AdSense?

I was monkeying around with Google's AdSense (more out of curiosity than a desire or expectation of actual money) but I can't get the bastard to work.

Since I'm fairly certain Google actually owns Blogger, what the hell is going on? I paste in the code like magic and nothing. I have forgotten most of what I ever knew about scripting but this is bugging the hell out of me.

Darn! I had a whopping $0.03 coming my way, I'm sure!

Underwhelmed

One of the benefits to dating a woman who has a 6-year-old daughter is that the odds that I will have seen the latest craptastic kid-movie is much higher than it would normally be. This is okay by me, not only because the two of us see a great many movies on our own as well, but because sometimes there are some movies that are actually halfway decent, or dare I say, good. Like Ratatouille.

This is not about Ratatouille.

Underdog does not have a special place in my heart. I do not remember the cartoon, I do not largely care about flying superhero dogs (this includes Krypto, by the way) because it seems like a waste to give superhuman powers to a creature that lacks opposable thumbs. I am however a fan of the Underdog theme song, so there's that.

Most of the youth-oriented movies I am "forced" to see aren't actually all that bad. I get to avoid the seriously deranged (Happy Feet) and the too-pathetic-even-for-a-kid (Bratz). But I did see Underdog last weekend, and I'm sad to say that it was not good. Even from a "dumb kids' movie" perspective.

First of all, what the hell are Underdog's powers? If you have a superhero movie, you have to explain this. Somehow. They explained where he got them (DNA splicing, and I'll ignore the fact that splicing in eagle DNA would not give a non-winged creature flight) but never what they really were. Strength, to be sure, and flight. And super-hearing and speed -- he flies around the world fast enough to catch a frisbee from the opposite direction. That's seriously fast.

But then, Underdog uses his skills in wildly incongruous ways. He seems to be invulnerable -- he can survive a fall from high-Earth orbit -- but 4 sticks of dynamite seem to scare him off. I am not a physicist, but I am pretty sure that if you can survive the extreme stresses of atmospheric reentry, a bundle of TNT isn't going to faze you. The writers routinely seemed to forget what their creation was capable of solely to make cheap (and incredibly lame) jokes.

This may seem like much ado about nothing. It IS a kid's movie, after all. But to me, the most serious violation of a science fiction or fantasy work is when said work violates its own rules. You have to play in the fake universe you create--failing to do so means not only have you made a poorly-scripted and plot-hole-ridden movie, but it's undeniably stupid to boot.

And what the hell happened to Jason Lee? I think I liked him better when he was just a Kevin Smith misanthrope.

Fast Break!

I saw Harry Potter Number 5 on Saturday. I also bought a couch. They were both darker than I expected. I was happy to see that the director toned down the angsty teenageness of Harry from the book. It's the last Harry Potter book I've read (two behind!) and the reason was that Harry was so bloody annoying. "Boo hoo, nobody likes me, even my friends." What a pain in the ass.

Those Cingular commercials, where the people get dropped calls right before a big revelation or response? Those are funny. What's really funny is that I have Cingular, and while it's true they don't drop calls much, I have a helluva time even making a call at least 40% of the time. So there's a fun twist.

I had to select a primary care physician for my health insurance here at work. I have no idea how to do that, so I just picked one with a good doctor-sounding name: "Birnbaum". I will probably go in for a physical at some point, since it has been 5+ years since my last. Strong like bull!

Everybody is popping out kids and getting married! You know who you are. Congrats to all on the impending nuptials/squalling infants. I am not doing either at this time and that is fine by me. It was hard enough to pick out a damn couch.

I have not seen The Simpsons movie yet. This pains me. But I did check the total scores from my Movie List today and it turns out I've seen 70 movies from 2005. I attribute this largely to my severe unemployment during 2006, which allowed a great deal of Netflixing to occur. My list may be faltering because it indicates only 17 movies in '07, and I think that 7 months in (the sevens are starting to freak me out...) that is on the low side.

I haven't read a really great book in awhile. Nothing worth mentioning. I will dig some out from the books my mom gave us while in Michigan and see if something interesting appears.

Define "Look"

I heard an ad on the radio this morning (during my new 8-minute commute to work, hooray) for Match.com. The tagline at the end, which I don't think is new but I hadn't heard before, was "It's Okay to Look".

It is? Really? Because I know of at least one person in my life who would disagree, and I bet there are many people out there that would rather their significant others were not browsing online dating sites.

They could mean "look" as in "browse profiles out of sheer boredom and hurl insults at the weird ones," but I'm betting that Match would prefer you looked with at least a kernel of curiousity. And therein lies the breach of trust.

Anyway, I just found it sort of funny. "Match.com: Come find a new significant other. And then replace him/her. Ad infinitum."

What? Nothing's Happening...

Okay, that's a half-truth. It has been pointed out that nearly a month has elapsed since my last non-post and that perhaps I should get on the ball.

It has been a hectic month, providing both fodder for the blog and sucking away the time required to actually sit down and write a post. Ain't that a bitch?

In the last month, I:

- Moved. Yes, I now live in Oakland, specifically in the Lake Merritt area. It's nice enough, my apartment is a 1-bedroom for the first time ever, and the commute is a dreamy 8 minutes. Downsides include the non-posh "Oakland" in my address, a girlfriend on the other side of the Bay, and a lack of furniture. Those are not in order of downsidedness.

- Had Pneumonia. I do not know how this happened. I did not have a cold, and nobody around me was sick. But one day I was blah, the next I was even worse, and a good doctor told me I had a pneumonia in one of my longs. Seven days of antibiotics later I was fine, if not weak. I am aware that this creates a glaring hole in my "I am injury and disease resistant" theory, but let me point out that pneumonia is the only disease I've ever had (previous bout was in 9th grade). It's like my Achilles' Heel, only it's in my lungs.

- "Lost" My Wallet. The jury is still out on stolen/lost, but since I've NEVER lost my wallet, I'm not so sure it was that. I went to Six Flags here in No' Cal and the next day, could not find the thing. Normally I don't walk more than 50 feet without checking--largely subconsciously--for my wallet, so my doubts are still high that I left it at the park. Still, it is gone. This occurred 1 day before pneumonia, for those keeping score, and man let me tell you how hard it is to get a doctor when all your insurance cards are gone. Also your ATM card.

My sincerest apologies for not updating you all in real time on these fairly significant events. And for being an absent friend to some during the hectic transition of illness/moving. Things are settling back down now, and hopefully the blog can also get back up to speed.

Oh, and I've seen 1408, Ratatouille, Live Free or Die Hard, Evan Almighty, Ocean's Thirteen, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Shrek the Third. They were meh, good, surprisingly good, meh, funnyish, long but okay, and meh. In this reviewer's opinion.

This Guy Rules

Over at the Freakonomics Blog, there is a great interview with a "counterintuitive" economist. Among his propositions is the idea that people without STDs should have MORE sex because they increase the pool of disease-free sex partners.

This is probably the best thing I've ever heard, but that may be because implementation would directly benefit me.

Read the specifics (and his other ideas about the legal system and organ donation that I am more skeptical of) over at the blog.

Wow and Yikes

I saw Knocked Up last week, and I thought it was pretty good. Very funny (funnier than 40-Year-Old Virgin, in my opinion) and very fun to watch.

Since then, I've run across a number of articles bemoaning or extoling the lack of discussion regarding abortion in the movie. The articles seem to complain either that "abortion isn't considered seriously when this is the exact situation it would be. Boo!" or "abortion isn't chosen and that's a testament to morally upstandingness. Yay!"

(see this Slate article in reference to the former)

Now, I wasn't watching for abortion references or discussion when I first saw the movie. I hadn't even thought about the fact that they'd have to consider one at some point; but I hadn't really thought about Knocked Up at all before I saw it.

But I don't remember either of those positions being taken by the film's director and/or producers. Contrary to some reviews, abortion was discussed; but in keeping with the comedic tone (it IS a comedy) they did so briefly and, I thought, amusingly. They probably could have been funnier, but it's a touchy subject and frankly, not the province of a comedy like this.

What I thought they DID do was imply that the mom-to-be did serious thinking and soul-searching off camera. She consulted with her fairly witchy mother (pointed to by Slate and others as the "evil woman pushing the abortion") and got advice; the stoner's friends also offered their opinions. At the end of the day, though, it went exactly the way abortion should be handled: by the mom and, to a lesser extent, the dad.

I may not be remembering it all 100%. But I do remember a scene in which she tentatively called the dad to tell him she had decided to keep the baby. There is no indication in the movie as to how long it took her to come to this decision; what factors she looked at in deciding, or anything beyond the fact that she made it.

To me, this was perfect. I said it three paragraphs earlier, but this is where the point becomes even more important: the movies is a COMEDY. Even if it does a "disservice" to abortion-rights advocates (or to pro-life advocates), it's not supposed to provide guidance. Even if it were a drama, I doubt it would be able to navigate the complex and politically charged waters of abortion any better. The best a movie can do--and in this, Knocked Up succeeds tremendously--is ignite discussion outside of the theater.

I agree that Knocked Up fails miserably at providing a rational and thorough examination of the difficult decision that expectant mothers must make. But anybody who goes to the movies--any movie--expecting to see that should, well, have their head examined.

Summer Weekend of George

This past (past-past, now) weekend was Memorial Day weekend. A three-day bonanza of barbecues, sunshine, and a general welcome to the coming summer months. And, of course, a day of remembrance to those who have died in the line of duty.

Being the good patriot that I am, I participated in none of these activities. The girlfriend was out of town, the roommate was in Wisconsin, and I was free to wallow in my own crapulence.

On Friday night, I worked until 6 or so (around here, that's late; we're pretty laid back that way) and then went home to reheated pizza and video games.

On Saturday, the skies were gray and the weather chilly, so I stayed in pajamas until at least 4 in the afternoon, playing video games and generally achieving as little forward progress as possible. I also watched "In the Bedroom", which has been sitting on my coffee table for almost a month, in an effort to break-up the logjam that is my Netflix queue. It's a fairly intense movie, though having seen it years after it came out, I think it has lost some of its punch. Maybe I'm jaded, but I wanted it to end a bit more realistically. I think it was superbly well-acted (did they win Oscars?) and overall, give it 3.5 out of 5. It would have been 4.5 if the filmmakers had forced a more nuanced and what I bet is a more common outcome (i.e. the non-murderous revenge scenario).

On Sunday, it was more video games. The skies were gray and the weather chilly again. I also did some work, but only half-heartedly, as it was the midpoint of the long-weekend and I wasn't feeling it. I also failed to change from my pajamas the entire day. Wallowing indeed!

Sunday is but a vague memory now, due in large part to the complete lack of achievement on my part. Monday too, except that I did play a rousing game of Scrabble with the downstairs neighbors. Marek won, which is surprising to approximately zero people, but my own personal highlight was convincing everyone that "que" is a word. In English. I even convinced myself (Scrabble tip: it's not.). At one point I had the letters to spell "opaque", which would have netted me something like 40 billing points, but by then there was no room on the board. I suck at Scrabble.

It was a good weekend, overall. This weekend has been more eventful, and in about 10 minutes I'm leaving to go look at a potential new apartment. I do not know Oakland well (I'm at work; the new apartment may be near here, if rents have anything to say about it) but it's in a supposedly nice--not scary--neighborhood.