It'd be better than Gremlins 2, anyway.

Almost all of what I know about the new Hunger Games movie is from the 30-second TV commercial, having not read the books or even about them. I'm guessing it's some sort of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Running Man meets that middle school required reading short story The Lottery kinda thing, with a bit of Lord of the Flies thrown in?

 

All I really know is it's apparently set to make a crapload of moolah.

 

So, I have decided I'm going to go ahead and start writing Hunger Games 2: Thirst Games.

 

It'll be about members of a fraternity who are forced to play Beer Pong and Quarters... umm... TO THE DEATH!

 

Okay so it still needs some work.

I hear the Motel 6 in Waukegan is nice too

While the weekend's accommodations... in the form of a Howard Johnson's in Tampa... are a housecat to this week's sinewy puma, in its own way the weekend conference was also very pleasant. And, whereas this week in the Bayhaymays will be themed by relaxation, there was a definite sense of camaraderie and of cooperation through the weekend as TLMS and I jutted up for the Florida Federation of Young Republicans quarterly meeting.

Considering what will follow below, it's a pretty funny side note that this weekend's conference may go down as "The One Where Sarah Got Bitten". Socializing at Gasparilla festival (a sort of mini Mardi Gras), TLMS and some little 60ish year old lady both reached up for the same cheap beads tossed from a parade float. The old lady promptly BIT into Sarah's arm which out of surprise, reflex and anger warranted a thump to the back. The lady (somewhat) apologized... and since no skin was broken we didn't feel the need to dig into the issue further... Thankfully the result was a bizarre story to tell and not, say tetanus.

To the more mundane.... You wouldn't tell by looking at it that even this time last year, the statewide rather loose affiliation of YR clubs had as its M.O. a highly unproductive spirit of brinksmanship and demonization as the orders of the day. All that appears to have cleared out, and in its place you only find the various club leaders genuinely looking to help each other out with ideas and suggestions, a free flow of ideas, and new energetic local young leadership that is rewarded, rather than suspected, for its fresh enthusiasm.

We continue to play around with the format of how these conventions will work. Being involved in politics on a fairly regular basis, it became apparent throughout the organization that pretty much everyone was ready for something more than the "Rah Rah we love Reagan" Rubber Chicken lunch and dinner in a non-descript hotel 4x a year. Indeed, that, perhaps second only to the aforehintedat hostility, was probably a leading cause of the dwindling attendance... Instead we're focusing on rotating in practical sessions --- tips club leaders can USE, inspirational stories, reports from those who have done it before, and panels that are more discussion provoking than ideological.

That said, I think these conferences also can't always be COMPLETELY devoid of a little bit of star power... Politics after all is "show business for ugly people" But we'll find a natural happy point to be most productive with a bit of both.

For now I'm just happy that the group is really quite civil, and dare I say it friendly.

Sent from my iPad

Cheers from Paradise

The start of what hopes to be a fairly tranquil week here, TLMS and I are camped out at the waterfront vacation home of her aunt an uncle that is "Somewhere OTR", specifically on the unpacked and sparsely populated Lubbers Quarters in the Abacos, northern Bahamas.

You know you've done well for yourself when you can have a vacation home in the Islands... and quite well by things if you can (somewhat) seriously give your property a name and a theme. This Tara's full name is Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and we're happily ensconced in the detached "Nowhere" a little place directly behind the house that is... Bigger than a cabana but smaller than a cottage, I suppose... It's a king bed and a full bathroom. The main house is actually just a (sprawling) 1/1, but the kitchen, living room, office and dining room give the house a proper footprint. It is, of course, the patio that sits calmly about 70 feet above the almost equally calm Atlantic that is truly striking.

This is our third trip here, and at a week will be the longest. It seems an ideal combination for me, as the majority of the agenda consists of reading, relaxing, eating and drinking... and the next biggest percentage consists of bullshitting and solving all the world's problems... However for all its laziness I do still have access to the glory and wonder that is a wifi signal. as such, it's all the rehab and none of those pesky cyber-DTs!

Brad's cough and chills acted up again today, which led to him bowing out of the late morning's strenuous day of wandering a beach in search of interesting remnants. Swapping in some reading and a nap instead of that isn't an entirely bad idea.

If you've come this far, you may want to Google "gone bananas on lubbers" and see if you want to l I've the life...

Sent from my iPad

As in, a government run by hippos?

So, for Dems today... half of the messaging is social conservatives are crazy-dangerous because they irrationally cling to moral codes to drive their positions on issues... and the other half is the rich don't pay their "fair" share in taxes, and that's not "right" and they "ought" to do be made to do more, because that's what's "just"?  K, thankx.

Civ Rev Redux

Thought of a couple more tips I'd neglected in my last post regarding Civilization Revolution tips... probably brought to mind again when I played 3 more times in the last day or so...

The advantage of having a democracy is that you get a big boost in science and gold production.  The disadvantage is that the Congress won't let you break peace treaties or otherwise declare war unless attacked.  There's an easy enough way around this so you get to get the benefits and circumvent the negative.  Call for a change of government, launch your invasion during the brief anarchy, and then the next turn when it asks what kind of gov't you want, put in a democracy again.  The congress will let you finish whatever war is underway when they come in.  The penalty for having anarchy for 1 turn is pretty negligible, if anything in this game.

As you start getting towards the tailend of a longer game, you will have discovered all the scientific advances you'll ever need.  In this case, go ahead and switch your gov't over to fundamentalism.  Fundamentalism's + is added strength among your attacking armies, downside is libraries and universities fail to increase your knowledge.  Well, if you've already got planes and tanks and such, you don't really need any more science... and the +1 boost to the invading and defending forces comes in handy!

Civ Rev... say it with me... Civ Rev... mmmm

If you're anything like me... and hey, you've come this far... then you may have blown the last 25 years or so playing some iteration of the game Civilization.  The latest crackesque addiction is Civilization Revolution, which is the game ported for the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, etc.  I suppose it's likely on Android too, but I don't know the first thing about Androids or give two craps about them, so... yeah.

Some tips for playing Civ Rev, and beating it...

• If you're going for victory by way of domination (aka marching in and taking over all other countries), then work to get feudalism as soon as possible.  There's a handful of pre-requisite technologies before you can get feudalism... Monarchy, Horseback Riding, Ceremonial Burial and Writing are among them.  The thing is once your culture figures out feudalism you can start cracking out knights.  Knights have an attack strength of 4.  Put three knights together in an army and you've got at least 12 strength off the bat.  Have your knight army get some experience knocking over Barbarian villages to become a veteran, fight till you can get them the power of infiltration, do any number of things and that knight army now has a power easily in the 30s.  You have to go waaay into the game before you get the kind of defenses to regularly stop an invading force of that power, and since the computer players are less inclined to be thinking purely militarily you can really get at it.  Till they start sending their own knights after yours.  Knights ain't much for defense, sadly..
• If you're playing the Attack of the Huns scenario, try playing as the Mongols.  One of the quirks of the Mongols is every time they invade a Barbarian village, the Barbarians decide to join up with you.  You'll have a huge map of cities in no time.
• Know how much science you need.  You only really need to discover everything  if you're trying to win a scientific victory and get your spaceship built.  If you're on the route to economic victory you only need to go so far as to figure out banking.  If you're militarily inclined, you don't need more than infantry and artillery, and honestly can probably stop at Tank and still get by..  If you're going for a cultural victory (which ain't easy), the only thing you need is to be able to build cathedrals, which you get once you discover religion.  After you have all the science you need, you can probably just go into each city and change the allocation of resource from science/research to MONEY makin'.
• Whenever possible, make sure you found your city in a place that has both resources (stone tools icon) and food (green apples icon).  Both are required, because otherwise a city can't produce anything or grow in population at all.
• If you're playing the Beta Centauri scenario, make sure you switch all your cities over to producing cash instead of science.  This scenario has you (and everyone else) already having all the attainable technologies, so you just lay into building your treasury instead and it's a fairly clear path to economic victory.
• Try to hem in civilizations early so they can't expand.  If there's a chokepoint on land -- say, a narrow passage that's the only way out, look to plunk down some settlers there.  They'll have to declare war on you just to get past (and then, of course, stock up and be ready in case that does happen!)
• Go find those Wonders of the World or whatever they're called.  Do it quickly while they're still out there.  Send out a little galley and see if you can find'em on another island, and once you have navigation you can start sending bigger ships into deeper waters.  The prizes they give you --- a bunch of Great People, a pile of money, etc., are all great boosts.
• Sometimes when you have a Great Person come into one of your cities, the option will be to instantly complete whatever you're working on.  The other option will be something like "Let me think about that."   Click on this option, then go into the control for that same city and change what you're working on to one of the Wonders... whichever one looks best for whatever paves your road to victory.  Then select that Great Person AGAIN and tell him to instantly finish building THAT.

There are probably some other tips I could pass along, but that's ranty enough for now....

Among the things we learned from yesterday's NCAA champeenship....

We can include in the list of revelations from yesterday's BCS thingy, we will always remember that...

...ummm...

We finally decided that LSU defensive end Barkevious Mingo belongs in the upper echelon of players named Barkevious ever to put on a collegiate uniform.

Tecmo Orange Bowl

Seriously? I woke up to see that West Virginia scored 70 pts in the Orange Bowl last night? Ummm, damn.

I know ticket sales were slow, but did I miss the news that they were switching the OB to an arena football game?

Certainly doesn't make me feel much better about the 'Noles losing to Clemson. They seemed a fairly solid team earlier in the year, don't know what happened. Gotta feel bad for Clemsons and Clemdaughters who dropped a couple of thou to come down, get hotels and go to the game.

I mean, I'm happy they came... after all, their Ford pickup trucks with the shotgun rack and the sticker of Calvin peeing on a Chevy logo being in town for a week is what keeps me from having a state income tax. But still, that long trip home after an L sucketh.

Maybe if they just gave ME the millions...

I've commented (complained?) here on the past before about Toyotathon Hondadays Chevypalooza advertisements.  It just seems to be obnoxiously ever present, and I'm not even a little bit convinced it positively influences sales.

The new Volkswagen ads take this to a bizarre extra level of uselessness and general suckitude, though.

At first glance, the theme would certainly seem to be "People who are test driving our car at the dealership mistakenly think it's a car they own!! Hah!"

After you've seen the series a couple of hundred times, you may get what they're actually meaning to say... something about how the car is so easy to get initially in terms of down payments, they, umm, need to remind you that... you need to buy the car first then take it.

Regardless of what the subject is, I submit that I don't think the widely placed and regularly repeating TV spots will sell a single VW that wasn't highly likely to sell anyway.

That's the argument with these (mildly) humorous TV spots.  You'll occasionally hear "Well hey they got you talking about it, didn't they?  And isn't that the point?"

NO.  It costs millions of dollars to create, cut and distribute these ads.  VW is no happier that I'm here ranting into the ether over it.  Advertising should move product.

I'm probably bitter, or at least biased, because advertising budgets are usually substantially larger than PR budgets.  And this always seemed askew to me.

Let's say you see 15 tv ads with a singing cartoon chicken in a Chevy... then read an article where a journalist looks at and independently examines the benefits of a new Ford model in detail... which is more likely to loosen your ol' purse strings?

does this get me a sponsorship deal?

Gotta say, if you work anywhere around downtown Miami, gotta try Mamas on Wheels (mamasonwheels.com) delivery lunch. Treat myself about once a month or so and I always am happy w/ the meals.  Right size portions, some tasty sauces.  It's a good option to mix in.

For a reallllly happy holidays...

Christmas is behind us... no more egg nog (well, it's still there but I really ought to stop)... no more scrambling for presents, no more decorations...

... and no more of that 4G T-Mobile ad where I swear it sounds like they're saying "Walking in an orgy wonderland".

Your shirts are rallying against you

I think it's a sign I'm too involved in politics.  I get lists of requests from reporters looking for sources on stories.  One came in with the title "Closet Organization".  My first thought was this was something about secret societies, smoke-filled room stuff... a look at closeted organizations.  Freemasons and all that.

It took me a minute to realize "Closet Organization" probably is a story about organizing your closet.

A new Helen Keller joke (no, really!)

So I was playing this game called Apples to Apples, where everyone has an adjective (pretty, noisy, etc.), and you have a handful of nouns & proper nouns (ballerina, Canada, Rush Limbaugh, etc.). You have to play the noun that you think the judge will find the best or funniest fit.

The description was "Touchy-Feely".

Our little 10 year old player offered up as touchy-feely Helen Keller.

After about 2 solid minutes of laughter, we had to explain to her just why it was in fact so funny... she had no idea who Helen Keller was. She had read the little helpful description on the card that she was an accomplished author.

Well, yes, there's that...

25,000 Cent Pyramid

"you left me in the trunk of a hot car in the sun in the middle of August in Miami, ya idiot."

"ummm... Things My Lunch Would Say!"

Even worse joke....

Due to a paperwork error, when I took my car into be repaired the mechanic gave me a loner car.

It's pretty much the same as a regular car, except that when I park, it just sits on the other end of the parking lot away from all the other cars and sulks.

yuk yuk yuck

New horrid pun in 3...2...

Kids today are increasingly using mobile technology to support their corner lemonade stands. iPhones can provide the kids with the recipes, help them track results, and even follow lemonade inventory.

Experts say the role of parents has been....

(ready?)

e-Lemonaded.

I hope they do the Macarena

I got an evite to an event this weekend. Really? People still do that? I checked and it's not dated 1996.

Too bad because I was hoping we could get into a discussion of how Alanis Morrisette's album is about that guy from Full House and grumble about how AOL keeps sending us CDs.

It's a shame the service fell out of popularity, actually. As best as I could tell there wasn't anything particularly wrong with it. Free invites you can customize, track, e-mail out people reminders, etc... I think the only thing that really killed it was people were sending out spam that looked like evites. Basically the same thing that effectively stopped online birthday cards.

To Boldly Go Where Every Fan Has Gone Before

So, doubt that I'm the first to do this... probably not the first to do it on a vanity blog, maybe not even the first to do it using blogger, but the SciFi Channel has been showing a marathon of all the Star Trek movies, in seemingly random order.

Some are really enjoyable, tight productions. Some are only for the dedicated fans. And some are unwatchable bilge. But, then, if you make more than a dozen of something that ain't cans of Coke, you're going to have some slippage.

Here's how I rank the films, with a few little notes as I remember them.


Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Star Trek (JJ Abrams version) -- there's a couple of flaws that really take down what could be a better movie. A long scene of Kirk drag racing in a stolen car would be mildly amusing if it weren't spoiled by being in the trailer for a year or so. Even so, the thought of someone 200 years from now considering a classic car being a joyride... I mean, it's not like kids today show their wild side by jacking a horse & buggy.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock --- this one ranks kind of middle of the road. There's nothing outwardly wrong about it, but also has no particular redeeming or memorable features. It's alright.

Star Trek: Generations --- Should be lower for the wasted use & travesty end to Kirk.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture --- this might have been a bit better if, say, about 35 minutes of establishing shots were taken out.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier --- Much has been written about the circumstances that killed this film. Industrial Light & Magic was unavailable to do the special effects, so it has some thin points. It had budget and writer problems so some scenes in the conclusion were cut. Shatner's ego probably transfers writ large on the screen. People acting out of character. But I think the biggest problem here is "Eddie & The Cruisers Syndrome". It's a solid set-up that fails to deliver on the potential it builds up.

Star Trek: Insurrection --- soap opery. Picard love stories made bad episodes, and this one's like a 2 hour long bad episode.

Star Trek Nemesis --- a lifeless, wandering film that's entirely too self-referential for (the end of) two series with plenty of other institutional knowledge to refer back to. Some hideous filming choices, a boring villain, a confusing rationale... and what the hell is a clone that doesn't look like the clonee?


I don't think I missed any.

mmmm ecodisaster

2nd day of smoke coming in from a brushfire in the Everglades.

We oughta just replace the swamp with hickory trees instead of sawgrass. At least then the news would just be "Expect today to unexpectedly find yourself mildly hungry for BBQ."

they stole my idea....

well, kinda.

My original screenplay was a movie about a royal facing the shame of his difficulty in successfully farming produce. It was going to be called............


(like you don't see this coming.............)

The King's Peach.

It was gonna be Patrick Swayze again....

People magazine announced that Jennifer Lopez will be on their cover of the most beautiful people today or whatever it is they call it.

In other news, People magazine announced that it takes 8 years for them to write each issue. After the piece on Jennifer Lopez being hot, there's a really interesting feature on Lindsay Lohan's promising film career, and eager anticipation of what M. Night Shamalayan will direct next.

A Newt-ered Campaign

As is often the case, the Onion has probably nailed the sentiment better than any news analyst could...
Even Newt Gingrich a Little Depressed By Prospect of Him Running for President

There are at least three reasons why the almost-entirely-soon-to-be-really-this-time official Newt Gingrich campaign for president is a bad idea. Either it's going to bomb now or bomb later, but either way it's a disaster so bad he might as well hire Irwin Allen to be his campaign manager. (True, Irwin Allen is currently mostly dead. But then, so is the campaign).

Of the three reasons, only one has really been discussed by media and commentators.

The obvious one is "the bio thing". 17 years passing since the Contract With America and taking back the House (wow, math makes me feel old), that doesn't change his history of divorces and infidelity and whatnot. Now, he didn't especially help his case by being on TBN or whatever it was saying his marriage broke up because of his overwhelming sense of patriotism and love of country. That was just a useless statement, which... if you listen to the larger explanation... is slightly less of a useless statement. Which leads me to

#2 he's a professor, and professors make crap politicians.

Politicians have to be able to say what they're gonna say in... well less words than this little rant, certainly. Professors have to fill 45 minutes or more. There's a reason why attorneys are often good in politics. Moving a jury plucked from the general public is a lot like moving the general public --- peppering them with nuggets they can remember always helps as their form opinions.

#3 He got outflanked by the Clintons. Badly.

When it came time to implement the Contract with America, drive a stake through the heart of wasteful government... and oh yeah bringing impeachment charges, there can be no real argument that the Clintons ran circles around Newt. So much so that it's basically what led to him leaving DC with tail firmly tucked.

Fast forward a couple of years, and the same Clinton machine was somewhat surprisingly taken out by Obama, Ivan Drago vs. Apollo Creed style.

So, now Newt, who lost badly to the guy who lost badly to the guy... wants to take on the team that whipped the team that whipped him.

It won't be pretty.

Or particularly enjoyable.

spambots gfy

So, I had to delete one of my old posts that was just a silly story about being a freshman in college... somehow a line in it must have been a trigger for spambots, because every day I got all sorts of notices of comments added to it that were absolutely nonsensical strings with some links and other junk.

Of course, now that I deleted it, the random crap is just showing up on another strand instead.

Rah.

cheat and win or cheat and suck?

What's more disappointing --- when your team succeeds and it comes out later they were in violations of the rules --- or if they're mediocre and get busted?

You might say it's worse to have more taken away from you... the likes of USC, who has to forfeit their wins and championships and Heismans and whatnot.  

But I dunno, I think a USC fan might hide behind "oh c'mon EVERYBODY's doing it, and we still got to experience being on top --- saying 5 years later "oh that didn't count" is kinda irrelevant and moot."

Whereas a school like North Carolina might look at themselves and say "Crap, we were cheating and STILL couldn't win?  That's pretty depressing."

Or, more to the point, a USC fan would say "Shaw, like, whatever man!", and a UNC fan would say "Daggum, our team's like the northern end of a southbound mule."

Gobbledyfoobidies revisited

Re-visiting my previous post, "McDonald's is now Gobbledyfoobidies", which looked at why the blue hell a company with a century of name recognition like Brink's security would choose to forgo all that and call themselves Broadview instead.

http://johnspartan.blogspot.com/2009/08/mcdonalds-is-now-gobbledyfoobidies.html

You probably remember seeing a lot of their millions and millions of dollars in TV advertising that had variations of pretty white women having a party and then getting assaulted by house guests who, umm, left and came back and then the alarm went off and they talked to someone on the phone, that made it all go away somehow.

At the time, I wondered if anything was sillier than giving up Brink's for "Broadview". As is often the case, it seems the answer to that question is YES... basically having wasted the last 6 months or so (and the aforementioned millions), because the company is merging with ADT to be known as.... ADT.

Seems someone at ADT has this wacky idea that if you have a brand name people know and readily associate with your product, you may want to consider using that name.

Maybe in 6 months they'll change again to Gobbledyfoobidies.

Why Rubio won

Marco Rubio will be the Republican nominee for US Senate from Florida because he has a Biscayne Bay Young Republicans polo shirt.

Now that may sound self-aggrandizing (and it is) but permit me to explain.  Come in the Wayback Machine back to April 2009, a time before the Washington Post or National Review or Fox News knew Marco Rubio from Paulina Rubio.

Marco Rubio was willing, even eager to speak to whatever conservative group would happily have him.  The Biscayne Bay Young Republicans meeting had several speakers... the intrepid Marcos Sendon spoke about the first Tea Party and the launch of some crazy website called SFlaConservative.com.  Lubby Navarro spoke about her ongoing campaign for state house.  And Marco Rubio announced he was running for US Senate.  With the campaign starting here, the Rubio campaign would get known over the next 9 months or so of being willing to speak to any small group that was open to hearing messages of traditional conservative values.  As our meeting wrapped we presented Marco Rubio with a Biscayne Bay YRs polo shirt, as much to advertise the shirts as to thank him for announcing his campaign with us.

Governor Crist received countless invitations to speak at little local clubs.   His campaign not only did not accept these offers, in my own experience they were simply not even acknowledged.  The Crist campaign was almost wholly focused on events where he'd get $1000 and up checks.   And while YR clubs and REC meetings and women's groups are great ways to meet the locals, I'm afraid we're not often of the sort to max out on donations for a dinner.

Then, something happened.   Marco Rubio won one little straw poll.   Then a 2nd, then a 3rd.   The momentum came before the money.

Now, to be fair, when both candidates got known Rubio had the resume and remarks that the Republicans ultimately chose overwhelmingly.  Bob Smith came to speak to the club as well, and his campaign couldn't get past the fact that he was a former U.S. Senator, and no one in FL seemed to think that qualified him to run for U.S. Senate.

But how did the leading candidates get known?

Because Marco Rubio came to shake hands, chat, answer questions, and get his Biscayne Bay Young Republicans polo shirt. 

Palomilla and politics

It was like one of those big multi-generation family reunion photos... except, ya know, everyone actually wanted to be there.

Taking over half of an otherwise sleepy Los Ranchos in West Miami on a Thursday night was both a testament to the strength of a movement and the roadmap for the successful return of a national party.

The meeting was the investiture of the first board of the Miami-Dade Teenage Republicans (TARs).  As president of the Miami Young Republicans, which serves the 18-40 community, I was honored and pleased to be asked to conduct the swearing in of these energetic and optimistic young men and women.

The well-spoken, eager next generation of party movers & shakers was impressive, and probably the story of the evening.   But perhaps equally important was the show of solidarity and strength... I say this because the executive director of the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee, the secretary of the Old Cutler Republican Women's Club, and the founder and president of South Florida Conservative & its corresponding initiative all made it a point to attend and show encouragement and support. 

All these leaders of local organizations, myself included, came out with the same purpose --- to both give encouragement to and receive encouragement from this new group.

How will conservative causes return to prominence?  Only through coordinated efforts that start with the people who have Marco Rubio on speed dial, go through the people who are tapped into the community that "never got involved before but cannot sit on the sidelines any longer", and all the way down to the young men and women in groups such as the Miami-Dade TARs who are just beginning to look into how they can support campaigns and initiatives.

Over the past few months I've been happy to get to know Juan D'Arce, candidate for state house 112 and sponsor of the Miami-Dade TARs, Rudy Leal-McCormack, the club's spokesperson, and now Alejandro Moreno, the TARs chairman.  It's easy to say the future is in good hands... but after Thursday night's event I can say I'm optimistic about the present.

50 Most Beautiful People Slideshow 2010 - TheHill.com

50 Most Beautiful People Slideshow 2010 - TheHill.com

Wow. If this is the 50 most beautiful people in Washington, DC... this goes near the top of my list of reasons why I'm happy to be in Miami instead :-p

Is it a sign at the end of the night you probably shouldn't be driving
if you're sitting at a stop sign waiting for it to turn green?

Where I'm not

So, this is my current "Where I'd rather be"... it's in DC in the Eastern
Market neighborhood. Great little neighborhood pub with good food.


View Larger Map

PS apparently Google Maps now has an option for 3d. A pointless touch? Probably. But I still wanna try it sometime :)