Miscellany Strikes Back

Miscellany Strikes Back

This past week, I've been working on a number of projects for Manual Labour. One of them was a rush job and took much of the weekend (and part of yesterday) to complete. But the customer's happy, Bonni is happy and I'll be happy when I receive more paychecks!

I've been reading some new Science Fiction books, as part of my judging for the San Diego Book Awards. I won't go into the titles of the books here, to protect the judging process. It's interesting, however, the way genre novels fall back on old, familiar patterns. These are patterns ranging from the Mad Scientist, to the Thing that Fell from Space, to the Average Joe who surmounts overwhelming odds by evolving into some kind of Uebermensch.

Last Wednesday evening, ABC treated us long-suffering viewers to a new episode of LOST. On the whole, the program was uneven in quality. The Sun/Jin flashbacks were mildly interesting, and the reveal about the miraculous conception was in-line with other miracles on the island, such as Locke's ambulatory recovery. The last few minutes of the episode were great, by contrast to what had gone on earlier. When Henry told Locke and Jack about the map, there was real tension in the air, and the apparently sinister intensions of Henry certainly added a much-needed air of tension to the program.

Is Henry Gale an "Other?" I tend to think so, for the following reasons:

1. "Henry Gale" is the name of Dorothy's uncle in Wizard of Oz


2. "Henry" arrived on the island via balloon, much the same was the Wizard arrived in Oz.


3. "Henry" mentioned that he met his wife at the University of Minnesota--the same university the De Groots (founders of Dharma) originated from.


4. "Henry" seems to be "psyching out" Jack, Locke, and the other Losties who encounter him inside the Hatch. He weaves a web of mistrust among the group, in a Socratic-Freudian, question-answer sort of way. "Henry" may have been one of those young graduate students shown with the De Groots in the Marvin Candle video.

The Final Class

The Final Class

Two weeks ago, on a cold and rainy night, I attended the final Critical Thinking class. It was a continuation of the week before, where we all gave our individual business presentations to Bonni and the class. For some reason, the second week's presentations fared generally much better than the first week's.

For the first week, I would say that about half the students failed to prepare their material. A number of them didn't even bother to make a PowerPoint slide show. PowerPoint was not required, but my suggestion to those who didn't bring it would have been to bring handouts, or at a bare minimum, write on the board.

The second week, people came prepared and used good techniques, like keeping their presentations on point, employing graphics, and injecting some humor into the talks. My talk was the last one of the evening. I deliberately waited to the end, so I wouldn't have to make Bonni rearrange the entire classroom just so I could get up in the front of the class. The aisle was just too narrow for me to easily navigate, especially with the projector in the way.

I think, from what I've seen so far, the Extension classrooms are poorly designed for writing classes. I intend to speak to Tania about it. I'm surprised that the writing instructors have not demanded better!

Anyway, my talk came after a really atrocious, rambling, off-point presentation by a student who had given basically the same awful speech to our Document Design course last summer. I anxiously watched the clock tick down as the speaker sought out her topic, but never quite discovered it. Finally, and thankfully, Bonni cut her off and let me do mine. I enjoyed giving my presentation very much; I kept it to exactly seven minutes (the required limit) and injected enough humor into it that everyone seemed to enjoy it.

An overall weakness of this kind of thing, was the "why we should care" problem. That is, it's hard to keep an audience interested in a topic they know nothing about, especially when it's a dry subject, like the need to add more employees to an unknown company's technical support staff. I can't really say what the solution to that problem is--more's the pity, because giving presentations is indeed a skill anyone in business should cultivate.

The Scales of Death

The Scales of Death

This morning, I turned on CNN to find out the latest news, but was instead treated to a live, non-stop coverage of the sentencing of Joseph Smith, the Florida child murderer. The cameras held an unflinching eye to Smith's grotesque face as the judge laboriously read over every aggravating and mitigating circumstance. His conclusion: Smith should die. Duh!

I tried flipping to MSNBC, but the same story played incessantly there. This is just another example of the media's preference for sensationalism over substance. Where was the useful news in the death sentence of a child killer and rapist? Yes, the girl's death was horrible and tragic, the perpetrator a brutal beast unfit for life.

But, I kept asking myself--What of Iraq? What of Katrina? Some 87 people died in Iraq in a single day this week. Where was the live coverage of that? Instead, after the Florida fatal charade, the network deemed it sufficient to show a 30-second clip of Gen. John Abizaid testifying before Congress that things aren't as bad as they seem in Iraq. They also showed us another short clip of Saddam testifying in his trial. This was the man we spent several hundreds of billions of dollars to bring to justice, yet all his proceedings were worth was a sound bite or two in between the murders of young white girls.

We no longer have a balance in this country between what is real and what is not. What's important? The salacious and violent. What's unimportant? Anything to do with "others" who dwell in a far-off land. That's why we have a former baseball-club owner as president, and a former lousy actor as governor. We lack a sense of proportion, when all information devolves into talking blondes regaling our senses with "infotainment."

A Very Busy Week

A Very Busy Week

This past week just flew by in a flash. Most of the time, I have been working on that remote-control manual for Manual Labour. It's been challenging and fun--I was born to be a writer all along. I only wish I hadn't spent 12 years working in another field--a field that paid well but turned into a dead end.

Much more fun than that damned Barcelona stuff. And just think, soon thousands of people across the country will be reading my splendid prose--not fiction, but a remote-control manual! But, the pay is decent (for an internship) and it's great to work at home. Although the comradeship of the office was one of its pleasant side-effects, not driving back and forth to work is a huge relief. The only commute I have now is to the biweekly staff meetings at the Starbucks in University City (in the Henry's Shopping Center).

I'm almost done with the Critical Thinking class. This Tuesday comes the final session. It's been a lot of fun, even though it was rather silly for me to have to take it. I did put my foot down on taking "Advanced Writing," and have instead talked the department into letting me enroll in an internship with Manual Labour. This will get 6 units out of the way, and let me work and earn credit at the same time. Also, Rehab will pick up the cost of my tuition AND the two expensive programs I need for the job: Framemaker and Illustrator. Framemaker alone goes for about $700, new. I could get the upgrade for $199, thanks to the Framemaker 6.0 I already own, but free is the best discount of all.

On the creative front, I did send off a little humor article I wrote, entitled "How to Talk to a Republican." We'll see if that gets accepted. Once I get paid and can afford stamps, I'll send another couple of stories out into the ether.

Having real money will be a nice change from my life of the past three years. There are a lot of things that I've been putting off--like a new computer and repairs to my van--that I'll be able to afford now.

Tomorrow, I've got to dig in and finish my final project for Critical Thinking, as well as write up the description of my internship. Also, I'm a judge for the San Diego Book Awards again this year, and have three cool books lying on my table right now.