Have you ever wondered why some movie critics seem to be so out of touch with the viewing public? That when they love a movie we know we won't like it or when they hate it we'll sell out the theater? If you're anything like me, you enjoy the escapism of a summer blockbuster. I like going to these big-budget-special-effect-laden-sometimes-low-on-plot movies because I get to "escape" reality for a short length of time before having to return to my humdrum life.
Critics who take their jobs seriously must hate escapist movies. They're forced to watch meaningless film after meaningless film and have to find something redeemable in them. These are the critics that I don't usually follow. They would rather we didn't have a fantasy to run to and watch something poignant and heavy that will change our world view. No, thank you. Reality is weighty and depressing enough for me. I'm not big into catharsis. I don't enjoy angst for the sake of angst or the soap operas that are filled with lust and murder and I'm-so-happy-I'm-not-them. I also hate when a character I identify with chooses the WRONG person to be with. Hollywood decided that romantic (or sexual) tension is necessary and we must keep the perfect matches apart or viewers won't be interested and stop watching. I have to say that I'm still enjoying Castle and Bones, despite the couples getting together. And The Office. Jim and Pam forever! I'm hoping that they're still together by the end of the series and I don't like the friction they're having, despite the realism of it. If PB&J can't make it, then no one can. See, Hollywood writers? Stop messing with my life by messing with theirs! And when you purposely keep the matches apart for several seasons we begin to believe they're never getting together and we give up because why watch.
I love a good movie based on comic books. I have several of them in my film collection. Perhaps my love of the comic book-based movies in particular derives from the long car trips my family would take during the summer to visit relatives in other states. There were comic book stands in several gas station stores and we'd stock up especially when we already read through all the books we'd brought. When I was really young I'd read the Archie comics and wish I was Betty or Veronica (I'm most likely Betty--you know, the perfect girl for Archie, but as she was the girl next door he never saw her true value and wasted his time with Veronica who could never decide who she wanted--romantic tension). We won't get into the psychology of those comics...today.
As I grew older I started to get interested in the comic books my brother was buying. So I transitioned from the antics of Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina the Teen Aged Witch to Green Lantern and Captain America. When I started buying my own instead of just reading my brother's I started buying Wonder Woman and Supergirl. I also loved the Teen Titans and the New Mutants. It's true that I still have a box of those comics and I'm super thrilled that the next X-Men movie is "Days of Future Past." This was a specific storyline that was later put into its own graphic novel. I was first introduced to it through a German version that my brother had. I can't speak German, but I was fascinated by the pictures and was dying to know what was really going on. It took me awhile, but I found the English version. It's actually very sad and post-apocalyptic and how humans fear mutants and are trying to hunt them to extinction.
That's a common theme in all of the X-Men-based series: the fight between Xavier's "good" mutants and Magneto's "bad" mutants and how their war directly affects how the world sees them. Poor Magneto's actions were always self-fulfilled prophecies. By acting badly of course the world viewed mutants poorly when they're trying to take over the world and being all superior to regular mortals. So it will be interesting to see what kind of happy ending that they can tack on so we're not all depressed when we leave the theater. I think the X-Men series was created to make us really think about how we view others and that no one should be treated differently. It's a cautionary tale.
I'm also super excited about Iron Man 3 (go Tony Stark) and the next Star Trek installment. Yea!!!!!! May is going to be an awesome month for movie-goers even if those are the only two movies we see. Over and over. In 3-D and/or IMAX. Or 2-D. And then we preorder the Blu-ray/DVD combo packs and wait impatiently for that lovely Amazon.com box to show up. Squeal of excitement! For some reason I'm getting the urge to watch The Avengers. Marvel studios, I love you. Disney, thank you for taking them in and letting them work on the interconnectedness that is the comic book world.
There was a brief time as an adult that I would go on Tuesdays to the comic book store and buy the latest installments of my favorite series. What I learned was that current writers are ruining my beloved comic heroes. Instead of leaving our heroes on pedestals they are making them flawed. Very flawed, in fact. And fallible. And sleeping around and unwed pregnancy in Teen Titans. I don't even want to address what they've done to Wonder Woman's home Themyscira (Paradise Island). Again, I wanted to escape reality, not revel in it. I'll not be seeing the last Batman movie. I don't care how wonderful people thought it was. It's dark. Too dark for me. I want funny and hopeful. I want the Hulk punching Thor for no reason. I want Alan Quatermain rising from the dead at the end of LXG. I want Superman and Lois Lane to be together (sorry, Superman Returns--I didn't like the unwed pregnancy--hated it, in fact). Heroes should be people we aspire to be, a better version of us, not exactly the same but with super powers. Stop ruining my escapism! Or I'll have to start creating my own.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
May pawns leave a chessboard of their own volition?
So, a week of uncertainty has passed at work. It's uncertain because they announced major changes in that meeting on Monday morning but forgot to arrange for the little changes caused by the big changes. By "big" I mean upper management level and by "little" I mean everyone else in the company. And there are a LOT of "little" changes because of the rearrangement of departments and such, so much so that they still haven't decided all of the decisions. Um, who are my bosses and who are my clients and how many more am I getting? And am I staying in my present office or being moved across the way? And what shall we do now that one of the managers who was being moved to my office has decided to put in their two weeks notice?
It's unpleasant being a pawn in someone else's game. They move me from square to square and I swear I'm the one they keep sacrificing and then putting back in when it starts all over again. It reminds me just a bit of Through The Looking Glass And What Alice Found There by Lewis Carrol. This companion piece to Alice in Wonderland (and often bound together as if it's one book) is written like a chess game. There's even an explanation of the moves at the beginning of the book. Upon looking out across the Looking Glass World at the top of a hill and noticing that the land stretched out and looked like a chessboard, Alice says excitedly, "It's a great huge game of chess that's being played--all over the world--if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join--though, of course, I should like to be a Queen best." And off she goes in a mad game of chess in which (spoiler alert) she becomes a queen at the end.
I wouldn't mind playing if I could ever graduate from being a pawn to a queen. But now that I know for a surety that I won't in this company, that I'll always be sacrificed or taken somewhere mid-game, I'm pretty much done. I never learned chess. I felt the rules were far too complicated to keep straight. Checkers I was okay at, though Chinese Checkers was my favorite.
I've now taken a couple of assessment tests to find out where my skills and interests might join together to find a career path I might not hate. I'm going to talk to a career counselor, too, just because I am so burned out that just looking through employment listings makes me want to cry in despair that I'm never going to find something that I might actually like...that pays money...in a poor economy.
Should I set up a fund for people to support me while I finish my novel I've been barely writing for almost ten years? Should I move to a commune? Should I homestead in Alaska so I can't be kicked out for not paying rent because I ran out of money trying to chase a dream? I hate being practical.
However, I will giggle a little that this last test says things like: avoid adventuring, develop woodworking, explore office practices (what I'm trying to avoid), and pursue science and the creative arts. I knew the creative part would come into it, but science? I didn't get those super-smart logical genes. I take issues with scientific "laws" which are really just guesses that haven't yet been disproven. And scientific subsets that disagree with one another. And that color is merely the way light is reflected and/or absorbed so when there's no light, there's no color. Tell you what, I will concede that some things may not have color in the absence of light due to merely the reflection/absorption issue, if you concede that some things have color as part of its properties. And if there's no light, how can you actually prove your theory?
Though I have read what the news sees fit to report on obvious studies that somebody funded proving facts everyone already knew. Perhaps it's the perfect job after all! Or not. We'll see.
It's unpleasant being a pawn in someone else's game. They move me from square to square and I swear I'm the one they keep sacrificing and then putting back in when it starts all over again. It reminds me just a bit of Through The Looking Glass And What Alice Found There by Lewis Carrol. This companion piece to Alice in Wonderland (and often bound together as if it's one book) is written like a chess game. There's even an explanation of the moves at the beginning of the book. Upon looking out across the Looking Glass World at the top of a hill and noticing that the land stretched out and looked like a chessboard, Alice says excitedly, "It's a great huge game of chess that's being played--all over the world--if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join--though, of course, I should like to be a Queen best." And off she goes in a mad game of chess in which (spoiler alert) she becomes a queen at the end.
I wouldn't mind playing if I could ever graduate from being a pawn to a queen. But now that I know for a surety that I won't in this company, that I'll always be sacrificed or taken somewhere mid-game, I'm pretty much done. I never learned chess. I felt the rules were far too complicated to keep straight. Checkers I was okay at, though Chinese Checkers was my favorite.
I've now taken a couple of assessment tests to find out where my skills and interests might join together to find a career path I might not hate. I'm going to talk to a career counselor, too, just because I am so burned out that just looking through employment listings makes me want to cry in despair that I'm never going to find something that I might actually like...that pays money...in a poor economy.
Should I set up a fund for people to support me while I finish my novel I've been barely writing for almost ten years? Should I move to a commune? Should I homestead in Alaska so I can't be kicked out for not paying rent because I ran out of money trying to chase a dream? I hate being practical.
However, I will giggle a little that this last test says things like: avoid adventuring, develop woodworking, explore office practices (what I'm trying to avoid), and pursue science and the creative arts. I knew the creative part would come into it, but science? I didn't get those super-smart logical genes. I take issues with scientific "laws" which are really just guesses that haven't yet been disproven. And scientific subsets that disagree with one another. And that color is merely the way light is reflected and/or absorbed so when there's no light, there's no color. Tell you what, I will concede that some things may not have color in the absence of light due to merely the reflection/absorption issue, if you concede that some things have color as part of its properties. And if there's no light, how can you actually prove your theory?
Though I have read what the news sees fit to report on obvious studies that somebody funded proving facts everyone already knew. Perhaps it's the perfect job after all! Or not. We'll see.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
My, my, how rumors fly!
Remember when you were in junior high and high school and rumors spread like wildfire? I think the writers of Easy A had it right when Emma Stone explains about "The Accelerated velocity of Terminological Inexactitude."
Did you know that the workplace can be just as petty and complicated to navigate as when you were a teenager? It's like we never grew up. You could be close to 60 with grandchildren and be just as quick to spread and/or start a rumor as when you were 14. I know you can't tell, but I'm rolling my eyes right now.
When I first thought of this post a few days ago, it had to do with a rumor about myself that had just gotten back to me that people at work think I'm going to have to move because of my health. So NOT what was originally said. Namely, that my younger sister would like me to move back home as it would fix some of my health issues. That is what I told people about my sister's visit (and that we had a good time, despite the fact that she was here for a funeral).
However, since that wholly inaccurate account surfaced, we've had a bit of a kerfuffle at work and though the rumor of my move is premature, now the entire company is talking about an entirely different rumor, hopefully having nothing to do with me.
Our company decided to announce midweek that there is a company-wide meeting this coming Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. There was no explanation given; we all just received the appointment. I read the email and may have said out loud "let the rumors begin." Don't they know that when the corporate officers are vague that the employees guess? I decided to ask the people in my tiny satellite office if they had any good guesses. And by that I meant not anything based in reality. I figured that if we made up outlandish stuff that I could keep my mind off of actually speculating, which might lead to nervousness and panic and maybe eventually the dark side (if Yoda is right).
Here's what I came up with: we're all getting helper monkeys to assist us in our work, we will be made to wear uniforms in shades of pumpkin and puce, they are changing our company name *again* (actually possible), we will be allowed to bring pets to work as they'll lower our blood pressure and we'll be less likely to leave. Of course, more than one person said maybe we're all getting fired. Cue the nervous laughter.
Well, others must of have thought of the same thing because about one to two hours later we were sent an email that said that the rumor of massive layoffs was just that: a rumor. Layoffs are not anticipated. Hmmm. Couldn't they have been definitive and said layoffs weren't happening at all? Verbiage: it's important. It reminds me of The Emperor's New Groove when Yzma and Kronk are locked in the closet at Pacha's place and Yzma says: "Tell us where the talking llama is and we'll burn your house to the ground."
Kronk: "Uh, don't you mean or?"
Yzma: [Sigh] "Tell us where the talking llama is OR we'll burn your house to the ground."
Chaca: "Well, which is it? That seems like a pretty crucial conjunction."
Note that my division has a second meeting right after the first half-hour one. It means change. That I'm sure of. What is changing I have no idea. However, it can't be layoffs because that would be late on a Friday. This meeting should probably be at the end of the day because I can't imagine anyone wanting to work after bad news. Believe me, it will be bad. Not fired bad, but bad for my workload. Whatever changes they've made to the company since I was hired nine years ago has always added to the amount and type of work I do. I don't know how anyone could imagine that one person could possibly do all the things I'm asked to. But I'm not going to worry too much about it. Because I've been thinking about leaving...before the meeting was announced, even. If they offer severance (if it's that sort of meeting), it may be hard for me to not voluntarily separate.
Maybe it will be good news....
Did you know that the workplace can be just as petty and complicated to navigate as when you were a teenager? It's like we never grew up. You could be close to 60 with grandchildren and be just as quick to spread and/or start a rumor as when you were 14. I know you can't tell, but I'm rolling my eyes right now.
When I first thought of this post a few days ago, it had to do with a rumor about myself that had just gotten back to me that people at work think I'm going to have to move because of my health. So NOT what was originally said. Namely, that my younger sister would like me to move back home as it would fix some of my health issues. That is what I told people about my sister's visit (and that we had a good time, despite the fact that she was here for a funeral).
However, since that wholly inaccurate account surfaced, we've had a bit of a kerfuffle at work and though the rumor of my move is premature, now the entire company is talking about an entirely different rumor, hopefully having nothing to do with me.
Our company decided to announce midweek that there is a company-wide meeting this coming Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. There was no explanation given; we all just received the appointment. I read the email and may have said out loud "let the rumors begin." Don't they know that when the corporate officers are vague that the employees guess? I decided to ask the people in my tiny satellite office if they had any good guesses. And by that I meant not anything based in reality. I figured that if we made up outlandish stuff that I could keep my mind off of actually speculating, which might lead to nervousness and panic and maybe eventually the dark side (if Yoda is right).
Here's what I came up with: we're all getting helper monkeys to assist us in our work, we will be made to wear uniforms in shades of pumpkin and puce, they are changing our company name *again* (actually possible), we will be allowed to bring pets to work as they'll lower our blood pressure and we'll be less likely to leave. Of course, more than one person said maybe we're all getting fired. Cue the nervous laughter.
Well, others must of have thought of the same thing because about one to two hours later we were sent an email that said that the rumor of massive layoffs was just that: a rumor. Layoffs are not anticipated. Hmmm. Couldn't they have been definitive and said layoffs weren't happening at all? Verbiage: it's important. It reminds me of The Emperor's New Groove when Yzma and Kronk are locked in the closet at Pacha's place and Yzma says: "Tell us where the talking llama is and we'll burn your house to the ground."
Kronk: "Uh, don't you mean or?"
Yzma: [Sigh] "Tell us where the talking llama is OR we'll burn your house to the ground."
Chaca: "Well, which is it? That seems like a pretty crucial conjunction."
Note that my division has a second meeting right after the first half-hour one. It means change. That I'm sure of. What is changing I have no idea. However, it can't be layoffs because that would be late on a Friday. This meeting should probably be at the end of the day because I can't imagine anyone wanting to work after bad news. Believe me, it will be bad. Not fired bad, but bad for my workload. Whatever changes they've made to the company since I was hired nine years ago has always added to the amount and type of work I do. I don't know how anyone could imagine that one person could possibly do all the things I'm asked to. But I'm not going to worry too much about it. Because I've been thinking about leaving...before the meeting was announced, even. If they offer severance (if it's that sort of meeting), it may be hard for me to not voluntarily separate.
Maybe it will be good news....
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Sugar-free Doesn't Work For Me
There are some people out there who are incredibly healthy and never have to take sick days. To you I say: bravo (or brava, depending on your gender)! I've also learned that the hyper-healthy don't usually seem to have either sympathy or empathy towards those who do get sick; that somehow those who "claim" to be sick are somehow faking it or...something.
I have no answers on how to help someone who is never sick to believe someone else who is. I probably don't have enough sympathy for the unsympathetic mostly because I'm trying not to be annoyed at people who think I fake MY illnesses. Amongst other health flaws, I've had food issues since high school and it's taken me a good bit to try to figure out what will set me off. Once I learn what each thing is I either try to work around it, avoid it, or eat it anyway. Sometimes I look at a food choice that I know will make me ill (either immediately or a few hours later or the next day, even) and I weigh its deliciousness with the future pain and/or discomfort. Some things are no longer worth it, like packaged name-brand Rice Crispy Treats. Don't get me wrong, I used to love them, but now I associate the taste with feeling bad, and that's hard to get over.
I once got a reaaaaaaaaallllly bad case of tonsillitis the same night I'd had fish at a family reunion. Even though the fever and sickness had nothing to do with fish, my mind still associated it together. It took me years before I convinced myself that not eating fish, which I used to love over almost anything else, was just silly. I'm back to loving fish and am glad that I got over that. Whew! Sorry, Charlie. Ha ha.
But back to Rice Crispy Treats. I can eat Rice Crispies for breakfast and not have a problem, as long as it's not what I eat every morning. I can also eat the homemade kind of treats if I wanted to, but the prepackaged kind has preservatives and I apparently can't abide them. Also, hydrogenated oils. I can't gorge myself on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Reese's Pieces, or anything made with modern peanut butter (and, really, I should never be gorging on anything). However, I *have* learned that I have no problems whatsoever with natural peanut butter. Yea! I would miss not being able to have a pb&j when I want one. ...Or a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich, which tastes an awful lot like a peanut butter cup.
Sugar substitutes give me heartburn. How frustrating do you think it is that when you try to eat Quaker's Weight Control oatmeal when it just makes you feel nauseated and burn-y in that region between your throat and stomach. Sigh. Oatmeal with actual sugar--NO PROBLEMS. It's like my body only likes natural stuff on one hand, but not too much (I won't over share my issues with fiber as it's not for polite company).
It makes me laugh when I see the commercials for the new sweetener from a different plant. The catchphrase involves going back to nature for sweetness. Um, isn't sugar from plants? And corn syrup comes from plants. How is that different? Are you trying to do a bait and switch? Or a shell game in the hopes that we'll be distracted by your rather offensive song about sugar making your butt fat that we don't notice that other sweeteners are also "natural?" Sheesh. Is anyone really falling for that? Sugar isn't really the culprit, despite the hype. It is the overindulgence of sugar that is the real problem.
So, yes, I'm sugar-substitute-sensitive. A whole bunch of diet stuff is out the window for me. Ahem, but too much sugar and being hot temperature-wise will lead me to a whole lot of ickiness. So I have to be careful about my sugar intake on hot days. And I can't eat any recipes that cook chicken with the rest of the ingredients, and I have to pat the grease off of my pepperoni pizza, and french fries did make me ill for awhile when all the fast food places switched their frying oil to, I think, canola, but now they use something different and fries are no longer toxic to me (in the short term). And I can't eat at Cafe Rio or Costa Vida anymore. At all. And I can't eat too many eggs, or at least the yolks, but I will sometimes feel rebellious and eat deviled eggs anyway!!!
Sadly, I could continue my litany of food issues. But guess what? Despite all of that, I still enjoy eating out. Sometimes it's worth the risk of what might happen later, but usually I can find something that won't cause me any troubles at all. I am just more selective now than I used to be. Hopefully I will stop accidentally finding more food problems. I'd like to think I've discovered them all, but I hear as you get older and your body starts falling apart faster than you can repair it that you get food issues. I have enough, thank you. No more. NO MORE, I say!
Do you think defiant denial will work?
Me, neither.
I have no answers on how to help someone who is never sick to believe someone else who is. I probably don't have enough sympathy for the unsympathetic mostly because I'm trying not to be annoyed at people who think I fake MY illnesses. Amongst other health flaws, I've had food issues since high school and it's taken me a good bit to try to figure out what will set me off. Once I learn what each thing is I either try to work around it, avoid it, or eat it anyway. Sometimes I look at a food choice that I know will make me ill (either immediately or a few hours later or the next day, even) and I weigh its deliciousness with the future pain and/or discomfort. Some things are no longer worth it, like packaged name-brand Rice Crispy Treats. Don't get me wrong, I used to love them, but now I associate the taste with feeling bad, and that's hard to get over.
I once got a reaaaaaaaaallllly bad case of tonsillitis the same night I'd had fish at a family reunion. Even though the fever and sickness had nothing to do with fish, my mind still associated it together. It took me years before I convinced myself that not eating fish, which I used to love over almost anything else, was just silly. I'm back to loving fish and am glad that I got over that. Whew! Sorry, Charlie. Ha ha.
But back to Rice Crispy Treats. I can eat Rice Crispies for breakfast and not have a problem, as long as it's not what I eat every morning. I can also eat the homemade kind of treats if I wanted to, but the prepackaged kind has preservatives and I apparently can't abide them. Also, hydrogenated oils. I can't gorge myself on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Reese's Pieces, or anything made with modern peanut butter (and, really, I should never be gorging on anything). However, I *have* learned that I have no problems whatsoever with natural peanut butter. Yea! I would miss not being able to have a pb&j when I want one. ...Or a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich, which tastes an awful lot like a peanut butter cup.
Sugar substitutes give me heartburn. How frustrating do you think it is that when you try to eat Quaker's Weight Control oatmeal when it just makes you feel nauseated and burn-y in that region between your throat and stomach. Sigh. Oatmeal with actual sugar--NO PROBLEMS. It's like my body only likes natural stuff on one hand, but not too much (I won't over share my issues with fiber as it's not for polite company).
It makes me laugh when I see the commercials for the new sweetener from a different plant. The catchphrase involves going back to nature for sweetness. Um, isn't sugar from plants? And corn syrup comes from plants. How is that different? Are you trying to do a bait and switch? Or a shell game in the hopes that we'll be distracted by your rather offensive song about sugar making your butt fat that we don't notice that other sweeteners are also "natural?" Sheesh. Is anyone really falling for that? Sugar isn't really the culprit, despite the hype. It is the overindulgence of sugar that is the real problem.
So, yes, I'm sugar-substitute-sensitive. A whole bunch of diet stuff is out the window for me. Ahem, but too much sugar and being hot temperature-wise will lead me to a whole lot of ickiness. So I have to be careful about my sugar intake on hot days. And I can't eat any recipes that cook chicken with the rest of the ingredients, and I have to pat the grease off of my pepperoni pizza, and french fries did make me ill for awhile when all the fast food places switched their frying oil to, I think, canola, but now they use something different and fries are no longer toxic to me (in the short term). And I can't eat at Cafe Rio or Costa Vida anymore. At all. And I can't eat too many eggs, or at least the yolks, but I will sometimes feel rebellious and eat deviled eggs anyway!!!
Sadly, I could continue my litany of food issues. But guess what? Despite all of that, I still enjoy eating out. Sometimes it's worth the risk of what might happen later, but usually I can find something that won't cause me any troubles at all. I am just more selective now than I used to be. Hopefully I will stop accidentally finding more food problems. I'd like to think I've discovered them all, but I hear as you get older and your body starts falling apart faster than you can repair it that you get food issues. I have enough, thank you. No more. NO MORE, I say!
Do you think defiant denial will work?
Me, neither.
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