Home Movies

Moviefone has a small slideshow theorizing why we aren't going to the movies as much, these days. I agree with a lot of what they said. The quality of home viewing has improved. The availability of streaming video is convenient. The economy is poor. The quality of many movies has declined.

Almost two years ago, I did the math, and it still holds true. Now that the initial outlay for a Blu-Ray player and HDTV has been made, we can buy a movie on Blu-Ray not even four months after its theater opening, and have all the popcorn, soda, and snacks we want for far less than it costs to go to the movies--even a matinee--without snacks! Even our once-frequent trips to the Tri-Way Drive-In have all but vanished. The gas used to get there and back costs over $10.00 now!

Sure, watching at home isn't the same experience as going to the movies, but I can't say the last several trips have been all that pleasant. I send text messages as much as anyone, but during a movie, I put my phone away. At the last one we saw in the theater, someone in our row had their phone out during the entire movie. Nothing like a bright light in your peripheral vision to help you lose yourself in the story being presented on the screen!

I've never gotten used to people talking through movies, either. I can understand little kids asking questions, but full-grown adults and teenagers? It's grown so widespread that when I show a rare video in my classroom, kids talk aloud more than when there's no video showing. What is it with people? When did it become all right to carry on a conversation in the middle of a movie? And I don't think this is just me being curmudgeonly. It can't be enjoyable for anyone else, either. The theaters even put up funny public service announcements before each movie, telling people not to do it. I used to say something to people who were rude, but then one day, I suddenly realized that I'm not bulletproof. I'm not even bullet-resistant. Theaters now hire more ushers to keep things under control, but you know what? They're not bulletproof, either. I don't blame them for not risking their lives to tell someone to quiet down.

I don't know what the solution is, but I know that our collection of Blu-Ray movies is going to keep growing, and far faster than the amount of half-filled popcorn bags that go into the trash at the movie theaters at the end of a poorly-attended showing of a new film.

Trick or Treat

Okay, seriously, this country needs to get a grip.

Trick or treat times are published in the newspaper and conclude before dark. Before DARK? Are you frakking kidding me?? When I was a kid, there wasn't any point in going out before dark. I still remember getting clotheslined by a guy-wire on a utility pole at a full run because I didn't see it. You didn't see me crying about it. I spit out the blood I coughed up and went on my merry way.

And putting a coat on over a costume is an insult to the costume. If you're such a sissy that you have to wear a coat while you're out raising heck on Halloween night, then you don't deserve any candy. I heard a parent today actually say, "You need to put a coat on. You'll catch cold." Lady, no kid in the history of the universe EVER caught a cold because it was 45 degrees outside. Colds are caused by viruses, not a slight chill in the air. Besides, if you're doing Halloween right, you're tearing around the neighborhood causing mayhem, not politely walking from house to house, begging for candy.

And today (I can't even legitimately say tonight) my daughter was complimented because she said, "Happy Halloween" instead of "Trick or treat." I should have put her in time out. The whole idea of trick or treat is to extort people into giving you something so that you don't play a prank on them. We're raising a bunch of frakking pansies here.

Man, I miss George Carlin.

Crossover Hell

I’m not especially fond of the company crossover event in comics these days. I still remember when I was in college, and I discovered that you didn’t have to be a complete nerd to read them. There were even girls who read them! Those were the heady days of the Secret Wars, when the status quo was being upset. For too many years, the Marvel universe was incredibly stable and no one really changed. I remember the excited conversations people were having. “There’s a new guy in the Iron Man suit! And the Hulk broke his leg! And Spider-Man is –gasp—getting a new costume!”

Then we had the Crisis, which crossed over through every DC book. Then Secret Wars II, which crossed over through every Marvel book. And then it just started getting ridiculous. Every so often, there’s a new “event” that is intended to start new books and shake things up. Whatever happened to simply putting together a title that has ongoing stories that someone can enjoy without having to be involved in every facet of these so-called universes? It’s not even that anymore. Now, every subset of the comic book company gets its own crossover, too.

I had really enjoyed this new run of Detective Comics featuring Batwoman, including the backup feature with the new version of the Question. I liked the creative teams and was enjoying the stories immensely. And then, I was removed from the story for a crossover event. Oh, look. Batman's coming back. No one could have predicted that! I stopped buying the title. I was reading and enjoying Batgirl with my daughter. And then, the crossover story came in, interrupting the flow. I stopped buying that title, too. Adventure Comics, with both Superboy and the Legion? Same deal. I don’t know exactly how many times this has happened recently, but I know I don’t like it. I’m not even going to start buying the Flash, even though I enjoy Francis Manapul’s art, because I know the same thing is going to happen.

I am down to buying Invincible and Astro City. One big reason I buy both of those titles is that I know I’m getting the whole story and it won’t be interrupted by some artificially created stunt that derails it. I don’t care about the return of Bruce Wayne. That ship sailed when they brought Jason Todd back to life because Superboy punched a wall. I don’t want to know about the Care Bear Lanterns. I don’t care about a civil war in the Marvel universe if I’m enjoying a Fantastic Four story.

I think one time when this was handled particularly well was when Walt Simonson was writing and drawing Thor. The casket of ancient winters had been shattered and the world was plunged into ice. Even in other titles, the characters were saying stuff like, “Hey, how about that? The world is covered in ice and snow. Oh, well, back to work.” That’s how a crossover should happen. Notice can be taken of a larger event because the characters do exist in a shared universe, but it doesn’t have to be a worldwide catastrophe involving every character who has their own comic book title.

I’m really curious about the new Legion of Superheroes title that Paul Levitz will be writing. I’ve always liked the Legion. One of the nice things about the Legion, for the most part, is that they can be left alone outside the normal continuity of the DC universe. They exist in the future. To them, these earth-shattering events have already happened. But I can almost guarantee that when the next event happens, someone’s going to get sucked back through time. I hope that’s not the case.

DC, can you give me one title that I can read without it being involved in the latest character-killing, dead-raising, rape-and-dismemberment fest? Please?

Outside the Box

I am often considered by my colleagues and friends to be well outside the mainstream. I'm okay with that. I like to consider what I do to be thinking outside the box. When I walk into my school's conference room for lunch, I more often than not will be carrying a grilled New York strip steak and a baked potato. Some of my colleagues (the ones who are not my friends) look at me like I'm crazy or a spendthrift ("Who are you, Howard Hughes? Bill Gates?" followed by raucous, yet one-sided laughter), but the economics of my lunch are rather simple.

School lunches are outrageously expensive for what they are and moreover for what they taste like. As a teacher, I'd have to pay $3.25 per day for a school lunch. A couple of weeks ago, I bought an entire New York strip for $3.99 per pound. I had the guy at the meat counter cut it up into eight-ounce steaks, and when I got home I sealed each one up in its own freezer bag at a cost of $0.20 each and dropped it into the freezer. I bought a 10-pound bag of Yukon Gold potatoes for $4.00, which yields me 20 potatoes at a cost of $0.20 each. Throughout the morning, my steak thaws in my lunch bag. At 11:05 I use my garage sale George Foreman grill to cook up my steak while the potato bakes in the microwave. In five minutes, I have a healthily grilled New York strip steak and a plain but tasty baked potato, which costs me a grand total of $2.40.

And the best part of it is, my lunch is always outside the box.

I'm Seriously Tired of This

So where have I been for four weeks? I think I'm still dealing with my dad's death and battling a bit of depression. Here's why:

We've been fighting financial problems since my dad died. It started with a tax problem brought on by TurboTax. Somehow, TurboTax left in a previous deduction from 2007 that we no longer had coming to us and the mistake was only discovered this past year. Naturally, we got nailed for a year's worth of penalties and interest at a time when we were not able to pay. By the time we had the money to pay for it this summer, the amount had grown by leaps and bounds. It took one of my entire summer school sessions to pay this bill. We didn't feel right asking for help since we have already been helped so much by our families. We were determined to take care of it ourselves, no matter the consequences.

The other shoe dropped when my dad died. It was unexpected, and right in the middle of that first summer school session. You know, the one I had to work to pay off that tax bill? Because I couldn't leave my job when he was really, really sick that last week, I was not there to see him before he died. I then had to use my second session of summer school to pay for the trip to Utah. My brother and I split up the family photos (our father owned nothing of monetary value) and said our last goodbyes. I arrived home to find that between the trip, the tax bill, and paying off our second mortgage, we had basically half our normal pay coming in for the rest of the summer. Bills piled up, and we tried to hang on for dear life, doing virtually nothing that wasn't already paid for or hadn't been promised like bringing my niece, Theresa, out to visit.

We have cut back on our monthly bills by nearly $700 a month. We canceled DirecTV and XM Radio, so no more Tigers games for me unless I listen on my phone. We disconnected our land phone line, because the only reason we had it was to support DirecTV service. We lowered our daycare bill, got rid of our second mortgage payment, and have cut back everywhere we can. We applied for and received an educator's discount on our cell phone bill. The bottom line is, in a month or so, we should be back up to date on all of our monthly bills.

The third shoe dropped when we disconnected DirecTV, because they used a clause in the contract to instantly withdraw all the money owed (including a $200 early disconnect fee) directly from our checking account. That caused checks to bounce and more fun to occur. Then the fourth shoe dropped when dealing with the water bill.

Apparently being 30 days late on a $33.00 monthly bill is cause to shut off the water without notice. Then you are required to pay $45 to have them come turn it back on after work hours and pay a $100 deposit to have your service reinstated. When I went to pay the bill the next morning in cash and the eventual return of the deposit was in question, I was asked if I wanted to see a supervisor. When the supervisor arrived, I was told in polite words that I was a liar and that the water company doesn't operate like that. After a quick check of computer records confirmed that I had already undergone this exact process when we had our house built and that I was in fact right, she explained that when I overreacted to the phrase "Everyone has their story," that she was misinterpreted. I asked for the other interpretation of "Everyone has their story," and it was not forthcoming. When I talked to her supervisor, an apology was made. I calmly explained that if they were not the only game in town I would gladly dig a well by hand before I used a drop of their water.

The fifth shoe dropped this weekend when I got a low-grade fever on Friday afternoon that persisted throughout the weekend. Despite the fact that I had already bought my ticket, I was not able to go to the last Tigers game of the regular season because Swine Flu is going around my school and I could be contagious.

The sixth shoe dropped today. Since we disconnected our landline because we no longer need it, American Electric Power did not inform us that they were going to cut down all the trees behind our house. Apparently they are entitled to a 15-foot easement on either side of the center of the power pole that is 15 feet inside our property line. So, they are able to come 30 feet onto our property without our knowledge or consent and today cut down all the trees that blocked our view of the train that has been parked on the "dead" tracks behind our house. We are left with this splendid view out of our back windows:

Where there was once lush foliage blocking our view of the train, now we have a white metal canvass featuring a spray-painted mural of George Carlin's seven words you can't say on television. I'm sure Sera can identify all of the letters right now, and will be able to read the words before the train is moved.

I really need something to go right. And for insects to stop wearing shoes. Six is too many.

Church Signs

There is a church in nearby Mishawaka whose signs just kill me. It seems like each week they say something more outrageous than the one before. This one was especially entertaining to me, because I am an atheist. I respect other people's right to believe how they choose, but it seems like it doesn't always go both ways. When I am asked in class about my beliefs, I am reluctant to express them, because it always invites a debate that I am not about to have. I like working too much. While Christian teachers often engage students in public schools on the subject without repercussion, atheists don't have that same luxury.

I'm reminded of Jon Stewart's quote: "Yes, the long war on Christianity. I pray that one day we may live in an America where Christians can worship freely! In broad daylight! Openly wearing the symbols of their religion.... perhaps around their necks? And maybe - dare I dream it? - maybe one day there can be an openly Christian President. Or, perhaps, 43 of them. Consecutively. "

Message Boards and the Truth

Okay, today I will talk about factual dishonesty on message boards!

I was on the Detroit Tigers message board today where there were, as usual, a bunch of people bashing third baseman Brandon Inge. I grow weary of discussing baseball with people who can't do fifth grade math, specifically comparing decimals. One of the complaints about Inge was his failure to hit with runners in scoring position (RISP). I did a quick check on CBS Sportsline's website and sure enough, Brandon Inge was better than half the team with RISP, including superstars Gary Sheffield, Curtis Granderson, Carlos Guillen, and Sean Casey, who get criticized far less.

I would have let the whole thing go after I posted the research, but one guy just said, "I don't think so." That's his argument? "I don't think so?" Wow, I hope he thought long and hard about that one! Are people so intellectually lazy that they just don't care if they are misrepresenting the truth? I'm not talking about opinion. I'm talking about cold, hard fact.

Last year a guy on that message board claimed that Chicago White Sox fans were low class because of an incident that occurred in the 19th century. I calmly explained to him that at the time the incident occurred, the team we now know as the Chicago White Sox was a minor league team located in St. Paul, Minnesota. They only became the Chicago White Sox in 1901, when the American League was founded. Furthermore the team calling itself the Chicago White Sox at that time became the Chicago Cubs. He wasn't even talking about the same team!

He didn't let that get in the way of his rant. He raved on and on and on about how White Sox fans were classless because of this incident.

I just don't get how people, even when confronted with incontrovertible fact, maintain that their unsubstantiated claims are true just because they say they are.

The Classroom

The Classroom should be a version of "The Office" but set in public schools.

Just got back from Sam's Club and Office Max. I dropped about $75 on office supplies for my classroom. I got towels and markers for my dry-erase boards, pencils and erasers for the upcoming ISTEP test, pens, and brightly-colored copy paper. Just another donation to the school system. Yes, it's tax deductible to a point, but Magi and I both drop more than we are allowed to deduct by several hundred dollars.

On the other hand, we almost didn't get our first full paycheck of the year today. There was an error in processing direct deposits which was partially resolved by the end of the day. Magi and I got our pay because of the bank we use, but some other teachers didn't. Because of the way the school system keeps starting the school year earlier and earlier and the way the contract says that we are limited in the number of pays we can receive in a calendar year, they had to pay us a half-pay two weeks after we started, the other half of which they deferred until the first week of January, when we will receive one-and-a-half pays. Make sense to you? Think of it this way. You work through a week of vacation now, and we'll compensate you for it in four months or so. Sound fair to you? Welcome to education.

So why does the school system keep starting us earlier each year? Well, it's simple. No Child Left Behind, also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requires students to make Adequate Yearly Progress over the year before. For our school, that means that our seventh and eighth graders need to perform better than the seventh and eighth graders did last year on Indiana's standardized test, which is called ISTEP. Since the test is given at the same time each year, it behooves the school system to start the students learning earlier and earlier to give them more and more time to prepare for the test. Eventually at this rate school will start in mid-December and get get out right around the end of September, so that students have had an entire year to prepare. I've always thought that fall would be a great time for a vacation. It's the off-season at Disney World!

Now let's look at that Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) again. We're not assessing students where they are when they arrive and then measuring where they are when they leave. We're not even assessing the seventh graders of last year and comparing them with their performance in eighth grade this year. We're comparing last year's seventh graders with this year's seventh graders. If you're into baseball, that's like a manager moving his rookie shortstop to another position and bringing a new rookie in to play shortstop and comparing the two rookie seasons to see if progress has been made. Every year he has to bring in a new rookie shortstop and each one has to play better than the last or he's in danger of losing his job. Oh, and there's no draft. He has to play whoever shows up.

To understand this law at its most ridiculous, you have to understand cells. There are cells determined by ethnicity, gender, language proficiency, special needs, and socio-economic status. If any one of these cells fail to make AYP the entire school fails. The most important cell is language proficiency, because therein lies the irony. Students who are not proficient in English are still expected to take and pass a test that is written...in English. If some of those students manage to become proficient in English they are moved out of that cell, leaving only those students who are, you guessed it, not proficient in English. According to this law, all students must pass the standardized test by 2014. I have a feeling that at our school will fall at least one cell short.

I have no problem with accountability. But I would like a common assessment that takes the measure of a student where they are and then compares it to where we are able to bring that same student. Either that or make it so that students cannot pass each grade until they pass the previous grade's standardized test. We have kids who have never passed a grade-level test. If they can't pass third grade, they put them in fourth grade. If they can't pass that, well, fifth grade would be a nice change of scenery, etc. We have kids in eighth grade who can't multiply 8 and 7 consistently but we are expected to teach them how to collect and analyze data using quartiles, as well as to solve systems of linear equations.

When is Hollywood going to make a show or a movie about schools that reflects the actual folly of what we are trying to do? It's more farcical than the comedies that have already been made. Maybe that's the problem; no one would believe it.

illiterate. slogans.

Today on my way to work I saw a panel truck with the following: "faster. internet."

Something that has driven me crazy for a while now is the practice of making slogans that are neither capitalized nor puncutated correctly. My own school system's website was one of the first ones I noticed. "inspiring. excellence." Aaaaaaargh! What is wrong with people? Neither one of those is a sentence, so there shouldn't be a period behind either one. If they are supposed to be sentences, they should begin with capital letters! Why do people insist on separating adjectives and the nouns they describe with periods?

ridiculous. practice.

Grammar and Spelling

I am not immune to making typographical errors, but one thing that irks me to death is the number of people on the Internet who think that grammar and spelling don't matter. The same problem exists in my classroom. If I had a dollar for every student who said, "But this ain't English class," I'd have retired ten years ago. Grammar and spelling do matter. They are the tools of effective communication, whether you are communicating about art, mathematics, science, or any other topic of note.

When I emphasize vocabulary in my classes students immediately trot out,"But this ain't English class." They are right about that. But thinking about prefixes and suffixes give students an insight to what not only these words mean, but what other, similar words mean. If one understands that geometry is the measure (metry, from meter) of the earth (geo), then they might further apply that logic to determine that geography is the description (graphy) of the earth (geo). These are important, if not critical skills when learning about mathematics. The numerous properties of equality alone (reflexive, symmetric, transitive, et. al.) are enough to give students headaches, but they are all important in their own way when it comes to providing explanations for proofs. If anything, we should be hammering them with this stuff because it's so important to mathematical topics that will be introduced later in their academic careers.

Education aside, I hang out at various message boards and forum communities to read and share ideas with people who have similar interests. What many posters don't seem to understand is that to be taken seriously, you have to at least pay cursory attention to how you write.

The thing that has me really going this week is the sheer number of reviews of the new Harry Potter book that criticize J. K. Rowling as a terrible writer, while the vast majority of them can barely construct a coherent sentence. When criticizing someone's writing you should demonstrate at least minimal competence at the same skill. "She uses exposition to much," removes any thought in my mind that I should pay attention to the rest of the critic's opinion. If one doesn't know the appropriate uses of to, too, and two, then they shouldn't even be talking about the writing style of the most published children's author in history.

Lobots

Okay, what is the deal with these people who can't walk the earth without their Bluetooth devices in their ears? Do they really receive so many calls that they can't put their phones up to their ears?

I can see the usefulness of the earpieces if you are working or driving and require your hands to be free. In fact, I wish people who talk on their phones while driving were required to have them. But half the people I see with these things aren't even using them most of the time and they just look pretentious to me. I am starting a small movement to call these people, "Lobots."

Lobot was a character in "The Empire Strikes Back" who had a computer link from his brain to the cloud city of Bespin. He walked around all the time with a device just like the Bluetooth, except that it wrapped around his entire head. He was continuously connected, which came in handy when Lando Calrissian decided to be a good guy and remotely commanded Lobot to have his security forces confront the Imperial Stormtroopers who were occupying the city.

Lobot and friends.

Whenever I see someone walking down the street or in the mall with one of these things on while not using it, I'm tempted to ask them, "How's Lando?"

It's gotten to the point where sales assistants are wearing them in stores now too. I can't quite bring myself to call them clerks because I can't picture Dante and Randal using Bluetooths. There were a few instances for me recently where an associate was speaking while looking directly at me and when I started to answer, they turned away while still talking. It turned out they were responding to someone over their wireless communication system. Couldn't they have just excused themselves from our conversation before they cut me off to deal with a telephone customer, or worse in the last instance, a personal call?

I digress.

What really amuses me about these Lobots is the fact that they usually have only one ear covered, and when that ear is away from my view it appears that they are talking to themselves, which makes them look slightly crazy. The thing is, they appear only a little less so when I see what they're really doing.