Citizen Kane

"Rosebud..."

I finally saw Citizen Cane, the so-called "greatest movie ever made". I thought it was interesting. But I think by "greatest movie" what they mean is "movie with the camera work and effects most ahead of it's time", or "movie involved in the most intriguing hollywood subplot in the 1940s", or "movie that we most like to discuss in cinematography 101". They definitely don't mean "most enjoyable movie". I don't think it was as enjoyable as say, Ironman 2 (the last movie that I saw), or as enjoyable as just about any enjoyable movie. In fact I found it annoying that they mapped out the entire plot (except the rosebud thing) right at the beginning. But apparently it has deep focus photography and nifty fake ceilings made of cloth. Isn't that nice.

I did find the whole story about Orson Welles battling it out with William Randolph Heast pretty fascinating though. My previous knowledge of Hearst was based mostly on the brief mention of him by Joseph Pulitzer in Newsies.

"Rosebud..."

I'm Undecided On Proposition 100

On May 18 we in Arizona will vote on Proposition 100. If passed, it will add a one cent sales tax, supposedly for only three years, that will generate about a billion dollars a year to help shore up Arizona's massive budget deficit.

On the one hand, I'm usually against any raising of taxes. And "temporary" taxes have a tendency to become permanent. On the other hand, Arizona really needs the money, and if they don't get it, there will probably be serious cuts to education and public services, among other things. On the other hand, why do they need the money? The answer is simply because they let the budget get out of control when times were good.

The tax increase is essentially a bailout. The state government went on a wild spending spree, and now judgment day has come, and they want the taxpayers to make up for their folly. I'm generally opposed to bailouts on principle, unless they involve bailing me personally out of jail. But fortunately I've never been in jail. I believe in the free market, and letting things work themselves out. So I should probably be opposed to this bailout. However, I hate to see education get cut. That could cause some serious problems for our future workforce, and our ability to attract employers. And think of the children.

I feel a little bad for the governor, because she's trying to clean up somewhat else's mess (JANET?). But I'm not sure if raising taxes is the right way to clean it up.

I received a booklet from the Secretary of State with a bunch of "for" and "against" arguments. Let's see who's arguing...

FOR: Looks like we've got lots of education people, public service groups, blah blah blah. OK you don't want your funding cut, I get it. But also the Chambers of Commerce are for it. Interesting...

AGAINST: Various individuals and politicians... oh what's this, the Goldwater Institute is against it? I oppose any opinion of the Goldwater Institute, also on principle. Those nut jobs are always trying to destroy progress and keep the state from attracting new business. (Hello! You have to give incentives to businesses if you want them to come here and provide jobs! Please get a clue!)

OK, so based on the opinion pages, I'm tempted to vote for it just because the Chambers are for it and the Goldwater psychos are against it. But it's still a bailout, which I hate to see. I'm still undecided.

Sound it out!

My brother asked my 5 year old niece to make a list of fun things to do, and this is what she came up with, as spelled by her. I love it!

I was able to translate each one, can you? It's kind of like that Mad Gab game...

1. go swimeeg
   
2. go to a reschot
   
3. woch a movy
   
4. hav fun
   
5. play the spanish game
   
6. ol uv us get a penny
   
7. be nise
   
8. play with eech uther
   
9. go bulleeg
   
10. go to the pork
    
11. play gams
    
12. eet canndy
    
13. go to chuckee cheese's
    
14. bee happy
    
15. by donut's
    
16. eet food
    
17. mak lemenad
    
18. get lecerish
    
19. do a pordy
    
20. mac stuff
    
21. blow bloo's
    
22. mace a cayk
    
23. go to disnlee land
    
24. have a pnicnik
    
25. play with zeeko
    
26. if someone left, mak a spis
    
27. go to the museeume
    
28. go on a chresher hunt
    
29. jres up
    
30. go to sleep
    
31. jreec lemunad
    

Firefox versus Google Chrome

I love a lot of things about Firefox, including the extensions and the general slickness and innovativeness (is that a word?). But I have 2 problems with it:

1. It takes forever to load.
   
2. It's a huge memory hog.

I hadn't tried Google Chrome since it first came out a couple years ago, but after seeing Google actually running commercials to promote it, I thought I would give it another try.

Chrome is a very slick piece of software, and it did solve problem number one -- it's very snappy to start up. The memory hog issue is not quite so clear cut -- Chrome does use less memory initially, but unlike Firefox it seems to use separate processes for separate tabs (or something), and after opening several tabs it starts to hog memory almost as badly as Firefox, if you add up the memory used by all the separate processes.

Chrome of course had a few items in which it didn't measure up to Firefox, although the principal downsides that I found in Chrome are really not in the program itself, but rather in the way it interacts with various complementary software that I use.

1. My first issue is with ad blocking. Firefox has an awesome Adblock extension that keeps ads from loading. Chrome has a similar extension, but it doesn't work as well. I can't tell if Chrome's ad blocker allows the ads to load first before blocking them, or what exactly the problem is, but it's not as efficient in blocking the ads as Firefox's ad blocker.
   
   
2. My second issue with Chrome (again it's not really with Chrome itself), is how it interacts with del.icio.us bookmarks. In Firefox, the keyword shortcuts for my bookmarks, which are created through del.icio.us, just work (for example, I can set it up so typing "fb" in the address bar will load Facebook.com). In Chrome, it's very odd, but the keyword shortcuts seem to work only some of the time. Sometimes they load the bookmark corresponding to the shortcut, and sometimes they don't do anything.
   
   
3. The third problem that I have with Chrome actually is Chrome's "fault". The problem is with the saving of passwords. A lot of sites, after you log in successfully, will redirect you to a new page. Chrome doesn't handle that situation. Chrome pops up the "do you want to save your password" dialog as expected, but then the dialog disappears immediately after you log in, as soon as the page redirects, so you don't have time to save your password. And there's no way to enter a username and password into the password manager manually. Firefox handles this issue easily, by keeping the dialog open across multiple pages, until you either respond or the dialog times out.
   
   
4. The fourth issue: Firefox's address bar is smarter than Chrome's. Firefox does a better job of predicting what I want after typing a few letters than Chrome does.
   

Conclusion: This is kind of a cop out conclusion, but I really like both Firefox and Chrome. I wish they would fix their little annoying issues, but overall they're both pretty impressive. I'm having trouble deciding which one I like better.

To Kill a Mockingbird

I had the book To Kill A Mockingbird on my shelf at home during all my growing up years, and I never read it. I finally picked it up yesterday, and didn't put it down until I finished it late last night. It is definitely a classic, deserving of all the accolades... but I felt like I knew the plot already. I think I've seen at least 3 or 4 movies with suspiciously similar plots, as well as different TV shows and maybe even other books that borrowed generously from it.

Some additional observations:

• I am surprised that I have never heard the name Atticus Finch before. He is such an iconic figure, in such a famous book, I would have expected to know the name. But maybe I had heard it before without noticing, like when you learn a new word in a foreign language and all of a sudden you start hearing the word all over and you realize that you've heard the word quite often but just never knew it before.
  
• If you were in a high school English class, and you had to answer the question "Who is the Mockingbird?" I think you could go with just about any of the main characters. Although Scout identifies Boo Radley explicitly, and Tom is the other obvious one, you could also make a case for Atticus, Jem, Scout, and even Gill.
  
• It's amazing that the author, Nelle Harper Lee, only published one book. Talk about batting 1000.
  
• I really hate racists. I think we should put them in their own schools and make them eat at their own lunch counters.
  
• I need to ban myself from reading books, it takes up too much time.
  

The Last Pan Pizza

When I was in high school one of my favorite foods was Pizza Hut Meat Lovers Pizza, on the "Pan" style crust. In recent years, however, I haven't had any Pizza Hut pizza, because I've become somewhat OCD about overly greasy foods. I don't eat Big Macs and various other greasy foods anymore either.

Today in my junk mail I got a pizza hut flyer, and they were offering that deal for any pizza, any size, any crust, any toppings for $10. I thought, "Hmmm... maybe I'll give it another try." So after my ultimate game I called up and ordered one. I purposely got the Pan style crust, just to challenge my OCD-ness and see if I could handle it.

The guy on the phone asked what toppings I wanted. I said "All except anchovies." Well it turns out they don't even have anchovies anymore. What's the world coming to, when a man can't get anchovies on his pizza? Not that I wanted them, they're really disgusting, but it just seems like I should be able to get them if I want them, right? Anyway, I asked for everything, but as he was going through the list I said no to Italian snausages, mushrooms, bacon, and tomatoes. So what I ended up with was pepperoni, ham, green peppers, onions, pineapple, beef, chicken, black olives, jalapenos, and extra cheese. (By the way, who had the bright idea to use red onions? I'm sure they're just trying to be more colorful, but to me red onions taste like white onions with a strip of purple scotch tape taped on them.)

When the pizza showed up, it was pretty heavy with toppings... and grease. Way more Supreme than a Supreme. I couldn't even eat it with my hands, I had to use a knife and fork. It was pretty good, but WAY too greasy. I ate a few pieces anyway, but I think that's the last time I'll ever have the Pan style crust. It's just too much.

Adios, Pan pizza, we had a good run.