Falling for The Fall

We've been scouring the movie rental offerings for hi-def stuff we might like since we bought a Blu-ray player over the weekend.

With a few exceptions, I'm not particularly keen to rent something I've already seen, so that narrows our choices considerably.

We were scanning the Blu-ray rack at Hastings the other evening when my eyes fell up on "The Fall," a film by director Tarsem Singh. Here's the plot as summarized at imdb.com:

At a Los Angeles hospital in the 1920s, Alexandria is a child recovering from a broken arm. She befriends Roy Walker, a movie stunt man with legs paralyzed after a fall. At her request, Roy tells her an elaborate story about six men of widely varied backgrounds who are on a quest to kill a corrupt provincial governor. Between chapters of the story, Roy inveigles Alexandria to scout the hospital's pharmacy for morphine. As Roy's fantastic tale nears its end, Death seems close at hand.

It's an engaging story, and the images are absolutely mind-blowingly beautiful. This is the most visually stunning movie I've seen all year. If you haven't seen it, check it out, whether you have a regular DVD player or Blu-ray.

A-freaking-mazing!

No, my name is not David and I don't owe you money

We've had our residential phone number for 13 months, yet we're still getting calls for the deadbeat family who had the number before us.

Mostly they're from creditors, but we also get the occasional call from friends and family.

I found their new address and phone number several months ago, which tells me that their creditors and the associated collection agencies aren't very good at tracking people down.

So I will continue to help them whenever they call.

Pity the poor greeters

Guardedly optimistic

It's starting to feel like we're getting un-stuck in our two-house bind.

We received a signed contract from the renters and a deposit check equal to the first month's rent late last week, but sat on everything until we got feedback from prospective buyers who looked at the house on Friday morning. They decided not to make an offer, so we signed the rental contract and our new tenants get the keys to the house on Dec. 18 to make whatever cosmetic changes they need to be happy there.

Like everything else, I'm not going to relax until they're settled in and we know there are no problems. But it still feels like progress.

We also took advantage of the after-Thanksgiving sales over the weekend to buy our mutual Christmas present - a Blu-Ray movie player. For the first time in the year we've owned our Sharp Aquos TV, we're seeing real high-definition content. Dang! Looks very very good. It also up-samples regular DVDs to 1080p. "Finding Nemo" and "Open Range" look absolutely gorgeous.

Of course, our cable provider is months or years from being able to offer us HD content, so we'll be watching a lot of Blu-Ray movies from Netflix to get our HD fix.

Now I'm off to run some errands in town.

Target

Ho ho ho.

Toyota vs. Ford

H/T Elgin's Chuck Emmert

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action...

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses.

The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India .

Sadly, the End.

Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results:

TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses... and now wants the Government to 'bail them out'.

IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY

Seen on the road this afternoon

Two boys in camo, two caged goats and a powerchair. No license plate visible.

Must be in Arkansas.

Photography

We shot a series of family portraits for our neighbors this morning. Here's one of my faves.

They're gone, but we still have an auto industry

       

These 11 U.S. auto brands and/or makers have gone out of business in my lifetime. If you look up "defunct automakers" on Wikipedia, you'll find an amazing list of hundreds of extinct car makers.

Nobody needs a Ford or a Chevy or a Chrysler enough to put the whole country's economic stability at risk. If you need wheels, go buy a Saturn or an American-built Subaru, Honda or Toyota. They have a business model that works and deserves to survive.

And it's only $920!

The latest on staff cuts at The Indianapolis Star

November 20, 2008

TO: Star Employees

FR: Michael G. Kane

RE: Update

About three weeks ago, I informed you that we must reduce our 2009 operating expenses in line with lower revenue projections. At the time, I estimated this included the possible elimination of up to 95 positions here.

As we sorted through our options - which included examining every alternative besides reducing staff - I now believe we can limit our reductions to fewer than 55 employees in early December.

This is not easy, but I want you to know where we stand.

I plan on conducting a series of employee meetings in mid-December (tentatively planned for Dec. 17-18) to discuss 2009 plans. In the meantime, you'll be interested to know that Gannett's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Craig Dubow, and U.S. Community Publishing Group's President Bob Dickey, plan to visit Indianapolis very soon to talk about the company's future direction.

If there's anything you'd like to discuss, my door is always open and I respond to all phone calls and emails. You also may contact The Star's VP/Human Resources James Keough or your department head.

Thanks to all of you for the courtesy and professionalism you've shown as we work through these difficult times.

Michael

Buy a toaster, get a free bank!

Who knew the day would come when toasters were worth more than some banks?

South Park at last!

We've been starved for Comedy Central and, in particular, South Park, ever since we moved to Arkansas.

Our cheesy cable system is heavy on local access and religious programming, but does not offer Comedy Central, even as a premium channel.

But a wonderful thing happened over the weekend. We discovered the South Park Studios website where you can stream or download episodes from all 12 South Park seasons.

After watching a couple of episodes from the current season on Sunday night on our SONY Vaio laptop, I realized the only thing standing between us and watching this stuff on our 42" Sharp Aquos was a cable.

So I went to Circuit City yesterday and plunked down about $36 for a VGA/SVGA cable, used it and my iPod video cable to link computer and TV and voila, South Park on demand on the big screen with home theatre sound.

We watched five episodes last night and are in South Park heaven. We can also stream previous episodes of The Office and several other TV shows as well as any other Internet content.

Yes, having the laptop on a table next to the TV console is an inelegant solution, but it will have to do for now. The ultimate fix would probably be Apple TV, a box that establishes a Wifi connection between your TV and your wireless router to view anything that's on your hard drive(s) or on the Internet.

CMF RIP

My dad died 11 years ago yesterday. I would have blogged this on the anniversary, but my photo archives were tied up with a SpinRite computer repair job.

Dad was 87 and stuck in nursing home hell in Delphi, Ind. My mother visited him daily and I went up almost every Sunday, but I'll never believe I did enough for him. He was a genuinely good man and a solid citizen - founding member of the Delphi Chamber of Commerce, school board president, Rotarian, Elder in the Presbyterian Church.

This is Dad around 1940 heading for his insurance office on the west side of the courthouse square in Delphi. My best guess is that the photo was shot by his friend Myron Johnson, who was publisher of the Delphi Citizen weekly newspaper.

That's the courthouse over his right shoulder and that is the corner where the cornerstone was laid Sept. 4, 1916. That's significant to this photo because my grandfather was a township trustee in Carroll County at the time and my Dad tagged along. When it came time to toss the Democrat Township history into the cornerstone time capsule, grandpa handed it to his 6-year-old son to do the honors. This is the first time I realized that's the cornerstone corner in the background of this shot.

Listening to Leo Kottke

While SpinRite grinds away on my C: drive.
It may be time for major surgery on my computer.
Thank God I have my iTunes backed up on two other hard drives.

SpinRite again

I came up to the office a few minutes ago and found my computer displaying the Blue Screen of Death for the fifth time in less than a week.
So I started what SpinRite says will be a 29-hour scan of my C: drive and will use the laptop in the interim.

Eat your heart out, Ralphie

Like Ralphie in Jean Shepherd's "A Christmas Story," I always wanted a Red Ryder BB gun.

And my mother, just like Ralphie's mom, was concerned that I'd shoot my eye out. Her fear was reinforced by the fact that a boy in town about my age by the name of Billy Felix actually did lose an eye to an errant BB shot.

I supposed that Daisy's Red Ryder carbine had vanished into the mists of time along with Hopalong Cassidy and Captain Midnight stuff.

That is until this afternoon when Maria and I stumbled across a case of them on display at a local hunting and fishing joint. They're priced at $49.99, which is doubtless a lot more than Ralphie's dad paid back in the late 1940s or early '50s. But the current model doesn't have a compass in the stock.

Of course now that I can have one, I don't want it. I'm shopping for an AK-47 or an AR-15 before the government tells me I can't have one because I might shoot my eye out.

Sam's Club

It just keeps getting cheaper. For now, anyway...

The Tomb of Doom - woooooooo

It's a scary funhouse on the midway of the Indiana State Fair in August, 2006.

No, I didn't go in.