Over the Weekend

Moist Board restoration continues apace, the current problem being that I can't get a decent backup of the existing database. Any attempt to back it up craps out after about 17 megs, and the database is at least 5 times larger than that. Still working on it. 

Moist Board backup wasn't all I did this weekend, though. Easter was fun, complete with Easter egg hunting and family coming over for a barbecue. Very pleasant, indeed, except for the amount of time I spent trying to put together a basketball standard that my boys got for Christmas. Mechanical things and me just do not mix. Mrs. Cornell's brother helped out for a bit, but the standard is still only partially constructed and scattered all over the front lawn. 

I watched Citizen Kane over the weekend, too. I didn't mean to, because we had The Office Season 3 Discs 3 and 4, which were going to be the entertainment portion of the weekend, but Disc 4 was broken. I was ticked off. So, with nothing else to watch while I loaded plastic Easter eggs with candy, I had to abandon Steve Carell and Co. and settle for watching what many consider to be the best movie of all time. 

I liked it more than Casablanca. And I can understand why it merits such high praise - it's technically extraodinary, especially for a 60-year-old film. Other than the black-and-white photography, it has the look and feel of a modern film. 

I don't think I'll ever watch it again, though. 

In the first place, I knew the big Rosebud twist. So there was no mystery to the thing. Consequently, I had to get interested in the characters, and, frankly, they weren't all that interesting. It was novel to see Orson Welles as a young, skinny man as opposed to the bloated, ZZ Top wannabe hawking no wine before its time. But there was something off-putting about him. You always saw his wheels turning -  the whole movie felt like "Look what I can do!" You never lost yourself in the story, because there wasn't much of a story. It lurched from one event to another with little logical connection. Driving it all was the mystery of Rosebud, which was ruined for me by the song "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun." 

SPOILER OF A 60-YEAR OLD MOVIE: 

"Answer me, Debbie, who's Johnny? Oh G-- this is like that movie Citizen Kane you know where you later find out Rosebud was a sled? But we'll never know who Johnny was because like she's dead."

END SPOILER OF A MOVIE THAT YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW 

By the way, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. 

Bottom line: congrats, Orson. Well done. But if it's all the same to you, I'll watch the Simpsons parody next time instead. 

"Lobo! Lobo! Bring back Sheriff Lobo!"

I also read the comics this weekend and, just for fun, read Rex Morgan M.D. It wasn't fun, so I don't know why I read it for the express purpose of having fun. It made me wonder if there's anyone out there who reads Rex Morgan M.D. on a daily basis. Or Mary Worth. Or any of the serialized soap opera comics. Are any of you on pins and needles to see what happens next week in Prince Valiant? Anyone?

My family started a March Madness basketball bracket. I'm losing. Badly. I picked all the teams at random, and I had Georgia going all the way, and I think they lost in the first round. 

SuperDell Schanze is running for Utah Governor on the Libertarian ticket. If you don't know who he is, consider yourself fortunate. He started a computer company in Utah called "Totally Awesome Computers," and he distinguished himself by running the most obnoxious radio commercials known to man, all of which featured Dell himself with his nasal, whining smirk. I remember some where he told you to pray and ask God which computer you should buy, and others where he talked about a tribe of Native Americans called the Shiffer Indians, and they were really stupid, so if you don't buy a computer from Totally Awesome Computers, you have "Shiffer brains." (Get it? Sorry.) 

He's decided not to accept any campaign contributions for his gubernatorial run, but since he's now the spokesman for MoneyTrain, a title lending company, he's going to insert political crap into his new, perhaps even more obnoxious radio ads. That should be good for a laugh - if you don't mind having your eardrums scraped out with a paring knife. 

He, Richard Dutcher-style, no doubt Googles himself on a regular basis - his company's defunct and he doesn't have much better to do - so I wouldn't be surprised if he commented on this. So SuperDell, know that I don't know you and have no personal beef with you, and I have no interest in being labelled one of the "angels of Satan" that you dub anyone who criticizes you in public. I just think your ads are aural torture, and you're now the only reason I won't be voting a straight Libertarian ticket in November.