Autumn, Mr. T and WTF?

It's my thinking that new blogs are often gestated in the final closing thoughts of a blog that is on the cusp of publication. Such is the case with this post.

I got off work fairly late this past Saturday morning, which was fine as we had a scheduled appointment with our HVAC guy to have our furnace checked out. As I pulled into our driveway, I decided that autumn had officially arrived, as there was a light coating of frost on the grass which was still in shadow. Once our furnace was given a clean bill of health, I finished editing my previous post, published it and went to bed.

The previous evening, Mr. T did something he had not done in some time- he got up on his soapbox and donned his virtual "little professor" white lab coat (I've been doing some cinema/television references of late- the "white lab coat" is an homage to The Angry Beavers "Stinky Toe" episode in which Norb acquires the dreaded "stinky toe", and Daggett vows to find a cure; Dagett finds and dons a white lab coat, and one of the scientists observes that Daggett MUST be a scientist because he's wearing a white lab coat). I  was pinned to my chair in the Secret Underground Lair for fifteen minutes while Mr. T waxed eloquently about video games and video game characters, specifically comparing and contrasting Deadpool and Duke Nukem. To be honest, I have scant familiarity with either, but Deadpool has been in the news of late, as there is a Deadpool movie coming out sometime next year. This is particularly interesting to me, as actor Ryan Reynolds will play the Deadpool character, and my good IRL buddy comedian Ryan D. Reynolds is a huge Deadpool fan.

In actuality, Deadpool has been a fairly hot topic for over a week. When Ryan's not doing stand-up comedy, he supports himself by being a custodian. As his job is not particularly fast-paced, we sometimes have time to discuss things like Deadpool. Ryan's been on a quest to lose weight, and to date has dropped a significant number of pounds- I don't have exact numbers handy, but I believe he's dropped ~10% of his mass YTD (and he's NOT a small fellow). In any event, the casual reader is by now thinking, "WTF does this have to do with Deadpool?"

For starters, I love the concept of "the aside", even though I don't always return to the topic at hand. As Ryan has lost weight, his clothes have started fitting differently. He's been cinching up his belt so much that his beloved Punisher buckle broke and so he was forced to purchase a new buckle... you guessed it: Deadpool.

He and I had been discussing all of this when the topic of the Deadpool movie came up. Now, frequent readers of this blog have probably grown to be accustomed to my writing style and the fact that I keep it pretty clean. I've addressed this at least once before- its not because I'm a prude, but because I want as many folks of all ages and backgrounds to be entertained and informed by my blog. However, "WTF" came up in the discussion Ryan and I were having about Deadpool, so it is worth at least a quick recap here....

Here's the rub: the proposed rating for the upcoming Deadpool movie in the United States is PG-13. As I've said, I know little about Deadpool, but apparently he's quite the snarky, womanizing, violent one-liner wielding human weapon of mass destruction, and many an interwebz commentator has been so dumbstruck at the PG-13 rating as to respond in the only way possible: WTF?

I, however, do my best to keep my online persona pretty clean. Even though I might be thinking "WTF?", I generally make every attempt to be polite. In light of the fact that there are so many three-latter organizations out in the world- many of which few have heard of- I came up with my own: the World Trade Federation. Ryan said he would use Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot to get around the autosensors, but when he heard my solution, he had to laugh and said it was brilliant.

That's it for today. No data to report; I did spend some quality time in our IRL archives and culled out quite a bit of old billing statements, so I give myself a pass.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.   

The October Sexperiment and Blogger's Rules, Part Deux

I should warn you- it's been my experience that sequels are generally not as good as the originals. I share a home with at least 3.0 videots... um, the math and logic get really fuzzy here, as I am video-challenged in comparison to the others in our home. Our oldest son is truly "the little professor" when it comes to all things video; his areas of expertise include anime, action films and the weapons in these movies,  as well as soundtracks and is an almost on a par with The Oracle of Bacon when it comes to connecting actors, actresses, producers and directors. Jennifer's film knowledge is more mainstream, and includes a lot of small-screen (television) knowledge as well. Mr.T reserves his Sunday nights for video entertainment. In selecting his video entertainment, he will consider suggestions from his interwebz posse as well as the three of us. He has one overriding rule: if it's a series- movie or television-  he will not watch it out of order.

Me? I want to enjoy a movie- I like explosions, gunplay and special effects, as well as clever dialogue. I love parodies, and every time I say "Part Deux", its my homage to Hot Shots! Part Deux, which was probably the finest sequel ever produced. Period. Hot Shots! was an excellent example of a parody, but somehow Part Deux eclipsed it. In the realm of movies that had only one sequel (that is, not being a trilogy or a "franchise"), Part Deux stands head and tail feathers above the rest (*movie reference). Of  movies which were trilogies, Part Deux  blows away The Empire Strikes Back, steals the thunder from Back to the Future Pt 2, and ... The Two Towers? Really! I'm a Tolkien fan, and while the movie is beautifully done, it is STILL a second. Our daughter was reading the trilogy, and I asked her what book she was reading.  "The Two Towers," she innocently replied. Nonchalantly, I swooped in for the kill and asked, "Are you at the part where they're walking through forest*?" "YES!," she replied, "how'd you know?"

(*For those who have never read it, it seems that approximately 50% of this book is spent walking through the forest).

So here I sit, writing a Part Deux to a blog.

The original blog did quite well, but it strangely enough was actually a commentary on an earlier blog. I just took a look at the numbers, and the last two blogs are getting slightly better numbers than previous blogs, and I've received a relatively disproportionate number of hits from China and France, but to be painfully honest, I've never written a blog before about implied sexual escapades, and I'm not sure I could even do a reasonably entertaining sex blog. The only stab in the dark I can make about the increased views from China and France is that sex sells bigger there, Or not... after all, this IS the interwebz,

It's a good thing for me that this blog's unifying theme is data.

On the blog side of data, I just wanted to reiterate that sex does seem to work. In all honesty, I did enjoy the wordplay, but I don't see  myself writing another piece like that anytime soon.

Getting back to data, it's autumn here in North America, and Jennifer and I separately came to the conclusion that some cleaning and organization were long overdue. A couple weeks ago, I moved some file cabinets from the basement to a more strategic location, and yesterday we discussed updating our filing in earnest. We picked up some additional supplies at Sam's, and are now officially loaded for (filing) bear.

In the database part of data,I just finished updating the Media_Title table with a couple shelves' worth of data, bring the Media_Title count to nearly 1K. That's not hugely impressive by most standards, but I'm pleased for a couple of reasons. First, I'm getting back to putting time into the care and feeding of the database, and second- the database is helping me to better organize the physical media that I'm cataloging. I've cataloged approximately 40% of our known digital video titles; once these are done, I'll tackle the VHS, and then its time for music, and then Daniel's anime.

And then games. Ugh. To paraphrase Kurtz' most excellent soliloquy in Apocalypse Now, "I've played games, games that you've played. But you kave no right to call me a gamer." 

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.