Captain Marvel.

So we went to see “Captain Marvel” Friday night. I’d been looking forward to this movie since I was first made aware of it early last year and to make sure we had seats this weekend Earl bought tickets for the four of us on Wednesday evening. It was a family date night.

It was a thoroughly fantastic time.

I didn’t know much about Captain Marvel as I had not followed her adventures in the comics. I knew her name was Carol Danvers, I knew there were aliens involved, and I knew that she was an Air Force Pilot. Other than that, the story depicted in the movie would be new to me.

As I said, I had a thoroughly fantastic time.

The 124-minute running time flew by. As a viewer I felt informed on backstory without being overwhelmed. There were a couple of twists and turns in the story line that kept the narrative compelling. The dialog was very good and I really liked the way Brie Larson portrayed Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel.

The action scenes were great without being outrageously over-the-top. I never had a “wait, that doesn’t make sense” moment during the movie. I’d go back to a second viewing without hesitation and most importantly, I was happy to see where Captain Marvel fit in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). I’m really looking forward to “The Avengers: Endgame” now. While there was strife, I didn’t feel depressed leaving the theatre. “The Avengers: Infinity War” left me feeling depressed as a viewer.

I walked out of the theatre telling Earl, Jamie, and Chris: “this was my favorite Marvel movie thus far”.

I’ve been a Wonder Woman fan all of my life and while I enjoy the latest incarnation of Wonder Woman on the big screen, I have to say that I like Captain Marvel a lot more. She rocks in my book.

Go watch Captain Marvel kick some ass.

10 March 2019 by Fun and Games Dept 0

Cashless.

Gizmodo: Philadelphia Just Banned Most Cashless Stores, a First for a U.S. City

The city of Philadelphia just passed a ban on “cashless stores”. Retailers in the city must accept cash. Exceptions to this law include stores with a membership (i.e. Costco), parking areas, hotels and other venues which require a large deposit. While I don’t live in Philly, this law really rubs me the wrong way. NYC and NJ are looking at similar legislation.

  • We live in a free market society. If there’s a need for a store to accept cash, there’ll be a store that accepts cash. Let the market figure it out.
  • Handling cash increases labor and productivity costs for the retailer. How many stores have you seen lately that post signs “Does not accept bills larger than $20”? Balancing tills, monitoring employee theft, going to the bank, etc. costs extra money.
  • This law stifles innovation. Instead of just outright banning “cashless stores”, how about a requirement that retailers must have a “reverse ATM” out front? There’s a new market that could be farmed out to a third party. You can’t get on the L here in Chicago with cash, you have to buy a ticket or a Ventra card. Plus, what’s preventing anyone from buying a burner Visa card and putting cash on that?

Laws like this are part of the problem with our government, not the solution. Elected officials want to make shortsighted, grandstanding gestures to prove their worth. How about governing instead of grandstanding? /soapbox

8 March 2019 by Why. 0

Informed.

It hasn’t been quite 20 years since TVs started appearing en masse in restaurants. Prior to 9/11 it seemed rare to see a television in a diner or family restaurant. Televisions were usually relegated to pubs and sports bars and the like, but after 9/11, everyone was glued to the news and televisions started appearing everywhere. Moving from old CRT televisions to cheap flat panels certainly helped the cause.

Nowadays there’s a television seemingly everywhere you look.

Living in the third largest city in nation affords us plenty of occasion for adventure, and while we are out and about I enjoy reading up on restaurants, checking in, and leaving my impressions of the experience on Yelp. In fact, I’m an EliteYelp Reviewer for the 3rd year in a row. I don’t know what that means other than I get invited to nifty parties, but it’s kind of cool having that badge next to my name.

The content of programming on these ubiquitous televisions in restaurants and eateries weigh into my rating. I’m thinking if you insist on showing the news on the monitor hanging from the ceiling, you should probably be showing something fairly neutral, that is, if there is such a thing in the United States these days. MSNBC? Too biased. Fox News? Not even close. Local news coverage? I can handle it.

When I see all these televisions invading our gastronomic adventures I can’t help but think of George Orwell’s “1984”, where there television everywhere so Big Brother could command the masses.

It’s a little startling to think that some apparently thought “1984” was some sort of handbook or user’s manual.

I’m struggling to keep my phone in my pocket when we’re out and about, so I have a little extra time to notice all this news being beamed into our meal space.

Big or small, a tether is a tether.

7 March 2019 by Fun and Games Dept Ponderings and Musings 0

Transcript.

How Trump’s high school transcript was hidden after he demanded Obama’s academic records (Chicago Tribune)

I know no one wants to see my High School Transcript, but I don’t believe it’s something that should be hidden away in the bowels of PACS. So here’s a summary:

  • I did what I needed to do to get by. I found traditional subjects boring and put as much effort as needed to not get in trouble for failing. I rarely studied and I would rush through homework just to get it done.
  • I was elected into the National Honor Society my senior year of high school based on my bare minimum of an average of 85.
  • I don’t remember my exact numbers but I didn’t do well on the SAT (didn’t study) but I did really, really well on the ACT (didn’t study).
  • I failed my Earth Science (59) and Biology (64) NYS Regents exams, but passed my chemistry exam.
  • I passed all three of the required Math Regents exams (as well as English and Social Studies) to graduate with a NYS Regents Diploma. Being that I graduated in 1986, I was in the first round of students that went through “Course I, Course II, Course III” instead of “Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry”. I have no idea what the difference was, since we studied Algebra, Geometry, and then Trigonometry.
  • My top classes in all of high school were typing and computer programming. Band and Chorus also ranked high. I was in the first round of computer classes and I was occasionally showing the two teachers of the class something they didn’t know.

I don’t know why Trump doesn’t want to release his transcripts unless they don’t measure up to his prideful boasting. It’s amazing to me the efforts some will go to bury their past.

6 March 2019 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Greatness.

I’ve decided to try taking a break from social media for a while. In a way this is a little ironic, because this post will appear on my Twitter timeline when I hit “Publish”, but I won’t actually have to get onto Twitter to post it, so technically I’m still taking a break from social media, because after all, are blog entries like this really considered social media?

Before the days of 140 characters, and the recent yet faux-verbosity of 280 characters, people used technology to extend their reach to others through things like these self-hosted personal blogs, LiveJournal, Blogger, and the like. You didn’t need to have a brand, though some folks tried to brand you based on what they read in your blog, you just did your thing in an attempt to reach out to likeminded individuals. Today folks bark. People use their allotted, finite number of characters to bark out their opinions. I’m certainly very guilty of this. I’ve said things online that I would never say to someone’s face.

This does not make me great. This makes me stupid.

I have to ask myself this: would I really flip off Trump in public? Well, the answer is probably yes, but I wouldn’t say the things I’ve said to members of his administration if I was face to face and looking them in the eye while saying it. I’d be a chicken shit, just like the other 95% of folks that do the same exact barking online, and then I’d go the other way. Because being an ass to someone to their face is not a part of greatness.

It’s an example of stupidity.

I’ve tacked a photo of former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer screeching at President Obama, finger waggling in her face, to my wall because I remember the outrage I felt when I saw her behave that way.

Photo courtesy of LA Times

There was nothing great about that moment. Governor Brewer was grandstanding. She was making a big show of standing up to the president to rile up her base. We don’t need big shows. We need people trying to be their authentic self. We need to keep it real and we don’t need an audience to do it. So much puffing and chest pounding these days. It gets so nauseating.

Honestly, I just want to aspire to be me. That should be my focus. All of this grandstanding, and barking, and carrying on through social media accomplishes nothing. It helps gain notoriety and little else.

I don’t want to be notorious. I want to be great. I want to be great at being me.

5 March 2019 by Fun and Games Dept Ponderings and Musings 0

Cold.

Taking a look my weather app du jour, it is currently 0ºF with a wind chill of -11ºF. Not the coldest it’s been (by any means) this year, but we are less than three weeks from the meteorological beginning of spring and quite frankly I’m ready for some warmer weather.

On the bright side, the forecast warms up for the foreseeable future. It looks like by the end of this week it’ll start showing signs of spring and it’ll be in the mid 40s by next week.

That made my shorter-than-usual walk this morning a little more bearable.

4 March 2019 by Fun and Games Dept Ponderings and Musings 0

Remote.

Earl and I are in a Starbucks in Rockford, Illinois. We are out for a drive, and we’ve stopped to enjoy an iced tea and play around with our iPads a little bit before getting back on the road and heading home to Chicago.

I’m trying to help Earl with helpful hints on multitasking with the iPad Pro. While the experience of multitasking on the iPad is functional, it is not intuitive. There’s a lot of “finger yoga” involved with trying to get apps appear side by side, especially if you don’t have the app pinned to the dock along the bottom of the screen.

I’m hopeful that Apple will fix this issue with iOS 13, which could be coming out later this year. In the meanwhile, I’m going to keep trying to learn more of these little gestures that aren’t well publicized, and encourage Earl to do the same with his iPad Pro.

I truly believe that tablet computing is the wave of the future. It involves a shift in paradigm: getting away from the standard “screen and keyboard” approach and remembering that the iPad is no longer “just a big iPhone”.

Or at least, it shouldn’t function as “just a big iPhone”.

2 March 2019 by Geek 0

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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