With the election finally upon us, it's time to stop procrastinating and type up my thoughts on campaign reform. It seems to me that every successive election gets more contentious. I can't watch TV without seeing repeated commercials stating '[insert candidate] is just too extreme', 'we can't afford to elect [insert candidate]', or 'civilization as we know it will come to an end if [insert candidate] gets elected', or '[insert candidate] wants to steal all your money, kill your family, and dance on their graves (cue ominous music)'. It is truly becoming nauseating. Not to mention that, as I understand it, there are no slander or libel laws in campaigning. You can say pretty much anything you want about a candidate with no fear of repercussion.
Elections have become so negative that people don't want to vote for anyone, resulting in record low voter turn out in each successive election. That's why my solution is to amend the electoral process to allow voters to vote against a candidate rather than for one. If you don't like any of the candidates, you would have the option of taking a vote away from a candidate you don't like. If campaigning is negative, why shouldn't voting be negative as well. Of course, if a race gets too unsavory, it would open up the possibility of someone flying under the radar - like Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson - winning the election because the other candidates all have negative votes. The law of unintended consequences might just be what it takes to finally elect Lyndon Larouche or Ron Paul. This would effectively force candidates to clean up their campaigns or things might get interesting.
In related news, campaign spending has gotten out of control. According to recent data, team Obama is spending roughly $5.33 per registered voter while team Romney is spending $4.81.
President Barack Obama and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney are spending a combined $26.86 every second this election cycle, as a binge of campaign spending deluges voters with rallies, banners, and of course, TV ads.
The figure comes from a grand total of nearly $1.5 billion spent by both sides just through September. And that works out to about $70 million per month, and more than $2.3 million every day, according to data provided by the Federal Election Commission.
That is an astonishing sum of money that I can't help feeling would be a lot better spent on something more productive. When I'm seeing so many political ads that I'm missing the usual ads for erectile dysfunction, the Snuggie, and GEICO, then something has to be done. Perhaps if 20 cents of every dollar spent had to go toward paying down the national debt until it is wiped out, that would be a start. Add to that a hefty fine for any candidate or PAC that makes slanderous ads and we are really making some progress.
Vote Craw Fu for innovative solutions!
In closing, I'll leave you with this: “Mitt Romney, I hear he wears magic underpants. I expect the leader of the free world to go commando.” - Homer Simpson
In case you aren't a football fan or simply missed it, South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore suffered a horrific knee injury today. Considered by many to be a potential first round pick in the upcoming NFL draft, his ability to play again is now in question. Having suffered a serious knee injury myself, I have some idea of how devastating it is and my heart really goes out to him. The team and medical staff have not yet released any information regarding the severity of the injury, but I can say that it was as bad as any I've ever seen and I have no doubt he has multiple torn ligaments. If you are at all squeamish, do not watch the video in the above link.
By all accounts, Marcus was an exceptional young man, universally liked. Teammates, announcers, and even opponents have never had anything but good things to say about him, and it really breaks my heart to see bad things happen to good people. I pray that he is able to make a recovery and resume his football career, but I know he has a long difficult road ahead of him. My knee surgery was by far the most painful thing I have ever experienced, and the following physical therapy was the most difficult ordeal I have ever gone through, so God speed Mr. Lattimore. My heart is with you every step of the way. You have the advantages of youth and superior genetics on your side, not to mention a nation of well wishers. Keep your head up.
Tonight I watched the pilot of Mockingbird Lane, a remake of the 1960's series The Munsters. This is quite a departure from the original, and while this is just one episode and it's too early to make a firm judgment, for the most part it was pretty terrible.
For starters, this iteration isn't a comedy, or if it is I didn't notice any humor. Which is a shame, because Portia de Rossi is a brilliant comedic actress. She was wasted on a very limited role. If more episodes are made, they would do well to feature her more. Anyway, this is a much darker show, with the pilot primarily revolving around Grandpa's desire to kill and eat people, and young Eddie Munster coming to the realization that he's a werewolf and has killed several people. I guess the lone attempt at humor was making Eddie a vegetarian, which is one of my pet peeves - kids that don't act like kids. Kids that age don't have a social conscience or choose to be vegetarian, if they do it is because they are told to be that way by an adult and clearly his family is quite the opposite. But I'll drop that before I go off on a full fledged rant.
The original was mostly based around the reaction of strangers to realizing that there are monsters in their midst. In contrast, with the exception of some scars on Herman most of which are covered by clothes, these Munsters just look like a family of hipsters. Other than some flamboyant clothing, they are visually indistinguishable from normal folks. And rather than trying to fit into society, they are not tied to any community and have no interest in socializing except when it is to their benefit. They calmly discuss killing people and come across more as sociopaths that the lovable monsters they were in the original.
Jerry O'Connell is miscast as Herman Munster. His performance was very flat and unemotional. Perhaps that was intentional, the idea being that as a Frankenstein like monster, he has difficulty feeling emotion. It didn't work, though, he just came across as bored. Eddie Izzard did well with what he had to work with, and seemed very devious. In my opinion, though, Cheyenne Jackson stole the show with a small part. He was the only actor who seemed to bring any life to the role, no pun intended. It's a shame he won't be back if the series is picked up.
On the bright side, the production was extraordinary for a television series. The sets, costumes, and special effects were worthy of a feature film. I loved the design of the house, it had just the right combination of opulence and creepiness. The special effects created a wonderful ambiance, for example, my favorite shot was near the beginning of the episode - a boy scout troupe is running through the woods superimposed in front of an enormous full moon. It was beautiful, but I can't find a screen shot, so here is the mansion instead.
I know the intent was to create something new, and not simply rehash the original, I just felt it didn't work. It was as lifeless as Herman Munster's corpse before being reanimated by a jolt of electricity. The writing, acting, and direction was simply uninspired and honestly, the whole show was disappointing. From what I've read, the series has not been picked up and only the pilot was ordered so this may be the end of it. I had high hopes for the series and if it does get picked up, I think there is a lot of re-tooling that needs to be done to salvage it. There is a lot of talent involved, though, so there is reason to believe that they can make it work. As is, though, it is pretty lackluster.
Tonight I absolutely stubbed the hell out of my toe. Actually my 3 middle toes on my right foot. Somehow the big toe and pinkie toe were spared, but the other 3 got crushed to the point that it took all the restraint I could muster to keep from shouting profanities loud enough that the neighbors would call the police. I'm of the opinion that a solid toe stubbing is one of the most unpleasant experiences in life. Off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of that is more upsetting is waking up from a dead sleep with a calf cramp. And come to think of it, I'll probably wake up with a cramp tonight just to make this day perfect.
For years now, I've been trying in vain to take a decent picture of the moon.
And so tonight when I saw a full moon peeking through the trees, I thought I'd give it another try. The problem is that I can never get it to look like anything other than a glowing blob in the sky. No matter what settings I try, I am unable to get any detail. I would love to be able to see the Sea of Tranquility, but to no avail. Granted, I don't have an expensive DSLR camera, but I feel like my point and shoot should be able to do better than this. I had it on a tripod and set it for night landscape mode. Is there some other mode that would work better? The only night modes I have are night landscape and night portrait. Do I need to study up and figure out what manual settings work? I will say that this does take way better pictures than my cell phone at least.
Happy National Coffee Day, one and all. This is a day that traditionally is filled with peace and love because people can't be unhappy with a cup of coffee in their hands. At least not a good cup of coffee, Seattle's Best makes me angry sometimes. But I believe that we could have world peace if only everyone who had a disagreement would sit down with their adversary and enjoy a delicious cup of hot coffee.
That said, I decided to celebrate this momentous occasion by roasting some fresh coffee. I started out with some green Costa Rica tarrazu beans.
Roasted them for about 8 minutes in my Fresh Roast +
Cooled the beautiful, delicious, dark roasted beans.
I then ground and brewed them, added some half & half, and am now enjoying a delicious cup of coffee. Another successful National Coffee Day in the Craw Fu household!
And lest you think that is all, let me just say that a new study has found that a green coffee bean supplement will help you lose weight. In a 22 week study, men and women lost an average of 17 pounds when taking the supplement. There is seemingly no end to the health benefits of coffee! Truly a super food.
Recently, The Molitor, a self proclaimed Apple zealot, posted a brief treatise on what makes the iPhone, and Apple products in general, great, and I feel the need to rebut. If you don't want to take the time to read his position, it can essentially be summarized as 'they make pretty products'. Never mind the fact that Apple just sued Samsung, claiming that the Galaxy SII was designed so that it was indistinguishable from the iPhone to the layman.
To provide full disclosure, let me just say that Apple makes fine products, I personally have owned 2 ipods for several years, and for a while owned some Apple stock and sold it for a tidy profit. Had I held onto it longer, I would like the company a whole lot more. Apple is a well run company and does a lot of things well. Their forte is in user interface. For years they have designed their products in a way that they are easier to use than a majority of their competitors, and I will readily admit that my android phone has room to improve in this area - some things are more difficult to do than they should be. Apple is also second to none in marketing. There is a well known proverb 'a fool and his money are soon parted', and nobody does a better job of separating fools from their cash than Apple. Time and again, Apple has taken existing products and ideas, repackaged them and slapped an Apple logo on them, and convinced a large portion of the populace that it was their idea. Even a former Apple executive admitted as much, saying that, "Apple haven't invented anything."
That brings me to what I don't like about Apple, beginning with the legion of cult members. For example, when Apple released the white iPhone 4, the fanboys fell all over themselves lining up to get in line to throw their money at Apple, proclaiming the company execs to be geniuses for inventing the color white. Example #2: Jimmy Kimmel recently took to the street to gauge public response to the iPhone 5. He showed people the iPhone 4S, told them it was the iPhone 5, and they predictably fawned over how much faster it was, how it was lighter weight, how much better the display was, etc.
In general, Apple customers are the epitome of conspicuous consumption, however rather than buying Apple products to display wealth (as is the dictionary description), they buy them to convey status. They feel that owning the latest Apple product somehow makes them cool, little knowing that it makes them a laughingstock.
I'm not one to let the opinion of others to influence my decision, so I'll continue. I dislike Apple's restrictive environment. Users are restricted in what they can do with the products they own, and developers are handcuffed with what they are allowed do do with apps. This is exactly the thing that opened the door for Microsoft to dominate them in the PC market, and has opened the door for Google to walk through in the phone and tablet market. Unless Apple learns from past mistakes, they will continue to see their market share erode. But I digress, my point is that not only do several existing Android and Windows Mobile phones sport superior specs, but they allow you the freedom to do more with your device. I realize that this is a point of preference, as many people would sacrifice performance for usability, but I am very much a utilitarian, and being able to do more and do it faster is more important to me.
This leads me to my next issue: an inability to keep pace in performance has led Apple to become incredibly litigious. Their answer to eroding market share, rather than create better products, has been to sue everyone in sight. They recently won a decision against Samsung, which most experts agree will probably be overturned or significantly reduced upon appeals, but more importantly will undoubtedly set off a chain reaction of retaliatory and pre-emptive lawsuits, all to the detriment of the consumer. Yes, I absolutely believe that Apple should have the right to defend it's patents, and to some degree I believe that this is more an issue with the horribly broken patent system which will issue a ridiculous patent for a rectangular shape with curved corners. Mark Cuban has written extensively and more eloquently than I could regarding patent law, so I won't waste time duplicating efforts. My point is that this spate of lawsuits will reduce competition in the industry and increase the cost of products. The big loser will be consumers. There is a well written editorial here, and I couldn't state it any better than this:
In the end, consumers will lose. Companies high and low are scrapping potentially amazing product ideas right now
for fear of legal retaliation. Not just from Apple -- this ruling is
way, way bigger than that -- but from any company with a patent on
[insert obscure shape here]. I hope we're happy.
The lawsuit against Samsung was primarily fueled by Steve Jobs' insane ego, so I hope that with Tim Cook now in charge, perhaps cooler heads will prevail, however I fear that Pandora's box is now open and can't be closed again.
Again, full disclosure: I currently own a Motorola Droid Bionic. I'm happy with it, but would have preferred the Samsung Galaxy SII if only it were available from Verizon. Prevously I owned a Samsung Omnia (Windows Mobile), and prior to that a Motorola Razr. I believe that Samsung currently makes the highest quality phones, and will look had at their products when it comes time for me to upgrade. I'm currently irritated that Google has gone out of their way to make it difficult to sync android phones with Outlook, so I will also look hard at Windows Mobile phones next time around. What I will not look at, however, is an iPhone. For me, Apple's phones are inferior to those of their competitors, and while I know they meet the needs of a lot of people, they fall short of my what I'm looking for.
I'm watching the pilot episode of The Incredible Hulk television series and a few things have occurred to me.
1. I don't know why I never realized this before, but it is essentially a modern day retelling of the Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde story. Both have a troubled doctor who manages to turn himself into an uncontrollable beast, and the two are seemingly separate people with no memory of what happens when he changes. It all seems so obvious now, I can't believe it just came to me now. It also borrows from the biblical story of Samson, who was also known to wreak havoc when he got angry.
2. I wonder what the wardrobe budget is for Dr David Banner. Every time he gets angry he destroys a shirt and pair of pants. It's a good thing he's pulling down a doctor's salary otherwise he would quickly go bankrupt. The Hulk was walking around barefoot, so I assume he destroyed his shoes too, but since they didn't explicitly show him busting out of them, it's possible he simply removed them. That would save him a bit if he did.
3. It is kind of a warning about the dangers of roid rage.
4. I find it somehow odd that even his nipples turn green when he changes. I don't know why I should expect any different since his hair changes color as well, I guess I just thought that they would be a different shade of green.
5. Finally, as he was lifting his car in a rage, I couldn't help thinking that someone needs to remind him to lift with his legs and not his back. If he gets a lower back injury, he will really get angry. But then again, with his superhuman strength, maybe he's impervious to back injury. Even a gun shot barely slowed him down, so I suppose that's a safe assumption to make.
That's all I've got. It's just a shame that Lou Ferrigno got typecast and never really had much of an acting career outside this show. I guess his buddy Arnold Schwarzenegger took all the good roles for bodybuilders. Maybe Lou should follow in Arnold's footsteps and run for governor. It will have to be a smaller state though since he wasn't as popular as Arnold. Maybe Wyoming. And he would add to the growing list of former co-stars of Arnold to run for governor. Although I guess he was never a co-star, just a friend. Still, why not run anyway?
I have a few comments and suggestions for Netflix, and since it is next to impossible to jump through all the hoops to contact Netflix through their website, and it will no doubt fall into a black hole and never get read even if I do get through all the nonsense, I'll just complain here. Although chances are nobody will read it here either, but at least it will make me feel better.
Let me start by talking about streaming television series. I stream a lot of content through my Xbox, and the Xbox app sucks. It is very irritating that you can't select which episode you want to watch, it automatically starts streaming when you select a series. I won't say that somebody deserves to lose their job over that, but I will say that whoever is responsible for that decision deserves a running kick in the crotch. Next, it would be delightful if, when watching a tv series, when you finish an episode, the following episode should automatically begin. Or, better yet, you could simply program in how many episodes you would like to watch. And it should be this way on all platforms.
The user review feature has devolved to the point where it is pretty much useless. It's time to drop it and only list professional reviews for movies. The user reviews have not yet reached Youtube levels of hostility, stupidity, racism, etc, but they are quickly moving in that directions. More and more they are becoming of the type, "Why isn't this streaming? I pay $8 a month and feel entitled to access to every movie and tv show ever recorded" or, "this movie sux!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" or, "my DVD was scratched and I can't watch it." Brainless comments such as these do nothing to help me decide if a movie is worth watching. For a while, I would report dozens and dozens as 'not reviews' but apparently I'm fighting a losing battle because things are getting worse instead of better. It's time to just dump the reviews all together.
Finally, I would like to see an annual Netflix Film Festival every year around the time that there are other film festivals going on around the nation. If you were able to get together some new, independent films for, say a month, that would be awesome. And I have to think that a lot of indy film makers would be thrilled at the opportunity to have their films viewed by an audience as large as that of Netflix's subscribers. I think this would be a win for everyone, I don't see a down side.
That's all I've got for now, however I reserve the right to update this at a future date.
With NASA and meteorologists worldwide promising celestial fireworks this evening, I grabbed a folding chair and parked myself in front of my building to take in all the glory of the annual Perseid meteor shower. As it turns out, I ended up disappointed. With the forecast for up to 100 meteors an hour, I sat out for an hour and 15 minutes, from 11:30 to 12:45, and saw a grand total of 5 meteors. All of them relatively unimpressive - no bright ones streaking across the night sky. The ones I witnessed briefly appeared and quickly faded away. I also witnessed three constellations which I was able to identify - Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Cassiopeia - one satellite, two noisy and annoying teenage girls, one fat chick, one old bald guy, three raccoons, and a bird that I was unable to identify in the dark. In all fairness, I was not in an optimal viewing location though. I had some trees obstructing my view, and was close to artificial lights. Ideally I would have liked to have viewed them from my vacation home in the wilderness, out away from the city lights, but sadly I don't own a vacation home. I guess I'll have to wait for the Leonid meteor showers in November.
My camera phone takes pretty lousy pictures in the dark, but if you look closely, you can make out some raccoon eyes peeking out from behind the tree.
It wasn't all bad though. For starters, I got to spend some quality time in the cool night air after a hot day. And from time to time, it's very pleasant to just sit and enjoy the peace and relative quiet of the evening. It affords the opportunity to relax and think. And as I gazed up at the stars and pondered the vastness of the universe, I found it odd that some people like Carl Sagan can look up at the sky and conclude that we are insignificant when you consider that we are on a medium sized planet, orbiting a smaller star, inside an average galaxy. I, on the other hand, marvel at the fact that tucked away in our little corner of this massive universe is the only known life. Certainly extraterrestrial life may exist, however it's also quite possible that we are alone in this universe and completely unique. That makes me feel special, and makes me feel that life is precious. And if life does exist on other planets, the odds that aliens are bipedal, with two arms, two eyes, generally just similar in size and appearance to humans is extremely unlikely, despite what those who claim to have been abducted would have you believe. And if you believe in evolution, the odds that intelligent life would evolve into similar species on different planets is extremely unlikely. It's more reasonable to think that purported alien sightings are time travelers from the future returning to our time. And this is precisely the point where I decided that I'm done pontificating for the evening and it's time to get some sleep.
