 December 24 Merry Christmas! Sorry It's been months. What I got done during the World Series and today was the following. Well, I did get a lot more done with work, family, buying shopping etc. But, this is what I got done for these pages. December 10 For no particular reason I have been avoiding writing something here. I have things more pressing than this, as I am sure that most people have. My mother turned 90 this week, and the family celebrated together in Illinois. A bunch of Mocarskis all in the same room is something to behold and those without blood ties to this group cannot begin to comprehend our behavior, much less want to. Thus, other than mentioning some loud guffaws, some farting and belching, I won't attempt to describe the affair. It would only pale next to the real events. The kid turns 22 next week. He is still finding himself in life. The grandson has a birthday coming up next week as well. He turns one. He has a long way to go before he has to find himself in life. I only hope his uncle isn't still finding himself then. *** Ran across this quote recently: "We are put here to fart around. Don't let anybody ever tell you different." -- Kurt Vonnegut Vonnegut has been one of my favorite authors. I don't know if he will be read in English classrooms years or centuries from now. Tom Robbins is another of my favorites, but his stuff is dated and too niche-like. I don't think his stuff will be in classrooms in the future. Vonnegut might be. Some of his stuff is that good. I almost added IMHO after that last sentence, but thought better of it. I get tired of that computer shorthand. The real world demands real words, and businesses are starting to wonder in language and proper usage will ever come back to the mindset of people who want to succeed. December 17 As the celebration of Christmas nears, some businesses and civic leaders are embroiled in a debate about how to refer to this time of year. Target stores are being boneheaded about not allowing the Salvation Army to ring bells outside their stores for their annual Red Kettle fund raising efforts. Many stores are telling their employees to wish people a "happy holidays" is a misguided effort not to offend anybody by saying "Merry Christmas." And cities are lighting "holiday trees" not Christmas trees. It's Christmas. Yeah, the holy day has some roots related to pagan celebrations in conjunction with the Winter solstice. So? It's still Christmas, meant to mark the birth of Christ Jesus. The Jewish holiday of Chanukah comes aroung the same time. So? Happy Chanukah if you are Jewish. Merry Christmas if you're Christian. And if you don't celebrate either of those two, well, to heck with that. Don't expect a present from me. And no kwanza doesn't count. December 22 I mentioned to Kraken that the months of not writing was due to being busy and lack of creativity. That's just a nice way of saying I was being lazy. Or maybe it was just not having much to say or wanting to say it. It helps not having some simplistic 3d world to rant about. *** I finally got around to watch the final installment of George Lucas's special effects montage, also known as Star Wars III, Revenge of the Sith. It was long on special effects, short on plot and simplistic in dialogue. "Oh please Annakin. Don't turn the the dark side. I love you and can't do this anymore." Gimme a break. Maybe it's my hangup with watching movies that I already know how it's going to end, but everybody even remotely familiar with the whole Darth Vader thing knew that the story would end with showing us how Darth became Darth, which lead to the whole "Who's your daddy" theme of the last three episodes of Star Wars which were actually the first three films made in the earlier days of special effects in a film making galaxy far far away in time. I still don't think Star Wars ranks up there as great science fiction. It's not in my top ten of sci fi films.
War of the Worlds (original version) All of these I think are better stories, better filmmaking, better dialogue, better everything than Star Wars. Star Wars, almost all of them, are better films than almost any of the Star Trek series, old generation and new. But, the Trek films are still better science fiction.
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