“Peace, prosperity, liberty and morals
have an intimate connection.”

- Thomas Jefferson

No, I haven't set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, but the Fundamentals in Film class finally completed the Band of Brothers mini-series last week.

There were 10 episodes, plus the documentary "We Stand Alone Together", in the mostly true-to-life story of E company, paratroopers of the 101st Airborne in World War II. With our bi-weekly schedule it took awhile to get through them all, even with watching two episodes each time. The boys were very excited to begin the series and were generally pretty riveted throughout with lots of questions and commentary. I don't know yet what impressions it made on them (and I'm fully resigned that I may never know) but I know it will stick with me for a long time.

I debated with myself for some time before introducing the series to the class, and spoke with the fathers a couple of times about it. The language in the series is frequently extreme, and the violence is often sudden and explicit. On the other hand, it was a chance to feature some history lessons, introduce a more realistic and human sense of the "up close and personal" nature of war to a video game generation raised on "Halo" and "Doom", and to impart some lessons in leadership and grace under pressure.

I dealt with the language issue right up front with the guys, explaining how it became a form of bonding for the soldiers who were undergoing severe hardships together, but even at that the men were aware that it wasn't appropriate in general society and were careful of their language around women - a distinction commonly disregarded these days. I also reminded the young men that "out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks" - whatever comes out of their mouths communicates a lot more than just the words themselves. Finally, I directed them to pay attention to Dick Winters, the main character in the ensemble cast, and the way he controlled his words (even when wounded) and swore only for effect in getting his men moving again when they froze while out in the open and under fire.

Winters was also an example of leadership - a quiet man of faith, committed to the well-being of his men but also able to order them into harm's way when needed, but with the tactical skills to keep the men alive as well. While not flashy or self-promoting, he quickly gained the universal respect and admiration of his men and his superior officers and his example was a model for men like Sgt. Carwood Lipton and in stark contrast to the "leadership" of Easy Company's first CO, Captain Sobel, and to the company's CO during the siege of Bastogne, Lt. Dike. Lipton's leadership during the Battle of the Bulge — his focus on the men and the mission — gave the class a lot to talk about after we watched the Bastogne episode (a particularly gory and challenging episode that saw a lot of the men we'd come to know get killed or seriously wounded). That particular chapter also showed how it was possible for a group of men to do more than they thought was possible while under the harshest conditions.

It was also interesting for the class to see just how screwed up so many of the military operations became, from the errors on D-Day that led to so many of the paratroopers being dropped in the wrong place, without much of their equipment and groggy from the air-sickness pills they were ordered to take (for the first time), to the Allied High Command being caught by surprise at the Bulge and the 101st being sent in to Bastogne, again without proper equipment, winter clothing or even enough weapons and ammunition. Despite the almost catastrophic errors and miscalculations, the men on the ground succeeded thanks to their training, their character and the bond between them that allowed them to function as a highly-effective team. The mini-series often made me wonder how today's media would have focused on the blundering (without acknowledging how massive and complicated the D-Day invasion was or the logistics of maneuvering several hundred thousand men in a short period of time in Belgium) and overlooked the successes.

Today the Battle of the Bulge would be the German equivalent of the Tet Offensive, and though the Viet Cong and the Germans both ultimately lost these battles decisively, the end result was dramatically different. Back then General McAuliffe was celebrated for his bold response of "Nuts!" when the Germans sent their surrender demands to his besieged forces; today he'd be criticized as a blood-thirsty maniac unconcerned about the soldiers he was keeping in harm's way in the Belgian quagmire.

That's not to say that Band of Brothers glorified the war. The series did an excellent job of portraying the hardships and sacrifices — and sometimes all-too-human failings and frustrations — of the men of Easy Company and the 101st Airborne. Especially in the later episodes when it was clear that the war was winding down and that the surviving members might just live through it after all, the loss of their friends and the apparent futility of the war weighed heavily on the men and, to some extent, on our film class. While there was little action in the episode where Easy discovers the Landsberg concentration camp ("Why We Fight"), it was one of the most powerful and affecting in the series. Combined with the last episode ("Points") where Easy takes and occupies Berchtesgaden, these concluding segments did a good job of showing the costs, personally and nationally, of war for even the winners.

After we finished episode 10 and then watched the documentary "We Stand Alone Together" featuring interviews with the real Easy Company survivors (a very moving experience after having come to "know" their actor counterparts over the past few months), it indeed felt to me as if a long war was over. I was left with a deeper appreciation and admiration for what the men had sacrificed and achieved and knew that I would have a hard time measuring up under the same circumstances. I don't know what the young men of the class got out of it, or even if I or they will be able to measure its affects over the next few weeks, months and years, but I don't think any of us will be the same.

O.K., this is going to be really short.

Does anyone remember that geography blog that Uncle Ben did about a week ago with the challenge to name all 50 states as quick as you can? He said that the smack-talking time to beat was 3 minutes and 26 seconds.

Well, I beat it. HOLLA!!!!

I did it in 3 minutes and 10 seconds!!!

That will be all.

Ciao for now.

On the heels of the first anniversary of the Scottish smoking ban, it may not be long before the next ghillie drops. An article in The Scotsman today bemoans the cost of the "obesity epidemic," including a 16 percent increase in the prescribing of anti-obesity drugs to citizens. The cost of the obesity pills to treat this "epidemic" (watch out, it's contagious) represents an annual additional cost to the Scottish taxpayer of £500 (about $1,000).

It won't be long now (if it hasn't already occurred) that the nannies will be calling for bans on fatty foods as a matter of health and national interest.

This is a problem on two levels in Scotland: one, the nanny-state mentality that holds sway and makes such bans not only conceivable but likely; and two, the fact that healthcare in Scotland is nationalized in the first place, which simultaneously puts the government in charge of extracting the costs from all citizens while also being in position to ration what care is provided and deciding who is "worthy." And is it any surprise that obesity is increasing when the government stands ready to pass out anti-obesity pills? The pills might be effective but they're no match for the principle that you get more of whatever you subsidize.

This is also an issue that also points out the challenges ahead for Minnesota as we are on the verge of enacting our own state-wide smoking ban (in public places, for now) and where our current legislature can't wait for the opportunity to pass single-payer healthcare provisions. (By the way, the population of Scotland is about the same as Minnesota's; according to 2005 estimates there are 5.09 million people in Scotland and 5.13 million in Minnesota).

The article didn't expressly call for a ban on selling unhealthy foods, but it's the next logical step from a system that has, ironically, force-fed its citizens with a never-ending platter of entitlements as if they were so many veal calfs or geese being prepared for foie gras , limiting their movement (freedoms) til they were in a dullard's stupor unable to resist and fit only to be harvested for their taxes.

Snippets from the article include:

... Spending on anti-obesity drugs rocketed to more than £4 million in Scotland last year as GPs doled out 89,000 prescriptions.

...Spending on the two main anti-obesity drugs rose from £3.55 million in 2004-5 to £4.12 million in 2005-6.

..."Being overweight is a disease, and why shouldn't these patients get these drugs?" she said.

...The World Health Organisation has described obesity as a "worldwide epidemic", and it is already thought to cause 9,000 premature deaths a year in the UK and costs the NHS £1 billion annually.

...A recent study by the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed that the annual cost for the two main drugs, Orlistat and Sibutramine, has hit almost £38 million in the UK, which means that £1 in every £264 spent on NHS drugs is now being used for obesity medication.

Now I am rather robust of frame myself. If it were, in fact, "raining men" as the old song sang, I'd be my own puddle. Of course, armed with the information from the article I now know that I have a disease and that I am a helpless victim of a worldwide epidemic. I'm sure I caught this disease from using a contaminated spoon while eating ice cream, or from one of those people in line next to me at McDonald's coughing on me. If only someone would do something to help me!

That's not to diminish the serious health issues of obesity. If I, myself, am to diminish however it should be up to me, not the government. I can eat less, exercise more and even counter-intuitive as it sounds — sleep more and lose weight. Sleeping more is something that I've been trying to do, since studies have shown that getting more than seven hours of sleep a night helps your body control its weight. The problem is, I always wake up after six hours (or less) regardless of when I go to bed, no matter how much I'd like to sleep longer.

Maybe someone should pass a law.

[For other accounts on this blog describing Scotland's infatuation with running people's lives, go here and here.]

"It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these journalists/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I'm readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I'll, in turn, do my best for the cause by writing editorials--after the fact."

- Robert E. Lee, 1863

HT: Jroosh at Roosh Five

Last night after I finished my blog post I decided to do a little channel surfing — but I didn't get far. My thumb was barely warmed up before I came across FSN re-broadcasting Game 5 of the 1987 American League Championship Series between the Twins and the Detroit Tigers. By the time I tuned in the game was in the bottom of the 8th inning but I settled in to watch the exciting conclusion because I'd never seen it before.

Yes, Twins fan that I am, I had missed one of the seminal moments in Twins history; had, in fact, missed all but a few innings of this series. "What, where you out of the country or something?" you might ask. As a matter of fact, the answer is "yes" and "something." I was honeymooning in Puerto Vallarta with the not-yet Reverend Mother, having gotten married on the same afternoon that the Twins played game three in Detroit (which fortunately caused me to miss the otherwise demoralizing Pat Sheridan homerun off of Jeff Reardon in the 9th).

I knew this team very well, however. I'd been working as a scoreboard operator for the Twins since the Dome opened a few years earlier and had watched this squad come together, working 40-50 games a year and watching most of the others on television (didn't have a blog to take up my time then). I was the same age as most of the guys on the team and felt a certain identification with them as we came into our own in our respective careers. I could sense there was something coming together with that group, but never anticipated playoffs in the early days of 1987; hence wedding plans were made for October with confidence.

It was spell-binding last night, however, to have those heady days brought back to me on the big screen, to see Rat and Herbie and Puck and Bruno all young again and mighty. To be reminded again of how smooth Gags was in the field and to see Dan Gladden and Steve Lombardozzi on the same field — and to laugh again at the memory of how Gladden would eventually punch Lombo out for being such a putz. Watching Stevie run home with a clinching run in the ninth last night I found myself thinking, "the guy even runs like a jerk."

I also got a little misty at how natural it seemed to see Kirby at the plate, lashing those practice swings, and to see Joe Niekro on the bench as the camera did a slow and unintentionally nostalgic pan through the dugout: hey, there's Mark "Country" Davidson, Sal Butera, and Bushie, Baylor and Gene-O, and there's Al "No-No" Newman (the nickname was one I used whenever Newmie had to come to the plate) and Bert Blyleven when his hair and beard were still orange, watching intensely and, uncharacteristically, not trying to give anyone a hot foot or a shaving cream facial. Finally, the crusty old skipper, Tom Kelly, not looking old and crusty at all back then.

Then there were the shots of the Tigers. My God, did the Twins really beat Jack Morris, Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker, while Sparky Anderson watched? Did anyone, even Gaetti, look more like a rat than Darrell Evans? And yeah, Sheridan, I saw you, too, you stiff prig with your ridiculous glasses, acting as if you belonged on the same field.

It was a strange sensation watching those two innings. Even though I knew the outcome of the game already there was still a lot of drama — probably because I knew of so many other outcomes still ahead. I also remembered what that time in my life, watching these guys in those seasons leading up to '87, had meant to me, and I thought about how one of the greatest things that could happen to them was about to happen, just at the time that one of the greatest things that ever happened to me happened. And we were all so young!

This weekend I watched a movie that Princess FlickerFeather let me borrow called "Howl's Moving Castle". It is an anime by Hayao Miyazaki that's based on the book by Diana Wynne Jones. I haven't really watched much anime aside from the Pokemon craze that hit my school back in 5th or 6th grade, but I liked this movie. It was pretty entertaining. Howl himself is very vain, and at one point he proclaims:

"I give up. I see no reason to go on living if I can't be beautiful."
Heehee! I'd recommend it.

I also just finished a book that Princess FlickerFeather(again) let me borrow. See, she's the one that's big into movies and books, and she tells me what to read or see, because I really don't pay that much attention. I haven't been to the library in forever. Anyway! The book is called "Kissing Adrien", and its by Siri L. Mitchell. It takes place in France, and its romantic and hilarious! Its the kind of book that I didn't want to end, but the end was wonderful, so its okay.

And now for something completely different! (Hi, Carol!)

Monday nights are practice nights for the little drama that PFF and I are putting together. Tonight was no different; we drove to church and practiced with about ten other kids. It's going really well, btw. Anyway, in my car I have this little stuffed elephant with really long arms and legs- you know, the kind with velcro on the feet so that you can hang it around your neck. His name is Winston, and he usually hangs on the armrests between the front seats. Well, tonight after practice I came out and got in my car and something was wrong. Winston was sitting on my steering wheel, his arms wrapped around it to keep him on; his beady little eyes looking at me. It freaked me out. What kind of crazy person would scare a little girl with her own stuffed elephant?? At least they didn't cut his head off and send it to me.

At this point I know you're all probably incredibly worried about my safety, but it's alright, I figured out who did it. And it's the kind of person that likes to play with other people's minds like a drunk kitten. I bet you can guess, too.

It was a beautiful spring day - temperatures in the 70s, sunny and still too early for bugs. Of course, I was stuck in an office building all day, but once I got out to my car I wantonly rolled down the windows in wild abandon. I kept my hand near the window button, however, because it is March in Minnesota and it could start snowing in five minutes. Not today, though.

That's not to say that there weren't white-out conditions, however. I drove home via the University and those crazy kids there couldn't wait to bare arms, legs and pasty torsos to the thin sunshine. The co-eds had that kind of vulnerable, bedraggled look of a Monarch butterfly just out of the cocoon. A sign of spring, all the same, and I can't blame them — around here if you get a nice day this early you've got to jump on it.

I had in mind to blog about something much darker today, but I'm going to let that notion pass for now. It's been too nice a day and I don't really feel like going to that place right now. We're sure to have rain sometime this week, and maybe I'll do it then. Driving home today about the only metaphorical cloud in the sky was the fact that I couldn't seem to find a radio station that wasn't in the middle of a bank of commercials.

Normally during my evening drive time I bounce between KFAN, The Patriot and KTLK. I'll listen until they come to a commercial and then my itchy finger moves on down the line. Today, for some reason — perhaps a meteorological one that delivered us an unseasonably warm day but also mysteriously synchronized radio signals — every station was paying bills, and two of them were playing the same commercial. It was like being chased through Dinkytown by Tom Shane. Now I've been told that I have a face for radio, but if there's anyone who does not have a voice for radio it's Tom Shane. I know it's hard to hear that, Tom, but you're my friend (albeit in the diamond business) and I've got to level with you. Your voice is scary, and the only way you'd sell me any jewelry is if you cornered me in a dark alley, which by the way, I wouldn't be surprised to find you in.

Ok, switch to plan D — rather, plan CD — to get some tunes going lest I be seduced into getting my basement waterproofed. I couldn't remember what the last thing was I had playing in the CD player, but I figured I'd give it a shot. Uh-oh, Tom Waits. What had been perfect musical accompaniment on a cold, rainy night last week seemed jarringly out of place on a soft spring evening. Of course, Tom Waits can be jarring anytime. There was an amusing incongruity, however, in hearing him croak about something being as cold as a gut-shot wolf-bitch with nine sucking pups pulling a number 8 trap up a mountain in a snowstorm with a mouthful of porcupine quills. Now that's cold. And that's probably the forecast for next week.

*Ahem*
I haven't posted for awhile. I have almost nothing to post about, sooo... I know! I'll post about dinner!

Tonight's dinner was chicken and al dente rice (courtesy of Reverend Mother and Mall Diva. I helped, too — I was the Chicken Transportation). Mom had mixed some white rice and some brown rice together, then realized that brown rice cooks very s-l-o-w. Thus, "al dente."

So there we were, sitting at our peninsula, munching away. (Oh, and just for all you smart-alecks out there who read my sister's last post, just because I am assumed to speak the chicken language doesn't mean that I don't eat chicken.) After awhile, MD said, "You know, I don't think that I like crunchy rice."

"Yeah, me neither," I said. "Is there any more?"

...is going on over at Solid Rocks.

Scotland is now one year into it's nation-wide smoking ban, something that I could see Robert the Bruce agreeing to but never William Wallace.

Personally, I'm a lifelong non-smoker. In my youth I considered the economies and relative "coolness" of smoking vs. driving and decided to use that money to put gas in my car. Furthermore, the last few years I haven't gone to many bars, but when I did I preferred to go to ones that had no-smoking sections. Nevertheless, I enjoyed going to Keegan's (pre-Minneapolis ban) for Trivia Night even though I knew I'd come home reeking of smoke. It was a trade-off I was willing to make for the socializing. I draw the line at socialism, however, and other people telling a private business how it ought to operate through laws rather than the marketplace. That's not because the marketplace is any kinder or gentler than the government, but it is a lot more grounded in reality. Not that the marketplace can't be a cruel master, but at least its focus is on finding ways to entice me to give it money voluntarily while the government is dedicated to finding ways to take more money, preferably while giving me as little say in the process as possible.

Anyway, because of a news thread I've been following on a business matter I occasionally come across news stories about the effects of the smoking ban in Scotland (unrelated to my original news search). An article in today's The Publican, a UK pub-trade publication, takes a look at the results of the past year. It notes that many pubs have been hurt and are even going out of business since the ban went into effect, but that this may not be tied solely to the ban, and that other pubs have not been as affected.

One year on: the Scottish smoking ban
22 March, 2007

Licensees there have faced the new laws with varying success, Roy Beers investigates

Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days into the smoking ban, pubs north of the border are experiencing mixed fortunes.

The ban in Scotland has hit some pubs and clubs even harder than trade pessimists expected, according to the country's biggest licensee organisation. However, on-trade multiple operators, for example Mitchells & Butlers and Belhaven (now part of Greene King), have reported only minor damage to their Scottish pubs' drinks sales.

The Scottish Licensed Trade Association's (SLTA) chief executive, Paul Waterson, says independent commissioned research showed overall pub turnover slumped 11 per cent last year, a more serious decline than the organisation's own original estimate of seven per cent.

He told The Publican a combination of the ban and discount beer offers in supermarkets was driving many pubs to the wall.

He has warned publicans in England that even some of those pubs that "do everything possible" ­- for example enhance food business and provide smoking areas -­ are still certain to lose trade.

In Scotland traditional wet-led community pubs are said to have been hardest hit, along with community-based social clubs. Bingo halls have suffered a wave of closures. Scotland's growing pub leasing sector is also said to be under particular pressure.

Making the lease unworkable

James Hickman, lessee of Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises (S&NPE) McEwans Ale House, in the Newington area of Edinburgh, said last week that the ban had been "the major factor in making the lease unworkable" ­ as he prepared to wind up his business with major debts. "Besides the ban driving people away, you see people passing all the time with carryouts from cheap supermarket deals -­ they're the students who would be our customers, but who can now drink cheaply as well as smoke freely in their flats," he added.

S&NPE operations and sales director for Scotland, Ken McGown, said: "In addition to the impact of the smoking ban, for which we have sympathy with the lessee, there were a number of other factors which ultimately led to him deciding to move on."

Loyal customers

"Some (S&NPE) pubs you would imagine would suffer have actually borne up due to a loyal customer base, and pubs with good food offers are reporting a positive response to the smoking ban," said McGown.

In Fife, some community-based registered social clubs have shut, while others have seen annual takings ­ and charity donations slashed. Davie Nelson of the Coal Industry Social Work Organisation in Glenrothes, said:

"We're losing £1,000 per week, and two other clubs have closed ­- some pubs are in trouble too. Local charities will be getting only around half the usual amounts because of the ban ­ and a local wheelchair users' club has been forced to close for lack of money." In addition to falling sales, licensees around the country have been dogged by complaints about noise and litter created by outdoor smokers: a North-East councillor last year tried unsuccessfully to ban smoking at outdoor tables.

...

"We were promised a massive influx of customers when smoking was banned -­ and it simply hasn't happened."

Read the whole thing.

What a pleasure to step outside this morning to get the newspaper and instead of getting a nose full of frozen hair I had it filled with the smell of warm, moist earth and impending rain. It won't be long now before I can take down the Christmas lights, pull up the orange driveway stakes, or find a place in the back yard to bury the cat (wrapped and boxed in our deep-freeze). I don't think it's going to take me four hours to finish that task.

The snow is almost gone, revealing all the goodies the city plows deposited in my front yard and the tire tracks of the yahoos who drove across my lawn over the winter. It's good to see the snow go, but I'm a little disappointed. Our sump-pump started acting up last year and I had gone most of the winter without replacing it because there wasn't a pressing need. When the 16" of snow fell a few weeks ago, followed by the 40+ degree temperatures, I knew procrastination was no longer an option. I pulled up the old pump and went to Menard's for a new one and other necessary parts (only two trips!) and got it hooked up, then sat back waiting for the deluge. Nothing! The ground has absorbed everything and nothing has made it into the drain tiles. Oh well, at least the job is done.

Without that to worry about (for the time being, anyway) I can focus on the Twins' preparations for the upcoming season. The team looks a lot more promising this year than last year at this time, what with the League MVP, Cy Young Winner and Batting Champ all on the roster. Now the biggest concerns are who will be the back-up infielder and whether desperate veteran pitching acquisitions Ramon Ortiz and/or Sidney Ponson can fill spots in the rotation allowing our host of promising but young pitchers an opportunity to season a little longer.

It strikes me as a dubious proposition; Ortiz reportedly has the ability to focus like a shotgun when the going gets tough and the portly Ponson has a reputation for bizarre and aggressive off-field behavior. This has been attributed to excessive drinking, but supposedly that's no longer a concern because Sid is limiting himself to just a little wine with dinner. Uh-huh. I expect to see a report any day now that Ponson has eaten a bat-boy with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Twins management is hopeful that he'll work out, of course, saying they expect that Carlos Silva's work ethic would be a positive influence on him. This is like saying Paris Hilton could be a good influence on Britney Spears.

Oh well, it may be spring, but it's early in the spring when things still look a little gritty and messy. Soon the grass will be green, the flowers will be out, the sump pump will be humming along and Opening Day will be here.

The reason we continue to get the Strib at home is because we all read the comics. I read every strip, even the ones I don't like because it's easier to read them than skip over them. A strip that I do like is "Get Fuzzy," and one that I like sometimes is "Stone Soup." The other day after reading these I said outloud, "If I lived in a house with Bucky Kat from 'Get Fuzzy' and Holly from 'Stone Soup,' at least one of them would be in a bag down by the river."

One of the three women of the house said she kind of liked "Stone Soup."

I said, "If I lived with all those women it would drive me nuts for sure!"

Wa-a-i-i-it a minute...

Another of my "Night Lights" blogs has pulled the plug as Port McClellan has gone dark after two years and two months. I never realized that the Port was senior to my own blog by only a month, but I enjoyed the excellent commentary, clarity and insights. Given these gifts, my presumption and hope is that the blogger, Michael Brandon McClellan, has merely found bigger fish to fry and has turned his considerable talents toward something more remunerative or life-advancing.

Michael and I were "introduced" by another blog on my roll, Portia Rediscovered, that has also been dormant but has promised to return from hiatus in the near future. Also on hiatus now is LaShawn Barber's Corner, and Suburban Blight is as good as gone (new babies are hard on blogging), while The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns are still crazy, but a lot less frequent.

And so it goes, old friends move on, new friends arrive. There has been some darn fine writing and/or analyses lately over at Scottish Right and Uncorrelated and I've linked Away With Words so much lately that if I do it again I'll probably be accused of stalking (you can feel free to sneak over there). The Llama Butchers are as prolific as ever, even if exclamation marks sometimes outnumber the words in a few posts. I've also become enchanted with the adventures of the ex-pat Kelleys, marvelously chronicled over at Half a World Away. There's a book in there, trying to come out.

The way things go in the blogosphere you should get over and enjoy these blogs while you can.

My wife, the Reverend Mother, preached a sermon yesterday. In it she described how there is a book being written about our lives, every day, and that one day that book will be opened. But there is also, she said, a script for our lives that has already been written and that we can follow. I know both are true.

The first book is scary. Many things are in there that I wish I could rewrite, or delete entirely. Unfortunately, all my rough drafts are there, unalterable:

my missteps...

half-finished thoughts...

idle words...

careless plots and sketchy character development —

all of it, just waiting for a real Author and Finisher.

The script, however, is comforting. It means that I, like an actor at rehearsal struggling to learn a new part, have a guide to fall back on; someone who knows what the plot twists are for and how the story ends. It means that in any scene, if I lose my way or forget my part, I can stop and say,

"Line, please."

...So therefore, I must write.

I'm sitting in my pajamas on the couch listening to my sister practicing a new language. She can speak it pretty fast, and I can only make out some of the words; but for the most part it sounds like this: "buckbuck buck BUUUCK, buck buckbuck buck buck." I'm not sure what it means. Maybe she's turning into a chicken.

I'm also watching the bird tear apart an old newspaper we rolled up and stuck in her cage. She's crazy about it. All day she chews on it. In the morning when my mom takes the blanket off her cage, she's already tearing away. There's now newspaper confetti all over the floor.

I have today off, but my cousin is coming over for a foil. She's been blonde for a few years, but last time we put in some lowlights and it turned out gorgeous. We're going to do it again today. It's also my day to cook, and after that, Tiger Lilly and I have to go to practice a drama that Princess FlickerFeather is putting together and I am assistant director of. It's to a song by Third Day called "Thief", and it's about the thief that was on the cross next to Jesus who ended up in Paradise. Bet you can't guess when that one's going to be performed!

So anyway, I'll see y'all at Keeg's a week from Thursday!

I know that the title for this post doesn't sound appealing, but I'm swamped with work, travel (travel for work) and with getting through this thing we call Life. Rather than let this significant excuse for public drunkeness holiday pass by unremarked I'd thought I'd re-run a previous post that described some of the college St. Pat's hi-jinks I enjoyed back in the day. If you read this last year at this time, well, I hope the re-run isn't as noxious to you as that morning-after taste in the mouth. If you didn't see this last year, then just forget this entire paragraph and sit back and enjoy some refreshing adult entertainment.

I don't think there will ever be a St. Patrick's Day when I don't think about my first semester of college when I enrolled in the Spring term at the University of Missouri-Rolla campus. UMR is mainly an engineering college but it was close to where I lived at the time and a convenient way for me to knock out some general liberal arts credits before transferring to the main Mizzou campus in Columbia.

St. Patrick's "Day" was actually a 10-day party at UMR. The campus was about 90% male then, almost all in grueling engineering classes that seemed to require binge drinking in order to cope. The reason St. Pat is such a big deal at UMR is because he is deemed to be the patron saint of engineers for having driven the snakes from Ireland and thereby creating the first worm drive (engineering humor). The rites and festivities of the season were under the auspices of the St. Pat's Board: upper classmen (some I think were in their 30s) elected by their fraternities, eating clubs and campus organizations. For most of the year their duties seemed to be based around regular "meetings" marked by drinking and carousing. Come March, however, they were especially prominent in their filthy green coats (part of their semi-secret initiation rites) as they enforced the rules and protocols of the holiday (for those familiar with the St. Paul Winter Carnival - especially in the older days - think green Vulcans).

Part of the tradition was that all freshmen males were to have beards in the week or so leading up to St. Pat's, and were to carry shillelaghs (an Irish cudgel). Most people think of shillelaghs as being a bit like walking sticks, but at UMR there were specific requirements: the shillelagh had to be at least two-thirds the height of the student and at least one-third his weight, and it had to be cut from a whole tree with at least some of the roots showing. The punishment for being caught beardless by a Board Member (and they usually traveled in packs of two or more) was to have your face painted green. The penalty for being without your shillelagh was to be thrown into Frisco Pond. Frisco Pond was actually the town's sewage lagoon, but was called Frisco Pond because the St. Pat's Board of 1927 rerouted the Frisco railroad into the pond after one of their meetings. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea to them at the time.

Fortunately I was able to cultivate my first beard, red and wispy as it was, and I cut myself a suitable cudgel. Carrying books and a shillelagh of the stated dimensions was a challenge, and even more so when certain professors wouldn't allow them into class, meaning they had to be stacked in the hallways and guarded because Board members liked nothing better than to snatch unattended shillelaghs and then wait for their rightful owners to appear — followed by a honking procession to Frisco Pond. (I did mention the campus was 90% male and fueled by alcohol, right? During St. Pat's week the campus looked like No Name City from "Paint Your Wagon.")

The reason we carried cudgels was in case a Board member approached you with a rubber snake and demanded that you "kill" it. This generally meant pounding on the snake with your cudgel until the Board member (not you) got tired. I weighed about 170 then; you do the math as to what my shillelagh weighed, minimum. I was fortunate to go largely unnoticed (as unnoticed as a guy carrying a tree can be) through most of this period. This was especially remarkable given that one of my friends from my hometown was on the Board. Toward the end of the week, however, he came up to me in the dining hall. "Red," (for my beard) he said, "I think I see a snake." With chants of "snake! snake! snake!" I was led outside and my "friend" tossed said snake on the ground. It landed, however, in a flower bed. "Freshman! Kill!" was the command. Hoisting my club over my head (and somehow not tipping over backwards) I brought it crashing down onto the hapless rubber creature — and even more hapless plants in the soft earth.

"Hit it again, it's not dead," was the order. I looked down once, then again. "Oh, it's dead, alright," I said. Actually, it would be more accurate to say, "Missing, presumed dead" because the rubber snake was nowhere to be found in the newly-created crater. Rather than wait around for CSI, or the gardener, the small group repaired to the dining hall to toast the success of the mission and I survived the week, the highlight of which was the St. Pat's Parade.

In those days the St. Pat's Board would be out early in the morning with mops and barrels of green paint, painting Pine Street in advance of the parade. High school bands from around the area would march, car dealers would drive demo models with pretty girls in them and various and sundry other parade standards would be present. In particular, however, I remember the Precision Pony Team: a group of students scooting along on empty pony kegs strapped to skateboards with rudimentary heads and yarn tails attached to the kegs. They wove patterns and formations down the street, stopping periodically to lift the tails of their "mounts" and drop handfuls of malted milk balls.

Much like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, the event culminated in St. Pat (not St. Nick) appearing on the route, riding a manure spreader and attended by his Guard. The duties of the Guard were largely to keep St. Pat vertical (he'd probably been drinking for four days straight) and to bring any fetching lasses from the crowd to St. Pat for a good luck kiss. (I did say the campus was 90% male and fueled by alcohol, didn't I?).

After this particular St. Patrick's Day all the other ones I've experienced have just kind of faded from my memory.

Note: the annual UMR St. Pat's parade and related festivities still go on, but in a much more muted manner. A couple of alchohol-poisoning deaths were a factor (sad and true) to be sure, but I also think it was because some of those Board members finally graduated.

I’ve always loved coming into Manhattan from the outlying boroughs. Approaching and crossing the bridges or coming through the tunnels always has a certain feel of anticipation as if traveling to a fantasyland. In the past I’ve always come to the island via the Newark or LaGuardia airports, but this trip I landed at JFK. In one of those oddities of air fare arcania, I had a choice between two Northwest flights, each leaving Minneapolis at the same time on the same day, one arriving at LaGuardia and the other at JFK, one minute apart. The LaGuardia flight was some $650 more than the one that landed at JFK. That’s math that even I can do. (Heck, I can even do it in story-problem form: if two planes leave at the same time for the same destination, arriving at almost the same time, and if the Night Writer selects the one that costs $650 more, how long before Corporate Accounting comes down on him like a herd of flesh-eating frogs?

Approaching Manhattan from Queens especially enhances the sensation of being backstage at a big show. Nearing the Queensboro Bridge I noticed a cemetery resolutely holding its ground while the highway, roads, brick warehouses and homes pressed round its perimeter like a river coursing past a boulder. It occured to me that cemeteries tend to be a reflection of their environs. When I drive through rural areas, for example, cemeteries have lots of empty space around them and seem to jut up from the empty fields suddenly, without transition, much like the communities they serve. Squat stones and tall stones break up the lines of the earth in the same way the houses, barns and silos do. In Queens the headstones – squat and tall – are compacted together, their straight, tidy rows and random heights and shapes looking like a modeler's panorama of Manhattan’s grid. I thought of these headstones again this morning as I had a bagel and coffee while looking out the window from the 44th floor of the Hilton in mid-town (yes, Corporate Accounting knows about this, too); the stone rectangles of differing heights and colors running row after row below in straight lines below my feet.

That’s about all of Manhattan that I saw on this short trip. Yesterday I went directly from the airport shuttle to a 13th floor conference room overlooking an inner courtyard off of Park Avenue. From up there, though, I could hear the filtered sirens and honkings from the streets below and the miscellaneous crashings and bangings that are a constant part of the background noise of the city, much like bird song on a country morning. Six and a half hours later I followed our little group out of the conference room and across the street to a restaurant; three hours after that I walked the half-dozen blocks to my hotel.

Though that was still “early” – especially by New York standards – it was still 18 hours after I had woken up that morning, a sleep that itself had only lasted about 3 ½ hours. By the time I got up to my room last night the 20 oz. Caribou coffee in the Minneapolis airport, two cans of pop and one cup of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee (now that’s what I call a conference room!) in the afternoon that had provided life-preserving stimulation earlier were exacting their payback in the form of palpitations and twitchy muscles in my forearms and fingers. When I was younger I might have thought, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Last night I was more interested in sleeping like the dead. The neon lights may be bright on Broadway, but they were nothing compared to the ones going off inside my head — and it was definitely time for lights out. I might as well have been in Des Moines or Owatonna except that way down below, the New York City serenade was a soothing backdrop.

You really can find anything you want in New York, including a good night's sleep.

Away With Words has a nice March Madness diversion, looking at the new book, The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. The book posits that many of the great debates of our times can be resolved by methodically breaking these down into a series of one-on-one matchups culminating in a categorical "Final Four." She links to Slate.com's article about the book, which features four sample brackets: the greatest "Where Were You Moments", "Ad Slogans", "Marital Arguments" and "Film Deaths."

In these samples, 32 candidates in each category are listed in Round 1 and you proceed to "face-off" each match-up into the next bracket. For example, in the "Film Deaths" bracket I found a lot of bona fide contenders that were hard to choose from, but when it was close I went with the death that was most central to the story. Thus the "Psycho" shower scene made it to my final four despite a strong first round challenge from the opening shark attack in "Jaws". The rest of my final four ultimately included King Kong falling from the Empire State Building, Tom Hanks' death in "Saving Private Ryan" and the Wicket Witch melting in "The Wizard of Oz." (King Kong won.)

Deaths also figure prominently in the "Where Were You When" (Boomer Division) bracket with JFK, RFK, Martin Luther, Princess Diana, John Lennon, Dale Earnhardt among those featured, though these also compete against the fall of the Berlin Wall, Woodstock and the Miracle on Ice. In the Ad Slogans bracket you've got "Where's the beef?" going up against "It's finger-lickin' good" in the first round, while "Does she or doesn't she?" could conceivably fight it out with "Just do it" in one of the later rounds.

You can check out these sample brackets for yourself from the Salon link. While I don't see that we could resolve many disputes by having a world-wide "Greatest Religions" bracket, this is a fun way to hash out your favorites — and all without having to listen to Dick Vitale (I didn't notice if there was a "Most Obnoxious" bracket covered in the book).

When you're finished you can check with your friends and acquaintences who also completed the brackets and then make a bracket to determine which of you is most compulsive.

And set it down over here at Solid Rocks.

There were two brave, defiant and ultimately glorious campaigns on display this past weekend featuring determined underdogs rising up to give their much larger foes all they could handle and more. One was in the new movie, "300" (see previous post) — the story of 300 Spartans standing against the massive Persian army and the elite Immortals at Thermopylae to defend their way of life. The second was tiny Roseau High School demonstrating its way of life by rising up against greater numbers and big school hockey powers with their monstrous enrollments to win the 2A (highest) state hockey title.

For the Roseau Rams, "The 300" might refer to the school's enrollment (342 in 2006, to be exact), but like the Spartans they proved that when you get your opponent in a confined space you can triumph through heart, spirit, discipline and skill. What makes it all the more inspiring is that it's not just a Cinderella story of a small school winning out against long odds, it's a story of Cinderella saying "Forget about the ball, I want to be on 'Dancing With the Stars.'" Roseau had the option of playing in Class 1A, created back in 1992 to make things "fair" for schools with smaller enrollments from which to draw their teams. Like the Spartans, they sneered at any such accomodation by themselves or their opponents, especially since in the days of the one-class, all-sizes tournament they had made 29 trips to the state tournament and won five titles.

In "300" Leonidas forcibly rejected the Persian ambassador's request for a token sign of obedience and submission to King Xerxes. "This is madness!" the ambassador said, seeing the hostile intent. "This is Sparta!" shouted Leonidas as he kicked the man into a pit. Similarly back in '92 the State High School league came to northern Minnesota with a similar, reasonable proposal to bow to the forces of reason and warm, fuzzy feelings. "This is Roseau!" was the response, with the authority of a slapshot from the blue line, and the small school with the proud tradition insisted on competing against the biggest schools at the highest levels, going on to win the 2A title in 1999 and again this year, persevering over teams in the field with as much as eight times their enrollment.

In ancient Sparta, young boys were taken from their families at age six and sent to the agoge, to learn fighting and endurance, to develop a love for freedom, self-government and responsibility, and to never retreat or surrender. In Roseau the children start skating even earlier, learning to forecheck, backcheck and keep their egos in check and to never, ever stop skating.

There were two brave, defiant and ultimately glorious campaigns on display this past weekend — I hope you enjoyed and appreciated them both.

I was among the 90 percent male audience at a 9:00 p.m. showing of 300 over the weekend. Some of the guys there were younger men and a few looked a little geeky and there were one or two older ones I might have pegged for still being in residence at their mom's house, but most appeared middle-aged and normal — a category I hope the others thought that I fell into. Having read Steven Pressfield's "Gates of Fire" and Frank Miller's graphic novel that the movie was based on I'd been eagerly awaiting the release of the latest movie version of the Battle of Thermopylae (I even rented 1961's The 300 Spartans, made when Hollywood thought "epic" also had to mean "plodding"). Here's my brief review of the movie and some thoughts that have occurred to me since it ended.

Overall the movie was very good. The look of the film was definitely unique and strongly resembled Miller's book, which was the intention. The "graphic novel" artistic treatment (and it is artistic) mitigated the gruesomeness of the ultra-violence to some extent, and while it was bloody (and came close to over-using the slow-motion) I felt it was a believable rendition of what hand-to-hand combat in close confines with sharp-edged weapons would be like. It's definitely not a date movie unless your girlfriend also happens to like field-dressing roadkill, but there is a discernible plot and some inspiring and intense performances that makes this a good story. Additionally, it is a thought-provoking examination of duty, honor and patriotism that's short on speeches and long on demonstration.

I was disappointed with the gratuitous scenes with naked women; the scenes fit within the story but appeared to be driven more by a marketing formula for the target audience than from story-telling license. The scenes between King Leonidas and his wife, and in the seductive blandishments offered by King Xerxes to the traitor Ephialtes, easily could have been shot with a bit more discretion. Not that this is a movie for younger teen males anyway, but the nudity definitely would be a distraction from the more laudable themes in the film. Otherwise "300" is an inspiring and entertaining movie for action film fans and those who will draw some conservative political allegories from the story.

While much is made of the battle being between a small group of free men and an invading slave army of a couple hundred thousand, I thought there was little effort to frame the historical significance of the effects on Western Civilization if the fledgling Greek city-state democracies had been absorbed the Persian empire. Ironically, Spartan society was probably less "free" than the Persians; while it is portrayed as an egalitarian meritocracy, it was also rigid in its laws and cruel — some might say eminently practical — in its single-minded warrior ethos. At the same time it made a religion out of exalting honor, duty and courage and "300" makes that point with all the subtlety of a Spartan xiphos.

King Leonidas is the standard-bearer and champion of this creed, even to the point where he breaks the rigid letter of the law in order to ultimately defend its spirit, standing firm against the alternating threats and flattering of his foreign enemy and standing in disgust at the treacherous collaboration of his own Council of Elders that sought accommodation and surrender to the apparently overwhelming enemy (based on the portrayal of Council, duty and honor weren't universally revered in Spartan culture as the politicians manipulated events for their personal gain and grudges regardless of the cost to their country). For Leonidas, while freedom may be ripped from a Spartan's dead fingers, it must never be willingly released due to fear, complacency or indolence.

The movie also helped me see another important point. The Spartan warriors are all very fit and well-muscled, conditioned to their "Spartan" existence of war and striving. While my own body bears little resemblance to theirs, I know that I was born with the same number of muscles in my body as they had; the difference is in how they developed what they were given. Similarly, I think we all start with the same capacity for faith, duty and honor within us and these, too, can be trained, exercised and built up to astonishing and awe-inspiring levels. When we do, even just a handful can change history.

Find out more at Solid Rocks Ministry.

It's just not easy being me. Here's the dealio:

Last weekend my parents had some golfing buddies over to play cards, and I got to play too! Somehow the talk turned to icky things that make me want to yell, "Go get a secret, secluded room!!!" I'll just give you one line, and leave it to your imaginations: "Oooh! Is that Latex?" *Tiger Lilly sobbing in the backround.* Why me?

After that, the talk turned to celebrities. Mainly, how stupid it is that all the TV talks about is Anna Nicole Smith and Britney. Zzzz... I'm sorry, how stupid is it to talk about how stupid the TV is? I just don't an attention span for that. To be fair, there was good stuff, too. We had Chocolate Turtle Cake! *Hallelujuah Angel chorus in the backround.*

Then, last Tuesday I had double Tae Kwon Do. The first class was the normal one: running, hitting, kicking, sparring, practicing forms. The second class was the Special Martial Arts Training Program (SMATP). No, that doesn't describe the sound we often make, and it's not 'special' as in mental, but special as in WEAPONS!!! (No, Kevin, not guns.)

There are only three people in the SMATP because the test to get in is really hard. But one of our people has not shown up for about 5 weeks. He has Bronchitis. ANYWAY, in the second class I practiced my sweet Boe Staff formation. Then I got to throw the other student. Who is 16. And is a black belt. But Master Yu decreed it, and it's best not to upset Master Yu (sixth degree black belt and all that). There are actually a few techniques to throwing people, and most of them involve your shoulder. Somehow I strained my thigh muscles. We were training for the demonstration that we have to do at the promotion test next Saturday. Yep, that's right, I'm on a Demo Team!

Ciao for now, peeps!

I don't follow the animal kingdom news quite the way KingDavid does but a couple of stories have caught my eye. I've really been pressed for time the last couple of days but here are some quick takes:

Mmmm, tastes like...chicken
A farmer in India has discovered that the mysterious predator eating his chickens was one of his very own cows. This may be a breakthrough in bovine cuisine. I've sometimes wondered who the first person was to eat an oyster, and how much trial and error went into that process (shell on or shell off, I can't fathom what would make someone think of putting these in his mouth.) This carnivorous cow may be opening up new food frontiers for its kind; perhaps no cow has ever looked up from her clover and thistles before and thought, "I'd like a drumstick!" We'll probably never know the reason for this sudden change in diet (maybe this cow is the reincarnation of Col. Sanders?), but what really puzzles me is how the cow caught its prey in the first place.

Chickens are quick and agile; does the cow run down its prey like a cheetah, or is it an "ambush" predator like a crocodile? Either one conjures some images my mind isn't quite ready for.

Coyote union protesting unsafe conditions?
Coyotes have been causing problems at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, diverting flights by running out onto the runways. It's not a recent phenomenon either, as the FAA says planes have hit coyotes at Illinois airports 26 times since 1990. I've never pictured Abraham Lincoln or Richard Daly bedding down for the night to the mournful sound of coyotes howling at the moon, but I'm not shocked to learn there are coyotes in Chicago. Anyone who has traveled knows it's next to impossible to get across the midwest without getting sucked into O'Hare. Given that it's Chicago, what would surprise me is if these coyotes weren't already unionized. Perhaps these incidents aren't about animals randomly running out on the tarmac, but a picket line? I also think it might warrant a closer look at the voter-registration rolls over the past ten years.

Update:

Ooops! I see that KingDavid is already on these stories. Oh well, warped great minds think alike.

Hey, do you know that professional football game that they play at the end of each season? The one with all the expensive commercials and the all-day pre-game show? The one that sounds like something Clark Kent might use to eat two gallons of Rocky Road ice cream? Yeah, that one.

You may already know that the NFL is like Terry Tate, office linebacker, fresh out of law school, going after people and businesses who use its trademarked name for this game. I learned this more than a decade ago when I was writing an advertising and promotional campaign for a brand of microwave popcorn that was being launched in the U.K. Part of the promotional campaign was that by trying the new snack you'd get a chance to win an expense-paid trip to the U.S. for the ... well, the Big Game. We had planned to use the real name of the event, but we were threatened with an "illegal procedure" call so we used the BG alternate wording.

Many other businesses have done the same as they annually promote their snacks, HDTVs, adult beverages and recliners leading up to the "Big Game". Now the NFL is trying to call "Encroachment" on these sideline retailers by seeking to trademark the Big Game audible as well (HT: The Trademark Blog and Likelihood of Confusion).

It's kind of reminiscent of those NFL commercials from a year or so ago where players such as Jerome Bettis and Daunte Culpepper would suddenly appear, uniformed, in business meetings or warehouses to penalize people who misused football cliches. If this registration goes through you'll have uniformed NFL lawyers laying crackback blocks on any sports bar putting "Watch the Big Game here!" on their marquees.

I really can't see how the NFL is harmed by these enthusiastic but unauthorized efforts; referring to the Big Game doesn't give anyone the impression that the sale, happy hour or sofa are sanctioned or licensed by the NFL or detract from the allure of the game. If anything it probably just adds to the hoopla that has practically turned that Sunday into a national holiday. (It does kind of make me wonder if the real Santa Claus gets a taste from all those copy-cats in the malls and taped to walls). Certainly this move by the NFL could make things a lot worse.

After all, "The Big Game" has a positive connotation. If forced to be more creative retailers and bars might have to resort to saying "Watch the Great Commercials here!" or "Be sure to stock up on drugs before the Steroid Bowl!" or "Your Lame Game Headquarters!"

Howard Stern talks but the (shareholders') money walks...

The announcement of a proposed merger between Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI, news, msgs) and its archrival XM Satellite Radio (XMSR, news, msgs) was treated by most of the media this week as if were just another financial event to be studied through the prism of balance-sheet analysis and the federal regulatory approval process.

But the merger plan actually amounts to the death of a dream for investors who came to believe that shares of Sirius — propelled skyward for a short time by the hiring of snarky talk show host Howard Stern — would make them rich beyond compare.

For while the merger might ultimately save the company from total oblivion, it is unlikely to save investors from billions of dollars in losses incurred over the past several years or, perhaps more importantly, from a loss of faith in stock ownership.

Millions of people bought Sirius shares at $6 to $8 for their retirement accounts, and rode them down to $3.50, never losing faith in Stern. At this point, they need to face up to the fact that they're screwed. Stern made half a billion. They will make nothing. They can file SIRI stock certificates away under "S" for stupid. They blew it.

We had little idea how much personality a bird can have when we adopted a storm-tossed budgie a couple of years ago. Actually we knew very little about budgies at all, including how to figure out if the bird was male or female. We've since learned that "budgie" is an abbreviation of an Australian word, and we've become well educated in many different aspects of bird-rearing (and determined that our bird's a sheila).

Now that our cat has moved on to happier hunting grounds The Bird (Tiger Lilly may have a name for it, but everyone pretty much calls her The Bird) has many more opportunities outside of her cage to have the run (or airspace) of the house. She always wants to be wherever her "flock" (us) is, whether she's in her cage or not. Any companionship appears better to her than none, but she is especially bonded to Tiger Lilly. Anyone will do in a pinch, or peck, however, as I've discovered.

Saturday morning my wife and I were up before Tiger Lilly and my wife let the bird out of her cage while we read the paper. The bird loves to shred newspaper, so this was like an invitation to party. Take it from me, it is very distracting to have a bird trying to savage the section of newspaper that you're reading. This particular morning, however, The Bird decided to share the paper with my wife, probably because the last time she and I "shared" the paper it got to be pretty frustrating for both of us. My wife was clever and thought to offer up a sacrificial section of the paper (probably the one with Nick Coleman's column in it) to busy The Bird so she could read the comics in peace. Just like the cat, however, The Bird is only interested in the section that you have in front of you. After a couple of tears at the decoy section she hopped over to my wife's leg and started working at the folded gutter of the paper. My wife is much more patient than I am and gamely continued to read. When she opened the section fully, however, to turn the page she discovered a better-than-bird-sized hole in the middle of the paper (including a missing punch-line from the last panel of a comic).

After the ensuing protest The Bird decided a change of scenery would be beneficial, so she flew across the room and landed on my shoulder. She wisely didn't make for the paper right away, as I turned my head and we regarded each other like familiar opponents. It so happened that when I turned toward her she was able to see her reflection in my reading glasses.

You know, it is kind of a strange sensation to see a magnified and blurry beak coming at your eye.

Finding herself again airborne, The Bird went on the hunt for more docile prey, or at least another section of the newspaper. I don't understand why chewing up the newspaper is so interesting to her, but I suppose it's probably a good source of fiber.

That's all I need — an unconstipated budgie flying Dawn Patrol in my living room! I never thought I'd miss that cat.

Last month I posted a brief review of the move Everything is Illuminated because I like the unexpected, unconventional and beguiling nature of the story, the well-crafted scenes and performances, and the human insights that lingered in my mind for days afterward. I hadn't expected to like the movie all that much yet I was totally won over. Since then I've thought about some of my other all-time favorite movies and realized that many of these shared distinctive characteristics with this film. The stories aren't really related to each other, but they are all off-beat (non-formulaic) delights that surprised and charmed me and — as we head into a snowy weekend — I thought they might charm you as well.

My top three favorite movies may shift from time to time, but Local Hero will always be near the top of my list. Released in 1983, it stars Peter Reigert (post-Animal House) and Burt Lancaster and is directed by the estimable Scottish director Bill Forsyth (Gregory's Girl, Comfort and Joy). Like all of the movies here it has a light, whimsical streak running through it. The story is that a large Houston oil company sends one of its acquisition specialists, McIntyre, to a small Scots town to purchase the town and, especially, its deep water port that they want to turn into a refinery. Part of the joke is that Mac isn't even Scottish — his ancestors adopted the name when they got off the boat from Hungary because it "sounded American". Devoted to his job and his lifestyle, Mac sets out to complete his mission as quickly as possible but finds himself becoming enchanted by the place and ambivalent about his task. One of the special twists of the story, however, is that rather than being outraged and protective of their community, the locals can't wait to sell it and become rich! There are several subplots as well and a great cast of characters (referring both to the actors and to the "townspeople" in the movie). The movie is quirky but not in a heavy-handed, off-putting way and it reveals itself little-by-little. The story is partly meant to be a commentary on American capitalism abroad, but this is done warmly and with wit; the scenes between Mac and an entreprenuerial Russian sailor are some of the best, though these are surpassed by Burt Lancaster's small but vital role. Beautiful scenery, a beautiful story, and did I mention that there's a mermaid as well?

I always link The Coca-Cola Kid with Local Hero in my mind because it also tells a comedic tale of what happens when American interests go abroad, but in a more allegorical manner. The screenplay is by an Australian and directed by a Yugoslavian, but culture clashes at the center of the movie, and the characterization of Becker (played by Eric Roberts in one of his less-twitchy roles) is more bemused than pointed. Becker is a hot-shot marketing guru from Coca-Cola, sent from Atlanta to Australia to boost sales in that country. (The movie was made without the fore-knowledge or blessing of Coca-Cola). When he discovers a populated valley in which absolutely no Coke has ever been sold he sets out to conquer, in the process meeting the patriarch of the valley, a cantankerous lord who bottles his own brand of soft drinks. Greta Scacchi plays the love interest, again, somewhat as an allegory, as are several other characters who come and go with their own perceptions and assumptions about Americans set up in contrast with Becker's assumptions of this new land. It's a funny and generally gentle story with great music, including a terrific Coke jingle that the company should have adopted in real life. It's a good companion movie to watch with Local Hero, but there are a couple of scenes with nudity so it's probably not for kids (though the story wouldn't be as interesting to them anyway).

A movie that is ideal to watch with the whole family is The Secret of Roan Inish. There are no big stars in the film, but it is directed by John Sayles, who's work I've liked since "The Return of the Secaucus Seven" (another off-beat charmer that was later ripped off by "The Big Chill"). The story focuses on Fiona, a young girl sent to live with her grandparents on the Irish coast after her mother dies and her father and brothers go to work in an industrialized city. Her grandparents still live near the island that was the home of Fiona's family going back several generations and the seat of the family's mystical history and the setting for the mysterious disappearance of Fiona's younger brother, Jamie, spirited away when he was an infant. While that sounds rather dark, the story is anything but as Fiona and her cousin find themselves gradually unwrapping the nearly forgotten ancient secrets of the family and the mystery of what happened to Jamie. Rest assured, there isn't a speck of evil in the story. In fact, one of the things that makes the film so unique in my mind is that it generates such a compelling drama without a single villain. The young actress who plays Fiona (Jeni Courtney) is amazing and easily carries the movie. I'm surprised that she hasn't gone on to do other movies ("Roan Inish" was released in 1995). It's a tremendous story of faith, love and character and an ideal experience for the whole family. Bake some bread, cook up a pot of soup, and eat while you watch the movie!

This is another movie that took me by surprise when we first watched it. The Emperor's New Clothes is a "what if" story about what might have happened if Napoleon had managed, through the use of a body double, to escape from Elba and make it back to France. Rest assured, however you think this might have turned out, you'll definitely be surprised by the story that unfolds. Ian Holm is fantastic as the two Napoleons and the story is a very funny and touching one with a bit of romance and adventure thrown in. I'm not sure why we even rented it in the first place, but I'm glad we did. While the premise sounds predictable, the story is delightfully original and veers away from the cliched scenes and character reactions that you might expect. It's not a "major" film but it is very entertaining with likeable characters and a seductive plot. If you rent it just sit back and relax and go with the story and you won't be disappointed.

I need some help or information here because I'm afraid The Night Writer might get stolen away — well, in the night.

When I started blogging I registered my domain name with Registerfly for a nominal fee. I renewed the registration a year later with no problem. Again this year I received emails from Registerfly warning that my annual renewal was coming up. I renewed the domain name one day before the expiration and paid through PayPal which sent me a confirmation.

I then received an email from Registerfly that it wasn't able to renew my domain. I figured it must have been a glitch in the ordering process, and went back to their site to try it again. This time I got an on-screen message saying that they couldn't renew the domain name because their records show it belongs to someone other than my User ID! Naturally I've tried to contact Registerfly to try and figure out what's going on and can't get through. The several emails I've sent have so far gone unanswered and when I called in during business hours last week I was on hold for 35 minutes (with a helpful message repeating itself every minute telling me how many people were still ahead of me and how many minutes I'd already been waiting) and when I finally got to the head of the line I was suddenly put into voicemail - with a message that the Voice Mailbox was full!

Right now, I don't know where things stand or even if Registerfly is still a going concern or not. Supposedly I have a month's grace period to renew my domain after it expires, but right now I'm not feeling too confident about anything. I don't want to see this blog overnight turn into a site selling foot creams or discount medications (not that there's anything wrong with that), and I don't want to move my domain registration business to GoDaddy because of their advertising.

Here are my questions; I'd appreciate comments from anyone who has any information or advice:

1. How do I go about moving my domain registration from one vendor to another, and are there other companies out there other than Registerfly or GoDaddy that anyone can recommend?



2. If my domain name should truly be lost, can I still preserve my URL and, especially, my on-line archives? (I'm in the process of manually transferring these to my hard-drive, which takes up time that I have precious little of right now).



3. If I end up changing my domain name and URL, is there a simple way to leave a "forwarding address"?

Thanks, folks.

Update:

I've got a bad feeling about this. There's actually a website devoted to problems with Registerfly. Looks like I can kiss my original domain name good-bye. Now I just need to figure out if I can get a new domain name and still keep this URL!