stevengharms

I added some old programs I wrote a looooong time ago. I keep getting Google hits requesting this material, so, visit the “programming” link above.

Today I’ve been watching all sorts of religious material (in line with the holiday) on the History channel: angels, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, comparative religion, etc. Material like this, WWII history, ancient egyptian/roman history, or The Godfather will pretty much glue me to the TV (even with Tivo!).

Here’s something I want to remember: Auhra Mazda, this is the supreme God of Zoroastrianism. He’s the good guy.

I’ve been very interested in Zoroastrianism lately because I’ve been thinking a lot about the Greek / Persian collaboration (uhm, conquest) when Alexander colonized Persia. Another interesting side-effect was the birth of Mithraism - a re-importation of Zoroastrianism into a Roman warrior-cult. One more thing. Coptic text. What a cool looking text. It’s Greek with a few more symbols. It’s very interesting to me. It’s actually to be added to the next iteration of the Unicode standard.

I love early Christianity - fresh, Mystical, Gnostic, Greek, the power of the Name of The Word was in the air. It was pretty intense stuff.

Merry Christmas, remember Christianity is a lot crazier than we’re told we should remember - but it all starts with a birthday in Bethlehem.

Yesterday my sister and I, freshly returned from our Tahoe adventure, went to the local cinema to see A Series of Unfortunate Events . I like the series quite a lot. If Ed Gorey and HP Lovecraft got together you’d get a style similar to “Lemony Snicket” ‘s - investigative with a heavy dose of black humor.

Watching the previews for movies coming up both my sister and I were struck by the fact that NONE of the previews were original. The preview (note the singular) that was not a direct remake or conversion of a sitcom, it was a pastiche of several other movies we’ve seen oh-too-many-times.

1. Coach Carter: Here’s the one that’s not a re-make, but it is a pastiche of things we’ve seen before. Could it be that a black (To Sir, With Love) is going to teach a basketball team (Hoosiers) to play as a team (Remember the Titans) but not allow them to forsake their grades (Stand and Deliver)?

It seems that the only bit of new it this derivative crap will be that the parents actually seem to want social promotion and their kids to pursue basketball as a career.

Bad parents, I have bad news. There are more jobs for people who can add than for people with a great fade-away jump shot.

1. Bewitched. Great. Yet another sit-com makes its way to the big screen. Hey, Hollywood, you do pay writers out there don’t you? WRITE SOMETHING NEW! I admit, Nicole Kidman is cute and can pull off a Samantha (even with all her charms in sum, she’ll never hold a candle to Elizabeth Montgomery in this role, or nose twitching ability) and Will Ferrell is pretty good at playing hapless….but…what could the plot be? Someone is to “out” her as a witch (insert morality play about how we should all tolerate each others’ differences)?

Or will it be a sit-come remake in that send-up style (A la “A very Brady Movie”) in which they try to be more Bewitched than “Bewitched” ever was? Either way, it won’t be new.

1. War of The Worlds. This is enough to inspire weeping. The original, a Cold War filming of HG Wells’ master plot [link] is nearly perfect. Why must this be remade. Tom Cruise, please, stop. Spielberg, go back to making predictable Oscar rakers. The only thing you can add would be Independence Day grade shit-blowing-up.

2. Willy Wonka. A movie that didn’t need to be remade damn you Tim Burton. Depp, I love you, cat but your strangely purse lipped nutjob is hardly anywhere in the scale of the alternatingly paternal and psychotic Gene Wilder. Tim Burton’s strange-ass visuals are hardly enough to justify re-making a movie for.

Anyway. I guess this is the reason I find myself not going to the movies very often.

Oh, and a quick thought on great visuals, the sets for “A Series of Unfortunate Events” were absolutely amazing. Loved the sets.

It’s true, if ever you’ve had to debug someone else’s Perl code it’s …. daunting, irritating, despondence-inducing, isolating, baffling, frustrating.

Perl is a great language wherewith to get something done and forget it.

“I need to slurp all the pics of Marilyn on this site” “I need to edit one line in 30 files”

Perl is your buddy.

If you have to come back to this or a task later, this flexibility and permissiveness will make even your own code seem….beyond easy comprehension. Granted one can leave some breadcrumbs to make this process easier…yet still it’s inherently Not Easy (tm).

Furthermore, Perl is a great language for creativity, it’s motto “There’s more than one way to do it” allows each writer to follow his muse and get his work done — and this is very important to Great Hackers (tm).

Yet this permissiveness and wide latitude for expression make debugging someone else’s creative caprice a colossal pain in the keester. Some people write their Perl in a C or C++-ish style. Others have learned the more Perl-ish style, and yet some others write in an arcane lexicon of Perl-gurudom that make it as comprehensible as looking at the periodic table through a glass sphere.

A certain friend of mine wiseley summed this up as:

it’s like some autistic kid came in with a crayon and scribbled some shit out on a napkin…

Yep, I watch it. It never takes itself too seriously and unapologetically looks for cliffhangers. Yay!

I love Marcia Cross, she’s my favorite actress on the show. Her tightly controlled, purse lipped Bree van de Kamp is just such a tense psychological study in repression and control.

Ms. Cross is a very bright woman as well, graduate of Julliard, masters in psychology. I like her style.

I hated her on Melrose Place, then again, I hated Melrose Place.

I think it must be Republican 8-years - Dynasty was to Reagan as DH is to Bush?

Former Daily Texan Associate Editor and man-about-Beaumont James Dedman celebrates yet another tour around the sun on this sea-covered carrousel-pony we call Earth.

I admit, I didn’t watch the whole 87 minute lead up to Donnyboy saying: “You’re hired” to Kelly, but I’m glad Kelly is the next Apprentice.

He was level headed, a quality leader, and seemed to be rather affable. All in all he exudes that California software design company laid back leadership style.

Good for him.

Much credit to one of the best schools of management out there: The US Army.

Fire Rummy for Kelly?

Here is The League’s official mail, as referenced in this post by me.

…

Well, gee, it?s any and all of these factors, isn?t it? The physical aspect is important to meet someone, but nobody is pretty forever. Hopefully, one day, you?ll just be able to feel lucky that this person you care about happens to be pretty. Use it as a tool for meeting somebody, but be certain, people get sick, people get hungover, people get bad haircuts. And what makes you think you?re going to stay all that beautiful, anyway? You can tell a single guy because he?s concerned about her getting her nails done or him watching football. Sitcom marriage pratfalls. Sure, all the stuff like Aesthetics, etc? fall in there, but keep in mind, you can?t change somebody. bear that in mind when you’re dating. If you walk into your date?s apartment and it?s filled with baseball bobbleheads as far as the eye can see, you?re either going to have to learn to love bobbleheads or you?re going to get out. The family thing is important. And, my honest opinion, if you don?t like the other person?s family? How do you know your significant other isn?t going to turn into all of their family’s worst characteristics in five years? Either move far away and take your chances, or get out while the getting is good. One day, either you?re going to decide to throw in together (through marriage or whatever) or else you?re going to split up. For a good chunk of the populace, that?s how it works. So? before you decide to get married so your parents will pay for a honeymoon in Hawaii, take a deep breath. When push comes to shove, what are you going to be willing to give up? Or, even more importantly, what are you going to do that you never thought you’d do to make sure your significant other is taken care of? If she needs to move to Minnesota to take care of her mother, are you going to stay behind because your garage band might make it? What if s/he feels that they need to try on a new career? Can you give up your shared income while they give up work to go back to school? Add in another person and life gets messy really quickly. That?s the team work aspect. Hopefully what they?ve done on the intellectual and spiritual front to be compatible up until then will make you glad to be a part of any or all of it. Keep in mind: it?s not that many steps from dinner and a movie to having to be the one responsible for cleaning someone else?s bedpan. And what are you going to do so that the other person doesn?t think it?s that big of a deal to change your bedpan?

Yikes. Did he have to end with thoughts of Wen?dy’s baked potato holders filled with urine?

James Dedman, lawyer about town and screenauthor will be driving across Jesusland and is soliciting song contributions for what to play.

I must say, I’m curious as to why this genial gadabout would opt for the road versus the air. I hate driving cross-country with a timetable. Getting nowhere en route to somewhere, that’s OK, but having to get somewhere, that’s not to my taste.

Now oftentimes my Dad and I ballparked to drive to Austin from our home in Houston was about the same time break as to fly, door-to-door. Yet Dedman will be headed to the East Coast - a trip at which point I’m sure the break is less neck-and-neck.

I’m amused to consider that Dedman may have a Brown Bunny like experience - that isn’t to say he will make a universally reviled movie, rather, he will have a Crazy Road Trip Adventure (tm).

Shall we imagine Dedman, the theme to “Midnight Cowboy”, and a smoky eyed ingenue travelling across Jesusland, asking those questions that only get asked in road trip movies?

We shall.

…on the topic of marriage and relationships, The League of Melbotis has chimed in.

The Leauge, and his smarter than the average pooch Melbotis, have offered their innsight into what makes a relationship work. Here’s a few distillations…

To my post, The League replied the obvious:

Well, gee, it?s any and all of these factors, isn?t it?

Gee indeed, League!

The physical aspect is important to meet someone, but nobody is pretty forever. Hopefully, one day, you?ll just be able to feel lucky that this person you care about happens to be pretty. Use it as a tool for meeting somebody, but be certain, people get sick, people get hungover, people get bad haircuts. And what makes you think you?re going to stay all that beautiful, anyway?

The Leauge’s clearly misinformed, when you have an ego as large as mine the prospect of not being beautiful is not in the realm of possibility. As a fan of comic books surely he is familiar with OverGrown Ego-man?

The League casts his roving eye of ire towards sitcoms with:

You can tell a single guy because he?s concerned about her getting her nails done or him watching football. Sitcom marriage pratfalls.

Snicker, guilty as charged.

The League provides a great number of other insights but … pending his approval I shan’t post it.

The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character. Isabelle Eberhardt