Out of a box of four new bulbs, three of them have failed after just a few days, say 7 to 14 days. The third bulb died just this evening. I am waiting for daylight so I can see what I am doing before I change it. The four pack is marked "GE soft white" "100 w 2X Longer Life" "Uses 28% Less Energy" "uses only 72 w 1.8 year life" ""GE's Best soft white incandescent line" and finally "Made in Hungary".
Gotta find another light bulb supplier.
PITA. They call me four or five times a day. I stop what I am doing and answer the phone. Sometimes no one is there. Sometimes they pretend to be calling from Microsoft and try to talk me into loading a virus onto my computer. Sometimes they claim outrageous charges are laid against my Amazon Plus card. And lots of others scams.
We ought to clamp down on this PITA.
We could start by requiring the phone companies to make caller ID spoof proof. The telephone exchange has numbers, yours and the robocaller's. It needs them to connect the call. They can have the system present the correct caller’s number to caller ID, making it easier to refuse calls from strangers.
We could press on by finding a clever lawyer to define the crime of robocalling in a way that does not collide with free speech. And then writing a law declaring robocalling a crime and defining penalties for robocalling. Personally I would be in favor of some cruel and unusual punishments, boiling in oil for instance. Or burning at the stake.
If someone would make a clever electronic box that connected to your phone and when activated would constantly dial the robocaller's number and deliver a hard core diatribe when the number answered, I would buy one.
A movie needs a protagonist (protagonist, $2 word meaning hero or heroine). Female or male protagonists work just fine. The protagonist must be likeable; we viewers cannot get excited about a scumbag protagonist. The protagonist needs to accomplish something and the movie needs to show him working on it, what ever it is. We viewers need to know just what it is that the protagonist is trying to do. Best literary example I can think of is Tolkien. Right in chapter 2 Gandalf tells Frodo (and us) about the ring, its deadly power, the dark lord searching for it, and the need to destroy it. From then on for the rest of the three book trilogy we know what is going on. The protagonist has to do things; we cannot care much about a protagonist who merely serves as a punching bag thru out the movie.
Then the movie needs a background, Narnia, Middlearth, the Wild West, gangland Chicago, the Washington DC swamp, Sherwood Forest, the Western Front, Imperial Rome, and the Crusades, somewhere. The background needs to be convincing, with few noticeable anachronisms. I an a history major and long time history buff and I am OK with some bending of the history to make a better movie.
The movie should build to a climax, where the protagonist goes up against his opposing forces and/or the villain and either wins or looses. Speaking as a viewer, I like protagonists that win, defeating their enemy. I can tolerate a protagonist who looses if I see him/her put forth truly heroic effort in the final battle.
Then the movie needs good actors who speak up clearly, and a good sound man, one who makes the entire dialog audible. I am getting old, but I have no trouble hearing the TV newsies, and the entire dialog in my old favorites. Somewhere around Charlie Wilson’s War the sound man lost it and much of the amusing dialog was inaudible. That sound man has been messing up movies ever since. One thing a sound man needs to know. He must mute the score and the sound track when the actors are speaking.
And a movie needs a good camera man. One who puts the camera on a tripod and doesn’t wave it around in the air. And one who turns the lights on before filming. Black on black scenes are simply annoying to the audience.
We have the Feds declaring an investigation of the Minneapolis police department. That's a new one on me. I thought city police were the city's responsibility, but never mind. We have BLM people threatening more riots. We have Alan Dershowitz calling for the George Floyd trial to be appealed/overturned/Supremecourted/something. And we have a another terrible incident, teen aged black girl with a knife shot dead by police.
We have a verdict (guilty) and everything. We have a lot of odd remarks by national pols. Nancy Pelosi said the the Floyd family ought to proud of George. I don't understand that. George got himself in trouble with the cops and wound up dead. Nancy is trying to say that the publicity brought on by George's death is a good thing and worth George's life. That's a horrible thing to say. Publicity that advances your narrative is never worth a person's life. And then we had Biden come on TV and say a few words, actually quite a few words. I didn't bother to listen. And then we had Maxine Waters calling for more rioting unless the verdict comes out guilty. It did come out guilty, and I like to think that happened because of testimony in court, not fear of Maxine.
Joe Biden probably is not. I think he signs the papers put in front of him and reads the speeches someone writes off the teleprompter. Who is writing the papers for signature and the speeches for delivery? Jill Biden? Kamala Harris? Some congresscritter? nameless White House staffers? Who ever it is, they are really left wing.
Critical Race Theory says "race" is the same as skin color, white, brown, black, yellow, polka dot, whatever. I don't believe that, I believe that all men are created equal, no matter what the color of their skin. Critical Race Theory blames all the inequities of modern life upon racism. And it blames whitey for all the badness in the world. I don't believe that either. We fought the civil war, we did the emancipation proclamation, we did the civil rights movement of the 1960s. We probably have more things to do, but we have made a good start. We should not be teaching Critical Race Theory in the NH public schools and HB 544 will prevent that. Vote for it. This is not censorship, it is selecting the curriculum to be taught in our schools.
