Polanski on bail

So Mr. Polanski is out on bail awaiting his extradition hearing. He's on house arrest, and wearing a monitoring bracelet.

Hopefully 4 million dollars bail is enough to keep him from fleeing, but I'll be VERY surprised if he doesn't.

And the way things are going, I'll be surprised if he ever even has to face his own charges.

The Prisoner, conclusion

Heh. I was right about it being a virtual reality, but wrong about what kind. It was BOTH a drug-induced hallucination AND a digital virtual reality.

And the holes in that explanation (so to speak) leave me feeling "meh". The Village is a drug-stabilized dream/fantasy in the mind of Curtis' wife, but the people are computer simulations somehow projected into that dream.

And if someone ELSE in the fantasy takes the magic pills, THEY become the one dreaming the Village in the real world? What happens to their meat body? Who's taking care of it?

And Six abandons all his moral outrage if HE can be "the boss"? Gee, nice to see that the hero of the story has such strong, enduring standards.

Overall, I call it a waste of time. Six hours that I could have been doing any number of other things.

The Prisoner, 3 & 4

Now I predict it's going to be like Twin Peaks: "Just throw in a bunch of weird stuff that we're never going to explain, because the viewers will accept anything."

The Prisoner

Okay, after two episodes, it's . . . interesting.

But I want to get my prediction in right now: it's all some kind of virtual reality. I don't know if it's a chemically/psychologically induced hallucination, or an actual computer simulation, but it's all going to turn out not to be real.

I know, there are flaws with that explanation, like "well, why did they have to chase the old man down with guns, then?? And, "What's the point of Rover, then?"

***Spoiler Alert***

But how else do you explain the disappearance of the ocean? It has to be some kind of "not really real" reality that the people in charge can manipulate.

And where do the food and supplies come from? If they're brought in from "outside", then there obviously IS an "outside". If it's not real, they can just "appear" in place, and no one questions it.

I also predict:

The towers are a red herring.

#2 is as much a "victim" as anyone else there.

What am I not understanding?!?!

Okay, the health care bill passed.

Medium and Large companies will be required to provide health care to their employees. I forsee a lot of companies going more to the "contractor" rather than "employee" mindset.

EVERYONE will be required to have some kind of health care. If they don't get it from their employer, they will HAVE TO BUY IT THEMSELVES. If you're working for a small company that doesn't have to provide it, and doesn't, you MUST buy some out of your own pocket.

Anyone who doesn't have qualifying health insurance will pay an additional 2.5% income tax. If you can't afford it, they're going to take even more money out of your pocket.

Insurers will NOT be allowed to disqualify pre-existing conditions. Rates will go up to compensate for the increased costs.

Small and Medium income families will have subsidies to help them purchase health insurance. Great. Bet it doesn't cover the whole, increased cost.

I foresee:

• Additional financial burden on companies that are currently struggling due to the economy. Especially on small, privately owned companies.

• Increased insurance costs to cover increased expenses. And increases to take advantage of the forced purchases.

• Reductions in benefits to compensate. And more workers being hired as "contractors" (with no benefits at all).

• People who can't afford insurance now either buy it anyway, or lose MORE of their income.

This is "reform"?

The Berlin Wall came down 20 years ago

Wow. I grew up with it in place, knew it was there, figured it would ALWAYS be there.

I was thirty-mumble when it came down. A full adult, and never even considered the possibility that it would ever come down. Yet it did.

And that was TWENTY years ago.

Sheesh.

Trick 'R Treat

If you like horror movies, real ones with actual stories and not just a flood of fake blood, go read this write-up of "Trick 'R Treat", and then rent it and enjoy.

Space hotel

When I was young, I expected to see hotels in space and ordinary people able to buy tickets to orbit by the time I grew up.

For a number of years now, I'd given up that dream, and no longer thought I'd see the day.

But I may be wrong:

Space Hotel

G.I. Joe

Yeah, yeah, I only just saw it.

And I didn't expect much, since it's a "kid's movie". The story was about what I expected for quality. And they did a pretty decent job on the tech, actually, especially for a "kid's movie".

But that makes it even more inexcusable when they ignored simple, basic, real-world physics.

ICE FLOATS, you morons!!! You can blow the crap out of the ice cap over your underwater base, BUT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO HAVE CHUNKS OF ICE FALLING DOWN THROUGH THE WATER ONTO YOUR BASE.

"Oh, it's a kid's movie, it doesn't really matter, they'll never know the difference." No, that doesn't cut it. If it's a kid's movie, it's even MORE important that you have your basics correct. Otherwise, it's just an insult to your audience.

You couldn't show a car driving up the side of a building without a good reason. You couldn't show a glass of water floating in mid-air without a good reason. You can't have ice sinking through water without a good reason.

Ice floats. Look at icebergs.

Idiots.

Time change

I like when Daylight Saving Time ends, at first. I got up when I woke up, about 7am, but it was actually 6am. Cool!

But then I have to manually reset half a dozen clocks/watches, including my so-called "atomic" clock. It checks the time at midnight, so it doesn't catch the time change until Monday morning if I don't fix it myself. And because I thought I wouldn't have to reset it when I bought it, I hung it waaaaaaay up out of normal reach. Grrr!

On the other hand, my computer, TV, DVR, DVD-R and Palm all reset themselves, so that's a few items I don't have to fuss with.

On the third hand, I bought one of those nice "combo" watches a few months ago. It has both analog hands and a digital display. Which means I have to set my watch TWICE when the time changes.

And then, when alarm went off this morning, it was so much lighter than "normal" that I was sure I had overslept. It took a several seconds to figure out that I was okay. "We set the clocks back one hour. So it's one hour later. And the sun is one hour higher. Okay, I'm not late." And "morning brain" didn't make it any easier.

I wish we'd abandon this crap. I understand the reasoning behind it, and a century ago it made sense. But in our modern industrialized world, any energy savings from more light in the evening is surely all but canceled out by the later darkness in the mornings.

Un-anchored

I find myself in the situation of having quite literally no ties to the area I'm living in (San Diego). And the Preparedness Bug tells me that Southern California would be a crappy place to try to survive after an Apocalyptic Event (anything that knocks out all government services for the foreseeable future).

I've lived here since I was 7 years old. But right now I have, quite literally, NO friends/acquaintances. The people I work with are the only real world people I have any contact with, so there's absolutely NOTHING tying me to this area right now.

If I chose to, I could move somewhere else with no more effort than packing the minimum into a rented trailer.

And I need to start preparing to move any way. Rent's going up almost a hundred Jan 1, and the Landlady's making noises about selling the place, despite the depressed market. I need to reduce my outgo significantly any way, so this is a good time to think about it.

Do I even want to stay in San Diego?

I've never lived anywhere else that I can remember, but for a single year I spent in Salt Lake City, so I'm really used to the Big City. I probably wouldn't move to a small town, but almost any other city in the country is going to be significantly smaller.

[Most likely this is just idle speculation. Getting myself stirred up just to move is going to be hard enough. Moving to another city? Not bloody likely.]