The Blog of Geoffzilla

Fantasy Basketball Primer

2011-12-08T00:19:00.000-05:00

The NBA Lockout is over and I'm able to take up my fantasy addiction again. I'll be following the same format I did last season, with the addition of being in Winners Leagues after long last...here's to actually winning them :)

These are some of the things I've learned from playing fantasy basketball for the past six years (based on Yahoo leagues).

1. Balance your player positions. Draft so that you can play all players of a given position on a given night. There's no pain like the pain of seeing an empty space on your active list and seeing an active player sitting on the bench because you can't find a slot for his position. You shouldn't have more than 4 PGs/SGs/SFs/PFs/Cs, more than 5 combo forwards or guards (SF-PF, PG-SG) and you shouldn't have more than 6 swingmen or PF/Cs.

2. High draft picks are overrated. Yay, you got Kevin Durant or Lebron James! Wooo! Now you have 14 turns to wait and while you got the best player, you're also stuck with less options for complementary players. So far this season, the highest I've drafted was 3rd and those high picks don't really offer a lot of strategy drafting. I basically had to decide if I was going to go with Chris Paul or Kevin Love, and let that choice dictate the rest of the draft. I think the best place is mid-pick, anywhere between position 6-9 and you might be a little better off drafting last than first. It's definitely less pressure...but the psychological benefit of saying "I got KD, bitch!" is still strong. Resist it!

3. Point Guards and Centers determine your fate. I don't know if I can prove it conclusively, but I strongly feel that those are the most important positions that you need to fill in the draft. Quality PGs and Centers are not plentiful, and since Yahoo uses two center positions, you need to really fill it up. It's best to get a center who also has PF eligibility, but don't let that stop you from getting Dwight Howard or Andrew Bogut. You can't compete with less than three PG-eligible players, and I recommend getting four. Whenever I draft, I tend to try and get the top-tier PGs and/or PF/Cs. I generally avoid most of the star SF/PF/SG types unless they are unquestionably the best players left on the board, and even then...For example, Paul Pierce is definitely a great player, but I didn't draft him on any of my teams last year because he's a swingman (SG-SF position). I was able to pick up Nick Young and various other streaking players last season off the waiver wire, because those SG/SF positions are the most common ones where unknown players get a chance to break out. It's rare that you find a PG or center on the wire that breaks out. Kyle Lowry was the great exception to that rule but generally speaking if you rely on the waiver wire for PGs/PF-Cs, you are toast. Anchor your point-guard and your centers quickly in the draft, and then fill in the rest later on. Swingmen and shooting guards are a dime a dozen and combo forwards are flashy but not necessarily more important than the PF/Cs. I pretty much never draft Rudy Gay or Gerald Wallace or those type of guys if there's a top level PG or C on the board.

3. Work the wire! Some guys take pride in drafting their team and riding it all the way to the end without changing any players. They got skills if they can predict all that. I don't claim to do that, I'm not afraid to cut my losses and give a hot player a chance. You have to develop a sense of knowing whether that guy at the top of the waiver list is sizzle or steak. If you move too quickly, you may have dropped a good guy from your team for some flash-in-the-pan who had a hot night but flops overall; if you move too slowly, someone else will snatch your opportunity away. My strategy is to watch a guy's average performance over at least four games, and if it's good all around for the past four games and I have a need for his position, I'll pull the trigger. Last year, I was able to snatch Nick Young and Kyle Lowry in nearly all of my leagues, the only places where I didn't pick them up was because the person I had to drop was definitely better than either one of them. Additionally, I picked up Marcus Thornton everywhere I could in the latter part of last year and I know that helped me make the playoffs in all my leagues and helped me win too. Be alert and follow the stats daily. Caveat: don't make a move just for making a move's sake! If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

4. Don't get hung up on trades. I don't know what it is with me and trades, but I've never had anyone accept any of the trades I've sent, and I send fair and equitable trades. Maybe that's why; some guys don't think it's a good trade if they aren't ripping off someone else. Anyways, make them if you need to, send requests if you want to, but I'm not counting on them to improve more than the waiver wire.

The above strategies work best for H2H. Roto is a different kettle of fish that I'm still trying to figure out how to win. I won my first roto league last year and it was completely by accident. Will try to repeat the feat this year on purpose :)

Which is better, "The Wire" or "Breaking Bad"?

2011-09-29T14:12:00.001-05:00

I haven't forgotten about my series countdowns, just trying to figure out what I want to say about the rest of them. In the meantime, I did have some thoughts I wanted to share about two great TV shows I've watched/am watching; The Wire and Breaking Bad.

I've seen all five seasons of "The Wire" and I've seen all current seasons of "Breaking Bad" up to and including S4E11 "Crawl Space" which is the most recent episode aired at time of this posting.

"The Wire" is the greatest TV show ever created, thus far. It's probable that no other TV series will be able to reach its level. I have no disagreement with that.

However, it can be argued that it's not necessarily BETTER than "Breaking Bad." I personally wouldn't agree with that argument, but I acknowledge that the argument can be made, and I wouldn't ridicule the one who made the argument, as long as he/she gives "The Wire" its props. It reminds me of a review I once read that compared "Huck Finn" to "Tom Sawyer", saying that "Huck Finn" was a greater book than "Tom Sawyer" (deeper themes, more pointed commentary on social issues) but not necessarily a better book (more entertaining, vibrant, etc). "The Wire" = "Huck Finn" , "BB" = "Tom Sawyer."

I would not compare what "The Wire" is trying to be to what "Breaking Bad" is trying to be. "The Wire" set out to show what was broken in the American city systems. This is a very ambitious and encompassing goal, and David Simon's genius was able to accomplish most of that (newspaper angle in S5 wasn't really all that). "Breaking Bad" has a very simple goal: Take Mr. Chibs, and turn him into Scarface. On the surface it sounds simple, but the beauty of that trip is in the journey, and the crazy turns and twists that Vince Gilligan has taken in that journey thus far are mind-blowing and tension-inducing. I would not denigrate any of the lead acting on "Breaking Bad"; Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul deserve the Emmys they've gotten, and all of the other actors are exceedingly good as well. As evidence, I post this clip of the end of "Crawl Space." It can be considered a spoiler, but the scene doesn't talk about the events that lead up to it. I think you can view it even if you've never seen BB before; just be sure to watch the entire season to find out what leads up to this scene :D

I admit that it took me a while to get into BB, as I started watching the first season and paused my watching sometime into S1 episode 3 when I realized that I would like the series but wasn't in the frame of mind to continue at that point. Once I was able to start watching again and go up to episode 5 and 6, I got sucked in, especially once Heisenberg appeared :-D Season 2 was really good, and from Season 3 till now, I've been convinced that this show has earned its place on the pantheon just below The Wire, and alongside Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica. In the same way that you have to get through the first three episodes of "The Wire" Season 1 to get hooked, it's similar to this.

If you love "The Wire" you owe it to yourself to watch "Breaking Bad." You're totally missing out if you don't.

Twitter address update

2011-07-27T16:34:00.002-05:00

I changed my twitter ID from @marshallgeoff to @geoffmarsh.

Geoff's ranking of TV Dramas. #12:Star Trek: Deep Space 9

2011-07-27T11:11:00.005-05:00

First off, I'm not a Trekkie/Trekker/whatever you want to call it. I have to state that from the outset, lest people think I'm prone to attending conventions, speaking Klingon, and kneeling at the shrine of Roddenberry. I will admit that am a Star Trek fan, I'm familiar with the Star Trek universe and I watched most of the shows and movies, but I'm not a hard-core fanatic. My Star-Trek viewing is selective; I've never watched an episode of the original Star Trek, and I doubt I ever will. I've seen all of the modern movies, some of the older ones, and I watched some of Voyager and very little of Enterprise. The two main Star Trek shows I really watched were The Next Generation (TNG), and Deep Space Nine (DS9), and for my money, Deep Space Nine was/is the best Star Trek series ever produced. TNG admittedly has the more iconic crew (thanks mostly to Captain Picard, Worf and Data) but DS9 had more interesting characters and situations and was a much more interesting show for it.

The initial setup for DS9 can come across as a bit confusing if you're not a sci-fi fan or if you're not familiar with Star Trek. I've taken some of the following text from the Wikipedia article:

There's an oppressed planet (Bajor) occupied by oppressors (the Cardassian Union) for 50 years. As DS9 begins, the Bajorans have successfully expelled the Cardassians from their planet, and are seeking to join the Federation both to help recover from the occupation and to protect against Cardassia trying to re-conquer them. The Bajorans thus invite the Feds to help them run a former Cardassian Space Station that the Cardassians had called "Terek Nor" and which the Federation renames "Deep Space 9". The Feds send Commander Ben Sisko and other Federation officers to help run the station alongside his Bajoran counterpart, Major Kira Nerys and her officers. During the first episode which does a good job of setting up all the characters and interactions, they discover the first stable wormhole ever found and discover that it is inhabited by beings who are not bound by normal space and time. To the strongly religious people of Bajor, the wormhole aliens are their gods (the Prophets) and the wormhole itself is the long-prophesied Celestial Temple, where they reside. Sisko himself is hailed as the Emissary of the Prophets, through whom the Prophets primarily act. This provides the basis for a long-lasting story arc. Sisko initially considers his role as a religious icon with open discomfort and skepticism, referring to the Prophets simply as "wormhole aliens" and striving to keep his role as commander of the station distinct from any religious obligations that the Bajorans try to place on him. Later, he becomes more accepting of his role and, by the end of the series, he openly embraces it. The political and religious implications of this on the Bajorans and its spiritual leaders (most notably, Winn Adami) also provide a central arc that lasts until the end of the series.

The series also has many other arcs including the Bajoran-Cardassian interaction, the impacts of the Ferengi empire, the various challenges of new exploration in the Gamma Quadrant on the other side of the wormhole, the Dominion, the involvement of the Klingon Empire...a whole lot of stuff. The Wikipedia article goes into more detail on those; but this blog looks at why I put this as #12 and why I think it's the best Star Trek ever.

The concept of basing the show on a space station meant that by necessity, people would have to interact with each other, there would be conflict, and that conflict wouldn't always be external. One of the weaknesses of TNG was that almost every episode was self-contained and didn't refer to what went on before. No one ever changed much, if at all. The Federation was almost always right, everyone on the Enterprise was in harmony, and there wasn't any doubt that the Federation was the cat's pajamas. DS9 threw a whole lot of that into the trash, and I thought that was a good thing. It was by far the most diverse cast in Star Trek history, both on the show itself and in real life. On the show, the main cast included Sisko the first black Starfleet commander (later Captain), Quark (a Ferengi bartender), Odo (a Changeling Security officer), Dr. Bashir (an English Doctor of Arabic descent), Jadzia Dax (a Trill science officer), Kira Nerys (a Bajoran First Officer), and Miles O'Brien (an Irish Chief Engineer) plus his Japanese wife. Later on, Worf joined the cast from episode 4, and he was a great addition. In addition, there was a significant Cardassian presence with Gul Dukat, arguably the greatest Star Trek villain ever, plus Elim Garak, a plain simple tailor...not. Furthermore, you had other Ferengi and Bajorans and many others...it was just a lot of different things going on.

This diversity helped to make DS9 the most interesting and dramatic of all the Star Trek series. It allowed for more serialized action, and helped to expand the Star Trek universe to give a better sense that there's a lot more going on there than what you get to see on the Enterprise. Plus, the growth and change in all the characters was a great thing to see, and the entire concept of the Dominion War provided a chance to see the Federation in true war footing, not just a skirmish here and there as you would see in TNG. DS9 also showed a more realistic Federation in a realistic world, having to get its hands dirty and sometimes having to set aside its idealistic ideals to survive. The best episodes that illustrate this reality are "In The Pale Moonlight" and "Inter Armin Silence Leges" which are both in Season 6. In addition, there is a lot of emotional impact in this series with the increased characterization. Best example of that is Season 4's "The Visitor" which is arguably the most highly regarded episodes of any Star Trek series. Furthermore, this is the only Star Trek series that ever took a look at racial issues, religious issues, and things which TNG seemed to indicate weren't a problem in the 24th century. I appreciated that DS9 said "nuh-uh; we still have those problems here!"

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the show that took the elements of a great drama series, and successfully applied it to the Star Trek Universe. It wasn't always successful, there are some real stinker episodes (usually based around the Ferengi) but it was willing to give anything a try. DS9 ran for seven seasons. Seasons 1 and 2 are decent, with more middling episodes than standout ones but there are a few great episodes there, chief among them being "Duet" in S1. Season 3 begins a gradual increase in quality with the addition of the "Defiant" and the Dominion threat, S4 jumps up even more with the addition of Worf, and S5 is probably the best of the seasons. S6 and 7 have a slight decline due to the necessary serialization of the Dominion War, but the quality remains high. If you've never watched Star Trek but want to see a good drama show, this is the Star Trek show to watch.

One caveat; I love Sisko, but I admit that Avery Brooks has a tendency to overact...

How the Romulans entered the Dominion War (Picard wouldn't have done this, but then they'd all be dead)

Some non-Federation commentary on the Federation

This fan-trailer does a great synopsis of the series

Geoff's top 15 TV Dramas #13: Boomtown

2011-07-27T00:31:00.007-05:00

There aren't many "mainstream" cop shows on my list; you won't see any of the CSI's or L&O's. Its not because I actively hate those shows, but in my experience those shows are mostly about catching and cooking the bad guys, with very little room for overarching stories or character growth. I watched Law and Order reruns religiously in my sophomore year, but only because they came on at lunchtime so I could eat and watch 'em. I like NCIS a lot, yet I don't follow it or watch it often because I know it will be in re-runs perpetually; its more of a guilty pleasure that I'd watch more if I had a TV and more time. So, the normal cop shows don't really do much for my critical TV watching mood.

Boomtown (NBC, 2002-2003) was not a normal cop show.

The initial premise and buzz is what got me to tune in to the premiere episode, and it lived up to the hype. It had an unconventional episode plot where scenes were from varying character point-of-views similar to the "Game of Throne" books, plus the timeline wasn't linear. You might have flashbacks, flash-forwards, the comparison was to "Rashomon". It was unlike anything I had ever seen before, it was challenging to watch and slickly produced.

The show was set in Los Angeles, and followed the experiences of a motley group comprised of two detectives (played by Donnie Wahlberg and Mykelti Williamson), two beat cops who have no love lost for the detectives (Jason Gedrick and Gary Basaraba), a female EMT(Lana Parilla) with a mutual attraction to Donnie's character, a self-destructive DA (the brilliant Neil McDonough) and his part-time lover/full-time reporter (Nina Garbiras). They are all familiar with each other, they all have deep dark secrets and motivations, and in every episode, nothing is quite as it seemed.

While it was a case-of-the-week situation most times, incidents from past episodes informed events of future episodes. The glamorous Los Angeles setting was used to good effect, and the clashes between characters was always interesting and unpredictable. One of the standout episodes in my mind was a precursor to "The Departed" where the entire police station was on lockdown because of a gang informant who had infiltrated the police force (actually becoming a cop) and was ratting to his gang buddies. That was a bravura piece of writing and acting.

The show quickly found a groove and had a good run of strong storylines, great acting and excellent drama and was rewarded with a Peabody award and other award nominations. Naturally, it lagged in the ratings, wasn't promoted enough, and got messed around by NBC in the midst of their Zuckerberg/Silverman era of douchebaggery. Yes, I am still bitter about it. "Boomtown" had much potential, but got hiatused about 2 episodes into the second season while NBC ran reruns of Law and Order, then was canceled all-together and the remaining episodes burned off in December 2003. The only thing that pleased me about the situation is that NBC paid the karmic price for their actions by staying last in network rankings to this day. Nonetheless, the show lives on in DVD for a very low price, well worth checking out.

Boomtown was probably about five years ahead of its time. I think it would have been a great fit today for FX (creator Graham Yost went there with "Justified") but now we will never know...

Opening credits for Boomtown below

Fearless tells a story (Pilot ending, not season ending as labeled)

Joel tells a story (emmy reel, shouldabeen)

McNorris explains why he's an alcoholic mess (another emmy reel)

Now I'm just pissed off again. There's going to be at least one more show on this list that was cut too soon and is going to make me mad...

Geoff's ranking of TV Dramas. #14: ED

2011-07-26T15:25:00.004-05:00

ED (NBC) was a dramedy that ran from 2000 to 2004, just before the Internet TV critic craze broke out. The premise behind this show is that the titular Ed Stevens(played by Tom Cavanaugh), a lawyer in New York gets a double whammy in losing his job at a law firm, and coming home to find his wife banging a mailman in his bed. He decides to return home to Stuckeyville, Ohio (admittedly the squarest name one could ever imagine) where he meets his high school crush Carol Vessey (the lovely Julie Bowen) who is now a teacher at the Stuckeyville High School. For some reason, he decides that he’s going to win her heart now, so he decides to return home for good, buys a bowling alley and sets up a law practice. He runs a bowling alley, and he’s a lawyer. Two separate things. Other characters include his best friend Josh and Josh’s wife Nancy, Carol’s best friend Molly (also a teacher), the bowling alley employees Phil, Shirley and Kenny, plus Warren (Justin Long’s breakout role) who’s a high school student.

I’m not quite sure why I started to watch this show or what got me to give it a chance. I do know that I’ve never seen the first episode, even today. Odds are that I started to watch it because Julie Bowen is HOT and they may have played that up on the NBC promos for it, but I started to watch it, and somehow it got me hooked. One key reason for this (and this is a theme you’ll see repeated throughout this blog series) is the characters, almost all of whom were pretty endearing and three-dimensional, or at least had really interesting quirks while not wearing out their on-screen welcome. While I may have initially tuned in to stare at Julie Bowen, I found out that Ed Stevens was actually a pretty cool guy. He was romantic to the point of idiocy, but he was self-aware enough to realize he was going to look dumb…and did it anyway because he believed in his heart that the girl was worth it. Beyond that, he was a very good lawyer, a good businessman, and the show was smart enough to be more of an ensemble show than just the Ed and Carol love story. I freely admit that if the entire show had been about Ed’s attempts to win Carol, I’d have stopped watching it long before it ended. Ed may have been endearing, but too many of those romantic attempts would get (and did get) annoying. Additionally, while Julie Bowen is a good actress, Carol Vessey was an exceedingly frustrating character. She’s the kind of woman who would see something/someone that was good for her, and then turn away from it and pick up something that was totally crap and bad and that didn’t want her at all. That trait of hers ran all the way through the four seasons, including the infamous “Dennis” season when John Slattery (now on “Mad Men”) played the abrasive cynical school principal whom Carol naturally pursued and became engaged to. Why she did that, only her shrink knows. I actually liked Dennis as a character; he was a refreshing dose of cynicism that helped to leaven the folksiness a bit, he did care for Carol, and when he saw that she was always going to want Ed (even when she didn’t see it) he did the right thing and left her indecisive ass at the altar. Man after my own heart, he was. But I digress…What kept me watching “Ed” was that the show’s focus on the other characters was just as strong as on Ed and Carol. The show was almost called “Stuckeyville” and there were times when that would have been a more apt description than just “Ed”.

There are quite a few thematic similarities between “Ed” and “Chuck” which I put as my #15 show. Both feature good-natured guys trying to win the hearts of chicks who are way out of their league, bothfeature supporting characters that help and hinder the main character in various wacky ways, and both rely on the supporting characters to help carry the show and make it more than just a love pursuit. Where “Ed” has a slight advantage over “Chuck” is that Ed was better able to allow its main star to take a back seat to the supporting characters and not suffer much for that. I love “Chuck”, but every episode has either been about him, or defined by his absence. “Ed” is more of a true ensemble show, with the same mix of drama and comedy that “Chuck” has, just with a more ‘realistic’ feel. Well, realistic enough, anyways.

All of the supporting characters were really well realized, and all had at least one good episode that left you feeling that they were a part of a true community that had a lot of story to tell. Honestly, the most annoying character was Carol, and I distinctly remember saying to myself during the third season that I hoped the show producers would zag instead of zig, and allow Ed to wind up with his cute new legal associate Frankie. (A FEMALE named Frankie, thank you very much). I hoped for it earnestly...until that infamous dream sequence when Ed saw Carol in that little black dress. Frankie never had a chance after that scene. Even I had to say “yo, Carol’s got it going ON.” That was in 2003, and I still see that little black dress in my mind as I write. Hell, I gotta go see if that thing is on youtube…

Yes it is. This clip is from arguably the best episode of Ed “Captain Lucidity” Season 3 ep 17. Carol’s black dress is at the 4:22 mark, but the entire video provides a great synopsis as to why Ed had to end up with Carol, as annoying as she was. For the record, the Carol in this video is a dream version, as Ed is having a lucid dream here…

In rewatching the clips, I found myself smiling a lot; the show still holds up pretty well over all this time. Sadly, it is not yet out on DVD but there are a lot of episodes out on youtube from VCR recordings (we roll old-school, yo!). I’m sure it will be released soon and very soon. Ed only ran for four seasons, and was canceled rather than allowed to end, but it did end the only way it could have. If you’ve never seen it or heard of it before, I hope you get a chance to view it and give it a shot. So, here’s to the #14 show on my list.

P.S. the first video illustrates the best running gag of the series; Ed and Mike’s $10 bets. The second is a clip show from the first two seasons.

P. P.S. Ed also featured Giniffer Goodwin in HER breakout role. She played the cutest nerd girl that you ever did see, and Warren showed that he had more sense than Ed ever did when he snapped her up.

Geoff's ranking of TV Dramas. #15: CHUCK

2011-07-26T09:54:00.006-05:00

SPOILERS BELOW.

Chuck (NBC) will go down in history as "the little show that could, and did persevere". On paper, it looks as the type of show that wouldn't garner much ratings (it hasn't), that has a limited appeal (I wouldn't agree but I admit that its audience is pretty set at this point), and that would be canceled after its first season. Yet, from its premiere in 2007, at the end of each season, this show has stared cancellation in the face. Each time, cancellation blinked.

The Wikipedia link above provides more specifics about the show, but in a nutshell "Chuck" is about a young man named Chuck (Zach Levi), smart but lacking in ambition who somehow gets involved with the CIA because of an "Intersect" that is implanted in his mind. The "Intersect" is a database/neural supercomputer that causes Chuck to 'flash' and recall various bits of information whenever he sees something that triggers the Intersect's database. This makes him a valuable asset to the Pentagon, who assigns two handlers to watch him: CIA agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and NSA Agent Col. John Casey (Adam Baldwin). Chuck has to keep all of this a secret from his friends at the Buy More where he works (kind of like a fictional Best Buy) and family in his sister and her fiance. To complicate matters, Chuck falls in love with Sarah, who surprisingly seems to reciprocate...but how can a Nerd love a Spy?

Of course, what I've said above can't even begin to describe the hijinks and twists that the story takes from there up to the present; for that, you should watch the show. "Chuck" is most of all a show with heart, and about heart. Zach Levi said in an interview with Alan Sepinwall that:

Our show itself is very special in that regard. I've said this before: we're not as consistently as

funny as a comedy, we're not as consistently dramatic as a drama, not as consistently action-packed as a "24" or whatever. So if you're looking for specifically any one of those genres, I don't know if "Chuck" is your style. But if you're looking for something that combines all of it, there's only one show, and that's ours. I don't know of any other one.

The closest one I can think of is "Pushing Daisies" which I've already mentioned on this site; it premiered the same year as "Chuck" did and had a similar mix of comedy and drama, you'd just substitute "fantasy" for "action." Still, Levi is right; Chuck does a great combination of action, drama and comedy, but the selling point is the show's heart, and by extension the characters and actors heart. Over the show's run, the entire team has become an extended family of sorts (moreso with the relationship between Chuck and Sarah which culminated in their wedding at the end of last season) and to me, that's what kept me as a fan. Sure, the writing was good, the comedy was funny, the action was passable when it happened, though you'd never mistake this show for 'The Unit' or 'Band of Brothers'. Throughought it all though, the emotional journey that its key stars make is the show's selling point, and it's what earns "Chuck" a place on my top dramas.

Chuck isn't perfect. The acting is good, but the low-budget nature will come out frequently whether it be bluescreen or "instantaneous travel", it can't really be called a 'realistic' show, and the target audience is admittedly of a nerdy type. If you can't find a humor or buzz in hearing the song "Tom Sawyer" while seeing Chuck play "Space Invaders" (heck, if you have no idea what either "Tom Sawyer" or "Space Invaders" is), then odds are that a lot of the humor in Chuck wouldn't tickle your fancy. Additionally, I admit that Chuck the character can be pretty annoying at times with his insecurity, but maybe that's me being annoyed with the traits I identify with as well :) Still, the chemistry between Chuck and Sarah is evident, I can buy that Sarah would fall in love with this guy, I admire the growth in Chuck from the beginning till now, I enjoy Morgan, Casey, the Buy-More crew and General Beckman...Ellie (Chuck's sister) has been a wet blanket through most of the series but hopefully that will change. Captain Awesome (Chuck's brother-in-law) is awesome, lol.

Seasonwise, it is pretty consistent and it's better to talk about story-arcs than seasons. I enjoyed all seasons that dealt with Chuck's father and his mother. I enjoyed the Alexi Volkoff storyline in the most recent season, and I was probably the only one who liked Hannah. Stories that didn't work for me too much included the one with Chevy Chase, and while I didn't HATE Shaw like many other fans did, I think it could have been done better. I'm not a fan of "will-they-won't-they" drama but "Chuck" did a decent job of it without making both parties seem like bombheads, unlike another show I like which I'll describe in another post. What I'm most grateful for is that "Chuck" now has the opportunity to go out on its own terms. It's been renewed for its fifth and final season, and so the writers know what they have to do and how they want to do it. I'm looking forward to great things, and I know that the Buy-More, Castle, and all things involved will go down in TV history as "the little show that did." Let's hear some Cake!

Geoff's top 15 TV Dramas, part 2: Almost made its...

2011-07-23T23:30:00.005-05:00

Welcome back. This post series looks at my fave TV shows and why I like 'em. This particular post is the last one before i actually start the countdown, and focuses on the shows that just missed out on making the list. Many of the shows in this post are shows I followed regularly and liked/still like, but for one reason or another just didn't make the cut. These include:

"The West Wing" on NBC. West Wing was one of the most reliably entertaining and preachy shows on TV, and back in the late 90's-early 2000's when I started to watch TV more deliberately, TWW was on my regular rotation. I never watched the series from the beginning, but when I jumped in, I found it to be an interesting presentation of how the White House worked. I also found the characters to be pretty interesting, if a bit on the Mary-Sue side. I have to admit that I thought President Bartlett would have been a better president than the president at the time, but whatchagonnado :) The reason this didn't make the cut? I missed a few episodes during a key season, and by the time I started to get back into it, the focus was less on Bartlett and more on Santos and the dude played by Alan Alda. It was all sanctimonious, the perfect race for the presidency, with respect shown by each side to the other side, a situation where you felt that if either candidate won, it would be ok in your book whether or not you were a Republican or a Democrat. In other words, the show became more of a fairytale than Pushing Daisies did. A heart-warming fairytale yes, but even more depressing because of the reality which so vividly reminded us "ain't now way in HELL something like this is gonna happen". At any rate, the refocusing on the candidates and away from the Bartlett administration resulted in my attention refocusing elsewhere. One of these days I'll probably watch it all from beginning to end and see how it went.
The X Files. d on Fox. "The Truth Is Out There". This show is one of the all-time classics, and has gone down into TV History for many many reasons, least of all in showing that conspiracy theories, alien invasions and paranoia can in fact sustain a TV series for the long run. As long as you've got hot actors like David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, anyways. Again, this show ran its course before I was able to fully appreciate it, and watching it on Jamaican TV meant that I wasn't really able to follow the entire gist of the conspiracy. Nonetheless, it still had a major impact on me...I'll never forget that episode with the monstrous inbreeding family that had the quadruple-amputee mom under the bed. . When the X-Files was good, it was really good, but when it was bad, it was preposterous. As it was, the show was only good with Mulder and Scully. I liked Doggett, but Mulder/Scully WAS the X-Files. Without them, there was no show. Virtually every sci-fi show on my top list owes something to the X-Files, and I give it props for that. Plus, without the X-Files, we wouldn't have Vince Gilligan and "Breaking Bad", both of which we are eternally grateful.
"24" on Fox. Jack Bauer doesn't laugh in the face of death. Jack Bauer IS the face of death. The show had an interesting concept, where each hour of the series was one hour in real time as the fictional Counter-Terrorist Unit (CTU) spent 8 horrible-really-bad-totally-rotten days over 8 years dealing with various threats, deaths, moles and nukes. "24" was pretty much a cartoon in live action format, where people never had to use the bathroom for the entire 24 hours, where a 20 minute drive was always 20 minutes and traffic never interfered, and people seemed to always know when to pause the action for commercials to slip in (thanks to the multi-screen). Nonetheless, when the show was on, it was ON. It somehow managed to make Kiefer Sutherland look bad-ass, it showed the virtues of tortue, it was a clear supporter of "ends justify the means" and it was probably the first TV show that wasn't afraid to kill off its leads and popular characters. At the same time, Fox milked it too often for too long...with the number of moles that popped up, the number of tactical teams that ALWAYS got wasted when they partnered with Jack Bauer, and the number of times CTU dropped the ball or got the wrong guy or somehow needed Jack to bail 'em out, you would think the government would fire the CTU HR department. I know that you'd never get me to partner with Jack Bauer for love or money, because that's an automatic death sentence. You could be his best bud, but that dude will kill you dead if it means he completes the mission. Ask Curtis 'bout dat. "24" ran for 8 seasons. I never really watched season 1, but got more into season 2, and watched religiously up till about season 6 when it finally got too unreal for me, and it was patently clear that the writers were pulling stuff out of their ass (another problem for another show on this list) because they didn't know where they were going. I never watched seasons 7 or 8, except for the last two episodes ever...just so I could see what happened to Jack. I owed him that, at least. In my opinion, the lack of proper forward planning and vision for producing the show is what keeps 24 off my list. Still, props to the showrunners for President Palmer, hands down the best fictional president EVER. Yes, I'm biased :)
"Prison Break" on Fox. The more I think about it, the more I believe this show should have been on my guilty pleasures list and not on the honorable mentions list. The only reason why it can stay here is because of the characters, who somehow managed to transcend the blatant on-the-fly writing, twists and turns, the unrealistic situations and came to life. In particular, one character makes "Prison Break" one of the almost-rans instead of the "guilty pleasures." No, it's not Michael Scofield! Theodore Bagwell, a.k.a. 'T-Bag' is arguably the most enduring output of 'Prison Break'. He's unredeemable, totally scummy and remorseless, the ultimate survivor and guy you love to hate, and you REALLY love to hate him. Michael Scofield and his trademark Blue Steel glare, plans, counterplans, backup plans and crazy schemes are a close second, and as the titular hero, I think he's the closest I've ever seen to a "perfect" character on TV. By that, I mean a character with no flaws, no character defects, no weaknesses. That's not a good thing, mind you...not if you want true drama. Still, the team that he worked with had enough dumb muscle and flawed persons to make up for his perfection. I mainly watched the last part of season 2, all of season 3, and I remember watching Season 4 up until (SPOILER!) Michael Rappaport's character betrayed them and they wound up working for the bad guy they had spent the past two seasons trying to destroy, just to get back at that betrayer. I stopped watching the show for about 9 months, that's how pissed off I was. I eventually came back to finish it off, but I never forgot that so-called twist and how random the writers were doing stuff. So, only the characters keep it on the "missed" list, and if Robert Knepper wasn't so good as T-Bag, I'd have put it as a guilty pleasure and heck, as a show I'd have been ashamed to admit I watched.

Next post, the actual countdown begins! What show is at #15? You'll see...

Oh, I almost forgot about "Fringe" which also belongs on this list of almosts. I'm too tired to go into a full breakdown here, suffice to say that a final determination of its place depends on how it resolves the last season cliffhanger. It's gotten a lot better from it started, i'll give it that...

Also, special shout-outs to "Jericho" and "Firefly", gone but not forgotten...

Geoff's top 15 TV Dramas, part 1: Honorable (and dishonorable) Mentions

2011-07-22T18:50:00.005-05:00

Welcome back to my analysis of the top 15 TV dramas I've watched. If you want to know the background behind this series, take a look at the post previous to this one. In this post, I will do a brief analysis of shows I watch (or used to watch) that for some reason don't make the top 15. These can be grouped into three groups: Guilty Pleasures, Used to Love 'Em, and Almost but Not Quite.

Guilty Pleasures are shows that I know aren't deep or poignant or have great drama, but I find them entertaining nonetheless. With these shows, I can just park my brain at the door and watch them without expecting anything much. Some of them weren't well reviewed or popular, but there was something about them I still liked. My guilty pleasures (in no particular order) include:

"Burn Notice." on USA. This is the biggest guilty pleasure I currently have. It's main plot is mildly preposterous; A burned CIA agent bums around Miami with his trigger-happy ex-girlfriend from the IRA, his retired Navy SEAL best pal who's a boozin' womanizer, his 15-pack-of-cigarettes-a-day mom, plus a host of revolving characters, as he tries to find out who burned him while playing Robin Hood to various poor souls who somehow fall afoul of dastardly criminals each week and somehow can't tell the police about their problems. Hijinks ensue! Ok, you can take out "mildly", it's totally preposterous. Still, it's quite entertaining and the characters can't be called boring. The best part about Burn Notice is the effortless cool that Jeffrey Donovan brings as Michael Westen (burned spy) and Bruce Campbell as best pal Sam Axe is a great foil. Gabrielle Anwar can be a bit annoying as Fi, I've found that a little bit of her goes a long way, but she's gotten better as the seasons go on. The storylines in the first few seasons are repetitive and after time, you begin to wonder why Michael can't just his burn go...but then there wouldn't be a show, eh? More often than not, you can watch an episode and be entertained, and that's all I need.
"V" on ABC. Aliens called "Visitors" come, claiming to be 'of peace.' (Spoiler: they ain't.) This was a remake of a miniseries from 1983, and I can't really defend viewing this show. I watched it because I wanted to see how it would end, but it was a very frustrating show. When you spend the entire season praying for a character to die a painful and lingering death (suck it, Tyler!), you probably shouldn't watch that show. I stuck around because I love Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet from "Lost") and she did her best as the heroine Erica, but bad writing and illogical character decisions killed the show. Too often, it seemed that the Visitors greatest weapon was the "stare of dire portent". You know, "The humans will have no idea what hit them. Go and carry out my orders." "Yes, my queen." All that's missing is the mustache twirling. Still, Monica Baccarin as Visitor Queen Anna was pretty effective (and pretty pretty). That is, she's pretty when she has on her human skin...underneath that, the aliens are like Lizard-Man from Soul Caliber.

The series ended on a cliffhanger, probably hoping ABC would give them a chance to wrap it up. Nope, thank you, don't come again. At least I got to see Tyler get got...
"Falling Skies" on TNT. Another Alien Invasion show, that improves on "V" by making it clear that humans got greased by the aliens, and we're in survival mode now. It's brand new, showing Sundays on TNT, and the aliens are nowhere as hot as Queen Anna. In fact, they're a cross between Xenomorphs and tarantulas. Falling Skies can be pretty schmaltzy thus far, but I like the post-apocalyptic feel and it is kinda holding my interest thus far. We'll see how far it will go.
"Lights Out" on FX. This was the story of a former boxing champ who finds that he has no choice but to get back in the ring with the rival who beat him under questionable circumstances. Shades of Rocky, just done over 13 episodes with family, mob, and other drama placed in. Its appeal was limited, but it found a fan in me. I enjoyed seeing Reg E. Cathey on TV again as Barry Word (the Don King character) and while it didn't get renewed, it works pretty well as a mini-series. I only wish they had kept Eamonn Walker's character around for longer. Watch it, you'll see what I mean.
"Pushing Daisies" on, what was it, NBC? Anyways, this was about a guy Ned who could bring dead things back to life by touching them, and kill them again by touching them again. The catch is that if he doesn't touch them again within a minute, then some living thing in the general area will die in its place. Ned grows up to open a Pie Restaurant, and hHe ends up touching the girl he loved from afar, and didn't touch her again, and so they end up falling in love but unable to touch, and then he works with a private detective who uses Ned to revive (and re-kill) murder vics to solve crimes...and it's all set in this colorful whimsical fairytale-1950s-vibe yet still modern world. I still don't know how this show got made, I don't know how it got two seasons on Network TV, and I don't know how they made the show work, but work it did. It was almost like a modern day fairystory, and I enjoyed it very much. It kind of wraps up, so there's no fear of a cliffhanger although you can tell that there was much more story left to tell. If you never heard of it or saw it, go check it out on Hulu right now.
"The Chicago Code" on Fox. The new, straight-arrow police superintendent Theresa Colvin of Chicago and her unconventional, loose-cannon former partner Detective Wasocki try to take down the corrupt Alderman Givens who is the true power in the city. There's drama with other characters and the acting was pretty good, though Wasocki always got on my nerves. the more I think about this show, the more it seems like it was a poor man's "The Wire" just focused on the politics and corruption instead of the drugs, with Chicago as Baltimore, Wasocki as McNulty, Givens as a much more savvy Clay Davis and Theresa Colvin as Cedric Daniels. It took a while to get going, and the undercover cop character should have started the season as strongly as he had finished it. Still, it had its appeal and I think Fox should have given it another season. Consider it another mini-series.

Used to Love 'Em. These are shows I used to watch religiously, that could have been on the list, and then for some reason I just lost interest in them all-together. There aren't that many that come to mind, but two stand out for me.

"Dexter" on Showtime. If you don't know, Dexter is about a serial killer who only kills criminals. What does that make him? Should we root for him or not? Dang if I know, 'cause the series doesn't really want us to answer it or think on it too hard. I watched Seasons 1 and 2, and they were both really good, although they killed someone I think they should have kept around at the end of season 2 (and no, it wasn't the girl). I started to watch Season 3 when it came out and realized "wait a minute, this is just like the other seasons!" Dexter doesn't change or grow. He stayed the same, and it's just a different twist or obstacle in his way in the same vein "will he be caught, will another killer/sick mind mess with him or will Dexter prevail?" If you think Dexter will be caught, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. I just lost interest in the first episode of S3 and haven't watched any of it since then. I've seen too much good TV to settle for ok TV that aspires to be good.
Desperate Houswives on ABC. Don't laugh :) it used to be good, it used to be interesting, and then it went back to the same well too many times, Susan became too freakin' annoying, the craziness went off my tolerance level, and I decided enough was enough.

Next post, I'll put up the "Just missed the cut" shows.

Geoff's ranking of TV Dramas: the beginning

2011-07-22T15:27:00.004-05:00

To jumpstart my attempt at regular blogging about various things that interest me, I decided to examine the various TV shows I've watched and followed. I usually read other persons reviews (like Alan Sepinwall, Mo Ryan, the AV Club, TWOP, etc etc) and enjoy their thoughts but never got into looking at my own views/thoughts on these shows. Thus, I've decided to list the top 15 dramas I've seen and rank them up to #1. I won't be doing them all at once, probably one per day.

This list will cover only 1-hour dramas that I have actually seen and can comment on. Thus, there are shows like "Treme", "Mad Men", "Boardwalk Empire", "Men of a Certain Age" and "Dr. Who" that I am confident will find a place on the list, replacing other contenders...however, since I haven't been able to watch those shows for one reason or another, I can't place them. Yet. Edited July 24 to add The Good Wife to this list, I'm pretty sure I will like it, once I start following it more.

I've also left off sitcoms and comedies. I find that I don't really watch the live-action ones anymore, but I lean more towards the animated ones like "Archer", "South Park", Fox Sunday Nights, and others. "Archer" is one of the best shows on TV though, and I'll give it it's own analysis one day. Maybe I will get back into the live action comedies like "Parks and Recreation", "Cougar Town" and others, but at the moment they just don't really grab me like the dramas and animated comedies do.

There are also shows I watch regularly and like, but I know that they are either guilty pleasures, or they aren't deep enough to be on a ranked list of TV dramas, as well as shows that were ALMOST good enough to make the list but didn't, for one reason or another. This category will be the first detailed blog posting, and I'll post it up soon.

So, here goes something! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy my views.

Blogging...

2011-07-22T15:23:00.003-05:00

Why don't I blog more? I have a lot to say and the skill to say it, yet I don't. Why not?

Laziness and procrastination are the main ones, but I can change that. I do believe I will change that.

But, what to blog about?

Whatever's on my mind :)

Watch this space...

2011-05-01T13:06:00.000-05:00

Hoffman Enviromental Research Institute from Daniel Houghton on Vimeo.

Trusted Unlock

2011-04-26T11:32:00.002-05:00

If you want to get your blackberry unlocked, go to www.TrustedUnlock.com and check 'em out!

Fantasy Basketball results

2011-04-05T08:06:00.002-05:00

This was a pretty good year for me in Fantasy Basketball, at least in my public leagues. I went hog-wild and maxed out all three of my yahoo IDs with eight teams each, but I only paid attention to two of the IDs and I think I will follow that same format next year. I learned that I really don't care for roto ball, so that means next year I will make a concerted effort to really win one of the roto leagues on purpose and not by accident.

For my main Yahoo ID, I had five public leagues, two active private leagues (including one I'm commissioner of) and one private league that was locked due to commissioner error. All leagues were H2H. I won three of the public leagues, and came third and fourth in the other two. I got my ass kicked in my own league due to autodrafting, grrr...I had a good run in the other league but injuries towards the end of the year doomed me to a 5th place finish. If my guys were healthy, I could have won it all.

For my secondary yahoo ID, I had five public H2H leagues, two public roto leagues and one private H2H league. I won two of the H2Hs, came second in another and third in the last two. I came fourth in the public league, which was a kind of deep team league. I liked the format but I have some suggestions for the commissioner...I will either win or come second in one of the roto leagues, but that was by accident. I didn't even think that team was going to do well, but as the year progressed I saw that it was on top of the league so I started to pay attention to it. Ironically, the other roto league was where I thought I'd do better, and I didn't. I ended up ignoring that team.

My last yahoo ID, I just drafted roto teams for drafting sake and didn't pay attention to 'em afterwards. I'm not that crazy for fantasy. Thus, they sucked :-D

So, it was a pretty good year. I'm looking forward to playing in winner leagues next year, I haven't done well in those but I plan for that to change.

fantasy basketball update

2011-03-04T12:59:00.002-05:00

By Jove, I think I'm getting the hang of this thing...

My performance this year is a whole lot better than last year's even with the three yahoo IDs I manage. I'm pretty sure I'll be in the playoffs for all of my head-to-head leagues except one...it's a bit embarassing that the exeception is my own league where I'm the commissioner but since I won it last year, I don't mind too much. My roto leagues have been much less successful...I'm leading in one league and crashing in all of the others. I'm still not sure whether that's because I can't monitor more than 2 Yahoo ids on a regular basis, or because I just am not a roto fan, but I have clearly defined my limits. Two ids, main one with all H2H, other ID will be six H2H and two roto, if I do the third ID, it's just all roto and no regular observation...

That's assuming that there will be NBA basketball next season :(

A new year

2011-01-04T06:32:00.003-05:00

Every January 4, since 2006, I distinctly remember how the Lord directed me through His Spirit, and I've always remembered how important it is to wait on the Lord. From Dec 31 2005 until January 6, 2006, I was in Detroit, Michigan for a job opportunity. They had promised to provide me with visa sponsorship, they promised training and all I would have to do was work with them for one year. I thought it was too good to be true, I had heard it before; but at that time, I was pretty desperate and had nothing to lose...or so I thought.

I was blessed to get a ride to Michigan from Chatannooga, TN where General Youth Congress was held that year. I don't remember the dear sister's name, but I know that without her, I would have been so lost and spiritually sunk. She provided me with transport, food and encouragement when it became clear that the opportunity I was seeking was definately something fishy. That happened when I arrived at the apartment I was supposed to stay at, and found it to be bare of furniture, smelling of mould, and having signs of occupation but no-one else living there. Another guy arrived just after me, he didn't know what was going on either.

The first few days of my stay, I went to the workplace with the other guy and pretty much spent all day on the computer waiting for something to happen...nothing did. I felt that I had made a mistake in coming, but I couldn't bail out yet, what if I was wrong? What else was I to do? There were other people there as well, all of us were just sitting down waiting to hear what we should do, and the persons in charge weren't really speaking to us.

On January 4, 2006, I read a devotional from "My Utmost for His Highest" which spoke about waiting on God to show you what you need to do. Even if you have a clear impression on what you must do/need to do, wait for God to make it plain, rather than jumping the gun. That devotional had a major impact on my thinking, and it gave me peace of mind for the remainder of my stay. I waited, and I'm glad I did. On Thursday January 8, we got the details of what we would be expected to do, and it became clear that one of those details was for us to lie on our resumes about our years of experience so that we would be able to work for the companies that would be hiring us. That was all the incentive I needed to be back on a bus to Maryland that same weekend, and that led me to come back home and to everything that has happened in my life since.

I don't know what would have happened to me if I stayed, and I wonder at times what happened to the people who were in the program with me, whether they stayed, and how things ended up for them. Nonetheless, as I am here five years later to the day, making major changes in my life already in 2011, I'm thinking about that same devotional and wondering what I need to do in this coming month, these coming weeks, this coming year. I've made bold steps, waiting until I felt that it was time to move, feeling that if I lingered I would be in problems. Other moves, I know I have to make them but I am not sure when the time to make them would be. In all of this, I draw on the experience that God gave me, in telling me to wait on Him. He will show us when the time to act will be, if we simply put all our trust in Him.

So as I continue on to make changes in life for 2011, I pray that I will wait for God to show me when to make the moves, and what moves to make. I hope you do the same.

Twitter

2010-12-17T14:05:00.001-05:00

I succumbed to the twitter phenom about a year ago, but i've only started to get into actual tweeting after I got my blackberry. There's a gradual progression of mind-control/assmilation going on there, but what to do...

Anyway, I can be followed at @marshallgeoff.

I take it back...

2010-10-26T09:57:00.001-05:00

...I'll be using Blake Griffin quite a bit...

Fantasy Basketball begins again!!

2010-09-17T13:38:00.003-05:00

At long last, the FB season starts anew...last year I didn't do too well. I think that was because I wasted a lot of high picks on Blake Griffin last year, in rounds 7-8 thereabouts, and then he went and blew out his knee. Someone else can take a risk on him this year, not me...though I've taken my share of risks. I think Yao Ming is a fair gamble in the 7th-8th round, I've tried to capture DeMarcus Cousins in every 10th round that I can...I haven't really tried to grab John Wall because I usually want a more sure point guard option, but I wouldn't be averse to taking him one of these days.

This year, I am going to win a rotissiere league by hook or crook. I've never had any luck with roto...it takes a completely different strategem to beat a roto league than a head-to-head and I haven't gotten that strategem yet. It's clear that I'd have to draft more wisely to win in roto, and luck isn't as involved as it is in H2H...can't just try to cream a team every week. I've drawn up a stragegy based on drafting some combination of the top 25 ranked players in the six main categories (threepoints, points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks) and hoping that the percentages and turnovers work themselves out. Since yahoo bumped up their max teams per ID from four to eight, I'll have to be careful that I don't go crazy :-D I've already maxed out one ID and plan to max out another. My third ID was traditionally used for roto only and i dont' really pay it any mind...this year I'll probably draft no more than four roto teams using my stragety, and just leave 'em be for the year...maybe pop in every couple months or so in case someone got injured. The good thing about Roto is that you don't have to micromanage it like you do H2H. In H2H, the difference between victory and defeat can be remembering that Tyreke Evans is playing this Sunday night, so you better put him in the active PG slot over Andre Miller.

This season thus far, I've also learned that I don't really like auction leagues...at least not autopick auction leagues where i'm the only human. It's boring to me, I much prefer the snake draft. Alas, I can't do anymore right now since i'm maxed out.

Anyways, here's to victory and more blogging...let the season begin!

It begins?

2010-07-09T18:07:00.000-05:00

Last night I met with my AY executive, and we pledged to begin the Discipleship Adventure starting next week. It may start even sooner, as I'm about to head to a vespers at a friend's house, and I'm carrying the material just in case. At any rate, let God's will be done...will blog more about the Atlanta experience at a future date to give more details.

In Atlanta for Impact Atlanta

2010-07-03T05:48:00.003-05:00

I've been in Atlanta for the past week and a half, attending Impact Atlanta which is a concurrent youth leadership training event with the General Conference. It's been a real blessing for me, and I hope to write more about it when I get back home; right now it's Sabbath morning and the peeps upstairs are preparing to head for the Dome. I will be trying to get back more into blogging and writing; i have no excuse to not do it...

First post of 2010

2010-04-06T11:41:00.002-05:00

Wow...

No, the wow doesn't mean that a lot's going on, it means "i haven't been on here in a long freakin' time!"

Right now i'm on a break from using IM and Facebook. I haven't died yet :D

I just finished reading Chris Paolini's Inheritance books, the first three. Once you take it for what it is, accept the derivatism of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and realize that with common sense you can predict what's going to happen...it's not a bad read. The storyline is engaging, the dialogue can get pretty obtuse and I'll warn you that the first book isn't very well written...which is ok, since the guy was only 15 years old when he wrote it. Thankfully, he improved with the other books. I know how it will end, of course the bad guy will lose and the prophecies for the main character must come true but you know what they say...it's not the destination, it's the journey.

In that vein though, do NOT watch the movie "Eragorn." Sweet bejammers, I had started to read the first book and decided to check out the movie before I finished the book. I couldn't get through the first 15 minutes, I just turned it off and went back to reading. "Willow" was a more engaging fantasy film, trust me.

On other fronts, things are happening :) slowly but surely. I feel like I've made a turn somewhere and things are coming up...

On the current state of Adventist Youth in East Jamaica Conference

2009-10-30T11:53:00.000-05:00

Is East Jamaica Conference (and West Indies Union) really serious about Adventist Youth in this day and age?

Are the leaders aware of how they are perceived by the young Adventists today? Do they CARE about how they are perceived?

Are they willing to make a difference, or will they just do whatever it is they want to do without getting feedback (and actually listening to feedback) from those who are on the front lines?

Sad to say, I believe the answer to these questions is in the negative. I am not sure whether this is because they are ignorant/unaware of the issues on the ground, or whether it is because they don’t care about the issues on the ground; and I am not sure which option would be worse.

For me, I perceive that the head conference officials either do not trust young persons to be able to lead, or do not think it important to facilitate the growth of young leaders or to account for the true importance of young people. I don’t know if this is because they think that they will be around forever, or that the young people will automatically have the experience and knowledge needed when we reach their age (and we are fast approaching that age as well). Either way is a poor state of thinking and will only lead to disaster.

The West Indies Union has established a “Youth Month” which is a very good push designed to involve the youth in leadership. Unfortunately, this push may obscure the fact that youth should have already been involved in such leadership even without the push. It is a sad truth that many youth perceive that their church leadership is fighting them down/not giving them a chance to do their part for the Lord.

I will admit that some youth do not present themselves as ready for this level of responsibility; at the same time, we must be ready to give people a chance to prove themselves. We must also be ready to provide support in the case that someone fails. Failure is not the final end, nor can we always just rely on “what’s always worked.” Church mission is risky business, but with Christ at the controls, the risks will always be managed.

So, what is the solution? I believe there needs to be a frank and open discussion between conference officials and youth leadership in the church, where conference can clearly state what they believe is the situation with our young people and where the young people can clearly state what they believe is the situation with their leaders. Conference needs to unequivocally state that they are here to uplift and support the young persons in our church, and will provide them with the chance to be ready to contribute towards the SDA church’s mission in Jamaica and around the world. Conference also needs to put its money where its mouth is, and realize that they are not the end-all-be-all of the SDA church’s existence. The Young People need to realize that they need to step up and be true Christians, true leaders, true participants and not just followers or bench-warmers. Things that have been said in private need to be made public; organization needs to be a true activity and not a nebulous state hoped to be attained. Leaders must lead proactively, not go reactive and timid.

Only then can we in the Jamaican SDA church begin to rise out of the mess that we are currently in.

Just do it

2009-05-29T00:26:00.001-05:00

From 110 posts in 2006 to 4 posts in 2009, that's just crazy. I have only my unmotivated self to blame...but the thing about doing work like this is that you can't rely on motivation to get you to do it. You gotta just do it. Will I just do it?

I certainly will try...once I get some sleep. Laters!

From pro-choice to pro-life

2009-03-27T15:10:00.001-05:00

I used to be pro-choice/anti-abortion, where I did not agree with abortion personally but I agreed with the right of a woman to choose whether or not to have an abortion. I would have encouraged a woman to not have one, I would have done everything I could to convince a woman to not abort a fetus, but at the end I would say it’s her choice and I would not try to change the law that allowed her to do so.

Recent discussions and arguments have led me to switch my position from pro-choice to pro-life, where I believe that abortions of convenience or on-demand should be made illegal, and abortions should only be allowed for cases of rape or the mother’s health. I have not become a militant pro-lifer, nor would I be too upset if abortions were severely limited to pre-first trimester or earlier, even up to one month or so. However, I have reached the mind-set where I can’t call myself a pro-choice person anymore. Before I say what changed my mind, I just want to give my thoughts on the majority of pro-life persons and arguments that I see out there.

Abortion is a topic that is like gasoline on a fire. It is almost impossible to have a rational discussion on the matter without assumptions being made on both sides, and propaganda coming from both sides. Some pro-lifers seem to be intolerant, propaganda-spouting, non-thinking fundamentalists, unwilling to engage the opposition or acknowledge the points that they may have. For them, all pro-choicers are baby-killers and that’s all there is to it. Such close-mindedness doesn’t do anything for me, and those arguments played no part in my shift to a pro-life position. Some pro-choicers view the fetus as some form of parasite, and think that abortion is just another method of birth control, and until the baby is born, it’s an it. I never held that view, and I think that such a view is just as intolerant and unrealistic. I’ll grant that it’s hard to discuss something this touchy in a rational method, but if you as a pro-lifer are going to convince someone like me who was pro-choice, you have to come at it with a willingness to dialogue and answer questions from a non-partisan viewpoint. I was not proud to be pro-choice, but based on my view of free will, I felt that I had to respect the views of those who may not agree that life begins at birth, etc.

That brings me to my next point; Arguments on whether life begins at birth or not did not play a major role in changing my view. As a Christian, I am pre-disposed to believe that life does begin at birth…but I can’t force my view on someone else, especially when there is sufficient evidence that can be interpreted as saying life begins when the fetus is able to survive on its own or not, etc. Arguments along this line will eventually boil down to whether one is using a religious worldview or not, and while this can work from a moral perspective (abortion is wrong), I don’t think it can work from a legal worldview. “Abortion is wrong, therefore it should be illegal.” “Why is abortion wrong?” “The Bible says so.” “But I don’t believe in the Bible.” “Doesn’t matter, I’m still making it illegal.” There are valid arguments against this position that I could entertain, but the main point I want to make here is that this argument leads to much moralizing and less clarity from a legal standpoint, at least to me.

The argument that changed my mind was when I realized the existence of the Unborn Victims of Violence act. I post it below:
he operative portion of the law, now codified as Title 18, Section 1841 of the United States Code, reads as follows:
Sec. 1841. Protection of unborn children
(a) (1) Whoever engages in conduct that violates any of the provisions of law listed in subsection (b) and thereby causes the death of, or bodily injury (as defined in section 1365) to, a child, who is in utero at the time the conduct takes place, is guilty of a separate offense under this section.
(2) (A) Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, the punishment for that separate offense is the same as the punishment provided under Federal law for that conduct had that injury or death occurred to the unborn child’s mother.
(B) An offense under this section does not require proof that—
(i) the person engaging in the conduct had knowledge or should have had knowledge that the victim of the underlying offense was pregnant; or
(ii) the defendant intended to cause the death of, or bodily injury to, the unborn child.
(C) If the person engaging in the conduct thereby intentionally kills or attempts to kill the unborn child, that person shall instead of being punished under subparagraph (A), be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113 of this title for intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being.
(D) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the death penalty shall not be imposed for an offense under this section.
(b) The provisions referred to in subsection (a) are the following:
(1) Sections 36, 37, 43, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 229, 242, 245, 247, 248, 351, 831, 844 (d), (f), (h)(1), and (i), 924 (j), 930, 1111, 1112, 1113, 1114, 1116, 1118, 1119, 1120, 1121, 1153 (a), 1201 (a), 1203, 1365 (a), 1501, 1503, 1505, 1512, 1513, 1751, 1864, 1951, 1952 (a)(1)(B), (a)(2)(B), and (a)(3)(B), 1958, 1959, 1992, 2113, 2114, 2116, 2118, 2119, 2191, 2231, 2241 (a), 2245, 2261, 2261A, 2280, 2281, 2332, 2332a, 2332b, 2340A, and 2441 of this title.
(2) Section 408(e) of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (21 U.S.C. 848 (e)). (3) Section 202 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2283).

(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the prosecution—
(1) of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf, has been obtained or for which such consent is implied by law;
(2) of any person for any medical treatment of the pregnant woman or her unborn child; or
(3) of any woman with respect to her unborn child.

(d) As used in this section, the term “unborn child” means a child in utero, and the term “child in utero” or “child, who is in utero” means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.

When I became aware of this act, and read it, I realized that the law itself had defined life as being at birth, from the bolded section in clause (d). Having established that, I immediately saw a disconnect between clause ( c) and (d). Why is it a crime for someone else to harm an unborn child at any stage of development, yet it is ok for the mother to do so? I cannot answer that question, so I conclude that if it’s a crime for the one, it should be a crime for the other.

That is what caused me to become pro-life. I am interested in hearing other’s positions trying to explain this conundrum, but I think that this is the best argument the pro-life side has to repeal/alter existing abortion laws.

What am I going to watch now??

2009-03-17T16:21:00.002-05:00

It seems the days of good TV are numbered...

"The Wire" is over. "Battlestar Galactica" ends this coming Friday. "Lost" has a season and a half to go, but the writing is on the wall. "The Shield": powerful finale, gone for the ages. "Pushing Daisies": Gone before its time. "Chuck" is still around, but for how long? Old faves like "Dexter" and "24" are still on my radar, but I've only downloaded them, yet have not watched them yet. Is there no good TV left?

There is still hope, I guess. I've heard good things about "Mad Men", "Breaking Bad", "Sons of Anarchy" and some other ones that have popped up. I downloaded 'em, but haven't started to watch yet...time not being on my side. I got into "In Treatment" and can't wait for the second season, just as soon as I finish the first season.

I am going to miss those shows when they're gone though...here's to the new ones up-and-coming. Don't write for the masses, write for your own vision, eh?

A great column from today's Observer

2009-01-30T09:22:00.001-05:00

I really appreciate and agree with the points made in this column.

Social mobility and social exclusion
We block the ghetto exit and we pay the price!
Franklin Johnston
Friday, January 30, 2009

The channels to social mobility are at a trickle and our promising youth now turn to mischief. In past decades, we turned back the programmes which enabled the poor to move up in large numbers. This crop of leaders in medicine, politics, management, law, etc, is the last large group to come through the upwardly mobile pipeline.
Franklin Johnston

This group is old school and can be shamed; those after have no shame. So too, old money is urbane and understated; new money (legal and illegal) is loud, ill-mannered, in-your-face, sets a bad example and has no sense of service. Most of today's leaders are the first in their family to attend university; the first to attend high school, to complete primary school or to read and write. Many mastered the knife and fork late in life and found out that a dry white wine is wet. But they are the product of a healthy, orderly social process. We learn, advance and replenish all classes.

Today, the upwardly mobile channels are blocked as that great host of escapees from the ghetto (now aged 45 to 60 plus), by their policies and rhetoric, broke the ladders they climbed and slashed the social fabric. Trainable people are few and have no jobs; new workers are not replenishing the middle class and the top people - our repository of experience and financial security, not intimidated by politicians, is depleted. This group upholds our principles, defends the rule of law, are benefactors of the poor and the gatekeepers of our democracy. This group is passing, silenced, migrated or marginalised. Politicians want to supplant this group by using our taxes to curry favour with poor people for them to depend on politics instead. Most poor people make no progress, but they are ambitious, and sadly are leaching into the dark side in order to "make it".

Many no longer aspire to work; as one said when asked to cut a lawn, " I not lookin' slavery, I want cash." Workers are not revivifying the middle class which is also stagnant and the top class is no longer our vigorous arbiter and defence against corrosive people and policies. Our social contract is in breach.

The most feared people today are gunmen and corrupt politicians. Take your life or take your livelihood; both wreak havoc on the society. Citizens are destroyed or neutered; starved of work, lose their savings and driven to exile. We are afraid to speak so as not to upset powerful people. Some, poor and rich alike, see no evil, hear no evil. They don't want to be involved as they have families, jobs, contracts, permits and licences which depend on politics. they are involved already as our democracy is threatened. Victimisation (real or imagined) is rife. People don't buck the going orthodoxy, we are losing our freedom and don't care because we make money or hope to do so. We "bite our tongues", say nothing, but we have consciences, and at home we vent and bitch. Our family and our nation suffer. Our silence makes us ill. Stress kills. Our friends (men) die prematurely in their 60s and 70s. We are a nation on the edge! Some years ago we won a public contract. Soon after, there was a change of government and the new PM took away the job and gave it to "his consultant". That consultant, a professional colleague who did not have the expertise, gave us a sub-contract to do the work, with one change; the reports were to be printed on their letterhead. and some wonder why we don't work much at home; mind free, man free!

Independent opinion is not valued. The upper class used to keep the rapacious in check by ostracising them as the law couldn't touch them. Today, raptors savage the mores of our land. They don't care for principle or decorum; they were never habilitated and cannot be rehabilitated. The rich support the status quo; most made their money honestly, against all odds and deserve every penny. My mentor, the incomparable, late Abe Issa would say "business must always be in power". support all parties, give extra to the one you like. The rich are immune from victimisation and need to get active in protecting our values; the clergy, university teachers and those who by vocation and tenure cannot be victimised, should speak up for the speechless. Their silence is deafening.

Entry-level jobs are so scarce, they are bequeathed to worker's children by collusion with employers. Poor people without contacts cannot get a job. Sadly, in the past three decades few workers made it into the middle class. The nouveau riche went from poor to rich in one jump (even the taxman can't fathom it). They live in the right areas, but as they did not progress via the social conduit and don't have the values. They are visible, loud, gaudy, have more money than sense, no work ethic or community spirit. They can donate more; their chariots are bigger; their children are walking brands with the latest gadgets; but they don't write, are not missed at civic meetings and do not drive a social change agenda. They are tolerated; what they think is respect, is fear.

The social circulation system is broken and social exclusion is growing. As legitimate expectations flounder, drugs, the antisocial and the criminal take their place. I spoke to some students at Jose Marti and found that their "get out of jail free" card was to cut a tune like Beenie Man and get rich; school was an obstacle, not an opportunity. To get our social mobility pipeline flowing again we must fix the broken education; the decline of ethics, values, aspiration and desire. Fix the postcode lottery which stigmatises the poor. If your postcode is not Kingston 6 or 8, "dog nyam yu suppa" for good schools and jobs. Next, government's failure to plan and regulate housing. We started in Jones Town; money and family grew so we moved above Torrington Bridge, then above Cross Roads and finally into peri-urbia. Our planners have no progressive housing model; there is no "starter home" - the one bedroom for the person or young couple - new workers. If you start across the causeway, when money or family grows, instead of selling up to a young couple and buying a bigger house, you keep adding blocks and steel until this modern, prized seaside town becomes a slum. Last, we are taught to work, not to make a job; new jobs are few, yet we reward existing jobs - teachers, nurses and security forces etc and ignore new entrants. We must reopen the conduits of social mobility, otherwise the seething magma in the bowels of our nation will erupt and destroy the dollyhouse. More anon!

Happy New Year to all!

2009-01-02T15:22:00.001-05:00

I won't make any promises about blogging more, but I have become interested more in writing. What I need now is motivation and muses...

I randomly wrote this dialogue just to see what would happen, this is where I stopped. Would you be interested in learning more of the story?

“What do you think?”
“I think he’s wrong. I don’t believe that Martin would actually kill someone, y’know?”
“You never know…some people can and will surprise you. Martin always seemed kind of weird to me.”
“Weird? How?”
“Remember the time in 5th form when we found that baby’s skeleton in that abandoned house behind school?”
“how can I forget. What about it?”
“When we were walking away, I saw Martin hanging around a bit longer, gazing at the skeleton with a strange look…almost as if he were longing to touch it, or wondering what it felt like to leave the baby there…”
“Naw, that’s crazy man. You’re just reading your own feelings into the situation. I know you never liked Martin from he first came to our class, how would you know what he was wondering?”
“Yeah, well maybe I was right to not like him. You didn’t see that look on his face, and I hoped I’d never see it again.”

2008-10-10T16:54:00.002-05:00

Yes, i've been offline a while...no excuses. A lot has been happening in my life, but right now I'm pretty cool. This post is to put up a very small sample of pictures of my recent trip to Japan, which was 7 kinds of awesome :)

I'm still alive...

2008-05-26T14:34:00.000-05:00

and I still have thoughts to give. I'll give 'em soon...

it's been a busy year thus far, I'll tell you that.

gas prices a kill

2008-03-26T11:04:00.001-05:00

I got these in a forwarded email, and...well, I laugh so that I won't cry :D

....

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Competent Communicator Geoff Marshall, whoo hoo!!

2008-03-11T23:29:00.003-05:00

Finally!

After long last, I've accomplished my CC Award from Toastmasters International. 10 speeches from the Basic Manual, and I can finally call myself CC Geoff Marshall. No more ordinary "TM" for me, hehehe. I will kinda miss it though...Thanks be to God for His inspiration when I did that speech. Too bad the devil had to do his thing later that night by making my car break down...cho!

Anyways, onwards to the new manuals! I'm going to do "The Entertaining Speaker" and "The Professional Speaker" for the first manuals, and tackle my CL manual as well for the next year.

My number 10 speech is presented below.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Before God and All mankind.
I pledge the love and loyalty of my heart
The wisdom and courage of my mind,
The strength and vigour of my body
in the service of my fellow citizens.

I promise to stand up for justice,
Brotherhood and Peace, to work diligently and creatively,
To think generously and honestly, so that,
Jamaica may, under God, increase in beauty, fellowship
and prosperity, and play her part in advancing the welfare
of the whole human race.

Before comrade or showa, there was Jamaica. Before Trafigura or Tivoli, there were the Blue Mountains and Dunns River. Before the scourge of drugs and guns, there was still Lover's Leap and Fern Gully.. Before the English, before the Spanish, even before the Tainos, this green and fertile island existed, lying in wait for those who would be blessed to inhabit it.

Blessed? Yes, blessed. When last did you feel blessed to live in Jamaica?

Living in Jamaica is not for the faint of heart, and we must be realistic about the challenges that face us. Crime, corruption and social disorder are the main themes of the day. We as Jamaicans have begun to EXPECT corruption from our officials, and we have become quite numb to the situation; we may talk much about it when exposed, but not do much about it. A corrupt society cannot progress. Social order is more like social DISORDER. Standards are down, slackness is up. Children are fighting teachers, leaving school illiterate, it seems common decency has become uncommon. We are fed a steady diet of negative commentary and it seems that if we have not yet hit rock bottom, we are almost there. What can we do?

I know what we can do. We need to take our attentions from ourselves, and focus on a greater good.

I pledge my heart forever
To serve with humble pride
This shining homeland, ever
So long as earth abide.

I pledge my heart, this island
As God and faith shall live
My work, my strength, my love and
My loyalty to give.

O green isle of the Indies,
Jamaica, strong and free,
Our vows and loyal promises
O heartland, 'tis to Thee.

I spent 8 years in the USA, from August 1998 to February 2006. I used to think that I'd work about 4 or 5 years there and then I'd consider coming back home with some money and work experience. Maybe I was saying that to salve my conscience, maybe I knew deep down that I wouldn't really return to stay if I had any say in the matter. Did I really want to be a part of the 2.5 million-strong Jamaican diaspora? Why would I want to go back home where all these problems abounded, where money was in short supply?

I left grad school in May 2005 and moved from New Mexico to California to begin a new job and start the process of getting my "green card". The job was a job, I wasn't PASSIONATE about it but it was something I could do and it paid decently. I decided to just watch the ride and see how life would turn out after I got some work experience and funds from this American job. Six weeks after I started working, I was fired from the job, and that's when the ride really started. Losing that job led me to an 8-month sojourn across the USA and an in-depth experience of living on the edge in the land of plenty. The sojourn culminated in my return to Jamaica in February 2006, and as I prepared to come back to Jamaica I felt humiliated, afraid and ashamed. I felt that I had been unable to "cut it" in the USA and that I would be returning to a life less than what I had expected for myself in the USA.

Coming back home to Jamaica was the best thing that ever happened to me. I came back home and just slotted into everything as if I had never left. I came back home to a job where I felt I could make a difference and where my skills were utilized. I came back home to my family and a society where I could be myself, as opposed to projecting fake sincerity and fake productivity. If I had not returned home, I would probably be stressed out in a job I was enduring for the money, I would probably be in more debt, and I would definitely have suffered in my spiritual life. Coming back home showed me that to be in Jamaica CAN be a blessing, and that there is hope for our country.

Crime, social disorder, politics, all these things taken into account, it is still a blessing to live in Jamaica. The audacity of hope still exists in this nation, as seen in our national pledge and national songs. The hope and vision that was so abundant at our nation's birth has not died, it has just been covered with despair and self-focus! We have taken our eyes from our country's upliftment and focused it on our own upliftment at the expense of Jamaica and our fellow man. "The difference between a helping hand and an outstretched palm is a twist of the wrist."

We are blessed to be a part of the nation that produced Sam Sharpe, Marcus Garvey, Norman Manley, Alexander Bustamante, Bob Marley, Louise Bennett and many other great human beings. Who here has not felt pride at the accomplishments of Merlene Ottey, Asafa Powell and Dion Hemmings? Who here still vividly remembers the Reggae Boyz as they played in France, and how they captured the hearts of the entire world?

We are blessed to live in a nation where our drinking water is not (yet) contaminated with chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other contaminants. People come from all over the world to enjoy our beaches and rivers, and we have ready access to them all the time!

We are blessed to have a rich heritage that inspires us. Even though our ancestors suffered many hardships, they perservered and instilled in our nation the fierce pride of being Jamaican. We are blessed to not be as wracked with racial conflict as other nations are.

We are blessed to be able to go to Dunns River Falls whenever we choose, to hike the Blue Mountains, to visit Lovers Leap, to see the sun set at Negril Point. My job takes me around the island, and every time I go out, I am filled with hope and reminded that I live in a beautiful country.

It is easy to criticize, and we must criticize when we see injustice and inequality. Yet, talk is cheap, and if we just complain without doing our part, what benefit is that? If we do not make the change, who will? If we do not care, who will? If we do not extend a helping hand and work for the betterment of our nation, who will do so? When we are able to put aside politics and getting ahead at others expenses, then our nation will rise to the greatness we are capable of. When we realize that WE are the government and those in power serve at OUR command, then we will elect our leaders based on their performance and not based on their handouts. When we realize that our children are our future and that all of us need to be involved in their education and upbringing, then we will see more productivity from them and less pornography. When we become less like crabs in a barrel and more like bees in a hive, then Jamaica will be vibrant and strong once again! We must realize that even though our nation will sink as far as we let it sink, the flip side is that it will rise as far as we are willing to take it. As Phillip Sherlock so aptly wrote:

Jamaica land of beauty, We promise faithfully
To serve thee with our talents and bring our gifts to thee
Jamaica we will always in honour of thy name
Work steadfastly and wisely and never bring thee shame

From riverside to mountain from cane-field to the sea
Our hearts salute Jamaica Triumphant, proud and free.

Life is good, even if you sometimes feel it ain't...

2008-02-27T18:52:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I posted, and I've been doing and experiencing a lot of things. I have a lot to do this month at work and church, as well as for next month...

Anyone been watching "The Wire"? Hurry up and catch it before it finishes forever, it's only the best TV show ever made. RIP Omar...

more lata, i suppose.

South Africa Pics!

2007-12-14T10:58:00.001-05:00

Finally, Pics of South Africa. The car was actually at Heathrow Airport :D wish I could have won it...

St. Kitts photos

2007-12-14T10:49:00.001-05:00

Various pictures from St. Kitts and Nevis, circa October 2007.

Photos (finally) Sweden

2007-12-14T10:40:00.001-05:00

Finally putting up pics from Sweden, St. Kitts and South Africa. This first set is from Sweden, and includes pictures of the Vasa, me and Kaie, Old Town Stockholm, and the Nobel Palace/Museum.

Update

2007-12-12T13:32:00.000-05:00

I've moved, and I'm liking it...

Things are ok otherwise.

I went to South Africa, and will be posting up pics as soon as I get a chance to.

that's pretty much it for now...

----------------
Now playing: William Ackerman - Processional
via FoxyTunes

Legalizing drugs!

2007-10-18T15:14:00.000-05:00

We often have the knee-jerk reaction to the illegality of drugs in: “Of course drugs should be illegal! They cause so much damage and ill health, they aren’t good for the body, the bad effects of illegal drugs are well known and the government is protecting people from these effects.”

So why doesn’t the government outlaw tobacco and alcohol? Why doesn’t the government regulate the abundance of fast food and junk food which also cause illness and death? Alcohol and tobacco are the number 1 and 2 related causes of death in the USA, and the dangers of a bad diet are well known to everyone of us here. In contrast, 0.9 % of the working-age population uses cocaine, while 10% of the working-age population uses ganja in Jamaica. If the usage is so low, why is the drug-related crime so high?

Illegal drugs are illegal because many years ago, those in power in the higher classes decided that any substance that could be used by the lower status to achieve a narcotic effect must be outlawed and controlled “for their own good.” In doing so however, they created a black market effect which is obvious today, and which has led to the equality:

DRUGS = MONEY = POWER
At one recent seminar of Swiss bankers, it was estimated that the global take from illicit activities had reached over $1 trillion annually, the vast majority of which comes from drug dealing. In Mexico, the country's gross domestic product was $280 billion last year, while estimates of drug money flowing through the country range from $70 billion to $200 billion annually. Presidents there are now turning to the drug cartels to ensure financing of their traditional, and unofficial, multimillion-dollar retirement accounts. In Jamaica, corruption has become a more visible issue. What would you guess is the most likely source of these corruption funds?
With so much money available in drugs, how can someone resist the lure? For the love of money, people will swallow drugs and risk years in prison or death from ruptured bags. For the love of money, people will strap on drugs to their body and risk humiliation and years in prison. For the love of money, young black men will take up illegal guns and defend their turf to sell their product. For the love of money, young black men will kill each other and anyone who gets in their way of making that money. For the love of money, those in power will ignore this reality and keep this truth under wraps: the illegal nature of these drugs is what makes the crime related to these drugs so prevalent.

Ignored in all this love of money is the love of the product that causes so much suffering among the disenfranchised and poor in society. If there were no demand for illegal drugs, there would be no drug traffic. I ask you however; how can you cut the demand for drugs?

You can’t. If you want to go out tonight and get drunk, or get high, or hook up with a prostitute, or do whatever vice you wanted, there isn’t a soul in this room who can stop you or remove that desire from you. Even if we were to beg and plead with you to try and persuade you to not do it, the final decision would be yours and not ours. If we were by some miracle able to remove all coke or prostitutes or whatever your vice may be, odds are that you would just find another vice to fill whatever hole or need you that you think that vice can fill. It is society’s duty to help our fellow man to find purpose and meaning in life, and we will not do that by making these substances illegal. By doing so, we simply reduce him to a common criminal, when he is really a soul crying out for help. We need to guide him a greater purpose instead of attempting to remove the purpose that he currently has.

I am not preaching the virtues of ganja, or the medicinal properties of cocaine. I’m not promoting the obvious truth that people can put whatever they want with their bodies, nor am I saying that the government should not have control over these substances. I say that with more legal control over these currently illegal drugs, much of the power that goes with that money will revert from the hands of criminals into the hands of the authorities. We can either leave the money from drugs in the hands of unscrupulous criminals who then corrupt the government, or we can put that money directly into the hands of the government by legalizing the drugs. Which is the lesser evil?

Election time!

2007-07-17T14:22:00.000-05:00

At long last, the elections have been called for August 27. A whiles away, but the date is set, and i'm ready to cast my vote.

The ads have been on the radio for a while now. I have to admit that the JLP ads are way much better than the PNP ads. I hope that keeps up :D

2007-07-05T15:44:00.001-05:00

No, I am not dead. Though at times, I feel I'd get more rest that way...

a whole lot goes on, but can't talk much about it now. Hope everyone is doing well!

West Indies Cricket players!!

2007-04-15T18:03:00.000-05:00

Y'all suck. You suck so bad. You suck like a Hoover vacuum cleaner. I actively root against y'all now. I hope Bangladesh creams your party asses next match.

BSG season finale...

2007-03-27T13:33:00.000-05:00

...just about blew my frakkin' mind...

Day...all days beginning to run together!

2007-03-21T19:50:00.000-05:00

I think the entire group is beginning to get burnout from the intense pace of the program. The plus side is that things will be slowing down a bit today, we have only morning lectures and the rest of the day is for project work. Tommorrow seems to be a bit easier as well.

Stockholm is a nice enough city, a bit smaller than I expected but very modern. And Cold. There is a lot more to do here, but as time and funds aren't on my side, I haven't done much besides walk around Old Town with my friend Kaie, and do a bit of shopping.

Oh yeah, i got to meet Kaie and her boyfriend Robert. After talking to her online for a good while, it was really nice to meet a fellow SDA who could help me with church and everything. She is a great person, and I'm glad we are friends, hahahaha.

More photos of Stockholm, including Old Town, me and Kaie, pics of Stockholm City Hall, etc. etc.

Day 13

2007-03-16T15:54:00.000-05:00

Stockholm tommorrow! That sez it all, I'm ready to see the big city and meet friends I haven't seen ever. It should be loads of fun! Plus work, of course.

Speaking of which, here are some photos of me doing my thing. All professional and stuff, hahaha.

Day 12 (i think)

2007-03-15T18:55:00.000-05:00

it's late at night, so you'll have to interpolate the day's happenings from these statements. They are in order of time (from morning to evening).

Ice skating, near leg-breaking.

Long lectures, not too too interesting.

Decent lunch, disgusting avocados.

Group exercise, missing trams.

Chinese food and Isolation Years in Concert, very good group! Kinda like Tom Petty in their sound.

Disappointment in trying to watch latest episode of Lost, because it's all junked up with some password foolishness. I'll have to re-download it and watch it tommorrow.

Growing anticiption of Stockholm visit.

Phone call from Alecia in Paris, much enjoyed :)

Shout out to Debbie in Tampa (not Orlando)!

Bed.

Photos forthcoming again.

interlude.

2007-03-09T00:55:00.000-05:00

i just realized that this past weekend is my one-year anniversary of working at the WRA (and here I am in Sweden thanks to them). I wouldn't have gotten that working at that job in the USA, that's for sure.

so, yay! Tnanks be to God :)

Day 5;

2007-03-08T12:19:00.000-05:00

Today was a very interesting day at the lectures. The executive director of S.E.I. gave a lecture that informed us about no-tillage crops and how plowing actually DECREASES land yield in tropical regions...he also told us about the use of urine as fertilizers and the separation of urine and fecal matter to use as composts.

After you've stopped grossing out, you should check it out. It actually looks quite feasible, and I see great potential in what he was talking about (among other things)...

I managed to find a place to practice, though I'll only get to go there 4 times while I'm here. Better than none, i suppose.

This hotel doesn't have a laundromat, and it costs an arm and a leg to ship out stuff! I guess I'll have to go down to the wire before I send my stuffs to get washed.

Other than that, just another slow day in Norrkoping. Check out some photos down below...the first is the view outside my old room (I switched rooms today because I had no good internet access in that old room). The second is me on the first day of lectures...the third photo is our main lecture room and some of my fellow participants, the fourth is the welcome dinner last night at the hotel, and the final is me at the welcome dinner letting my inner Viking loose :D

Day 3:

2007-03-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

Much easier than day 2, in that we actually got more breaks and got to leave earlier. I need to leave earlier in the mornings to get the tram though, we got in about 5 minutes late and our supervisor was PISSED! Well, not like yelling at us, but you could tell she was upset. It wasn't our fault though...not really :) I guess Swedes really take punctuality seriously. I won't mess up next time.

Today after class, I went browsing/shopping. Lots of stuff here in town, but it's all kinda pricey. All i got thus far was a hat and a keychain light. I was looking at cell phones and iPods, but I'll get the Pod from the USA and the cellphone from the net at the right time.

Not much else happened today. I took some pics, will post 'em soon.

Day 2:

2007-03-05T17:56:00.000-05:00

Man, these people aim to get their money's worth out of US...not that i'm complaining. Today was the first day of the course, and we were all at SMHI from 8:30 am to 6 pm. Lecture upon lecture, with lunch and social interludes...They were pretty educational though. It was mostly introductions to climate change and various issues like health, investigating models of parameters, etc.

I think I'm the youngest person on the course, and the only one from an English-speaking country. It's a very diverse crowd, with about 22 countries represented. The entire setup is very professional, and I am impressed.

I'm also TIRED. Tommorrow after classes, I'll go check out the shopping in town if it's not too cold. Tonight, I sleep and vegetate.

more later

Day 1: Welcome to Norrkoping!

2007-03-04T07:38:00.000-05:00

I'm here!

And it's COLD!

Right now, i'm in my room at the Scandic Hotel in Norrkoping, Sweden. I flew in at 12 noon and came straight here with one fellow course participant from the Phillipines. I haven't met anyone else yet, and I think a good number of people haven't reached yet...I'm sure I'll meet more tommorrow.

Travelling down here was a long haul. The trip to Newark was uneventful, except that I saw an old classmate from 5th form on the plane. I had a long wait before the flight to Copenhagen took off, and that was a long trip. My legs still ache from it. Scandanavian Air is a good airline though, I likede how they have individual TVs in the headets.

Denmark was an interesting stay. Too bad the image I'll take from it is a really disgusting toilet. You don't expect to see that in a First-world airport toilet.

Right now i am jet-lagged, but I can't go sleep until nightfall. I'll write more tommorrow, along with pics.

off to Sweden

2007-03-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

I'll be heading to Sweden early tommorrow morning for a course on Climate change. This means that I'll be blogging more often, even if it kills me:)

Check this out as well...

Love of money, the root of all evil

2007-02-07T13:18:00.000-05:00

http://www.getipm.com/personal/cancer-racket.htm

http://www.ralphmoss.com/

I don't think that chemotherapy is the way to go. If you have to roll the dice, better to roll it towards the natural, not towards that which kills you in order to save you...

I have some thoughts on the power of "science" as practiced by today's scientists. They'll be forthcoming.

Don't mess with fruitcake.

2007-01-31T10:46:00.000-05:00

It will kick your ass everytime.

To the Tuna lady

2007-01-28T02:18:00.000-05:00

don't throw down no gauntlets to me, I'll pick 'em up :D

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B-flat Major

2007-01-24T16:57:00.000-05:00

baaaaad piece of piano-work in this tune.

this is what I want, what I really really want

2007-01-24T16:27:00.000-05:00

I need some generous soul to purchase me one of these babies right here :) and I mean the black one. Any takers? hehehehe

post relocation

2007-01-21T02:36:00.000-05:00

I moved my year in review blog to a more hidden part of the site, since I had a lot of info therein. If you really want to be nosy and read it, good luck hunting.

2007-01-16T11:32:00.000-05:00

The best national security plan any president can have is 4 words: "Get me Jack Bauer."

Daniella Cicarelli

2007-01-11T16:11:00.000-05:00

I hear that she's Ronaldo's ex-girlfriend. Just goes to show what football skills can do for ya :) Anyways, there's this big hub-bub about this video of her having sex with her current bf that was making the rounds on Youtube, and how the Brazilian government was trying to get tha Tube to take off all those videos or be blocked in Brazil ad infinitum.

I saw the video (search for her on google and you'll find it. YouTube is the least of her worries) and my impression is that she and her guy have none but themselves to blame. Sure, whoever shot the video is a sleazy jerk, but my opinion is that she and the bf started to exhibit PDA's and then got turned on from that and decided "what the heck, let's go all the way." People were around them the whole time that they were kissing, and when they started to kiss in a way that you should never do in public...that's where I lost sympathy for them. At least they had the presence of mind to go into the water when they decided to actually have sex.

So, the lesson of this experience is: Get a room, you horny buggers!

The music of Alkan

2006-11-17T13:18:00.000-05:00

Here's a story about how I made a spur of the moment purchase which led to various things happening.

I went down to Liguanea yesterday to go cash a check. Before heading to the bank, I went to this pharmacy in the plaza across from the bank, and discovered that they were having a sidewalk sale. In this sale, they had two thriller-type novels going for less than $10 US a pop. I haven't read a good story in a while, and they both seemed interesting so I picked 'em up for the heck of it. I started one of them last night called "The Book of the Dead" by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and am currently just past the halfway mark. While the story has engaged me thus far, I freely admit that it is a totally weird story. It's taking a while for the connections between 4 seemingly disparate plot lines to come together (right now I can see circumstantial connection but I'm still reading on to the grand reveal) and it seems that this novel builds upon events in previous novels which I never knew about. Lack of knowledge about these events isn't crippling me TOO much, but the characters are currently acting in a vacuum to me. I have an idea of WHAT the previous events are from dialogue, but I don't know WHY the events happened. Still, I've gone too far to turn around. I'll look it up on Amazon after I finish it.

However, the point of this blog post comes from a throwaway reference by the tale's chief villain. Think of a twisted cross between Frasier Crane and American Psycho, and that's him. In the book, he is full of high class tastes, drinking absinthe, reading all manners of books and authors I've never heard of because they'd be "out of my class and intellectual level". Snob to the MAX. I took a pause when he mentioned this composer called Alkan, the "forgotten musical genius of the 19th century" and said "few pianists are up to the challenge" of playing his pieces. I've never heard of the man, and if I hear "forgotten musical genius", i'm all over that. So I took a gander at Youtube (:drops on knees: "Oh Lord, thank you so much for inspiring whoever it was that created Youtube. May they truly enjoy the money they get from selling out to Google, because they've damned sure earned it." :rises from knees:) and searched to see what clips I could find.

I've heard Chopin's Revolutionary, and while it's difficult, I could play that with a whoooooole lot of practice. I did Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor on my own time, and did it pretty fairly. I can get back up to speed and finish it to performance level if I include it in my new practice routine, which I will probably do. I plan to try Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B flat in the near future; while it's just as hard as (or harder than) the Revolutionary, I like it more and that's enough motivation to keep me working at it when I get the score. But there is NO WAY, no way at all, that I could ever hope to play this fellow's work. A wise man knows his limits, and I believe I just met mine. Take a look at this, y'all.

I'm going to see what else I can find from the composer (and maybe the artist) on tha tube and on Amazon/iTunes. I suppose it's not surprising I never heard of him, since it's not everyone who'd be able to play this. You can't write music that no one can play, 'cause who will listen to it? On the other hand, we all should aim for the stars, eh :) Here's to Alkan, that forgotten virtuoso.

Fortunate Son

2006-11-15T16:00:00.000-05:00

Creedence Clearwater Revival. One of the best anti-war songs from the Vietnam Era.

Bill Evans

2006-11-14T15:57:00.000-05:00

I really really like this arrangement of this song.

Fantasy Basketball time, baby!!

2006-11-03T13:26:00.000-05:00

yeah, it's time for me to lay a smackdown on some suckas!! Of course, I haven't yet won a league, but my time will come :)

I started playing fantasy bball on Yahoo's free leagues about 3 years ago, and I was immediately hooked. It took me a while to get the hang of it, and I am still working out certain things but I did pretty well for my first year. I came in second in one league (rotissiere), and while I missed out on the playoffs for my other two leagues, I did win the consolation league playoffs in both. My second year wasn't as good, because I made the mistake of having 6 teams on two Yahoo IDs, and trying to pay equal attention to all of them. Yeah, that wasn't a smart move...I placed no higher than 7th in all of them. This year, I determined to focus only on 4 teams on my main yahoo ID, and I wasn't going to get any more teams.

Then I said "bugger that, I wanna play."

Thing is, I've gone overboard. Right now, in addition to my main 3 leagues (the 4th league doesn't seem to be taking off), I've set up 4 teams on my secondary Yahoo ID, and I'm about to add an additional 4 on another ID for the heck of it. Yeah, 12 fantasy Bball teams. How will I manage it???

I won't :)

I'll just focus day-to-day on the main yahoo ID leagues, which are all head-to-head. The secondary leagues are all rotissiere, and as far as I can tell, those mostly need regular checking to make sure that the guys on the team are all playing up to par. The last ID leagues, well I'll probably just draft 'em and leave 'em. See if I can actually win without doing anything. That worked for me the one time I tried fantasy football; I came in second for that league and I didn't have a CLUE what I was doing.

So for next season, let me know if you want to take me on in fantasy bball. I promise I won't hurt you. Too much.

The Adama Maneuver (from Battlestar Galactica's episode 4 season 3)

2006-10-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

Ain't no way the Enterprise could have done this :D

2006-10-19T14:19:00.000-05:00

Oh Lord this one thing I beg of Thee,
Don't let me get hooked on Grey's Anatomy

Travelogue#2: Australia

2006-09-22T21:43:00.000-05:00

In 2000, during my sophomore year of college, I became intrigued with the notion of studying abroad. Well, I was ALREADY studying abroad, but I began to think of doing it again for another semester. Heck, why not? Of course, I was limited by my language skills...I was barely holding it down in my mandatory Spanish classes that semester, and I didn't have the time or interest to learn a new language. So, if I wanted to study abroad, I was going to have to go somewhere that spoke English. Canada? Not exotic enough. England/Scotland? The UK has never really appealed to me. I should visit at least once to see my family over there, but I don't think I would like an extended stay. Ireland? Hmmmm, that could have worked, but for some reason it didn't cross my mind at the time... What did cross my mind was Australia and New Zealand. Exotic, but not unfamiliar (especially as they are Commonwealth countries like Jamaica), far away that I can really be out of my element, the ability to awe people when I say "yes, I've been to Australia, don't you know" etc. I chose Australia over New Zealand for a variety of reasons. Firstly, Australia admittedly has it going on over New Zealand. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that NZ is a beautiful country and it is definately on my "must see before I die" list...but if you've never been to either place, which place sounds more exciting, or has stuff you've heard about before? I also liked the schools I saw in Australia, but the main reason I chose it was because I had a "foster" mother of sorts down there, named Barb Loman whom I met on an Adventist email forum. She took an interest in me, and was very helpful to me when I was there, I'll never forget it (or her). She's also the reason why I chose Adelaide as my city of interest, as opposed to the expected Sydney or Melbourne.

So, between Jan 2000 and July 2000, I applied for and was accepted to Butler University's Study Abroad program. I chose this program on the advice of Dr. Klingelhoffer (W&L's INTL student advisor at the time) and I have no complaints about their program. I'm sure the others are good in their way, but I highly recommend Butler University's program for anyone who's interested in study abroad. I got my travel grant, started to save up for living expenses, got my student visa, and in January 2001 I went back home to Jamaica to visit for a month before heading out to Adelaide in February 2001. I left from BWI on Feb 6, and flew to Philadelphia, then to Los Angeles to meet with the rest of Butler SA students heading to Australia. We all got on the same 14-hour flight heading to Sydney, then broke up to head to our various cities. Our Adelaide group was split between two universities: the smaller group going to University of Adelaide and the rest (including myself) to Flinders University. We were together for Butler orientation with Cathy Romeo as our co-ordinator. I just have to give props to her, she did an AWESOME job with us! We arrived in Adelaide on Feb 6, and classes didn't start until Feb 21, so we had a lot of time to acclimatize ourselves.

For me to go into detail with what happened for the entire 5 month period would take a book to account, and maybe one day I'll write such a book. I will sum it all up by saying that that semester abroad was the best time I ever spent in college. To me, it was the right mix of people at the right time, and it all just clicked for the most part. It wasn't all perfect all the time, and I had some rough times there too...but the entire experience was one that I wouldn't have changed for the world, and one that changed my whole outlook on life and on myself. If I could go back and change anything, I wouldn't change a thing. Well, I probably would have spent more time hanging out than studying, especially this one time when I had to turn away a welcome guest in order to hit the books. I'm sure that I was under pressure from the books then, but in retrospect...damn, that was a dumb move!!! Still, who knows...

Things I loved about Australia:

The people. Before I left, someone was telling me that Australia was a racist society, akin to South Africa in some respects. I've read the history and I agree that all wasn't rosy in their history and there may be some grey spots here and there; but I didn't experience any racism when I was there. Based on the people I met when I was there, I say this without apology: Australians are the coolest people on the planet. Hands down, objectively speaking, they just rock. Friendly, funny, plain-spoken, no frills or airs, what you see is what you get. Aussies of the world, I salute you!
Adelaide. It's a big city with a small country town feeling. That's the best description I have of it. It's the third or fouth biggest town in the country, but it feels comfortable and home-like. I could see myself living there.
The environment: To have a kangaroo hop out of bushes to within 12 feet of you and watch you watch him is an experience to remember.
The people: I have to mention it again :) This time, I would include the schoolmates I met there, but that's for a separate post about my experience. This post is about the country.
Low prices. The US dollar was worth about $2 AU, but prices in Australia are numerically comparable (a meal that would cost $5 in the USA would cost about $5 AU in Australia.) So, if you go to australia, don't do what I did and keep some money in the USA. Take it all with you, change it all, and budget.
Danish Caramels from Balfour's Bakery. I would import that stuff to Jamaica if I could, in all seriousness. I never had a pastry like that before I went to Adelaide, and I've never had one since I left. I'm here remembering the texture and flavor, and wata come to mi eye. mmmmmmmmmmmm...yeah, I really miss those :(
The People (you see a theme coming out here? And remember I'm not really a people person either :D), especially those at Adelaide City church. Will say more about those experiences later.

Things I didn't like about Australia:

Lack of ice. Call me weird, but don't Australians ever use ice in their drink??? The only time I might have gotten any ice was if I went to a fast food store. Besides that, it seems that the only thing they drink that's non-alcoholic is cordial (aka syrup) and water. Their food is great, and the wine and liquor is very good if you do that sort of thing, but they need to step up for the "dry" people of the world.
"Neighbours" and "Home and Away." It takes a lot to beat "Dawson's Creek" for the title of Worst Show Ever, but these two manage to do so.
The cafeteria food. The caf workers were nice people, but God only knows what they did to the food, yo. I mean, how can you make RICE unedible? I ate what I could when I could stomach it. All of us on dorm lived for Tuesdays when they had an Asian cook come in for Asian night, because the food was then just a bit above mediocre. Interestingly enough, the Asian students on dorm HATED Tuesdays. Not only was the food borderline for eating, but the caf was closed on weekends, so we had to fend for ourselves those times. There were kitchens on dorm, but funds to buy food to prepare in said kitchens were limited. I had no luck in finding a part time job, and I found myself having to subsist on ramen noodles and cordial on Sundays and some Saturdays, if I was unable to hustle a lunchtime invitation from people at church. To this day, I refuse to eat ramen noodles unless it is the only thing between life and starvation.
"Live hard, party harder" seems to be the Aussie motto. I've never seen an official uni orientation where a pub crawl was the focal event, until I went to Flinders. Well, that's a plus for some people, but I'm a square :) besides, it's not healthy.
Hmmmm...that's pretty much it. Any other negative thing were experience-based. I told you it was a cool country :D

I was hoping to go back to do some further schooling after New Mexico Tech, but it didn't happen...if I ever return to school, I think I'll try to go down there. Highly recommended!

Travelogue #1: California

2006-09-22T20:22:00.000-05:00

I lived in California for 3 and a half months, from May 14 2005 to September 3 2005. I was in Orange County, in the city of Tustin and worked in Irvine. It was an interesting experience...and I don't just mean my entire job thing, which I will not detail on this website.

I liked the time I spent there, because it was different from anything I had experienced before. However, I don't think I would have been able to stay there for more than 3 years or so, and I definately would not want to settle there. I had heard that Northern California was the place to be, and Southern California was all congestion and sucktitude. Well, I didn't get the chance to visit NoCal, but SoCal wasn't as bad as I had feared, in some respects.

What I liked about California:

Tustin. It's a nice suburb of the OC. It wasn't as slick or yuppie as Irvine, where I'd drive past the apartments and say "yeah, I ain't gonna be able to live up in here for a loooong time, if EVA!". It wasn't as beat-up/ghetto as Santa Ana or La Brea, where I'd drive through and say "don't these people ever clean up the place?" Tustin had the perfect mix of upper-middle class and blue collar-class, for me at least. My apartment was the right type for me at the time, too bad I didn't have any furniture for it :D It just felt "real". I just wished I could have gotten to know more people around there, but I'm a quiet guy anyways.
The Orange Coast SDA church. Beautiful people, multi-cultural church, all that's good about so-called "California Adventists" and nothing bad...at least not from what I saw in my three-plus months over there. It was a bit weird to see the church go out for dinner at Soup Plantation after church, but to each their own. Pastor Ken was a really wonderful pastor, and I always had a blessing whenever I went to church there.
Bible study at Russ and Megumi's place. Their house was the first place I went after I moved to California, on the emailed advice from Pastor Ken, and this bible study became the high point of my week. The people I met there had a great impact on my spiritual life, and Russ and Megumi really helped me during my stay in California in more ways than one. I'll never forget them, and they've got a friend for life in me. Open line for any assistance I can give 'em! Special mention to Courtney and David as well :)
Anything I wanted was within 10 minutes drive. From Ikea to groceries to chinese food to car marts to Barnes and Nobles to sushi to movie theaters...you name it, and it's around close enough. Coming from small towns in New Mexico and Virginia, this was enough to make my head spin...and I loved it ('specially that B&N thing, hahahaha.)
Variety of scenery. When I was driving to Tustin from NM, all I saw was desert, and the two-hour stretch from the Arizona border to Bakersfield, CA (where I-40 merges into I-15 N&S) was probably the second worst stretch of driving landscape I've had the displeasure of passing through. I'll describe the worst in another travelogue. Anyways, I was surprised when I headed south on I-15, and saw the whole range of scenery! From desert to snow-capped mountains to beach scenery, all within 3 hours of driving. The range in the OC wasn't too bad either. I went out on a drive a couple of times, and took a bike ride a few days before. The first drive was through the south mountains, and the second drive was through Malibu with Lauren. The bike ride was along one of the trails to the beach, but I didn't get to the beach. I did find this really nice small park, and had a good meditation there. My point is that California does have a good range of climates.

What I didn't like about California

Traffic. Freakin' Traffic. Sodding, bloody, disgusting, traffic. Let me tell you, I have experienced rush-hour traffic in Jamaica every morning heading to work. I've driven in NYC, and I've been in the best of beltway traffic in DC on many an occasion. None of those in any way prepared me for the horror that is Southern California rush hour traffic. It has to be seen to be believed, but let me give you an idea. Imagine a 12-lane highway, 6 lanes running one way, and 6 lanes running another. Now imagine this highway packed to the brim with cars that aren't moving, for about 30 miles or so. That, my friends, is I-405 every day after 5 pm. I mean, I lived about a 10-minute drive from my office at a regular time. Leaving early in the morning, I would make it in about 15 minutes or so. Coming home in the evenings, if I reached home in an hour, I was lucky. It made no difference if I used the freeway or tried to find local roads, it was clogged either way. Traffic would have played a major role in making me leave Cali if I had kept my plan of working for a while in that state.
Heat. The whole place was just MUGGY, and the fieldwork I was doing in the Inland Empire (near Loma Linda and San Bernardino) made me aware that smog is really REALLY bad around these parts. If you live near the coast, you might catch some breeze, but other than that, you salt.
High cost of living. I never did understand why everything was so overpriced over there. Was I supposed to pay for the privilege of living in this "wonderful" state? sheesh! From rent to movies to groceries, it was all high-priced. I learned a lot about living on the cheap...
Fakeness of people. It said a lot to me that in my time in California, the only friends I made were people who were not native to California. Every last one of them came from somewhere out of state or out of country, or even out of SoCal. I never knew that people could be so two-faced until I experienced OC natives.
Being black in California. I had my first and only DWB experience in California.
Earthquakes. I experienced two tremors in my time there, and it only reminded me that the Big One is overdue. If you live in California, keep on dreaming that it won't come. People in New Orleans thought the same thing about the levees.

All in all, I had an eventful and fruitful time in California. It would not be my first choice of a state to live in, but I would go back there to work for a while if the situation was right, with the proper expectations in mind.

And i never even got a chance to truly go through Los Angeles...but that was probably for the best.

My favourite memory of California: Visiting Whistler Island (if that's the name) on July 4 with the OC young people. Beautiful place, and it got me into kayaking. Honorable mention goes to my bike ride through Costa Mesa towards the beach, the Monday Bible studies at Russ's place (and James's place sometimes), and the times I spent hanging with Bev and Lauren, especially with Lauren and her friend at that free Jars of Clay concert at Angel Stadium. Also, finally getting to meet Rachel!

Not so cool memory of California: Traffic, feelings of confusion after my experience, feelings of being BROKE, uncertainty of the future, speeding tickets.

Another review of "the wire"

2006-09-21T10:20:00.000-05:00

This is the tail end of The Sport's Guy's review of Gridiron Gang. I was pleasantly surprised to see it as I came to the end of that column, on www.espn.com/page2
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One more thing ...

I found it fascinating that, in the same month that "Gridiron Gang" became the No. 1 movie, HBO ignored perpetually crummy ratings and renewed "The Wire" for a fifth and final season. After plowing through the first 37 episodes of "The Wire" in three weeks this summer, I agree with others who argue that it's the most important television show of all-time, surpassing even "The Sopranos" because of its ambition and social relevance. The "Sopranos" worked because the acting and writing was so exceptional, we found ourselves identifying with unlikable characters who were basically unredeemable (save for Tony's wife, his children and his therapist). We excused every horrible action because we grew to like these characters personally over the years. In real life, we probably wouldn't like any of them, and we would definitely be afraid of them. It's fantasy disguised as reality: Lose yourself in the show for an hour, digest it when it's over and move on to something else.

Well, there's nowhere to hide in "The Wire." The characters are stuck in Baltimore, a washed-up city ravaged by drugs, poverty and political corruption. Our closest thing to heroes are renegade detective Jimmy McNulty (a likable, hard-drinking iconoclast who disappears for much of Season 2 and becomes completely irrelevant in Season 4) and a gun-wielding nomad named Omar (a scarfaced Robin Hood, only if Robin Hood was gay and stole from drug dealers). We spend three full seasons watching Baltimore police break the city's biggest drug syndicate ... only to watch an angrier, more ruthless group of rival dealers immediately pop up in its place. The current season centers around four poor teenagers (all of them threatening to succumb to the drug lifestyle) and Baltimore's incompetent school system (which can't even begin to hope to save them), with the show elucidating in painstaking detail why these kids can't be salvaged: They have no role models and no chance to escape, and things will never change because the lead politicians and major police heads only care about themselves. There's no overall plan to save the city, no passionate leader on the horizon, nothing. All of it would take too much effort. Like a dead fish, Baltimore rots from the head down.

It's an exceptional show, and I'm not even sure "exceptional" is a strong enough word. Of course, barely anyone watches it. HBO deliberated over its renewal all summer until the gushing feedback for Season 4 left them no choice. Late to the party, I spent the past few weeks devouring the show, then the next week wondering what took everyone else so long to jump on the bandwagon, and more importantly, what took ME so long to jump on the bandwagon. Two weeks ago in this space, I explained how I'm one of those people who doesn't like when other people tell me, "YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS SHOW!" If anything, that makes me not want to watch it. I like to stumble across these things organically.

Now I'm wondering if I avoided "The Wire" because its central themes -- drugs, corruption, urban decay -- were realities that I simply wanted to ignore. Instead of being haunted by a show like this, it was easier and safer to skip it entirely. Most people feel this way, I'm guessing; it's the only conceivable reason why five times as many people would watch "The Sopranos" over a show that's better in every way. See, when most Americans dabble in inner-city TV shows or movies for our "taste" of street life, we're hoping for the Hollywood version. We don't want despair and decay, we want hope and triumph. We don't want the zero sum game of drug dealers killing each other, we want the Rock coaching juvie kids and turning their lives around in two hours. We want them to win the big football game, we want the movie to end, and we don't want to think about these people ever again.

That's the real reason why "Gridiron Gang" became the No. 1 movie last weekend, and that's the real reason why "The Wire" was barely renewed for a fifth season. Upon further review, maybe the problem isn't Hollywood after all.

Bill Simmons is a columnist for Page 2 and ESPN The Magazine. His new book "Now I Can Die In Peace is available on Amazon.com and in bookstores everywhere.
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Jimi's best rendition of his best work

2006-09-14T12:06:00.000-05:00

No one would ever be able to cover this song, I don't think. It's in 2 parts because it's kinda long.

BSG

2006-09-12T08:22:00.000-05:00

Good TV is coming back, baby! Both BSG and The Wire at the same time, mmm...

Who Knows

2006-09-11T16:50:00.000-05:00

Youtube+Geoff+blogger= a whole lot of experimenting :)

This is one of my favourite Jimi Hendrix tunes. It's not his greatest work, but it has a really funky groove to it and I just wanted to put it up here.

Down in the hole...

2006-09-11T16:41:00.000-05:00

Credits of Season 4 of the Wire. The best version of the theme song they've used.

Animation Domination

2006-09-11T11:12:00.000-05:00

I am (was? no, am) a fan of Fox's Sunday night animation lineup. The Simpsons has always been on my radar, and when Family Guy first came out, I thought it was really funny and gut-busting. I wasn't too impressed with American Dad, I thought it was too derivative of Family Guy.

My, how times have changed.

I caught the premiere of all three shows last night, and it confirmed to me what I had suspected all throughout last season.

Firstly, The Simpsons. "The Simpsons" is in imminent danger of becoming more of a guest actor winker show instead of a comedy. I mean, I was totally stoked to see Metallica do a spot...but what was the point of it? I love it when Fat Tony and the Sopranos do their mafia thing...but they've done it better on the Simpsons before. It was watchable, but I was more chuckling than laughing out loud. I know that you've done everything before on the Simpsons, but they should keep the stories a lot tighter, I think.

Next, Family Guy (which actually came on at 9 pm after American Dad, but I'll deal with it now). This show has totally lost its humor to me. Peter Griffin has gone from Homer Simpson likeability to "Will someone PLEASE kill this moron!" territory for me. I miss the Family Guy of old, and I hope they get it back. It says volumes that I didn't finish watching the episode, I just turned it off before the half hour finished...and it's not the first time I've done so. I'll keep giving it a shot, but right now they are on borrowed time with me.

I never thought I'd see the day where "American Dad" would be the funniest of the three, but it happened a lot of times last season and it happened again here tonight. This was the only one of the three shows that made me laugh out loud, even though the story here was not the best that it's been either. They've come a long way here, and I hope they keep it up!

no more needs be said

2006-09-08T11:08:00.000-05:00

Experience; that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you
learn.
--C.S. Lewis

Random thoughts...

2006-09-05T16:05:00.000-05:00

"Lost" begins its new season on October 4, and "Battlestar Galactica" begins on October 6th. I cannot WAIT for those dates to come!

"The Wire" begins this coming Sunday. It's unfortunate that I can't get my parents to get HBO for 12 weeks, but if I have to spend weekends at my uncle's house so I can watch it...well, I will.

I have to be willing to walk away...and I'm developing that willingness slowly but surely.

I also need a chill pill :) what's the balance between taking yourself too seriously, and taking everything as a joke? And which is worse? (i think taking everything as a joke is worse).

Is there anything new worth watching on TV this season? It's not a lament, it's a genuine question. For some reason, I haven't been really watching any TV since August.

It's easier to curse the opposite sex than it is to wait for the few members of the opposite sex who aren't completely clueless. And that goes for both men AND women.

Those who say you can't be platonic friends with someone you once had feelings for...they're lying. I will admit that the situation and people involved have to be pretty special though...but it happened to me, so anything's possible. Of course, there are situations where it HASN'T happened for me too, hahahahaha.

For Adventists, dating a non-SDA is almost always never worth it in the end. The exceptions only prove the rule. If God wants you to do missionary dating, He will show it to you clearly. Trust me, there are fish in the sea up in this church. Tons of 'em. Just because the ones you know are dysfuctional doesn't mean there aren't other schools of fish out there. Forget them crazy sprats and God will help find your king (or queen) tuna.

ok, that analogy was a bit corny, but so what?

He who swats a mosquito has done a good thing.

If I could pick only10 albums to listen to on a desert island, I would include "Persuaded" by Richard Smallwood, "Jars of Clay" by Jars of Clay, "Superunknown" by Soundgarden, "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" by Sarah McLaughlan, "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis, a burned CD of my favourite Phillip Aaberg tunes (or if they hold me to the album rule, i'd pick his "Out of the Frame" album), "One More Remains" by Alter Bridge, "Joe Satriani" by Joe Satriani, something good by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and "Best of Bach".

Then I'd go crazy because I forgot something I'd have wanted even more.

Wikipedia is the greatest thing to hit the internet since Google.

There are some things you can't find on the intenet. Believe me, I've tried.

Steve Irwin was a great man, and the world has lost much for his death. He was no Tim Treadwell (from Grizzly Man)...I'd have to think some more to back up that statement, but I do believe that these guys were different. Steve was exhuberant, Tim was crazy. Steve knew what the animals could do to him, and was a conservationalist. Tim thought he was immortal, and that he was ONE of the animals...he was just nuts. I'd have to ponder it some more.

If your child says they don't want to take piano lessons, find some way for them to keep it up, or make it fun for them. I have yet to meet someone who was sorry they took piano lessons; I have met many who are sorry that they didn't continue.

Country music has no redeemable qualities except to illustrate the lives of people who are more miserable than you.

Praise and Worship music is almost as bad as country, for the most part (but not for the same reason).

The man isn't alive who won't look at some great cleavage when it appears.

In Jamaica, Adventist musicians are taken for granted and under-appreciated. It's not easy to play the piano/organ every weekend, and calling it "The Lord's Work" applies only when you're at your home church. If you ask someone to come from their church to play for your choir or your church, you better be ready to offer some form of assistance. He/she is doing you a favour if it's free, and the worker is worthy of his hire. In the same vein, don't ask someone to play for a wedding and expect it to be free. You're paying everyone else; why should the music be gratis?

Funerals are a different story; but you should still offer or something.

Facebook messed up in their new re-design. There is going to be fallout from that, wait and see.

Adventists, seriously, don't decide to go the non-SDA route. You're depriving some deserving SDA person of a wonderful spouse, and trying to convert a non-SDA for the wrong reason. Now you've gone and made 3 people miserable. Or two, if God decides to carry your intended spouse to another option while you do your own thing...

I nearly went the non-SDA route. Twice seriously, and once semi-seriously.

No, i won't tell what happened, at least not on this site :)

The day Jamaica's leaders put country over party, and the day Jamaicans start taking themselves and each other seriously and start to suck up some deprivations in order for a long-term benefit is the day this country lifts off like a Saturn V rocket.

I am going to KILL this freakin' mosquito in my office!

Rain on a zinc roof is the best sleeping aid ever. And the best aphrodisiac too. No, I don't know the second one from personal experience, but my time is gonna come...

The only reason I would buy an xBox 360 is to play Halo 3, and the only reason I'd get the new PS3 is for the next Grand Theft Auto.

just wanted to reiterate my last blog to credit card people; y'all SUCK.

American food is fattening and gets its flavour from the oil. They need more spices in the mix.

I hate the "game." Why do I have to be fake or do what I don't want to do in order to get what I desire? Why can't I be myself and have someone be attracted to me; why must I "generate" it?

If you're bored, it's your own fault. Find something to do, whether it's productive or not.

"Boomtown" isn't coming back and I have to forgive NBC at some point in time.

Nah, they're still idiots. I may watch that one show though, just because of Aaron Sorkin.

I got the little cabron, hahahahaha!!!

I hope I can make it to GYC this year.

Finally for now, I think that taking piano lessons again is going to be a very good thing in more ways than one. I'm not sure what the other benefits besides the obvious will be, but i feel that they are there. We will see what transpires.

drowning under tons of debt? priceless

2006-09-01T11:27:00.000-05:00

If you’re reading this and you work at/with a credit card company, I just want to tell you that you suck. Shylock would look at you and cross the road because he doesn’t want to be associated with you. Tell your boss that I said he/she can kiss my nether regions. The system is so rigged to keep people down, it’s not even funny. The WORST part of it all is that it’s not those who spend recklessly that get screwed the most, it’s those to whom life happens (lose a job, get sick, big move, etc) and then fall into hardship. Do the financial companies care? Take a wild guess.

You predators make me sick.

Just when u thought he was dead...

2006-09-01T08:38:00.000-05:00

...he pops up with new pics of the Jamaican countryside and fascinating (to him) hydrology information! hahaha. First off, let me just say good riddance to August. It's the month of my birth and I usually love it, but this August was just stressful for me in so many ways and I am not sorry to see the back of it.

Anyways.

Yesterday, I went on yet another investigation for my job, this time looking at possible sources of silt in the Dry Harbor Mountain basin. Apparantly, there is a hydroelectric power plant located on a river, and they reported having issues with their intake getting clogged with silt that was coming from outside the area, since that silt was all brown and sandy; but the dam is in a marly limestone region with white dirt. The river rises out of this AWESOME blue hole at the foothills of the Cockpit country, and there is at least one known river that sinks about 20 miles to the southeast of the blue hole which connects to it.

So.

We, the WRA crew made our way firstly to the headwaters of this smaller river in Manchester, outside of Spaulding. See the pic with a small river in this sandy river bed (for the life of me, i can't figure out how to put these pics where I want them to go.) We didn't actually go to the actual headwaters, but stopped off right below where it pops up. Some Rural Water Development people are building a treatment site near there, so we checked it out to see if it could be a potential silt site. It COULD be, but with the relatively small volume of water at this location, I wouldn't hold my breath on it. The soil here was pretty hard and clayey, stuck together.

Next, we went to the place where the river sinks into the karstic limestone. If you don't know what karstic means, go ask your geology teacher ;) There's one pic where the river seems to flow right under the limestone outcrop; that's the low flow sink. The other pic with the whole bunch of bambo debris and the other pic staring into a dark crevasse with bamboo debris is the high flow sink...and I would not want to be there at high flow! The debris was piled up from the last major flood event (Hurricane Ivan) and hasn't been cleared yet. As per the course for this place. One note about the crevasse pic; you can clearly hear the water flowing off under the rocks to points known in routes unknown. Where does this water come out? We got a soil sample here, regular river sand...

Then we took a long haul into St. Ann, through Browns Town and into the edge of the Cockpit Country where the Rio Bueno rises up. See the Blue Hole pics. From this point, the river flows to the sea, and gets dammed for useage. We checked it all out, went down to the dam head and the hydro station, saw these two people having sex in the river with no shame, and made our conclusion. Basically, the dam people have to suck it up and build a better intake, plus dredge their dam more often. :)

Anyways, that's what i've been up to. Hope you like the pics...back to lurking and chilling until i get inspired again. Thanks to those who left comments, I only just got them! I will be getting more notice of them now, so please let me know you read all this.

I will check it out

2006-08-21T13:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, I’m sold. Even if it’s only to see THAT line, I have to go see “Snakes on a Plane” sometime soon.

and now...

2006-08-18T20:20:00.000-05:00

This very interesting month continues, just past the half-way mark. What is left? What more is waiting for me? God only knows…

Just one thing to say today...

2006-08-08T00:54:00.000-05:00

Let it not be said that I never did my best to make it clear what my intentions were.

Thoughts on voting

2006-07-21T13:39:00.000-05:00

I have not yet voted in my life. This is not due to a desire not to vote, it’s been mostly due to a combination of things in the two elections that have occurred since I turned 18...On the first occasion, the enumerator came around about 5 months before the election date to see if anyone wanted to get enumerated. I told her that I was 17, but would be 18 when the election date came around; could I be enumerated? She said no. I didn’t get the chance to register to vote before that election. In 2002, I was living abroad, and Jamaica has not given its foreign citizens the ability to vote in absentia. I think both parties are scared shitless about what would happen to them if they did that.

At any rate, elections are on the way again…no one knows exactly when except Portia, but they are due soon and both the JLP and PNP are beginning to rev their campaign machinery. And no matter what both parties do, there are a significant number of people who say that they are not going to vote.

I find this hard to comprehend.

I will be the first to admit that politics is a crock of bull manure, and in this day and age (especially in Jamaica), politics is a time-honored method of transferring money from the poor to the rich and setting up those who want power and authority so that they can feel like kings and queens over the unintelligent and feeble-minded masses, and piss away the resources of the country. 90% of the politicians do not deserve to be in any position of authority, and 100% of them are tarred with the same brush of responsibility for Jamaica being in the state it is in. However, does this disgust with the political process automatically mean that one should boycott the vote? To my mind, it does not.

Many people say that they can’t find someone to vote for, “one jus’ as bad as the other, no difference between them.” That is lazy thinking, in my opinion. If there really is no difference between them, then there wouldn’t be a multiplicity, would there? These people do not seem to realize that their vote is the one thing, the ONLY thing that any politician desires from them. The politician will promise heaven on earth, chickens in every pot, increased wages and rollbacks of tolls, ANYTHING to get that little X by their party. Other than that, he/she more than likely won’t care about you. When you realize this, you realize the power of the vote, because while he/she may not care about you after you cast the vote for him/her, you can remember whether or not he/she lived up to their promises the next time elections come around. Parties want to stay in power, and if we don’t use our vote to punish/reward them for fulfilling the promises they made, then they won’t care about fulfilling those promises. Both parties are not deserving of your vote, you say? Hold your nose and vote for the one who disgusts you the least. Either you take some control of your destiny, or you leave your nation in the hands of the party who can best agitate its rabid base to turn out and vote. Do you really want to leave your future in the hands of party loyalists? That is what you do when you leave it up to them to decide who will be victorious.

We all complain about the way things are run; it is human nature. The vote is the only time, short of a coup de etat, that you can show your approval/disapproval of how things are being run, and you give up your power over the politicians when you decide to not use it. I believe there are two reasons for people to not vote: either they don’t for religious reasons (and I respect that), or they just don’t give a damn. If you honestly don’t give a damn, and you don’t care about what happens to you or your country, well, I suppose less power to you by your own choice…

Get up, stand up for your right. Vote. It’s the least you can do.

boycott!!

2006-07-18T14:17:00.000-05:00

I’m going to boycott the Portmore toll. I don’t live in Portmore, but I’m boycotting it nonetheless. This government takes us for idiots, but sometimes I can’t blame them…

I have a vibe to post about voting, but it’s not ready yet. It will come soon enough.

stupdidty

2006-06-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

I can’t see what Hamas intends to accomplish by kidnapping Israeli soldiers. If there’s a bully on your block that can beat you up, and if you have no way to beat him up (though you can sting him pretty well), you don’t go around jamming your finger in his eye every chance you get. What good would that do you?

stupidity

2006-06-29T07:42:00.000-05:00

Update

2006-06-16T10:46:00.000-05:00

What have I been up to for the past few days?

Well, my social life has taken a dramatic upswing, and I am enjoying it a lot. It’s almost time for my cousin to get married, and I’m looking forward to making the trip to see him and his wife-to-be, as well as do some other stuff as soon as I can…

Work has been good too, for the most part.

The future is looking quite interesting.

Im still alive

2006-06-02T21:21:00.000-05:00

I’m still alive, still traveling, still living large thanks to God’s grace. I did have a field trip yesterday but haven’t gotten around to posting pics. I had to reformat my laptop for the first time since I got it…it went ok for the most part. It’s definitely working better than it was before, and now I’m not so scared of doing it again (.

So, don’t despair because I haven’t posted in a while. I’ll put up more info soon.

still more photos

2006-05-11T22:10:00.000-05:00

The Trench Town massive at the singles retreat...

More TT Massive...
Me and Andrea Oliver, 3 days before I left the USA
Me and Tiff Brown, 3 days before I left the USA.

more pics!

2006-05-11T22:03:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it's like "nothing" for a while, and then "plop!" a whole bag of random pics. Well, take 'em or leave 'em!

Me, circa the same time as before.
Ewarton, coming down from Mount Rosser, with fog present. That's the flash of the camera, not the sun...this pic was taken on the way back from the singles retreat.

The minature golf course at Starfish Resorts, site of the singles retreat.

the latest in actual Geoff activities...

2006-05-11T21:23:00.000-05:00

...as opposed to ramblings on current events and random thoughts...

Yesterday I went on a field trip into the hills of St. Thomas/Portland. Our aim was to investigate potential water sources for this community up there, and while I don't think that the river we looked at will do any good for them, it was still an exhilarating trip. We went up the Hector's River bed and tracked it up until we entered the John Crow Mountains, which I've heard of many a time but never actually BEEN to. The river bed was very awe-inspiring, and I bet it would have been even more inspiring if water was flowing in it...then again, the way the rocks appeared, we would have been in major trouble if caught in that waterfall. I'll bet that when this river is in flow, it would rival any major waterfall currently well known in Jamaica. As it is, the flow is sub-surface for the most part...and who would want to hike all the way up there just to be at peace in nature, with just janga (small river shrimp), fish and wild hogs for company? (I didn't see any, but I know they're up in the hills).

Anyways, the pics show some of the views, as well as the river bed itself and the various channels we measured. The Mississippi it ain't...

it was a nice trip though, I had a good time. The hike nearly busted me, but I got my second wind and was able to continue after the first rest with nary a break...I was drinking like a fish the rest of the day though!

more picis forthcoming

more Colbert

2006-05-05T12:01:00.000-05:00

A few thoughts on Stephen Colbert’s skewering of the White House and the press…

Humor is a subjective thing. Something you may find funny, I may find totally disgusting, and vice versa. It’s kind of hard to judge what’s funny and what’s not, based upon how many people laugh, or how many say they thought it was hilarious. One has to consider WHO those people are, and WHAT was the subject at hand, whether they were predisposed to think it funny or not.

Those who focus on whether or not Colbert’s performance was successful because it made (or didn’t make) people laugh are missing the point completely. Humor had nothing to do with what Colbert did. It was witty, but it wasn’t meant to be humorous. Someone wrote an article about that; I don’t recall who, but do a search for humor vs. wit and Colbert to find it.

Personally, I read the transcript before I got a chance to watch it, and I will admit that I found it funnier to read than watch (not that I didn’t laugh either time.) But the main focus to me, which can be totally lost in the “argument” about whether Colbert was funny or not, was that it was a well-incised camouflaged-yet-very-obvious reminder to the president and the press corp that they ain’t doing DIDDLY and that they should not stick their heads in the sand too much anymore, because we aren’t buying it. This wasn’t about being liked by anyone there, this was about getting a message across to the people you want to hear it. Colbert could have said all those things the same way many of us do; to our friends and people who think like us…and no one else would have heard or cared. You think Bush gives a fig about Michael Moore? However, Bush got a dose of reality that he would not have gotten any other way because he doesn’t listen to anyone who doesn’t agree with him; they all get pushed away or ignored or otherwise put out of focus. Now all of a sudden one of those people gets a chance to tell him the whole truth guised in truthiness? OOOOOOH man.

Stephen Colbert had the titanium cojones to speak the truth to the captive audience, and that’s the story. It’s not about how funny he was, it’s about the way in which he preached his message. Anyone focusing on anything but that is trying to cover themselves, because they know they got dinged in his words and the truth HURTS.

Singles retreat :)

2006-05-04T11:12:00.000-05:00

So I was on a retreat a couple weekends ago. It was a very nice occasion, relaxing, invigorating, Spirit-filled, all that good stuff. When I first heard about it, I thought that it would be a waste of money, but having gone there, I admit that it was funds well spent. The retreat was at the Starfish Resorts in Trelawney…it was a very good hotel. Not quite 5 star, and even 4 stars is a bit generous…but I’ll be generous. 4 stars it is! I had fun there, the buffet-style menus were varied enough for my tastes, and it’s the only place I’ve seen so far in Jamaica that actually has a sushi restaurant (which I was unable to partake of, because it cost extra). Anyways…the first impression I got of the place was that of a giant motel, ‘cause that was what it looked like upon initial approach. Just goes to show that first impressions can be wrong sometimes. The rooms were clean, the facilities were working, the pool and Jacuzzi were good, the conference room was nice as well. I would go back there.

The retreat itself proved to be a great idea, and I feel that great things will come from it. The presentations included self-esteem, coping with loneliness, boundaries in dating, being comfortable and happy when being single, and a few others. The program was a bit cramped; there wasn’t a lot of social time besides mealtimes and Sabbath evening…you had to do your own meet and greet. Then again, that’s what you’re SUPPOSED to do.

One thing that was troubling was the male-female ratio. Including the people from Cayman, there were about 20 or so guys there, tops. This compares to about 90 or so women. What is going on here?? This is a pressing concern, I think…

I met some interesting people on the retreat. It’s always good to make new friends, no? Pics may come later; can’t post them right now.

A plug for the dearly departed.

2006-05-03T09:04:00.000-05:00

Go buy/rent this TV show on DVD, and see what manner of quality TV NBC decided to cancel, in favor of taural fecal matter such as "Deal or No Deal" and "The Apprentice." It's been 4 years since they canceled this TV show, but my bitterness at NBC still burns and will never die. I hope NBC stays in the graveyard of network television, may UPN and WB leapfrog it and send them further to obscurity. My review of this TV show on Amazon is one of the spotlight reviews (incidentally, "Boomtown" has a 5-star rating there too!).

Stephen Colbert

2006-05-01T14:42:00.000-05:00

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/30/1441/59811

This is a transcript of Stephen Colbert’s devasting satirical monologue about the president…it is a work of ART and perfect TRUTHINESS. Viva!

Also, the bees moved out :-( Oh well…

New Tenants

2006-04-30T10:04:00.000-05:00

A bunch of bees moved into the orange tree on our property! I don’t know if I’m intrigued or nervous, or both…they just flew in this morning and hived up. I am not sure if they are moving in or if they are just resting for a few minutes. I think it’s a good omen (not that I really believe in that…too much :D)

I haven’t forgotten about the retreat pics and breakdown. It’s forthcoming.

Off to the church workday…

Singles retreat prelim

2006-04-24T16:11:00.000-05:00

Yes, I went on a singles retreat this past weekend. Yes, I have a few pics, though not too many. Yes, I will tell the tale of what went down and how great it was…I just am not going to do it right now.

Correction

2006-04-20T23:09:00.000-05:00

A correction about my blog on the Moneague lake…

It’s not a new feature, in that the lake has been in existence as a small pond since the discovery of Jamaica, and the rising of the waters has been previously noted since at least the 18th century. The last time the waters rose was either in 1933 or 1971. The 1933 event had the waters sticking around for about 4 years, finally draining out in 1937. The Doc center has a geological report that I’m going through which was written in 1972 and was examining whether or not the lake could be made permanent…interesting, since the goal these days is how soon can we be rid of it (I think). I don’t know why people built their houses so far down in that vale…guess they either forgot about the lake or thought it wouldn’t happen again.

Going Home to Teach

2006-04-19T14:26:00.000-05:00

This morning on the way to work, I finished re-reading Anthony Winkler’s “Going Home to Teach.” I hadn’t read it in a while, but found it while cleaning out the garage this past Sunday morning. Anthony Winkler is a really gifted author and he has a talent for clearly reproducing the essence of raw Jamaica, even if it is a Jamaica that existed before I was born. He also wrote “The Lunatic” which I need to find and re-read again as well. He is a white Jamaican who currently lives in Atlanta, GA.

This book “Going Home To Teach” recounts his experiences when he returned home to Jamaica to teach back in the 1970s. Those were tumultuous times for Jamaica, when Michael Manley was in power and socialism was the philosophy du jour. Many people left, while Winkler was coming back. The book has a lot of pathos, humour, and drama; but what really makes it impressive and relevant to me are the observations on Jamaican, American and English culture. Here are some samples. I don’t necessarily agree with all his observations, but I think they are worth noting.

On being white in Jamaica, specifically referring to his American wife’s experience:
“To be white in a black country with a long English colonial history is to be a pariah, an ambiguous entity. It is to be simultaneously respected and despised, to arouse suspicion and curiosity, to evoke defiance, rudeness, envy and condescension. It is to be separated from that inalienable birthright every white American enjoys in his own country; the expectation of being treated with indifference in a public place. When you are white in a black land like Jamaica, you are no longer merely a man, or a woman, or a child. For good or ill, you are also immediately transmogrified into a living symbol of a detested colonial past.”

On Jamaican and American attitudes towards economic roles:
“The American nation is essentially a confederation of economic tribes known as businesses and corporations, each with its own totemic history, identity…when you work for an American corporation it defines you, moulds you…and eventually changes your values and perceptions...Americans are reared with the expectation that a large part of their personal identity will eventually be defined in adulthood by an economic role. One becomes what one does…Jamaicans DO their careers, their occupational pursuits; Americans BECOME them…This wedding of personality and occupation is a most peculiar trait for Jamaicans to comprehend mainly because they have inherited from their own cultural experience a deep-seated dislike for ready-made economic roles. Jamaicans revel in the expression of an idiosyncratic self, and reject any occupational role that brings with it blanket expectations of the self. Why this is so no doubt goes back to our experience with slavery when we waged and endless war of passive resistance against the slave master’s desires and struggled hard to repudiate what he wanted us to become.”

On “getting on bad”
“This expression has a peculiar meaning to the Jamaican, and no known equivalent in America. To ‘go on bad’ is to employ the behaviour of the lower class in a sphere of life where it is outlandishly inappropriate. One cannot ‘go on bad’ in a true democracy like America, but only in a society that separates people into classes by a strictly prescribed code of manners. Under the Englishman’s colonial blueprint, the ragged brute in the streets is expected to rant and rave over grievances and raise his voice in profanity, but not the tuxedoed gentleman at a formal dinner. And should the gentleman so behave for whatever reason other than rare excusable drunkenness, he is said to have ‘gone on bad.’ His sin is not so much bad behaviour as it is a degenerate hybridisation of manners-bringing the lower-class brute into the drawing room- and the penalty is social expulsion. He simply will never be invited back.”
The unfortunate thing is that many times, getting on bad is the only way to get anything done! He notes this in the anecdote that follows this quote, which I won’t replay here.

It’s a great autobiographical novel told from a point of view that I haven’t even considered too much; that of the person who is born in Jamaica and is just as Jamaican as I am, except that he is white. It is an accurate snapshot of Jamaica in the 1970s as well. Well, I assume that, since I wasn’t born then :D At any rate, I highly recommend it. Also read the rest of his books: “The Lunatic” “The Painted Canoe” “The Great Yacht Race” and “The Duppy”. I have read them all except for the last one, those I have read have been very good also.

Easter Weekend

2006-04-18T11:50:00.000-05:00

Aah, the joys of a 4-day weekend. It was a good break, with a beach trip thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, I did not take any pics because I was stupid enough to buy Maxell batteries. They SUCK. They didn’t even last one day. I took the pics from Moneague on those batteries and then they died that same day, fresh out the pack. Never again, never again…

But the trip was a lot of fun. Those in attendance were Andrew, Sarah, Gairy, Tameka and yours truly. We didn’t end up at our intended destination (which was my fault) and had to go to Dunn’s River instead, but next time we go out we’ll check that original place out, Cranbrook Falls or something like that.

Back to work it is now though…let’s see what can get done.

Moneague- a tale of flooding

2006-04-13T20:40:00.000-05:00

Today, I went to take well readings around the Moneague lake. This lake is a pretty new feature, having come into existence about a year or so ago when heavy rains saturated the earth and the water just started to raise up beyond expected levels, as seen here in this picture. The waters stayed high, and seem to show no sign of going down...or rather, whenever they start to go down, rainfall makes it stay up. It is quite deep. Two people actually drowned there in the course of this week, how they ended up doing that I don't know. Some of the locals have made a brisk business providing a ferry service across the lake, since the lake has submerged the roads that connected communities in the lowland and it's about a 30 minute drive to go around. Me, you couldn't pay me to take them ferries. It's a two-man kayak with one lifevest, and guess who wears it? (Hint: it's not the passenger!) Just goes to show how enterprising Jamaicans can be though...

I had a few ideas of how to use this water, since it will be around for a while...it all depends on water quality and an investigation into the area's topography. A lot of sewage pits and other junk were submerged by the waters and I find it interesting how quickly an eco-system has formed around the area. I saw water-birds, fish, and aquatic plants there, so while the water isn't that chemically polluted it would require a fair bit of biological clean-up. All I've divined from the topography so far is that the region was a natural sink; one river called the Rio Hoe apparently flowed into a small pond which was the genesis of the lake...where that pondwater went, I don't know. I intend to find out.

I also took some pics of the Bog Walk Gorge, and two dogs who were romping on the lakebanks as I went around. It rained this afternoon...it's been raining every afternoon for the past few days. I like it, we needed the rain and it's surprising how the lawn has come back to life. I'll bet Hope Gardens is worth walking in now, I'll check it out after the holiday weekend. Good Friday AND Easter Monday off, ooooh yeah :D being a Jamaican has its benefits, hehehehehe...

2006-04-12T22:08:00.000-05:00

The Colorado River as it goes through the Grand Canyon