Miss Vikki: More of a Jewel or an Angel, do you think ?

Traveled back to HR today. Triumphant return as they say.

Got everything I wanted for my birthday, and more.

In Between Mending Fences

view from Lookout Mountain
onto Chattanooga

Working ?

Not allergic to manual labor yet i do find it distasteful

Bored to Death on the Interstate

Traveled on US-58 to Tennesee

Lego Church -

Wonder why this guy put all this work (and money) into this little project ?

I don't think it was a waste of time.

Lego Church

Lego Church

Lego Church

Count Your Blessings, Again

A year ago they let Terry Schiavo just die.
For no real reason.

And yet in our free country PETA is still running around loose.

Memoriam


from the Gospels:
19 “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

from Paul:
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

TFO

Instant Depression Cure

Just flash back to six months ago. Katrina paid a visit and kissed a lot of people and things goodbye. Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you to see what the Lord has done.

Movie Review: ULTRA VIOLET

It was Marty's turn to pick the movie, and he picked ULTRAVIOLET starring Milla Jovovich. So the first sentence sounds like a cheap excuse doesnt it? Well....

It only earned 1 out of 5 bricks. Sorry guys.

I didnt realize it was a "Jackie Chan" movie until well into the film. The opening credits started off lively enough, portraying Ms.Violet in a number of Comic-Book style scenes of action. Many of the scenes
were direct tributes to the various genres and cliches of comic books (since the RR works at a comic store currently, this plays into a certain bias) and thus lulled me into a false sense of security as regards the flowering story.

But the setup was all for nought. Scene 1 Act 1, Ms Violet breaks into a high-tech high security facility that no agent has ever penetrated before. Note the italic sentence, more on that at the end of the review. Now the Jackie Chan put-down deserves a bit of comment. Mister Chan reeks of talent, does his own stunts, has aged well, and deserves the legions of fawning fan-boys he has garnered. however the aspect I'm referring to is the Hong-Kong cliche:

20 thugs with (weapon) rapidly 1 approach (hero) and 3 secondsTM later the thugs lie on the floor strewn about like tinder. Seconds is a trademarked term used with permission because due to _b_u_l_l_et__t_i_m_e_ the carnage takes at least 5 of the theatre's minutes to portray on screen. But its three seconds, trust me.

So in a Jackie Chan film the thug holds an AK47or its techno equivalent, with which he could safely hail bullets down to stop Jackie Violet dead in her tracks, from 30 feet away. Yet he chooses the honorable course of action and sprints up to Ms.J.Violet to apply the butt of the assault rifle to her noggin.
However she's used to rifle-butts at close range, and wastes the agent, and he's dead in the plaza, along with all his co-workers. In my opinion the "honorable" action is to shoot her, and live to take your paycheck home and look after Mrs.Agent and kids back at the duplex. What's going to become of wifey after Ultra-Violet wastes you in 3 seconds? Custom should dictate paternal care in the future, not a fighting style for the moment.

But I digress, and here's your non-spoiler: There's a kid in the flick, and he plies Ms.Violet's heartstrings because of her lost child from the before-movie-time. Now I spoil this, and yet I don't. There's 3 different things (contradictory) stated about this boy in the movie, and none of them are revealed to be true, and we're not clued in as to who of the characters may have been lying or misinformed when they spoke about the kid. Did the Tyrant lie? Did the Vampire mislead? Did the Doctor mis-diagnose? The boys difficulties did not seem to be adequately solved during the flick. Not that it matters. We're too busy watching Violet waste hired goons in vast piles of severed limbs and diced mens. And another thing, the first time she's in a "fair" fight, ie one against someone with suprahuman abilities like hers, its given 1 minute on screen time. And then back to mucho minutes wasting thugs.

Now the looks of the films are superb. Milla's filmed in soft focus and she's quite attractive as a brunette. But they reused locations from the X-Men films. And methinks they tried to make the Tyrant look like G.W.B. a little too much. And yet the unsatifaction lingers. and here's why. If you remember the italics from before, I'm getting so tired of movies with the Harry Potter Syndrome.

Here's Harry Potter:
No-one's ever been accepted to the Academy at such a young age. BH.
No-one's ever defeated the living chess game.BH.
No-one's ever been the fourth player in the triad challenge.BH.
No-one's ever defeated a dragon in hand-to-hand combat while still a freshman.BH.
No-one's ever been accepted into the Order before graduation.BH.
No-one's ever been champion quiddich rider so early.BH.
No-one's ever grabbed the golden fob so readily in the tournaments.BH.
No-one's ever wasted an archmage while still an apprentice.BH.

BH means Before Harry did it. or But Harry Potter did it. or Better than Harry did.

So when the opening scene of the movie breaks Violet into the unbreakable, suddenly my Dr.Pepper has the same taste it did 4 months ago during Harry Potter; ie somewhat bilious. And I don't enjoy the WWF either, sorry.

Book of the Month Redux

This month its Micah and James
Still waiting on "Betrayed" to arrive back from the bookbindery.

Long Distance Phone Call

So I'm working late at night on my EBAY auctions, posting some more piddly stuff of which to get rid.

I had about 60 items for cheapness, like for $1, the price that says "please just get this crud out of my basement" . . . .But in addition to those I had about a dozen items for sale that werent cheap, I wanted to see about $8 to $20 for them.

Well when you're doing ebay auctions you can stop and query the servers for your own listings to check your progress. But none of the expensive items are showing. Hmm. I start relisting them, figuring I had somehow not committed the final step. Then my phone rings.
Its late at night and I don't recognize the area code, much less the phone number of the person calling me.

So this person tells me they've just bought a bunch of my junk on ebay. I'm grateful, but I must wonder why are they calling me personally. (Most ebay business transpires via email) . . . Well they wondered why I had listed some items twice, where everything was identical except some with low low prices.

So then I recheck my listings, and now my "auctions running" page shows duplicates, and worst of all, the cheapo price had bled over into the expensive things. The person on the phone had clicked Instant Purchase! on the pricey items for $1, thinking I was having some sort of fire sale, and he was quite lucky. But then he saw the duplication, and wondered what was up.

So when he calls me and finds my response to be thoughtful and intelligent: "Huh? Whazzat?" ; he takes mercy on me. He tells me whats happened and cancels the purchases. Somehow he avoided describing me as stupid, which is amazing someone could avoid saying the obvious.

Now he could have held me to the auctions as written, because part of the honor system of ebay says "I sell what I describe" and he "gets what he pays for as advertised".

I find this to be rare, seemingly most people would want to demand the letter of the law be upheld.
Anyways, I'm giving him one of the items at that price for being a good sport, and leaving him positive feedback anyways, just as if a good transaction had happened.

---

And he paid for the long-distance phone call to
help me with my mistake, that's the topper.

Daily Goals

Sounds like an Onion article.
"Goal Setters Thrive on Setting Goals"

the humor is that you'd like see some accomplishments
along with the goals set.

Still I'm cleaning out the office, and getting rid of evn more
junk, selling stuff on ebay.

Job hunt progress: had four calls and/or emails,
so its good to know I'm still marketable.

I still owe you all a review of the excellent film "Walk the Line"

Book of the Month Club

Some of us are still working on Isaiah. ahem.
------------------------------------------------------
Interim book is "Betrayed."