Writer's Block: Invention

"If you could invent one thing and make it a reality, what would it be? Why?"

A real sonic screwdriver, exactly like the one Doctor Who uses. I don't need to explain. Either that or a GUI based data system like GE's financial service system for Bally and other `green screen' systems that automatically sets up the club membership number when a person dials in, like they do at Visa, and allows you to do operations without keywords and green screens, except in the case of server crashes.

Writer's Block: In charge of the country

"What would you change about your country if you could be in charge for a day?"

Apply all frivolous government spending to the national debt. Pull all troops out of Iraq and build up the home defense unit. Develop new techniques for hunting down web based terror cells so we won't go on wild goose chases through the Middle East.

Writer's Block - Traditions

"What traditions do you carry on during your day, consciously or otherwise?"

I wake up, exercise, shower, eat breakfast, feed dogs, brush, study the bible and pray, shower, work on projects, get prepared for work. I go to work, I eat the same rice stuff every day to cut costs, I work, generally not eating on breaks except lunch, unless I get the shakes, then eat lunch, work, pray in my car as I'm driving home, work on projects at home, brush my teeth and go to bed.

Jurassic Park 2

The second Jurassic Park novel is better than the movie because the characters and story make more sense. The divorce and relationships get better play, there's a black kid named Arby, and he gets into interesting predicaments, and John Hammond is still dead because the compies killed him. The characters seem more human in the novel, and I like it better. The movie is ridiculous and goes to a Godzilla story, which isn't what the book had.

Live Free or Die Hard

This movie suffers from the same paranoid mythology that my customers believe when they call me at call center jobs. Because they're national chain companies, they believe the company is a perfect entity that never makes any mistakes and that we always know what's going on all the time, about every one of our million customers. Nothing could be further from the truth. People slip through the cracks, computer systems are always malfunctioning, the supervisors are never there, so it's impossible to "have it your way." If we're that big, and "can't pull our heads out of our asses" as one customer said, what makes you think that the U.S. government is any different? Any giant corporate entity is made up of imperfect individuals trying to do their best of their abilities the only way they know how. They don't know everything. That's why when you call Visa and other companies, they put you on hold sometimes. The tougher the question, the longer your wait may be. That's why your calls often get dropped. Or your company will give you the "runaround." It's not intentional, we're just human and we don't know who you should speak to, so we tell you to talk to the guy who told you to talk to us. Maybe it's his fault. The only conspiracy, therefore, is incompetence. I'm certain that this is what happens in the government, too, nine times out of ten. From experience, I know people I can talk to can create a conspiracy out of nothing. People imagine conspiracies about me, in fact, when I'm really just not very good at my job. So I don't believe for a second that the chaotic Washington D.C. street system is set up on some super efficient computer system any more than the lousy K.C. street system is. I don't think that the madhouse we call the stock exchange can be completely controlled by computers, either, since someone's got to buy and sell and affect those numbers, and mistakes happen.

General Hospital

Normally, I try to ignore soap operas, but recently General Hospital has sunk to a new low. They introduced this scrawny nerd into the story. Women in the story magically fall in love with him due to flimsy plot devices. The whole storyline nauseates me, and every time he talks, I want to slap him. First of all, he's a nerd, and talks (and should talk) about subjects that extroverted General Hospital women should have absolutely no clue about. In other words, he should have little or nothing in common with the women he meets, thus lessening his chances of being seduced. Secondly, his nerd dialogue is as fake as the accent of The Closer, and he needs to stop talking about himself in the third person like Bob Dole because I want to slap him then. Third, I know that everyone that shows up on a soap is automatically seduced, but can't we, just this once, make an exception? He's the least deserving out of all soap opera characters. What's next? Jabba the Hutt? At least have the kid spend a couple seasons failing miserably. This is nothing but wish fulfillment. It's just as maddening as the conspiracy nut in Stargate SG-1 being found to be a real alien. No. He doesn't deserve it. It's not real. It's not the reality I understand to be real.

Fictional universes vs. fact

Due to the fact that I find movies and TV believable, it's important for me to make a list about the things that make them unreal.
1. Obviously, the time. Details like opening doors and putting on your socks are left out. In movies like Lord of the Rings, epic landscapes whiz by when you really want to stop and take them in.
2. People tell stories that are complete with music, sound effects and actors, giving no account for why the storyteller can remember all that dialogue so vividly, or how a pair of Asians with poor English skills can remember a salesman's conversation in its entirety.
3. The Joker cannot logically be both a 40 year old retired businessman who travels the country in a mobile home, a chemically scarred madman who tries to kill everyone in NewYork, and an obsessive compulsive novelist. Also, the schizophrenic insurance man who starts an underground fighting ring couldn't possibly be the same man who made scientific breakthroughs in the field of gamma radiation research and also be the man who created astounding magic tricks back in the 1800's. It's important to note that an actor will appear in movies that don't have any relationship to their previous movie, despite them being a person in that movie. It is analogous to an uneducated man in real life who has gone through an entire career in the IRS while simultaneously being a spy, a college professor, and a prominent neurosurgeon without the necessary transitions between the jobs.
More observations to come.