See “When Life Throws You a Curveball”, [[Do I dare to eat a peach?]])
* The economy seems to be picking back up again
* What a pleasure it’s been to see [[Babylon 5]] wrap up
* I’m playing my {glossSub(“Music”, “saxophone”)} again!
* My kids love their new home
* We have a Milkman just like the good ‘ole days 🙂
* I won the company “Golf” league this year.

Things to work on next year:

* It’s time to get on an even keel
* It’s also time to work on enjoying life a little more. We only get to go on this ride once, so we better enjoy it the first time!

So who’s the bigger sleezebag jerk, the President of the U.S., or the president of a defacto world empire?

##Absolute Power…

So who’s the bigger sleezebag jerk, the President of the U.S., or the
president of a defacto world empire?

##Corrupts Absolutely

“New House News” is now in the [[Archive]]

“Theatre” reviews are now in the [[Archive]]

Interesting love story where an angel has to decide whether or not to become human in order to experience love.

##Love can be Heavenly

If you had said

Pictures from [[Halloween 1998]]

Pictures from [[Halloween 1998]]

Yet another Jackie Chan outing that has him doing his wonderful thing.

##Standard Action (with a twist)

**Rush Hour** is your basic Hollywood cop/buddy movie. It
owes its existance to such classics of the genre as Beverly Hills
Cop and **48 Hours**.

The plot surrounds the kidnapping of a diplomats daughter. He’s from Hong
Kong, now living in the United States. The FBI doesn’t seem to be able to
handle the case, so he call an old friend, a cop from Hong Kong, Jackie
Chan.

The FBI gets wind of this and decides they need someone to babysit the cop
from Hong Kong and keep him out of the way. Enter Chris Tucker, an LA cop
with a bad attitude who has aspirations of someday joining the FBI.

Well, one thing leads to another and the two of them join up (very
reluctantly) to try and solve the case themselves.

Got all that?

##So why see this movie anyway?

In a name, Jackie Chan. Let’s get one thing straight right away. You don’t
go to see a Jackie Chan movie to see:
* Good acting
* Good English language skills
* Good writing

You get the idea. What you do see is
* genuine joy for filmmaking
* virtuoso physical performace rivalled only by professional athletes and performers in Circque du Soleil
* Broad comedy that brings a laugh (even if it is stupid)

In short, pure entertainment.

Pictures from 1998 halloween!!

[[how981]]
[[how982]]
[[how983]]
[[how984]]

What does it mean to be me?

The movie [[Pleasantville]] resonated particularly well with me when I saw
it recently. It was a metaphore for some things that I’m going through
right now in my life. I’m trying to become “colorized” again, and trying
to preserve all the good things that I have in my life right now, while at
the same time recovering those things that used to be uniquely me.

##So who am I anyway

It’s hard when you look back and find that for a while you’ve been trying
so hard to fulfill other people’s expectations of what you should be that
you’ve lost yourself in the process. It’s not so much that you don’t like
what you see (being a good father/husband is good right?), but rather that
you don’t recognize yourself in the picture.

I think I was most comfortable with myself and knew myself best during my
last two years in college. But isn’t it always that way? Then, I was only
responsible for getting the grades that let me continue to pursue the
education I desired. There were no peer groups (cliques) like in high
school (I hated high school). There was no wife, no kids. The only
friends I made accepted me exactly as I was, or they didn’t become my
friends (it actually took a while for me to get enough confidence in myself
to have that kind of attitude, but that’s another story).

Once you’re out of college, have a real job and a life, all of a sudden you
start to bury the person you really are in order to move forward in your
life. The question is, is it possible to be the person you really are
inside and avoid adversely affecting the rest of your life?

##I’ve tried

I’ve spent quite a bit of the last several years trying to be the “good
husband” and “good father”. These are both sorts of people I admire a great
deal. I’ve done a passable job at both, but neither of those people is me.
The question is, is the person that is *me* also a good husband and
father? I think so. Only time will tell.

The static people in a 1950’s TV show start to really live for the first time.

##What is Paradise?

I remember back in college when I took an introductory
philosophy course we studied the nature of heaven. What would it be like.

Let’s say that heaven (as seen by a teenage boy at the beginning of the
movie) is a town called Pleasantville from a fictitious 1950’s TV show of
the same name. Everything is as it should be there. There’s no conflict,
parents love and respect their children. In short, everyone is happy all
the time.

But is this really the way it should be? Can you truly delight in your joy
if you never exprience sorrow?

##The allegory of the TV

The people in this movie are living in a “perfect” world. There’s no
crime. There’s no local disasters (the fire department doesn’t even know
how to deal with a fire. All they do is rescue cats from trees). All the
kids are nice to each other. All the people are fine upstanding citizens.

Then the two new kids arrive from the real world in 1998. Suddenly, the
people there start to see the world outside the TV show through books,
art, sex, etc.

##Ism’s suck

When it looks like it and smells like it, you call it what it is…
fascism.

*- Jim Garrison’s character in the movie JFK

Midway through the movie, the towne eldars decide that “colored” people are
bad. They start in institute local statues descriminating against coloreds
and encourage shop owners and people to do the same.

This is simply a beautiful comment on todays racist society, using the
same buzzwords to talk about descrimination, but in a way that makes it
obvious even to the stupid how stupid it really is!