I've been watching the gun control march speeches and Twitter today for mentions of Peter Wang
or Chris Hixson - I may have blinked and hence
missed it, but it's safe to say that Peter's sacrifice saving 15 of his classmates, and Mr.
Hixson's sacrifice for his students, have not been prominent in today's discussions.
This whole "March for Lives" thing stinks of politics. This is not a spontaneous grassroots
reaction to a school shooting. There's a carefully directed message coming from a central
organization somewhere, and it ain't from a bunch of Florida high school students.
I spent most of today trying to my US taxes, and mostly failing. Wrestling with the American
Inland Revenue Service's forms is like wrestling with a pack of disgruntled alligators, except that
the IRS is much more motivated than your average alligator to keep tearing off your limbs, and then
patiently wait for them to regrow before tearing them off again.
I'm sorry, I got distracted in a mini-rant. Anyway, as part of my procrastination I discovered
(don't ask how) that the Russian film industry had made an 80%+ shot-for-shot remake of everyone's
favourite 1980's Arnie film "Commando" as "День Д" (D-Day), starring a chap called Mikhail Porochenkov
who's every bit as manly as 1980's Arnie, but has much more comprehensible dialogue. Even though the
film is in Russian without subtitles.
For burning 90 minutes of your tax-preparation time, it's hard to beat. You can even
play it at 1.5x or 2x speed, and not miss any significant dialogue or plot points.
Mr. Porochenkov delivers a very good alternate to Arnie's character, and the girl who plays his
daughter isn't Alyssa Milano but she gets the job done. The Bennett (Vernon Wells) equivalent is
awful, he's just a hulk of barely-speaking muscle rather than Wells' scarily crazy character, but the
climactic fight between the two is, honestly, much more homoerotic than the original. It's quite
disturbing.
The Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong) equivalent is a bit short on the emoting front, but is acceptably
attractive, and within five minutes you're praying for their version of Sully (David Patrick Kelly)
to suffer a long and painful death as long as it's a) soon and b) mostly off-screen. I suspect
the Russian director's decision to move the shopping mall scene to a poolside location was
strictly to increase the fanservice component of the film - for all sides of the audience,but at
least they kept in a version of "This is my weak arm":
It's well worth 90 minutes of your time - or 60 minutes, or 45 minutes, depending on playback speed and your
desire to hear the dialogue - to compare with and contrast to the original. Oh, those Russians.
The shameless pandering of open-borders mayor Libby
Schaaf of Oakland, CA has really been gripping my chaps. For a weapons-grade bit of trolling,
and if I were particularly tired of life, I'd recommend walking the streets of Oakland with
a T-shirt:
SUPPORT THE POLICE
Because, let's face it, you can't spell "POLICE" without "ICE".
While driving along the freeway today (6 lane divided highway, 65 mph speed limit) there was one of the CalTrans digital
information signs mounted on a trailer on the shoulder. These sometimes warn you of local hazards ("SHOULDER CLOSED AHEAD") or
maybe more general public information ("SERIOUS DROUGHT HELP SAVE WATER"). This one caused my eyebrows to raise because
it said "WATCH OUT FOR PEOPLE IN ALL ROADWAYS". Not the specific "ROAD WORK AHEAD, MEN IN ROAD" but instead an almost completely useless message with no specificity of time or location. And yet, someone had taken the time to add the message and show in on the freeway, so I can only imagine that random people wandering along the freeway is, or has been, a real problem.
This got me thinking about what messages might actually be useful and relevant to Bay Area drivers, based on the
past few years of experience driving on their roads. I would suggest:
MIRRORS: THEY'RE NOT JUST FOR YOUR MAKE-UP
WHEN YOU REVERSE, THINGS COME AT YOU FROM BEHIND
INDICATORS: NOT JUST FOR WHEN YOU'RE PARKED IN A FIRE LANE
YOUR F-350 TRUCK IS NOT AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE, DON'T PARK IN THOSE BAYS
DRIVER WEIGHING 400LBS DOES NOT MAKE YOUR CAR A HIGH OCCUPANCY VEHICLE
LOOK FURTHER AHEAD THAN THE CAR IN FRONT ONCE IN A WHILE
PUT YOUR FUCKING PHONE DOWN, WE'RE NOT KIDDING
DON'T PARK DIRECTLY ON A CORNER
LET MERGING TRAFFIC IN AHEAD OF YOU, YOU SELFISH GIT
