I've had to swear off one of my favorite recreations -- reading the British press online -- until we move past 2018's most over-hyped event, the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
For years I was an Anglophile who also looked benignly on the British royal family, despite its increasing irrelevance as the gene pool became shallower and shallower.
Given the royal family's final descent into celebritization, it's no wonder Harry and Meghan's every move, every outfit, every family dysfunction attracts the media's attention as if, say, they were Beyonce and Justin Bieber, as if the marriage affected any aspect of the public's life beyond curiosity.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Powerball Relief
Thank goodness the $1.5 billion Powerball went to ticket holders hundreds -- in one case thousands -- of miles from here.
We can continue to live our lives in quiet rather than raucous desperation. It's so much better to worry about making ends meet than to worry that if we splurge on a yacht or a condo in Cannes we might be down to our last $900 million.
I bought two tickets -- I only buy when the prize approaches gazillion -- and I can report that not one number on either ticket matched any of the winning number that were drawn. So much for financial planning.
It keeps my losing streak generally intact. I did win $4 in Powerball once but the ticket was lost in a general den cleanup before I was able to redeem it.
Owing to our good fortune, I won't have to seek out a tax lawyer to figure out how to deal with the Feds or consult with my financial planner (not much finance, not much plan) about how to seek out safe but lucrative investments. That way, I won't have to watch the hundreds of millions erode to $899 million. I hate that "broke" feeling.
I pity the winners.
We can continue to live our lives in quiet rather than raucous desperation. It's so much better to worry about making ends meet than to worry that if we splurge on a yacht or a condo in Cannes we might be down to our last $900 million.
I bought two tickets -- I only buy when the prize approaches gazillion -- and I can report that not one number on either ticket matched any of the winning number that were drawn. So much for financial planning.
It keeps my losing streak generally intact. I did win $4 in Powerball once but the ticket was lost in a general den cleanup before I was able to redeem it.
Owing to our good fortune, I won't have to seek out a tax lawyer to figure out how to deal with the Feds or consult with my financial planner (not much finance, not much plan) about how to seek out safe but lucrative investments. That way, I won't have to watch the hundreds of millions erode to $899 million. I hate that "broke" feeling.
I pity the winners.
Monday, January 4, 2016
Sopranos Redux
I didn't follow the Sopranos when the series was on HBO more than a decade ago, even though I recognize that the show had a cult following and was the topic of many a discussion in the office on the day after each episode was on.
I did tune into an episode or two during the six-year run, but I never became a fan, partly, perhaps, because we dropped our subscription to HBO during the program's run.
Then a few weeks ago, my wife returned from an outing with some of her friends, one of whom mentioned re-watching the series through the Internet. I checked my Roku connections, and, lo, the Sopranos was offered on Amazon Prime at no extra cost.
The result: We watched the entire six year run on successive evenings, two or three episodes at a sitting. It gave us continuity of the situations and characters without the benefit of space between episodes or seasons.
The overriding themes seemed to be gratuitous violence, hyper-profanity, lust, serial adultery, and over-eating. The stories and situations became repetitive. Who was going to get blown away in this episode? Who is Tony or Chris going to be sleeping with in this one? What is A.J. going to be moping about in that one? Is there any character worth caring about?
There were good acting performances by many of the cast, including Edie Falco as the long-suffering, misbehavior-enabling Carmela, and the late James Gandolfini as Tony.
But what struck me as a major appeal to the audience was freedom. Who among us has not been so angry at someone that we wished we could blow them away. Laws of the land, a sense of right and wrong -- a moral compass -- and the desire not to go to prison kept us from acting out our rage. There were no such barriers for the Soprano bunch. And in the six years the show was on, I don't think anyone went to prison for murder.
For them, the notion of 'gun control' was the ability to shoot straight, which, of course, isn't always the same thing as being a straight shooter. More properly, the series was a simple case of overkill.
I did tune into an episode or two during the six-year run, but I never became a fan, partly, perhaps, because we dropped our subscription to HBO during the program's run.
Then a few weeks ago, my wife returned from an outing with some of her friends, one of whom mentioned re-watching the series through the Internet. I checked my Roku connections, and, lo, the Sopranos was offered on Amazon Prime at no extra cost.
The result: We watched the entire six year run on successive evenings, two or three episodes at a sitting. It gave us continuity of the situations and characters without the benefit of space between episodes or seasons.
The overriding themes seemed to be gratuitous violence, hyper-profanity, lust, serial adultery, and over-eating. The stories and situations became repetitive. Who was going to get blown away in this episode? Who is Tony or Chris going to be sleeping with in this one? What is A.J. going to be moping about in that one? Is there any character worth caring about?
There were good acting performances by many of the cast, including Edie Falco as the long-suffering, misbehavior-enabling Carmela, and the late James Gandolfini as Tony.
But what struck me as a major appeal to the audience was freedom. Who among us has not been so angry at someone that we wished we could blow them away. Laws of the land, a sense of right and wrong -- a moral compass -- and the desire not to go to prison kept us from acting out our rage. There were no such barriers for the Soprano bunch. And in the six years the show was on, I don't think anyone went to prison for murder.
For them, the notion of 'gun control' was the ability to shoot straight, which, of course, isn't always the same thing as being a straight shooter. More properly, the series was a simple case of overkill.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
There's a fine line between 'social media' and 'anti-social media.'
For a course I'm teaching over the winter intersession at Eastern Connecticut State University, I reactivated my Twitter account, which I had set up in 2011 but had never used to any extent.
As I explored the site, I discovered that I was 'following' more than 1,500 people, only two of which I had actually chosen to follow -- both of whom are friends and former colleagues in the newspaper world of ink-stained wretches such as I. Of the people I was 'following' more than 1,400 were posting in Portuguese from Brazil.
The closest I've ever come to Brazil was attending a Frank Sinatra concert in Chicago back in the late 1960s, and Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, so I have no idea how I came to 'follow' all of those people. There's an algorithm out there somewhere that went wild.
To look on the bright side, I spent a lot of Twitter practice 'unfollowing' all of them, so when I get tweets from students and former colleagues, they won't be lost in translation.
For a course I'm teaching over the winter intersession at Eastern Connecticut State University, I reactivated my Twitter account, which I had set up in 2011 but had never used to any extent.
As I explored the site, I discovered that I was 'following' more than 1,500 people, only two of which I had actually chosen to follow -- both of whom are friends and former colleagues in the newspaper world of ink-stained wretches such as I. Of the people I was 'following' more than 1,400 were posting in Portuguese from Brazil.
The closest I've ever come to Brazil was attending a Frank Sinatra concert in Chicago back in the late 1960s, and Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, so I have no idea how I came to 'follow' all of those people. There's an algorithm out there somewhere that went wild.
To look on the bright side, I spent a lot of Twitter practice 'unfollowing' all of them, so when I get tweets from students and former colleagues, they won't be lost in translation.
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