Rethinking 2009

The backlash against my 'things people shouldn't still be doing in 2009' has been bracing. My wife in particular is not in favor of several of the things on the list, causing me to go back and re-think the list as submitted.

So I've thought about the list and I have decided to modify my opinion slightly. For some, these things are the simple pleasures in life. Watching a VHS...if the VCR doesn't eat it. Calling a pizza place and trying to communicate with an illiterate high school drop out who speaks 3 words of English...I can see how that would be more interesting than just using the website or texting in your order. If we are nothing but efficient, we will miss out on the spice of life.

So I submit that not everything on the list should have to be followed exactly. Let's take another look.

1. Watching VHS tapes: See above.
2. Writing personal checks for anything other than tithing. I will not budge a micropixel on this. Writing personal checks is worse than unleashing anthrax on a butterfly farm. It might be the worst way of conducting financial transcations ever conceived. Next...
3. Renting videos from Hollywood/Blockbuster. Redbox I can see, because it's cheap. I suppose if you didn't have Netflix and liked spending a lot on movies that are very likely to be checked out, this would be fun. Plus, Netflix doesn't have overpriced movie candy for sale, so, yeah.
4. Ordering a pizza by phone: See above.
5. Listening to music on CDs unless it's something someone burned for you and you haven't had time to rip the tracks yet. Won't budge much on this, either. CDs skip and are needlessly expensive and frustrating. But you get a booklet, and if that's important to you and you don't like the digital booklets that bands release, then this would be the route to go. Better than tapes, I guess.
6. Placing items on hold at the library via face-to-face: Sure, go ahead.
7. Doing your banking in person: No, this should not happen. You should only go to the bank if you are signing loan papers or you have a physical check you need to deposit. And even then you should only go through the drive-through. 99.9% of all banking can and should be done online.
8. Paying your bills using anything other than their websites or your bank's billpay feature. If you like buying stamps (shudder) and writing checks and wondering and hoping if your bill will travel through the mail safely and arrive on time, then OK.
9. Using a landline telephone unless it's either free or really cheap. This is tricky since I still know people who have a land line. But it's my understanding that it's bundled w/ their cable and/or internet bill and is thus like $10 a month. I think I have enough caveats in here that I can submit it without further comment.
10. Sending physical letters to people unless you're in some kind of caligraphy class and it's a project. Some people, my wife tells me, like to write hand-written letters because they feel it is more personal. I don't feel any more personal writing things down than typing them, but I will take a leap of faith and accept that this is true for some. Others enjoy churning their own butter, too, and shoeing their own horses, and treating cholera with a dose of hemlock and fairy's breath, to frighten the evil dwarves who live in your stomach into submission. If that's your thing, then go right ahead.
11. Buying anything in a store without checking Amazon or Ebay first. No reason not to do this, unless you like paying 2 to 4x too much for things.
12. Reading a physical newspaper. I can concede that this might be necessary, assuming you're starring in a play version of Citizen Kane.
13. Getting your news from any mainstream media news outlet. No.
14. Listen to music on the radio. If you like Coldplay, U2, and obnoxious commercials, go right ahead. I will not stop you.

I hope this clears everything up!

Nick and Norah review

Watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. This is basically a movie that was written, filmed, and produced for me and about 3 other people on the planet.

Not that it's that great-it's kind of annoying in parts due to the crudity of some of the dialogue and the general unlikeability of almost everyone in the entire cast except for Norah. There's also no plot whatsoever-it's just a bunch of teenagers driving around New York looking for a pretend band that's annoyingly called "Where's Fluffy?"

But the music-that's really the key. The soundtrack is completely non-stop, like American Graffiti, but it's all obscure indie songs, of which I had every single one on my iPod. It was non-stop great music the entire time. It was also funny because the George Michael character was this quiet guy who makes mix CDs for a girl he briefly dated who stopped dating him several months prior. (This is the way I successfully eventually married my wife.)

So to wrap up: great music, really annoying characters other than the delightful Norah. Everyone in the movie thinks they're about 300% cooler than anyone else just because they live in New York. What is it about living in big cities that makes people think they're really cool and therefore causes people to trend Democrat and believe in God less? Is it because they perceive big buildings to be cool and complicated and 'look what we can do?' or something? Do they really just think that living in a big city is the penultimate of the human experience? I guess...

Inkheart review

We saw Inheart the other night. I'd like to report that it was very good, but really just the premise was good. The rest had plot holes you could drive a planet through.

The main problem with the movie is that the rules of the magic power (being able to read a book and have the thing you're reading come to life) change all the time. Brendan Fraser spends 9 years looking for his wife because when he read 'Inkheart,' the bad guys came out of the book and she went in. So he wants to find the book again, and the book is really rare apparently, so that he can somehow 'read her out.'

Seems straightforward enough except towards the end-and I'm trying not to spoil too much here-it's apparent that just anything at all a "Silvertongue" reads will happen, even if they write it down themselves.

This loophole basically grants Silvertongues God-like powers over all of creation. If they don't like you then can just write 'then Bob's head exploded' and that would be that. They could write down 'then 10 trillion dollars rained from the sky' and it would happen. Cancer? 'Bob's cancer was miraculously cured, as was the entire planet's.' With one stroke of the pen you could wipe out every disease, every social problem, every error ever committed by anyone anywhere and could bring people back from the dead and travel through time and do whatever you wanted and it would work just because you willed it. So why doesn't Brendan Fraser just write down 'and then my wife came back' and save himself 9 years?

So if they'd applied some better rules to this formula, it might have worked. Like, it would have been funny for him to read things kind of silly, like a manual about how to fix exploding toilets or for some kind of embarassing thing like invisible pants or something. Oh well. I would draw something for this post but I'm pretty sure no one would want that.

Money money money

One thing I considered including on my 'things you shouldn't still be doing in 2009' list was 'using paper money.' But I've re-thought that a little bit, since I do still carry around some money, although not very much. Generally it's useful if I'm at school and want to grab a pop during a class break, or it's a good back-up currency if the debit card/credit card machine is down at a store, although that seems fairly unlikely in 2009. But until they install credit card readers on pop machines, I'll leave it off. Thank you.

Well sure, but how decent is the stereo?

Photos? Really?

While getting my picture taken over the weekend at my local Walgreen's for my passport photo for my upcoming 2-week business trip to India, I noticed something unusual: people were picking up photos that had been printed out. Like, physical photos. I distantly remember photos, although it's been at least 10 years or so since I last actually took film in somewhere and paid someone to develop it. But nowadays if you want a photo for a frame that isn't a digital frame, you just print it out on some glossy paper yourself.

That got me thinking-what else is still occuring in 2009 that shouldn't be? To help answer this, I put together the following handy list. In 2009, people should no longer be:

1. Watching VHS tapes
2. Writing personal checks for anything other than tithing
3. Renting videos from Hollywood/Blockbuster. Redbox I can see, because it's cheap.
4. Ordering a pizza by phone
5. Listening to music on CDs unless it's something someone burned for you and you haven't had time to rip the tracks yet.
6. Placing items on hold at the library via face-to-face
7. Doing your banking in person
8. Paying your bills using anything other than their websites or your bank's billpay feature.
9. Using a landline telephone unless it's either free or really cheap. This is tricky since I still know people who have a land line. But it's my understanding that it's bundled w/ their cable and/or internet bill and is thus like $10 a month.
10. Sending physical letters to people unless you're in some kind of caligraphy class and it's a project.
11. Buying anything in a store without checking Amazon or Ebay first.
12. Reading a physical newspaper.
13. Getting your news from any mainstream media news outlet.
14. Listen to music on the radio.

That's all for now-what else can the rest of you name in the comments?